This year WorldWide WriterWeb is launching an important project: Short story Festival. Writers around the world can participate with one short story (around 2000 words or more) in English or translated into English.
One recent profile picture (Large) of the author is must to participate.
A short Bio of the author written in 3rd person narrative is also necessary.
***Submission of short story to this mail address will be considered as the explicit confirmation of author’s permission to publish his/her copyrighted materials in WorldWide WriterWeb.
***.pdf file will not be accepted.
***Contributions should be attached only in one single MS-WORD file.
***Selection of the short stories will be on literary merit. Decision of the selectors will remain final.
We are thrilled to announce a call for submissions for the poetry anthology Prism of Consciousness. This anthology will accompany the upcoming VI INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE CAESURAE COLLECTIVE SOCIETY, jointly organised by the Centre for Indian Arts and Cultural Studies (CIACS), Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University, Department of English, Cooch Behar College (affiliated to the university), and Caesurae Collective Society in collaboration with Sri Vishnu Mohan Foundation, Chennai. The conference will be held from 9–11 April 2025 at Cooch Behar, the erstwhile princely state in West Bengal, India.
The anthology seeks to weave a fabric of poetic expressions that resonate with the theme of consciousness—exploring the mind, the self, and the infinite cosmos—weaving together poetic voices that reflect on what it means to be aware, alive, and interconnected.
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE CAESURAE COLLECTIVE SOCIETY
Date : 9, 10, & 11 April 2025
Venue : Cooch Behar College
Place : Cooch Behar, the erstwhile princely state in West Bengal, India
THEME
Prism of consciousness—a profound interaction of thought, emotion, and awareness that shapes our experience of reality. We invite poets to explore this theme in all its dimensions:
A THOUGHT TO EXPLORE
Mind and Self: Reflections on identity, awareness, and the inner workings of thought.
Interconnectedness: The interplay between individual consciousness and the external world, including nature, society, and the cosmos.
Altered States: Dreams, meditations, mystical experiences, and other states of awareness.
Cultural Perspectives: Diverse interpretations of consciousness across traditions, philosophies, and spiritual practices.
The Future of Consciousness: Technological influences, artificial intelligence, and the evolution of awareness.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
1. Eligibility: Open to poets worldwide. Submissions in English are preferred.
2. Submission Limit: Up to three poems per person; one poem will be selected.
3. Format: Submissions must be in a single Word document, with each poem on a separate page. A high-resolution headshot photograph (JPEG format) is required.
4. Length: Individual poems should not exceed 37 lines. The bio should be a succinct biographical narrative of up to 111 words, written in the third person.
5. Originality: Submissions must be original and unpublished works. We kindly request that you refrain from simultaneous submissions and choose to share your work exclusively with our anthology.
6. Declaration: Include a cover letter affirming that your submitted work is entirely your own and has not been published elsewhere.
7. Personal Information – Provide the following details in the body of your email: full name, postal address with landmark, email address, and mobile number.
SUBMISSION CONTENT
Your submission must include the following:
1. Poem(s)
2. Bio
3. Photo
4. Declaration
5. Personal Information
IMPORTANT
1. Submissions will only be considered for selection once all five required items are provided as per the guidelines.
2. The decisions of our selection process are final and irrevocable.
Subject Line: “Submission: Prism of Consciousness Anthology”
AVAILABILITY OF COPIES
1. For Co-authors:
Co-author may purchase copies at a discounted rate before publication.
2. Paperback Price:
Market Price: Rs 600/- (for international authors: $60/-) plus delivery charges after publication.
Discounted Rate for Co-authors: Rs 480/- (for international authors: $45/-), including delivery charges before publication.
BOOK LAUNCH, POETRY READING, AND DISCUSSIONS
The book will be launched during the conference in Cooch Behar (West Bengal), with featured poets invited to participate in a special poetry reading session and discussions.
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐏𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐃𝐄𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐋𝐒 @ 𝐂𝐨𝐨𝐜𝐡 𝐁𝐞𝐡𝐚𝐫
Please note that the poetry reading session and discussion will include participants whose work has been selected for the anthology Prism of Consciousness.
If your poem has been selected and you wish to participate in the conference at Cooch Behar, kindly email us. We will send you the registration form.
