Credit: Marshall B. Rosenberg, www.CNVC.org

By listening we will understand who we are in this holy realm of words.
—Joy Harjo, from “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings”

About this document (June 2024): This resource was created for Geez staff working through conflict, but was not completely finished as Geez began to shut down. We share it online in openness and trust that it can be used as a resource to other groups and organizations with radical dreams hoping to work through conflict with respect, care, and love.

Kazu Haga, teacher of nonviolence and restorative justice, once shared the quote: “Conflict is the spirit of the relationship asking itself to deepen.” Similarly, we ask, in light of conflict that arises, what is the spirit of Geez asking us to deepen? We desire to approach conflict resolution from an abolitionist lens; that is, seeing conflict as an opportunity to work towards transparency, repair, and accountability, rather than punishment or isolation.

We also remember that “Fear of Open Conflict” is one characteristic of white supremacy culture. We seek transparency and openness with multiple avenues of communication in which to address conflict:

• Sometimes we need to talk to someone honestly about work issues in order to get things off our chest and find equilibrium. When the need to vent arises, we invite staff to do so to a trusted person outside of Geez (not on staff or the Board)
• We invite a culture of collective mindful reflection through collective check-ins, which are informed by monastic Ignatian practices, and incorporate a mix of personal reflection and group sharing. These sessions are an open invitation to pause and notice feelings of friction or frustration, to articulate what we need moving forward, and for the Geez team to agree on, and take action on, addressing these needs.
• When a staff member has an issue with another staff member, and the above spaces have not been sufficient in addressing it, we welcome direct communication as one method of conflict resolution, using a nonviolent communication framework. However, if this does not feel possible (ex. due to differences in communication style or power dynamics) we have created a Communication Buddy process to support staff in addressing conflict.

Conflict Discernment Tool:

Instances where a Communication Buddy might be needed:

• You do not feel comfortable or equipped to name a tension with another staff person directly one-on-one, or to bring it up at the the quarterly staff evaluation (collective check-in)
• You’ve attempted to name your needs to complete an essential task in your work with Geez, but feel that you’re not being heard and want accountability for meeting the need.
• You need support with navigating the conflict because power dynamics (ex. due to race, gender, length of time with Geez) or intense feelings make it difficult to express yourself and your needs.

Instances where Geez is not responsible for addressing conflict, but invites staff to address outside of work:

• Conflict or friction due to family or friendship dynamics
• Annoyance with a person, but work is going smoothly otherwise. Consider if a boundary has been crossed, if so, instead of having a complaint about a specific person’s behavior perhaps you have a need or boundary that you want to name for your working interactions/relationships at Geez.
• Do you feel respected by the other person? Are you able to work well together? If the answer is yes but there still feels like there’s an issue or annoyance, then it is the personal responsibility of the staff person to address rather than the workplace (Geez).
• We encourage you to talk about your concern with a friend or family member outside of Geez. Perhaps their input or listening will inform if this is a workplace or personal conflict.

Resource | Communication Buddy
“Mediation helps: a) clarify power dynamics, b) make harmful patterns visible, and c) introduce the idea that things can be made right, whole, easeful.”
—adrienne maree brown, Holding Change

Communication Buddy: The Role as Mediator

• A good fit for a communication buddy (Be’s-A-Buddy? Think on this name) is someone on staff at Geez trusted by the Needs-A-Buddy, but not someone who has a deep prior relationship outside of Geez (ex. not a family member or close friend).
• The role of the Buddy is to be a supportive third presence in a conversation between two parties who have tension or conflict (The Needs-A-Buddy and Meets-A-Buddy), to mediate and hold the conversation with thoughtfulness and care so that they can be present to one another and listen to well to one another.
• This can look like:
  • Naming power dynamics when this is needed
  • Slowing down conversations through deep listening practices (i.e. “When you say this, I feel ____.” and getting the Needs-A-Buddy and Meets-A-Buddy to repeat back what they hear from one another)
  • Sensing the need for pause, a deep breath, or a break, and facilitating it to happen (ex. if someone gets reactive or triggered)
  • Documenting any commitments made in the meeting
  • Reminding parties of their shared commitments to one another and to Geez, through Opening/Closing, liturgy/ritual, prayer (if desired)

Process, steps and time expectations:

• Initial ask: The Need’s-A-Buddy should reach out (via email or call) with a brief explanation of the needs before scheduling a first meeting. The Be’s-A-Buddy should take time to consider their capacity and comfort before stepping into this work.
• Listening Meeting or First meeting (set aside 1 hour): Starting with one meeting between the potential Be’s-A-Buddy and the Needs-A-Buddy, with the goal of listening to the Needs-A-Buddy’s concerns to better understand the issues at hand, and what might be needed.
  Questions for the potential Be’s-A-Buddy to ponder:
  • Is this a Geez, workplace-related issue? (If not, Geez can support through suggesting an outside mediator or possibly a board member if that seems appropriate.)
  • What does the Needs-A-Buddy need? (ex. to be heard, for change to happen, for a harmful action or pattern to be addressed)
• Confirmation: After this meeting, both people reflect on their capacity and comfort moving forward. The Needs-A-Buddy will confirm if they want to move forward with the mediated conversation. The Be’s-A-Buddy will notify the Meets-A-Buddy of the need for a Mediation Meeting. (Em and Celine can create a simple template for this email.) They will also gather availability and schedule the meeting.
  • The Be’s-A-Buddy can stop at this point if something came up in the meeting that means they no longer feel comfortable being the mediator, and the Needs-A-Buddy can reach out to one of the HR reps on the Board.
  • The HR rep who is the new Be’s-A-Buddy will then have another first meeting with the Needs-A-Buddy. The Buddy will inform the Meets-A-Buddy of the process that is going forward. [might need to workshop this]
• Mediation Meeting or Second meeting: (set aside 1.5 hours) The Needs-A-Buddy shares their concerns with the support of the Be’s-A-Buddy, who also ensures that the Meets-A-Buddy hears and understands them. The Meets-A-Buddy can choose to respond in the conversation, or to listen and process, then respond.
  • What does the support of the Be’s-A-Buddy look like in this meeting?
    • Perhaps the Needs-A-Buddy is not comfortable communicating openly about the conflict, the Be’s-A-Buddy can speak on their behalf. Sometimes support looks like the Be’s-A-Buddy should use their own words to explain the conflict.
    • The Be’s-A-Buddy can step in and halt the meeting if they feel it is not moving forward in a healthy way, that harm is being done or emotions are in the way of communicating.
  • Next steps can vary:
    • If both parties shared: The Need’s-A-Buddy follows up with the commitments documented in the meeting.
    • If Meets-A-Buddy did not respond in the meeting, schedule a follow-up meeting for this to take place.
    • If needed, Third Meeting: If both parties did not feel like they had more to say or were not adequately heard
• If the conflict or concern is not resolved:
  Widen the circle to include another HR rep on the Board, for their listening presence and feedback

Credit: Maarten Van Den Heuvel

We recently sent an email to all subscribers and donors providing information on the current status of your subscription, and whether you will have a balance outstanding beyond our final issue Geez 73 this summer. We are asking those who have outstanding issues on their subscription to choose one of three options:

1. Donate the remaining balance to Geez to help with our operating costs as we close things down
2. Select from the list of available back issues in replacement of the number of issues you have remaining
3. Request a refund (this is available to those who subscribed at the $65 level or higher, and is calculated according to portion of your subscription that can not be fulfilled).

