SUBMISSIONS ARE OPEN!
Call for submissions - Autisticulture Issue 2: time
*DEADLINE EXTENDED*
Submissions open: Friday 12th September - Sunday 16th November 2025
Payment: £40 (approx. equivalent to $55) after edits & a digital copy of Issue 2 of the magazine (upon release)
Theme: Time
Who can submit: Anyone autistic (including self-diagnosed), though autistic children require caregiver permission
Location: Worldwide
-------------------------------------------------
MORE DETAILS:
Notes on the theme: TIME
Time is relative. It can be experienced differently depending on the person and the situation: accelerated when absorbed in a special interest, stretched during discomfort, marked by repetition, or disrupted by transitions. For autistic people, experiences of time often diverge from cultural expectations - whether in the timing of milestones, the pace of communication, or the rhythms of daily life.
For this issue, we invite writing and artwork that explores autistic experiences of time in all their variety. You might write personally, reflectively, or critically. Popular culture (music, film, books) can be a springboard for sharing your thoughts and personal experiences. You might also focus on history or collective memory, though reference your sources where necessary.
Submission details:
Written pieces
- Length: 1,200–1,500 words
- Shorter pieces also welcome, especially if you face barriers to communication
- Formats considered: personal essays, critical essays, letters, poems, reviews (feel free to propose beyond this)
Artwork
- You may submit 1–5 pieces
- Files must be TIFF or PNG, minimum 300 DPI (large files can be sent via WeTransfer or similar)
- Artwork (or the process of art-making) should relate to the theme Time, interpreted in any way
- Selected artists may have multiple works featured, or single images may be paired with writing
- Work must be your own - copied or traced images cannot be accepted due to copyright
Deadlines & Process
- Submissions close on 16th November 2025, 11:59pm (UK time)
- Please try to stick to the deadline. If you need more time, contact us as soon as possible to request an extension.
- Submissions will be reviewed in the weeks following the deadline, with timings depending on the number received.
- Around 20 pieces/contributors will be selected in total for Issue 2.
- After submissions have been selected, there will be a short editing process.
- Selected contributors will receive £40 (when edits are complete) and a digital copy of Issue 2 when it's released.
- Email your submission to autisticulture@icloud.com with the subject 'Issue 2 Submission'
-------------------------------------------------
prompts / inspiration for the theme 'Time':
These are suggested starting points rather than restrictions — feel free to interpret the theme however you like.
- Routines and schedules: The role routines play in your life, and any tension if you also have ADHD. You might also reflect on how routines are represented in culture — where they resonate and where they miss your reality.
- Stimming: Your favourite stims, stims that are misunderstood, how you would explain them, and the music or media you stim to — perhaps even as a review.
- Special interests: How time changes when you are absorbed in a special interest, or why that interest itself matters to you. We also welcome pieces that focus directly on your special interest — get in touch if you’d like to discuss format.
- Transitions: The challenges of everyday and major transitions, your own experiences, and any strategies or advice you’ve found useful.
- Milestones and age: Meeting milestones on different timelines, enjoying “age-inappropriate” interests, and reflections on growing up and ageing outside cultural expectations.
- Crip time: How autistic and disabled timelines diverge from the standard clock, how you manage energy and pacing with illness or mental health, and what it is like to navigate real-time communication as an AAC user.
- Time for change: What needs to shift in media or society — from myth-busting to decolonising autism and neurodiversity, or imagining an autism-friendly world.
- Shifts over time: How autistic representation has changed, and how your own identity has shifted through diagnosis, masking or unmasking, or AAC. Reflections don’t need to be linear or “inspiring” — complexity is welcome. Reflections on late diagnosis are particularly welcome.
- Memory and history: How you relate to memory in your own life, and how autistic history might be recorded or remembered collectively.
- Media that bends time: Stories with time loops, non-linear narratives, or overlapping timelines, and how these connect with autistic experience or “crip time.”
- Cultural ideas of time: Different cultural approaches to time beyond Western norms, and how autistic people might draw from or connect with them.
-------------------------------------------------
General Submission Guidelines
Autisticulture publishes work by autistic writers and artists in many forms. Submissions can be cultural, personal, or experimental, as long as they engage with autistic experience in thoughtful ways.
We welcome
✓ Self-diagnosis (we recognise diagnostic biases and trust you to appropriately research)
✓ Essays, reviews, interviews, advice columns, and artwork
✓ Creative or cultural pieces that connect to autistic experiences
✓ Interviews with autistic people, including about new books, art, or projects
✓ Pitches as well as full pieces - to pitch, include an outline or your angle and main points, plus a sample of your writing
✓ Also (currently unpaid): Contributions to the blog and headcanons of fictional characters on Instagram (short)
We don’t accept
✗ Fictional stories you’ve written (autofiction is welcome)
✗ Pieces on Harry Potter characters (out of respect for our trans community members)
✗ Headcanons of real-life people
✗ Lists without depth, examples, or connections
✗ Hate speech, defamation, or explicit content
✗ Copied work — don’t trace artwork or reuse recipes. It’s fine to reference other media, but don’t copy from the internet
If you have any questions about submitting or are unsure how to structure your piece, you’re welcome to get in touch.
If you have any specific questions, get in touch.
Email hello@autisticulture.co.uk and/or busybeingdisabled@icloud.com
Autisticulture Magazine