The Lotus Paper

The Lotus Paper is a bilingual (English & Tamil/தமிழ்) youth-led digital zine focusing on South Asian representation, culture, and social justice.

The zine focuses on the cultural nuances in South Asian societies and how they are influenced by social justice issues, ranging from the multi-million dollar skin-lightening industry in India to the brutal border control policies targeting immigrants—including Brown minority groups—in the United States. The Lotus Paper also aims to promote accurate representation of South Asian culture in media.

While they are mainly focused on the unique cultural and sociopolitical experiences of young South Asian writers and artists, The Lotus Paper invites writers of all cultures to submit.

Requirements

• You must be ages 13–25

• Submissions must be in one of the following categories: fiction prose, poetry, creative nonfiction, drama/scriptwriting, and visual arts. Submissions from a larger novel/play/portfolio must include a short synopsis (300 words maximum)

• There is no theme, but submissions must be centered around the topics of cultural, social, and political injustice

• Potential topics include: xenophobia, border control, culture-based beauty standards, religious, and cultural stigmas

• Submissions must be in 12pt font (Times or Times New Roman), double-spaced, and submitted as a .pdf file

• The zine accepts works with religious and political content. However, they must be handled with needed sensitivity and respect.

• ZERO hate speech, AI-generated content, or plagiarized content

• The zine wants works that explore complex and mature themes, but please do not submit NSFW content

• Please do NOT submit previously published work! If you are submitting work(s) concurrently with other literary magazines/competitions and it gets accepted, please let us know!

• You can submit as many works as you would like, as this call is for rolling submissions.

To see page limits and legal publishing rights, see this page:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-EM4JKBgogwTXbAS2O4BFmcY6gQKqxbZT73sDWKpgYk/edit?tab=t.0

Application Instructions

Please submit to the first link on The Lotus Paper’s Linktree: https://linktr.ee/TheLotusPaperLitMag

Direct any questions to the email (thelotuspaperlitmag@gmail.com) or the Instagram (@thelotuspapereng_ & @thelotuspapertamil_)