Please reach out to subscriptions@geezmagazine.org in order to select option 2 or 3, or if you wish to connect with our staff to better understand the status of your subscription! If we do not hear from you, we will gratefully assume that the balance has been donated.

Deadline for Pitches: March 15, 2024

“In order to rise from its own ashes, a Phoenix first must burn.”
– Octavia Butler

What is the appropriate way to close this iteration of Geez Magazine? How do we honor the Spirit of Geez with full Geez-iness without being cheesy? Do we return to the past to honor what we’ve done? Do we burn it all to the ground? Or… do we do both and await resurrection hope among the ashes?

We wanted to focus on the power of fire for the closing issue. It was the theme gifted to us by outgoing editor Lydia Wylie-Kellermann, so it feels fitting to move forward into the flames. We want this closing issue and the Geez legacy to be something to kindle the spark in the hearts of the beloved Geez community. We want that spark to ignite the flame of the continuing work of contemplative cultural resistance. We want that fire to burn on and illuminate the way for generations to come. Some of the first stories told by people were of fire. We want to be grounded in sacred storytelling. Storytelling from ancient times to present day is often around fires: to see one another’s faces, to keep warm, to make communal meals, and maybe to light a Molotov cocktail or two.

Fire encompasses so much of life, death, and everything that is found in between. A spark can ignite a physical fire; it can also ignite the fire of our passion for justice in the world. Fire can burn away impurities; it was used in stories to not only release impurities, but to eradicate false idols. Indigenous people have such an understanding of earth and flame that they set fires to replenish the land. Ashes from fires are used to create cleansing soaps. Fires can cook and preserve food, boil liquids for belly-warming beverages, and provide life-giving warmth.

Fire can also be outright terrifying, especially when left unchecked. Fire reveals to us the calamitous state of the earth’s climate and the horrific inequalities of who receives assistance… and whose communities are purposely targeted with fire and left to burn. Forest fires rage year after year, becoming so bad that folks so far away must shelter indoors due to a hazardous air quality index. The trauma of surviving a fire can manifest physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. Bombs fall from the sky creating unholy fires, consuming victims without regard.

Questions to help you imagine:

• Where have you experienced Pentecost?
• What have you had to “set fire to” and what did you witness come from it?
• What have you lost to fire? What have you gained?
• How can one discern between a refiner’s fire and an out of control burn/ arson?
• What would it be to physically and spiritually burn down systems of oppression?

Ideas for Pitches:

• Write a liturgy for sheltering indoors during wildfire season and unsafe AQI.
• Create a collage of the burning phoenix using past issues of Geez.
• Send us recipes (edible or crafts) that are cooked over an outdoor fire or use ashes as an ingredient.
• Put together a playlist of your favorite “burn it down” political fire songs.
• What is your phoenix story of rising? (We’re especially looking for trans joy stories)
• Create a choreographed dance imitating fire.

Notes About Submissions:

We’re looking for long-form journalism, personal stories of transformation, short bursts of feelings, and nuggets of inspiration. Choose an aspect of the topic and expand with personal experience, researched wisdom, or spiritual insight. A great pitch will describe the piece, explain why it’s a perfect fit for Geez, list the sources you’ll consult, and state why you’re the best person to write it. Please include a brief bio and where you live.

Ideally, pitches are a page or less. Note: if you send us 20 pages, we likely will not be able to read it. If you already have a completed manuscript, poem, photo, or design, feel free to submit it as well.

1. Long-form nonfiction (600, 1200, or 1800 words)
We’re looking for creative nonfiction essays, investigative articles, or research-based pieces on the topic. Wisdom from other sources is welcome, but not required if you are bringing your own embodied experience.

2. Flash nonfiction (50-300 words)
These are short, personal experiences or insights. Your piece should capture a moment that illuminates a larger issue or convey a feeling familiar to us all. This is a chance to bring hope, insight, emotion, and connection to readers.

3. Photos/Illustrations
Consider the topic and send original photographs or illustrations that provoke or pacify, animate or incite. Note: artwork pitches and submissions will receive responses after written pitches. It could be 2 months before you hear back.

4. Poems
In each issue we aim to publish 2 or more poems. Please submit up to three previously unpublished poems (three pages total) as an attachment, in a Word or PDF document. For this issue, poems partially written by AI are welcome, assuming the goal is to explore the use of AI itself in writing (and specifically poetry). Please make clear in your cover letter and/or poem itself what portion, if any, of your poem(s) were written by AI. If you do not hear back from us within eight weeks of the deadline, then assume that we were unable to use your submission.

Additional Info:

Our readership is split between Canada and the US with some wider international readership as well. Please consider this in how you approach your topic.

Ideally, we will respond personally to every piece of correspondence we receive. But given the number of submissions we receive, responding is not always possible. If you do not hear back from us within four weeks of the deadline assume that we were unable to use your submission.

Contributor Honorariums:

We are a small nonprofit that currently offers very modest honorariums. Depending on the length, we usually offer between $50 and $100.

Deadline for pitches: March 15, 2024

We look forward to seeing your submissions!

Sincerely,
Tuhina Verma Rasche, editor
Lucia Wylie-Eggert, art director
Em Jacoby, publisher
Drew Stever, media & marketing coordinator
Claire Peace, circulation wizard
Madeline Bohl, circulation wizard

Send pitches, manuscripts, and images to:
Geez Editors
email: stories [at] geezmagazine [dot] org
mail: Geez magazine, 1950 Trumbull, Detroit, MI 48216 USA
To join our Writers List, click HERE.

a Palestine sunbird by Rohan Solankurkar

We are so mindful that the Geez community spread around Turtle Island and overseas are holding the work of grief, rage, and resistance to the assault on Gaza, and more broadly, the atrocities the Israeli apartheid state perpetuates against Palestinians every day. We grieve, rage, and resist the active support of our lawmakers and governments for violent regimes and the warfare they conduct – where we live, and far abroad.

As a team, we’ve been grappling with how to articulate and respond to the violence we are witnessing. At Geez, we seek to weave contemplation and ritual into this work. In the midst of a constant state of emergencies, every struggle is urgent and yet we also need time to breathe.

We wrote this poem/prayer out of a desire to honour our grief in community. Print it off and take it with you to a candlelit vigil. Save it on your phone to share with your beloved relations and kin. Take it deep into the woods. Read it aloud with a child, partner, lover, or grandparent who might yearn for words to accompany tears. Bring it to a faith-based direct action group.

We give thanks to be part of this beautiful community. In all that we do, let us mourn and organize.