FOR REGISTRATION
Same as the conference email.
REGISTRATION FEE
Same as the conference registration fee.
Registration will close on 22nd February 2025.
Join us in creating a poetic philharmonic that resonates across minds, hearts, and worlds.
The conference is an interdisciplinary gathering of thinkers, researchers, philosophers, and artists, united in the pursuit of unraveling the mysteries of consciousness. It will feature academic sessions, poetry readings and discussions, book launches, music workshops, an exhibition based on the theme, lecture demonstrations, and cultural events. By linking this anthology to the conference, we aim to celebrate the poetic voice as an essential element in exploring human awareness.
The conference Paradigms of Consciousness and Its Cultural and Aesthetic Expressions seeks to investigate the diverse ways in which consciousness and spirituality are understood, experienced, and articulated across disciplines and cultures. Consciousness, as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, transcends disciplinary boundaries, integrating philosophical, artistic, scientific, cultural and psychological perspectives. This conference offers a platform to explore these intersections, delving into the deep connections between the mind, self, and the world, as expressed through various cultural and aesthetic forms.
Selected papers will be published in a volume by an international publisher and in our ejournal: Caesurae: Poetics of Cultural Translation (ISSN 2454-9495)
Registration process should be completed within 7 days of acceptance of Abstracts
Registration Fees – Rs 2000 for participants in India and 25 $ for overseas participants + Caesurae Membership Fee – Annual (Rs 500 / $6 for overseas participants) / Life (Rs 5000/ $ 60 for overseas participants).
Accommodation (On request) for twin sharing rooms: Rs 3500
(Registration fees will cover access to the plenaries and panels of the Conference, including the musical, literary and Zoom sessions of the international speakers, as well as a Participation Certificate. A working lunch will be provided and a conference kit.)
** It is mandatory to take Caesurae membership for participating in our conferences. If you are a Life Member you must only pay the Registration Fee. If you are an Annual Member and have not renewed your membership you either you become a Life Member or take an Annual Membership.
How to pay Registration fee and Membership fee?
Once we accept your abstract, we will send you our Bank details and a Google Form link.
✓ For Registration and Caesurae Annual Membership: Rs 2500/-
✓ For Registration and Caesurae Life Membership: Rs 7000/-
✓ For Registration + Annual Membership + Accommodation: Rs 6000/-
✓ For Registration + Life Membership + Accommodation: Rs 10,500/-
Synchronized Chaos Magazine expresses compassion for all those affected by the wildfires in L.A. and support for those who are fighting them.
You may send cards here to be delivered to firefighters who are part of a program where incarcerated people in California may spend some of their sentences assisting fire crews.
To the black letters of recorded time, which boils in fame.
To the prayers of bullets, mother
fired when age first brewed the wine
of maturity upon my lip.
My soul is a remainant of solfas,
Carving notes in this arm eaten by the
Virgin fangs of Needs.
Whenever we withness the harmonic weaving
Of flame on wood, we shall wear our anthems
Like skin,
For that black boy opposite our hut
Has learnt to recite the slogan of success
Where fear and failure brew dreams
upon the podium of regret.
An Igbo writer, a member of hilltop creative arts center, a lyrical poets who writes about the constant changes of emotions. My works have been published on synchronized chaos, poetry parliament, and my poem (virgins pride) and (symphony of love) was shortlisted in the 2023/2024 annual nature poetry contest.
[Saying anything and getting caught is not a literary virtue, it is an unliterary activity. The best in literature are things which spin the words and images round and round and the reader has to shoot an arrow into the eye of the floating fish, looking at its image in the water. [Draupadi’s Swaymbara] ]
Dr Jernail Singh Anand
Broken lines which carry sophisticated ideas are not poetry, unless they evoke emotions which blend disparate elements of experience into a unified whole. The final feeling should not be of a broken experience, but a unified entity, whispering to the soul. If the poet does not whisper to the soul, it lacks in essentialities.
When we talk of a common subject like love, on an extensive scale, is the broken heart of a poet so important to the world? Is it important to tell the world how it was broken and where its splinters are lying? Does the world expect such lavish wastefulness from the poet? If poets are irrelevant to the world today, it is precisely because they sing of their personal sorrow, and sing too much, which fails to connect with the mass mind.
