Kalponeek · Open submissions
A call for work that lingers
কাল্পনিক (kalponeek, Bengali for “imaginary” or “of the imagination”) is an online literary magazine publishing in English, rooted in Bangladeshi and South Asian sensibility but open to writers everywhere. We are looking for work that lingers — fiction, poetry, and nonfiction that isn't afraid of grief, obsession, and the unsettled spaces between people. We want writing that trusts the reader with ambiguity rather than explaining itself away.
Fiction
Short stories and flash fiction. Psychological, literary, quietly unsettling work is especially welcome, but we read broadly.
Poetry
Up to three poems per submission.
Creative Nonfiction
Essays, memoir fragments, hybrid work.
Translation
English translations of Bangla (or other South Asian language) work, with permission from the original author or rights-holder where applicable.
We especially encourage submissions from Bangladeshi writers and the Bangladeshi diaspora, though we welcome work from anywhere.
We're reading with particular interest for work that engages — directly or obliquely — with what Bangladesh is living through right now:
Memory and rupture
It's been two years since July 2024. What does a revolution leave behind in a family, a friendship, a body? We're not looking for op-eds; we want the private, unresolved residue.
The disappeared and the unaccounted-for
Absence as a haunting, not a headline. Grief without a body to bury.
Inherited fracture
Communal tension, the fault lines of faith and belonging that have widened since 2024, and what it costs to live inside them.
Watching the border
Migration, statelessness, the Rohingya camps, the charged quiet of frontiers — from the inside of a life, not a policy brief.
After the vote, before the change
The gap between what was promised and what arrives. Disillusionment, waiting, the strange grief of hope deferred.
The water rising anyway
Climate anxiety and displacement as lived, bodily experience.
These themes are an invitation, not a requirement — we still want your ghost stories, your obsessions, your quiet domestic horrors regardless of subject. But if you've been sitting on something that speaks to this moment, this is the place for it.
We want your voice, not a machine's approximation of it. Work generated wholesale by AI will not be considered. If you used AI tools in a limited, editorial capacity — brainstorming, grammar checking — please say so briefly in your cover letter. When in doubt, disclose; we'd rather know than guess.
Kalponeek acquires first publication rights; all rights revert to you after publication. We ask only for credit if the piece is reprinted elsewhere.
How to submit
No attachments, no email. Create an account on kalponeek.com, paste your piece into the editor, and submit.
Response time is typically 4–8 weeks. We read on a rolling basis.
Submit your writing