A Prayer for Palestine

We weep.
We scream.
We listen.
We pray.
We pour into the streets.
We make phone calls.
We boycott.
We divest.
Yet it does not
feel like
enough.
As a people are being
turned to rubble.

As the blood of children
seeps into the soil below
even the stones cry out.

We pause to breathe.
We choose quiet to tend to one another,
so we can hear the still, small voices.
So we can hear your rustling
amidst all the noise.

Oh spirit,
who pours over all of us,
who moves in the wind,
and rests on the rubble.

Oh spirit,
who never abandons us in our tears,
who strengthens our cries,
and joins in the drum beat on the streets.

Oh spirit,
who knows each bird in Gaza,
who dances through those beloved streets,
and has played in the hearts of each child.

We come to you now
begging,
pleading,
wailing,
for the end of genocide,
the end of apartheid,
the end of bombings,
the end of children being murdered,
and for our Arab and Jewish kin
to know deep and lasting healing.

Rest upon us now.
As we pour out our rage,
our grief,
our exhaustion,
our confusion,
our fears.

Remind us to breathe,
to be still,
to listen,
to feel our bodies on the land,
and to be forever altered.

Summon our courage,
our fierce love,
our reliance on community,
and our imaginations.

May there be a turning
in each of us
and in the world.
May the fire of justice
rise from the belly
of the earth.
May the bombings cease.
May liberation come.
Now and always.
Amen.

“Hold My Hand” by Cash Macanaya

Deadline for Pitches: November 10, 2023

We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science and technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don’t know anything about it? – Carl Sagan, 1996.

Technology, especially Artificial Intelligence (AI), is rapidly changing how we live our daily lives. It’s also impacting what we hear in faith spaces. ChatGPT is making it possible for people to have simulated conversations with Jesus, as well as other historical religious figures. What one person considers blasphemous can open the imagination for another. With tools such as ChatGPT becoming increasingly accessible, will technology destroy our faith . . . or complement it?

Just because technology and AI can make decisions and create content faster, the end results are not necessarily just. There is increasing evidence that the algorithms that power AI are biased based on the identities of those who build them (usually affluent white men who unjustly have access to more resources than anyone else). The use of technology and AI in everyday life brings about a number of questions, especially concerning access and power. Consider Jacques Ellul’s 76 Reasonable Questions to Ask About Any Technology in how we move forward as individuals and communities when using any form of technology.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, many faith communities turned to technology as a way of staying connected. As a result, many began thinking about the relationship between technology, and the potential benefits of experiencing community online, liturgy, and our embodied form. While many mourned not being able to gather in person, folks who were previously unable to attend worship services in physical buildings could participate in faith communities because of technology. How has technology impacted how we encounter the sacred?

As the world continues to move towards technological advances without full comprehension, this is also a time to reflect on how we comprehend spirit, tradition, and community.

Questions to help you imagine:

• How did the push to online worship during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic impact your relationship with liturgy and your body?
• Can the Divine exist in a machine? Does something deemed as intelligent, even if it’s artificial, have a soul?
• Can technology provide nurture and care for human beings of every facet of human identity and experience, thinking back to Ray Bradbury’s short story, “I Sing The Body Electric”?
• Can AI identify populations at the margins of powers and principalities to meet their greatest needs?
• What happens when folks don’t have access to technology and AI, creating a wider digital divide?
• What is the lived experience at the intersection of disability, different abilities, embodiment, and AI?
• Can technology change health diagnoses, letting people know earlier of health conditions they will encounter in the future and provide spiritual care desired/needed following diagnoses?

Ideas for Pitches (Don’t limit yourself to just these!):

• A fictional science fiction piece exploring humanity’s future relationship with technology.
• A Psalm for the multitudes held in the relationship between AI, humanity, and divinity.
• Write a flash piece on your experiences with digital worship and how that related to in-person experiences.
• Write about an experience where someone used AI in faith spaces.
• Reframe a sacred text through a technological lens.

Notes About Submissions:

We’re looking for long-form journalism, personal stories of transformation, short bursts of feelings, and nuggets of inspiration. Choose an aspect of the topic and expand with personal experience, researched wisdom, or spiritual insight. A great pitch will describe the piece, explain why it’s a perfect fit for Geez, list the sources you’ll consult, and state why you’re the best person to write it. Please include a brief bio and where you live.

Ideally, pitches are a page or less. Note: if you send us 20 pages, we likely will not be able to read it. If you already have a completed manuscript, poem, photo, or design, feel free to submit it as well.

1. Long-form nonfiction (600, 1200, or 1800 words)
We’re looking for creative nonfiction essays, investigative articles, or research-based pieces on the topic. Wisdom from other sources is welcome, but not required if you are bringing your own embodied experience.

2. Flash nonfiction (50-300 words)
These are short, personal experiences or insights. Your piece should capture a moment that illuminates a larger issue or convey a feeling familiar to us all. This is a chance to bring hope, insight, emotion, and connection to readers.

3. Photos/Illustrations
Consider the topic and send original photographs or illustrations that provoke or pacify, animate or incite. Note: artwork pitches and submissions will receive responses after written pitches. It could be 2 months before you hear back.

4. Poems
In each issue we aim to publish 2 or more poems. Please submit up to three previously unpublished poems (three pages total) as an attachment, in a Word or PDF document. For this issue, poems partially written by AI are welcome, assuming the goal is to explore the use of AI itself in writing (and specifically poetry). Please make clear in your cover letter and/or poem itself what portion, if any, of your poem(s) were written by AI. If you do not hear back from us within eight weeks of the deadline, then assume that we were unable to use your submission.

Additional Info:

Our readership is split between Canada and the US with some wider international readership as well. Please consider this in how you approach your topic.

Ideally, we will respond personally to every piece of correspondence we receive. But given the number of submissions we receive, responding is not always possible. If you do not hear back from us within four weeks of the deadline assume that we were unable to use your submission.

Contributor Honorariums:

We are a small nonprofit that currently offers very modest honorariums. Depending on the length, we usually offer between $50 and $100.

Deadline for pitches: November 10, 2023

We look forward to seeing your submissions!

Sincerely,
Tuhina Verma Rasche, associate editor, managing editor for Geez 72
Lydia Wylie-Kellermann, editor
Mashaun D. Simon, associate editor

Send pitches, manuscripts, and images to:
Geez Editors
email: stories [at] geezmagazine [dot] org
mail: Geez magazine, 1950 Trumbull, Detroit, MI 48216 USA
To join our Writers List, click HERE.

“We cannot pray our way out of the climate catastrophe that is upon us. But prayer is perhaps one way to encourage a change in our posture towards the earth . . . Prayer leaves a pregnant pause in which the earth can respond. Prayer is a place to be still long enough to know and commit to the work that stands before us all.” – Lydia Wylie-Kellermann, Introduction

TITLES TO LOOK FORWARD TO:
A Prayer for the Continuing Generations by Julie Yeeun Kim
The Pleasure Beatitudes by Ristina Gooden
The Hum by Kateri Boucher
In which I read the book of Joel as the world burns on live TV by Johanna Hall

Order by Tuesday, October 31 to guarantee you receive it in time for Advent!

