echoverse volume 2: time capsule

For its second volume, echoverse invites writers and artists to submit work to a digital time capsule that will offer the world to come a record of the place and time we live in now.

This past year has shown us that imagining the future is a gesture of hope. To take time to make art, even if it expresses what is terrible, is an act infused with a kind of optimism: our thoughts, concerns, and experiences are worth noticing and sharing.

Every time we write or make art, we create a marker of time. We say, “here is the view from where I stand today” and create a vantage point to gaze back upon, an offering to ourselves and those who will come after us. And so with this time capsule, we will create a marker of our environment, our lives, and our world as they are right now.

Some time capsules have a set date for when they’re meant to be opened, often hundreds of years in the future. They’re intended for future generations—for others—but we think a record of this time could also be a gift to ourselves. We define the future as any moment yet to happen and, with that in mind, this time capsule will not be hidden underground. It will be published online and available for any future reader who comes across it, whether that be eight months or eighty years from now.

How will you represent this time? echoverse is looking for writing and music that speak to change and adaptation, photography that distills this contemporary moment, hybrid work that finds shapes and structures to hold our losses and gains, paintings and sculptural work that reframe our view of the natural world, letters that vocalize our hopes and worries for the future, and more.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions open 1 January 2021 and close 30 June 2021. Email your submission as an attachment to contactechoverse [at] gmail [dot] com with a cover letter including a brief third-person bio in the body of the email.

Letters to the future: Up to about 1,000 words. Letters may be poetry, prose, or hybrid.
Prose: Up to about 2,500 words. We’re seeking short fiction, essays, lyric nonfiction, excerpts of longer work, and hybrid work. Writers may submit a single work or up to 3 flash pieces.
Poetry: Up to 5 poems, totaling no more than 10 pages.
Original music: One recorded song, attached or linked.
Original artwork: Up to 5 high-resolution images (photography, collage, painting, sculptural work, etc.), attached or linked.

And, if you want to see the types of work we’ve loved in the past, please take a moment to check out volume one of echoverse.