An International Medical Corps doctor examines patients,” DFID - UK Department for International Development CC, January 2013

Deadline for Pitches: August 15, 2023

I give a portion of my time to helping others. It is good for my own health.
– Louise Hay, Facebook post by Louise Hay from Mar 29, 2015

Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.
– Dr. Martin L. King, Jr.

Health

There is an old saying health is wealth. But what really does that mean? Rarely do we see much said regarding the relationship between our faith, our faith beliefs (if we have them), and our health. Countless studies indicate that for a select portion of the world’s population, what they believe about God, the Divine, or an entity greater than themselves influences their health – or at least they believe it does.

What does it mean to be committed to eradicating the biggest health crises that have changed our world – COVID-19, HIV/AIDS, influenza? What about heart disease, diabetes, sickle cell? What is our commitment, our role, our responsibility to a healthy society? What did you have to overcome religiously to make your mental health a priority? What does it mean to do ministry while fighting cancer? What does a good death look like? Where do body image, weight, exercise fit in your concept of Imago Dei or your daily contemplative practices, if at all? What about the present-day politics of our bodies, including abortion rights or the debate surrounding healthy body image? Where do the realities of ableism and disability fit in any and/or all of this?

Questions to help you imagine:

• Has institutionalized religion made you question modern medicine? Where have moments of your faith and medical decisions clashed?
• When faith communities state “All are welcome,” does that welcome extend to those struggling with mental health?
• Do you include your spiritual identity in your physical health care?
• Have you had a “Why me, God?” experience with health?
• Does your faith impact your vaccination status?
• What are health concerns as the climate shifts?
• What does Jesus say about bodies?
• What are examples of communities doing alternative health care outside of the western medical system?
• What are your thoughts on the debate regarding free healthcare and it being a right?

Ideas for Pitches:

• Write a prayer for the health insurance companies.
• Write a short sci-fi story about what could be possible for health systems.
• Send a flash piece about experiences you’ve had in hospitals or a time when meeting with a doctor turned out to feel really liberative.
• Write us an article from prison sharing your experience of the healthcare system.
• Share an exorcism direct action liturgy from outside a pharmaceutical company.
• Write a legal update on anti-trans health care bills around the US.
• Write a story about the power and beauty of trans healthcare you received.
• Write a love letter to your body. Send recipes for herbal medicines.
• Have a conversation between a US and a Canadian citizen about the differences in our healthcare systems.
• Write a piece about the colonization of health practices that are not from Western traditions (ex. Yoga, Tai Chi)

Notes about Submissions

We’re looking for long-form journalism, personal stories of transformation, short bursts of feelings, and nuggets of inspiration. Choose an aspect of the topic and expand with personal experience, researched wisdom, or spiritual insight.

A great pitch will describe the piece, explain why it’s a perfect fit for Geez, list the sources you’ll consult, and state why you’re the best person to write it. Please include a brief bio and where you live.

Ideally, pitches are a page or less. Note: if you send us 20 pages, we likely will not be able to read it. If you already have a completed manuscript, poem, photo, or design, feel free to submit it as well.

1. Long-form nonfiction (600, 1200, or 1800 words)
We’re looking for creative nonfiction essays, investigative articles or research-based pieces on the topic above. Wisdom from other sources is welcome, but not required if you are bringing your own embodied experience.

2. Flash nonfiction (50-300 words)
These are short, personal experiences or insights. Your piece should capture a moment that illuminates a larger issue or convey a feeling familiar to us all. This is a chance to bring hope, insight, emotion, and connection to readers.

3. Photos/Illustrations
Consider the topic above and send original photographs or illustrations that provoke or pacify, animate or incite. Note: artwork pitches and submissions will receive responses after written pitches. It could be 2 months before you hear back.

4. Poems
Please submit up to three previously unpublished poems (three pages total) as an attachment, in a Word or PDF document. If you do not hear back from us within eight weeks of the deadline, then assume that we were unable to use your submission.

Additional Info

Our readership is split between Canada and the US with some wider international readership as well. Please consider this in how you approach your topic.

Ideally, we will respond personally to every piece of correspondence we receive. But given the number of submissions we receive, it is not always possible. If you do not hear back from us within four weeks of the deadline assume that we were unable to use your submission.

Contributor Honorariums

We are a small nonprofit that currently offers very modest honorariums. Depending on the length, we usually offer between $50 and $100.

Deadline for Pitches: August 15, 2023

We look forward to seeing your submissions!

Sincerely,
Mashaun D. Simon, associate editor, lead editor for Geez 71
Lydia Wylie-Kellermann, editor
Tuhina Verma Rasche, associate editor

Send pitches, manuscripts, and images to: 
Geez Editors
Email: stories [at] geezmagazine [dot] org
Mail: Geez magazine, 1950 Trumbull, Detroit, MI 48216 USA

To join our Writers List, click HERE.

Photo provided by Joe Reilly

Pitch the Circus Tent: A Geez Family Festival quickly approaches, June 23-25! Grandmas, teens, and toddlers are packing their bags for a weekend of creative rest, play, and craft. The workshop presenters are rad folks from the Geez community. You can find their work in our upcoming summer issue, Geez 69: The Children Will Prohpesy. Allow us to introduce you!

Workshop Leaders

	SONG WRITING Joe Reilly is a singer, songwriter, and educator who writes songs from his heart. Joe’s songs are playful, clever, engaging, and meaningful. The core of his message is an invitation to heal our relationships with ourselves, with each other, and with the earth.
	PRINTMAKING Becky McIntyre and Sarah Fuller are artists who met while they were both living at the Los Angeles Catholic Worker. They are both interested in linocut printmaking and in making art in the context of community.
	ZINE MAKING Francesca Barr is a young Irish-American writer from Massachusetts. She has spent a large part of the past year working on different vegetable farms in Ireland and the United States. Her work can be found in Geez.
	STORIES AS SPIRITUAL PRACTICE Kimmothy Cole is a community artist and facilitator based in Richmond, Virgina. They are co-director of General Hospitality, a cooperative that creates space for healing, experimentation, and play. A Liturgy for All Bodies is out now through Cyclical Publishing.
	MOVEMENT Lucia Wylie-Eggert is the art director for Geez and dances because her spirit demands it. She lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan with her partner and two children.
	TIE-DYE Heather Scott loves to try all kinds of crafts. She got into tie-dye by running the social events at the pool in Ithaca, New York! She also likes to quilt, mostly improvisationally, and aspires to sew clothing.

Friday we will settle in, craft, and get oriented. Three workshop periods will be offered Saturday in which participants can select between a couple options. Sunday will include project wrap up, wild church, and an optional trip to a waterfall. Additional activities throughout include a bonfire, game station, water play, protest sign creation, talent show, shared meals, and wild church. We look forward to celebrating the prophesies of children together!

More information about Pitch the Circus Tent: A Geez Family Festival is available on the Kirkridge website. Email Lucia, lucia @ geezmagazine.org, with questions.

Cover art by Gill Dreher.

Geez 69: The Children Will Prophesy

“It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to not know what to do. Remember, sweet child, you are not alone. Remember the earth, your Mother, who has held you every moment of your life. Remember her many creatures, your kin, who accompany you on the journey. You who are alive today are not the first to face this. You won’t be the last. Breathe in deep . . . Breathe out slow . . . Savour the seasons that come to you . . . Don’t take yourself too seriously . . . Stick together . . . And keep following the Spirit – who also goes by the name of Joy. I’m here with you, we’re here with you, and we will walk together towards whatever is to come.” – Kateri Boucher, “It’s Not All Bad News from the Future,” Geez 69: The Children Will Prophesy

TITLES TO LOOK FORWARD TO:

Sunglasses at the White House by Frida Berrigan
A Circle of Repair: Child to Older and Child Again by Susan Raffo
What Adults Get Wrong About Gun Violence by Jaysen (Miles) Gomez
Drop Out, Turn On, Tune In: A Solarpunk-Themed Short Story, Based in Kingston, Ontario but in the Future by Griffin Wicke, illustrated by Jasper Wicke
Art by Dan Trabue

Subscribe by Sunday, June 11 to guarantee you receive this issue in your mailbox!
Remember: All subscriptions are on a sliding scale. Subscribe or renew today.

PARENT SOLIDARITY It is challenging, gentle, creative work to raise a rad kid. Thankfully we know we’re in it together. Receive a copy of Geez 53: Mothering when you order a recurring subscription at the Rooted Resistor level or above by June 11. Just write “MOTHER MAY I” in the order comment box.

]]> Michelle Both 2023-06-08T01:17:00+00:00 https://geezmagazine.org/blogs/entry/book-review-mossback-ecology-emancipation-and-foraging-for-hope-in-painful-places geez-blog-32209 I invite you to take a deep breath. Notice what’s going on in your body. Notice what you feel. Notice what you hear. Take another breath and allow yourself to slow down.

How often throughout the day do you give yourself permission to return to self? To notice the sensations of your body? If you are like me this must be an intentional practice. It doesn’t just happen. The reality that has shaped me calls for constant motion, thought, and action. Breathing is a means to an end not an end in and of itself.

As people shaped by late-stage capitalism rooted in dominant Christian paradigms, we need guides to bring us back to ourselves – our bodies – and the web of relations in which we live. Such a trail map can be found in David Pritchett’s recently released book, Mossback: Ecology, Emancipation, and Foraging for Hope in Painful Places.

Throughout its pages Pritchett weaves together history, personal experience, ecological wisdom, and embodied practices that nurture interconnection much like a mycelial network. He invites readers, especially those with settler histories, to become mossbacks as a healing discipline.

The designation of mossback, originally a pejorative term, was flung at draft dodgers who hid in swamps, or reactionary people who were so set in their ways that moss grew on their backs. Pritchett reclaims the term to mean “a person united with their environment, a person moving slowly enough to listen… a mossback would understand interdependence… and actively reject participation in an enslaving society.” This invitation is ultimately an invitation to return to our deepest selves, to find home.

Given the violence and exploitation rife in our world, escapism can seem attractive, especially for those who are aware of root causes and layers of complicity. We just want to unhook ourselves from the grind of destruction. This is a futile effort though, since as Pritchett points out, there is no place that empire can’t reach. Instead, he calls us to deepen our roots and relationships in the very places where we find ourselves and cultivate a rough terrain of the spirit, “to make it harder for empires to completely control our desires or order our imaginations.”

This imagination can free us like birds to transcend the gridlines of our neighborhoods anhttps://tupress.org/9781595349910/mossback/d cities, and learn the waterways and contours of the land that sustains a diversity of life. Pritchett writes about the battle between the grid and the watershed – settler colonization and Indigenous care for the land, and its ongoing impacts, both material and spiritual.

The notion of land being a commodity rather than a sacred relation continues to stunt the imagination of settler people. Healing and expanding imagination along these lines, Pritchett writes, happens in relationship between settler and Indigenous people, alongside a reckoning with the legacy of genocide and ecocide. Coming out of his experience living on Chumash land in Southern California, he holds forth the possibility of imagining a different future together where Indigenous people and species have sovereignty.

In another experiment with imagination, Pritchett dialogues with his own ancestor, Captain Ware, modeling accountability to the realities of white supremacy, African slavery, and indigenous displacement that shaped his family. As he asks, “What does it take to be a good ancestor” I hear both an inquiry into the past and also a challenge to us in the present. What does it mean for uprooted people from other continents, many of whose ancestors actively uprooted others in their settlement, to be in right relationship with place? It requires reparations and land return and “practicing good internationalism by honoring all the tribes and nations (human and creaturely) with whom we are in relation.”

In seeking right relationship with the places in which we live, as well as our familial and societal histories, we find ourselves on the path toward home. This path on which Pritchett guides us moves through the school of the wilderness, recognizing our vulnerability and interdependence with the more-than-human world, and into the catechism of tracking. “Tracking and nature awareness,” he writes, “help us see who we are in the world, and only by knowing our place in the world can we know the gift we have to offer.” Rather than a catechism of religious doctrines, Pritchett invites us to be instructed by the watersheds in which we live. How might our watersheds inform responses to “Who am I?” and “Who is my neighbor?”

As the book nears its end, Pritchett’s path leads us right into the water, to be erotically immersed in our bioregion. He reimagines baptism as a call to fully inhabit our bodies. Rather than a cleansing of our earthy selves, we are even more deeply submerged in the web of relations. “If water unites all the creatures in a watershed by its flow across the landscape,” he writes, “the river symbolizes the community of creatures bound together by water.”

It is through these mutual, sensory connections that we find our way home to our bodies and into the ecosystems that sustain us. Pritchett quotes the wisdom of Audre Lorde saying, “The white fathers told us, I think therefore I am; and the black mothers in each of us–the poet–whispers in our dreams, I feel therefore I can be free.” Our bodies and the body of the earth carry the knowledge we need to heal. May we feel our way forward together, breathing and deepening our roots… and slowing down enough so that moss might just have a chance of making home with us.

2022 Advent cover art, collaged from pieces by Nina Schuurman-Drenth

Prayers for the End of the World
Due June 15, 2023

“I’d follow love into extinction.”
– Ayisha Siddiqa, except from “On Another Climate Panel, They Ask me to Sell the Future and All I’ve Got is a Love Poem.”

We cannot pray our way out of the climate catastrophe that is upon us. But prayer is perhaps one way to encourage a change in our posture towards the earth. To turn our hearts and bodies towards the wind and the seed and the songbird. To invite intimacy and relationship. To remember that one day we will be the land that is being poisoned. Prayer can release our fears and our rage and our utter exhaustion. Prayer leaves a pregnant pause in which the earth can respond. Prayer is a place to be still long enough to know and commit to the work that stands before us all.

This Advent, Geez will release a book of daily prayers for the end of the world (whether that is climate or otherwise). We hope it holds a wide diversity of contributors, perspectives, angles, and content.

Further Details
What: We are not looking for pitches – send us your completed prayer.
Due Date: June 15, 2023
Word Length: 200 word maximum, less is welcome. If you are writing in a poetry form, 20 lines or less.
Compensation: If we select your piece, you will receive a $40 honorarium and 2 copies of the book in November.
Publication Details: Advent booklets will be for sale through the Geez website starting in September and will be mailed out in early November.
Send pieces to stories@geezmagazine.org.

“Where is the light?” Theo Crazzolara CC, October 2017

Deadline for pitches: May 10, 2023

Listen more often to things than to being
‘Tis the ancestor’s breath when the fire’s voice is heard
‘Tis the ancestor’s breath in the voice of the water.

Those who have died have never, never left
The dead are not under the earth
They are in the rustling trees
They are in the groaning woods
They are in the crying grass,
They are in the moaning rocks
The dead are not under the earth.

– “Breaths,” Ysaye Barnwell of Sweet Honey in the Rock

Ancestors and Ancestral Work

This issue will land in hands in that sacred time at the end of Autumn when, according to many traditions, the veil between the living and the dead is thin. Help us welcome in the ancestors with all their wisdom, complexities, and blessings.

“The dead are not under the earth.” Where do you find your ancestors? How do relationships with generations back continue to nurture your life? What traditions do you hold around your ancestors? What embodied, spiritual, and/or cultural practices are part of your life?

For white folks, we understand that a commitment to racial justice must include learning our history and wrestling with our ancestral legacy. What history have you uncovered? How do you navigate the violent realities? How has it transformed you?

And in what ways could we welcome this work into larger systems change? How could/can it impact movement work? What examples can we share of communities or countries taking on the work of uncovering the history that has been disappeared by colonialism and violence?

Notes about Submissions

We’re looking for long-form journalism, personal stories of transformation, short bursts of feelings, and nuggets of inspiration. Choose an aspect of the topic and expand with personal experience, researched wisdom, or spiritual insight.

A great pitch will describe the piece, explain why it’s a perfect fit for Geez, list the sources you’ll consult, and state why you’re the best person to write it. Please include a brief bio and where you live.

Ideally, pitches are a page or less. Note: if you send us 20 pages, we likely will not be able to read it. If you already have a completed manuscript, poem, photo, or design, feel free to submit it as well.

1. Long-form nonfiction (600, 1200, or 1800 words)
We’re looking for creative nonfiction essays, investigative articles or research-based pieces on the topic above. Wisdom from other sources is welcome, but not required if you are bringing your own embodied experience.

2. Flash nonfiction (50-300 words)
These are short, personal experiences or insights. Your piece should capture a moment that illuminates a larger issue or convey a feeling familiar to us all. This is a chance to bring hope, insight, emotion, and connection to readers.

3. Photos/Illustrations
Consider the topic above and send original photographs or illustrations that provoke or pacify, animate or incite. Note: artwork pitches and submissions will receive responses after written pitches. It could be 2 months before you hear back.

4. Poems
In each issue we aim to publish 2 or more poems, often with one poem per page. Please submit up to three previously unpublished poems (three pages total) as an attachment, in a Word or PDF document. If you do not hear back from us within eight weeks of the deadline, then assume that we were unable to use your submission.

Additional Info

Our readership is split between Canada and the US with some wider international readership as well. Please consider this in how you approach your topic.

Ideally, we will respond personally to every piece of correspondence we receive. But given the number of submissions we receive, it is not always possible. If you do not hear back from us within four weeks of the deadline assume that we were unable to use your submission.

Contributor Honorariums

We are a small nonprofit that currently offers very modest honorariums. Depending on the length, we usually offer between $50 and $100.

Deadline for pitches: May 10, 2023

We look forward to seeing your submissions!

Sincerely,
Lydia Wylie-Kellermann, editor
Lucia Wylie-Eggert, art director

Send pitches, manuscripts, and images to: 
Geez Editors
Email: stories [at] geezmagazine [dot] org
Mail: Geez magazine, 1950 Trumbull, Detroit, MI 48216 USA

To join our Writers List, click HERE.

“Em’s Boule,” Daniel Wylie-Eggert, Bangor, Pennsylvania, Ocotber 2022.

Geez 68: Bread & Wine

“We are the unheralded, tiny superheroes of human gastronomy, elevating the basic task of eating from quotidian to divine. Bread and wine – they would be nothing without us, just flat dough and fruit juice. But with us, they become transcendent, the stuff of family suppers by glowing hearths, mirth and merriment over clinking glasses, and, of course, the holy Eucharist – the body and blood of Christ, God’s own self.” – Liuan Huska, “The Secret Life of Yeast“

TITLES TO LOOK FORWARD TO:
A Liturgy of Breadmaking by Tim Cruickshank
The Oak Tree of Life and the Body of Christ by Katerina Gea
You Will Not Remain Intact by Nichola Torbett and Lynice Pinkard
This is Her Body by Kadeisha Bonsu
More Than Just a Soup Kitchen An Interview With Gerry of the New York Catholic Worker by Cristina Zerr

Subscribe by Sunday, March 19 to guarantee you receive it in your mailbox!
Remember: All subscriptions are on a sliding scale. Subscribe or nenew today.

PREPARE THE TABLE Sink into this topic with grounding nourishment found in the hospitality issue. If you order a 2 or 3 year subscription or renewal before March 19, receive a free copy of Geez 55: Entertaining Angels. Just write “HOSPITALITY” in the order comment box.

]]> Lucia Wylie-Eggert 2023-03-13T16:47:00+00:00 https://geezmagazine.org/blogs/entry/geez-is-offering-3-retreats-in-2023 geez-blog-31858

“View from Kirkridge Retreat and Study Center,” Daniel Wylie-Eggert, 2022.

Re-Member Us! A Geez Magazine Retreat

Facilitators: Lynice Pinkard and Nichola Torbett
Dates: Friday, May 5 at 4 pm to Sunday, May 7 at 1 pm
Location: Kirkridge Retreat and Study Center, 2495 Fox Gap Rd, Bangor, PA 18013
Cost: $350 for an individual or $600 family rate. The cost includes the programming, overnight accommodations, and meals.

In this retreat based on our article in Geez 68, we will explore the eucharist as a radical ritual to release our vital energies for love, activism, and solidarity. You do not need to be a card-carrying Christian to participate! At its best, communion is a ritual working-through of denial, guilt, shame, trauma, and mourning, with recourse to a power greater than ourselves, that can move us from victimhood to full humanity, a fundamental rupture and rebirth. Come join the conspiracy of the broken. Leave with tools for welcoming others. Let’s re-member each other. Register here.

Pitch the Circus Tent: A Geez Family Festival

Dates: Friday, June 23 at 4 pm to Sunday, June 25 at 1 pm
Location: Kirkridge Retreat and Study Center, 2495 Fox Gap Rd, Bangor, PA 18013
Cost: $350 for an individual or $600 family rate. The cost includes the programming, overnight accommodations, and meals.

We celebrate and remember the power and brilliance of children as part of our beloved community! Join us for an intergenerational gathering focused on workshops, crafts, and activities through the eyes of children. May this be a time drenched in their wisdom, creativity, and play. Bonfires, art projects, conversations, games, puppets, music, and more. May it offer kids a magical Geez-y journey of justice, spirit, and joy. All are welcome! This is a time for kids of all ages with a wide understanding of what family means. Come on your own, come with beloveds, come help us pitch the tent. Register here.

Communing Across the Veil: A Geez Retreat

Facilitators: Carol Robison, Mashaun D. Simon, Nichola Torbett, Tuhina Verma Rasche, Lucia Wylie-Eggert, and Lydia Wylie-Kellermann
Dates: Friday, November 3 at 4 pm to Sunday, November 5 at 1 pm
Location: Kirkridge Retreat and Study Center, 2495 Fox Gap Rd, Bangor, PA 18013
Cost: $350 for an individual or $600 family rate. The cost includes the programming, overnight accommodations, and meals.

Let’s gather together to remember, reclaim, and name those who have gone before us and continue to walk with our work today. Join us in the woods of the Appalachian mountains to honour this time when the veil between the living and the dead is thinnest. It will be a time for storytelling, altar building, and listening for their voices calling from the stones and the wind. Register here.

Geez magazine invites students grades 9–12 to participate in the 2023 Geez Magazine Secondary School Essay Contest. There is no fee to enter.

Geez magazine is a seasonal, non-profit, ad-free, print magazine about social justice, art, and activism for people at the fringes of faith in both Canada and the U.S. Our summer 2023 issues covers the theme kids and winning essays will be featured in the issue.

ESSAY CONTEST FOCUS:
As we face questions around climate crises, mass violence, and pervasive technologies, you, as a high school student, stand at the heart of many of these experiences. What can you offer out of your feelings and experiences? What possibilities, beauty, and imagination do we all need to move forward?

SELECT ONE OF THREE TOPICS TO FOCUS ON IN YOUR WRITING:

Climate Crisis
The planet continues to warm, changing weather patterns and displacing peoples. What is a moment in your life when the climate crisis became real to you? How did you feel? What did you notice? Where do you find hope? What do adults in your life need to know about climate crises?

Gun Violence
It feels like lockdowns have always been a normal part of school life. Can you remember a time when the reality of school shootings set in? How did you feel? What did you notice? Where do you find hope? What do adults in your life need to know about gun violence?

Technology
Social technologies like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat can be helpful tools for connection, while at the same time they can harmfully dysregulate our neurological reward centres. What is a moment in your life when the risks of technology became clear to you? How did you feel? What did you notice? Where do you find hope? What do adults in your life need to know about technology?

WINNERS
One winner will be selected in each of the three focus topics (climate crisis, gun violence, and technology). Winning selections will be printed in Geez’s 2023 summer issue. Winners will receive a $100 cash prize and complimentary copy of the issue.

REQUIREMENTS
• Submit completed essays with a length of 400-600 words.
• Your submission must be written primarily in English.
• Submit a bio (maximum 50 words) that includes your name, age, and geographic region.
• Parent permission required to participate.
• Students must be within the ages of 13-18.
• The use of AI-generators, like ChatGPT, is considered plagiarism. Any participant who submits AI-generated writing will be disqualified and their parent/guardian will be notified.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE:
March 1, 2023 at 11:59 p.m. EST

SUBMISSION CHECKLIST
□ Your contact information
□ Your essay submission (400-600 words) as a doc or pdf
□ Your student bio (50 words or less)
□ Contact information for a parent or guardian
□ Parent/guardian consent. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) requires that we gain consent from a parent/guardian in order for student’s to participate and share information. Click here to download the parent/guardian consent form. You will be asked to upload it when you submit your entry.

ENTER THE CONTEST
Click here to enter.

Questions? Email lucia@geezmagazine.org.

Credit: Michelle Both

Call for Pitches: Geez 69 The Kid Issue
Deadline for pitches extended: February 15, 2023

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
– Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

At this moment on the clock of the world, when the future feels uncertain in nearly every direction, it is time to turn our attention to those “whose souls dwell in the house of tomorrow.” As we all face questions around rising climate crises, mass violence, and pervasive technology, children bear much of the weight of these crises on their shoulders. And yet they also carry the possibilities, beauty, and imagination that we need to move forward. How can they be our teachers in these times? What do kids need from grown-ups in order to prepare them for tomorrow?

We hope this issue holds the tension of both the seriousness and the joy in the possibilities that younger generations have always gifted the world. Let this issue make you weep and call you to rise dancing!

We have a lot of ideas for this issue. So, there are lots of options for how you can participate:
1. Pitch a story. Respond to our call for pitches – send us ideas of pieces you want to write or art you want to create.
2. Write a prayer. Send a completed prayer written to, for, and with kids for moments of crisis and uncertainty.
3. Propose a workshop. Pitch a workshop for the in-person retreat connected with this issue taking place June 2023.
4. Share the secondary school essay contest. We want this issue filled with youth voices. Share our secondary school essay contest with the youth in your life (open to grades 9-12).

Details on all of these areas below.

1. Pitch

For Kids: We hope a lot of this issue is written by kids (ages 0-18). We welcome your voices and are so grateful you would share them with Geez. What are you thinking about these days? What do you think adults need to hear? What do you wish you were learning about? How can grown-ups be better? What makes you angry? What makes you excited or hopeful?

For Adults: We strongly encourage pieces to be co-written between the generations. We also encourage adults to have their pieces peer reviewed by folks under 18. If you use stories or quotes from children, please do your best to request permission.

We also hope this issue is just plain fun for children of all ages. So, here are some questions and ideas to get your juices flowing.

Climate Crisis
How do we parent when futures are so uncertain? How does your family connect to and learn from the natural world together? Adults, what do you want your children to learn about connections with the land and its creatures? What have your kids taught you? Teachers and students, how do you navigate conversations around the climate in your classrooms?

Violence
At four years old, kids are doing lockdown drills. What is the reality that kids are facing around gun violence these days? How do we collectively address this trauma? What do we all have to learn from student activist movements around gun violence? How is gun violence tied to other forms of violence that youth are witnessing or experiencing?

Technology
For all of us, but especially kids, community and learning has become mediated through screens. What is the cost? What are alternatives? How do we resist? Have you found healthy ways to engage with technology in your home? Kids, what do you wish your parents knew about your use of technology? Parents, what do you wish your kids knew?

May the work always be fun! Here are some prompts for general silliness:
Write a mad libs
Create a board game for the pages
Write stories with pictures
Send us jokes. Farts are never off limits!
Create Origami instructions to turn Geez pages into works of art
Craft a short story
Write a book review of the worst children’s book you’ve ever read
Tell us about your bad-ass social justice curriculum
How far can you help us stretch the bounds of print media til it feels like a living, breathing being in your hands?

2. Prayers

Along with this issue, we are planning to publish mini-books full of prayers written for children of all ages. Each book will have a theme: climate change, violence, and technology.

Please send us completed prayers on either climate change or violence. We ask that they be around 100 words or less. We define prayer as BROADLY as you can imagine.

3. Retreat proposals

The release of this issue will coincide with Pitch the Circus Tent: A Geez Family Festival at Kirkridge Retreat Center from June 23-25, 2023. This will be an intergenerational gathering focused on wisdom, creativity, and play through the eyes of children. We are now accepting workshop proposals! To submit a proposal, fill out the google form here by February 12, 2023.

Note: If you are also submitting a pitch for the print issue, please follow the regular submission guidelines for your written piece. But feel free to propose a workshop even if you aren’t submitting a pitch!

4. Secondary School Essay Contest

Geez is hosting an essay contest for students in grades 9-12. Students select to focus on one of three topics: climate crisis, gun violence, or technology. One winner will be selected for each of the three focus topics. There is no fee to enter. Learn more about the essay contest here.

Notes about Submissions

We’re looking for long-form journalism, personal stories of transformation, short bursts of feelings, and nuggets of inspiration. Choose an aspect of the topic and expand with personal experience, researched wisdom, or spiritual insight.

A great pitch will describe the piece, explain why it’s a perfect fit for Geez, list the sources you’ll consult, and state why you’re the best person to write it. Please include a brief bio and where you live.

Ideally, pitches are a page or less. Note: if you send us 20 pages, we likely will not be able to read it. If you already have a completed manuscript, poem, photo, or design, feel free to submit it as well.

1. Long-form nonfiction (600, 1200, or 1800 words)

We’re looking for creative nonfiction essays, investigative articles or research-based pieces on the topic above. Wisdom from other sources is welcome, but not required if you are bringing your own embodied experience.

2. Flash nonfiction (50-300 words)

These are short, personal experiences or insights. Your piece should capture a moment that illuminates a larger issue or convey a feeling familiar to us all. This is a chance to bring hope, insight, emotion, and connection to readers.

3. Photos/Illustrations:

Consider the topic above and send original photographs or illustrations that provoke or pacify, animate or incite. Note: artwork pitches and submissions will receive responses after written pitches. It could be two months before you hear back.

4. Poems:

In each issue we aim to publish two or more poems, often with one poem per page. Please submit up to three previously unpublished poems (three pages total) as an attachment, in a Word or PDF document. If you do not hear back from us within eight weeks of the deadline, then assume that we were unable to use your submission. 

Additional Info:

Our readership is split between Canada and the U.S. with some wider international readership as well. Please consider this in how you approach your topic.
Ideally, we will respond personally to every piece of correspondence we receive, but given the number of submissions we receive, it is not always possible. If you do not hear back from us within four weeks of the deadline, assume that we were unable to use your submission.

Contributor Honorariums:

We are a small nonprofit that currently offers very modest honorariums. Depending on the length, we usually offer between $50 and $100.

Deadline for pitches: February 12, 2023

We look forward to seeing your submissions!

Sincerely,
Lydia Wylie-Kellermann, co-editor
Kateri Boucher, co-editor
Lucia Wylie-Eggert, art director

Send pitches, manuscripts, and images to: 
Geez Editors
email: stories [at] geezmagazine [dot] org
mail: Geez magazine, 1950 Trumbull, Detroit, MI 48216 USA
To join our Writers List, click HERE.

Credit: Aryeh Alex, CC

Ontario soil in winter is a womb that holds a liturgy. We wait and wait for the opening prayer of snowdrops, for little yellow colt’s foot flowers and bloodroots blooming. Whatever darkness the world has wrought, the trilliums will flower. Trout lilies will take their turn, the order unchanged by world events. The leaves of the May apples will emerge as they always have, slicked back toward the soil at first, newly birthed and damp.

Christmas will be a light for many and for others a bleakness. Winter cold shatters what has grown too brittle, even within us, and between us. All the same marsh marigolds will sprout from soil so damp it seems uninhabitable. The blue cohosh will come up rumpled, needing, like the rest of us, to shake out the winter. By summer its berries will be the blue of a storm sky.

This steadying rhythm remains a promise under our feet. The dame’s rocket will shoot up, triumphant and purple. Wild cucumber flowers will tangle with the jewelweed’s. Autumn awaits, with goldenrod and purple aster and blazing sumac leaves. They’ll be brought low by a frost that whispers “amen.” We will begin to wait again, in hope.

Kate Suffling works in mental health and lives in Kitchener, Ontario, where she enjoys gardening, mothering, and all things outdoorsy. She loves the red-tailed hawks that fly over her urban neighbourhood and circle playfully above the fray of busy intersections.

Credit: Matthew Bellemare, CC

“Know also that wisdom is like honey for you: If you find it, there is a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off.” – Proverbs 24:14

I press my ear to the pine box, hold my breath, and listen. At first, I hear nothing. Then a faint humming comes through. A weary beekeeper rejoices. I imagine what I can’t see: a cluster of bees, covering babies, surrounding the queen, making sure everyone is fed and warm. The bees on the outside buzz, generating heat until they move to the center. Surviving winter is a miracle of teamwork and self-sacrifice, the taste of stored honey a reminder of spring to come.

A bee is an emblem of hard work, but she also dances to communicate and produces honey, which the scriptures repeatedly equate with sweetness, good for the soul. As the days grow shorter and colder, I think about that cluster and how instinctively they meet the needs of their colony. There is no other way to live. I imagine what we could do if we clung together, working to make sure everyone is fed and warm, taking turns at the center.

Kasey Butcher Santana is an English teacher, turned library specialist, turned small-time alpaca farmer and beekeeper at Sol Homestead. She resides in Golden, CO, and enjoys keeping an eye out for herds of bighorn sheep on the hiking trails.

Great lakes in the peak of winter. Credit: Geez Staff

Advent in the Lake Superior Watershed is only the beginning of our season of snow. The howling, swarming, screeching parts of creation are as distant memory as the riotous green of spring trees. My eyes already ache for the yellow of marsh marigolds which will not arrive until May. I haven’t even cracked the seed catalogues, preferring to put off the savored choices of butterfly weed and elephant dill until January; but my heart already hosts their burning bushes, the bursts and ringlets and clusters of fire.

On walks that are twenty degrees below freezing, I am cognizant of the frogs, stilled but not dead beneath the ice, who will alight the vernal ponds of spring with creaking chorus. I once savored practices of silence before this present season of parenting two children under five and I’ll admit that I covet the frog’s ability to still their heart and mind. To do their work of rest in the womb of muddy darkness. My children, whose bodies are made of the complex dance of this place, teach me to pray without peace.

Waiting is raucous. Learning squeals and wails. The Spirit runs through the house with rapid, stomping feet.

Sarah Holst is a parent, artist, spiritual director, and facilitator living on Anishinaabe Land now known as Duluth, Minnesota. One of Sarah’s primary plant teachers in the Lake Superior Watershed is fireweed, which knows how to thrive amid disturbance and disruption.

“Snow gathers in the wood,” Ypsilanti, Michigan, January 2022.

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