Metaphor as a smoke-screen
Is it important to postpone finally saying something and trying to find metaphors, so that abstract images could say, what the poet is so scared to say in plain words? A metaphor is not always an adornment. In these politicis-ridden times, most of the times it is used as a smoke screen.
A poem’s message is like a needle to be found in a chaff store. The poet talks loosely about clouds, flowers, rivers, oceans, moon. – good images, and sometimes soothing too, but the message… Oh, I am sorry, does the poet have any message to convey? Or just to fiddle with words, images and enjoy and make the reader enjoy his word patterns, which have expertise in not saying anything. Saying anything and getting caught is not a literary virtue, it is an unliterary activity.The best in literature are things which spin the words and images round and round and the reader has to shoot an arrow into the eye of the floating fish, looking at its image in the water. [Draupadi’s Swaymbara]
So difficult it is to find the meaning of a poem. And finally, if the reader says, “the poet says this” agains there are eyebrows. It is not the poet, it is the poem that says something. So, the text says, the poem says, … this is the fad. The poet has nothing to say. He only put some words together. Forged some images. Which are now lying before you. Try to read into them and say what you find them say.
A post-modern reading of Paradise Lost can be rewarding. Let us forget what Milton has to say about “to justify the ways of God to man”.. The invocation becomes absolutely irrelevant in which he invokes the Muse to let him sing of the disobedience of man which brought death in the world. How can Milton dare to utter these words? It is all irrelevant. Leave invocation. Let us move straight into the text.
Love for the Workshop
If text is our focus, we can go beyond Milton. The message has no significance. What is important is the text, and using the text, bring a staircase, stepping down into its interior, let us move in the dark chambers of Milton’s mind. What he says, has no relevance. What he did not say, is important. Move in.
Everyone who enters this talisman finds something different and challenging. So, that is our study of poetry. Finally to put out a broken spectacle because, a verse, if we take the words to enter into the poets mind, will take us into a factory area where tools are lying scattered. Are we interested in the workshop or the finished product? I think entering a sweet seller’s pantry cannot be a rewarding experience. Better to enjoy the sight of the silver-covered sweets, and still better, to taste a few of them, and praise the sweet maker, rather than de-kneading the flour and sugar that went into it and following them from which mill the flour came and from which factory, the sugar came.
Bio:
Dr Jernail Singh Anand, President of the International Academy of Ethics, is author of 170 books in English poetry, fiction, non-fiction, philosophy and spirituality. He was recently awarded Seneca Award by the Academy of Philosophical Arts and Sciences Bari. [Italy -19/10/2024]. He also won Charter of Morava, the great Award by Serbian Writers Association, Belgrade and his name was engraved on the Poets’ Rock in Serbia. He was awarded Doctor of Philosophy [Honoris Causa] by the University of Engg and Management, Jaipur. Recently, he organized an International Conference on Culture, Values and Ethics at Pune. His most phenomenal books are Lustus:The Prince of Darkness [first epic of the Mahkaal Trilogy]. And Philosophia de Anand, a work of philosophy which has under one roof, ten of his philosophical works. [Email: anandjs55@yahoo.com Mobile: 919876652401[Whatsapp] [ethicsacademy.co.in]
Maria Miraglia is a poet, essayist, translator, and peace activist. Her commitment to human rights and peace activism is evident in her long-standing memberships in Amnesty International, Ican, and the International Observatory for Human Rights. She is Vice President of the World Movement for the Defense of Children) – Kenya and the founder of the World Peace Foundation.
Dr. Miraglia’s influence on contemporary literature is significant. As a cosmopolitan Italian writer, her academic curriculum is impressive, placing her among the stars of the literary world. She is a founding member and Literary Director of the Pablo Neruda Association and a member of several editorial boards of international literary magazines;
Member of the International Writers Association; Member of the International Academy Mihai Eminescu; Honorary Member of United Nations of Letters; Poet Laureate 2018, WNWU; and World Poet Laureate and Golden Medal 2020 – Xi’an, China; Miraglia writes in Italian, English, or both languages. Her poems have been translated into over thirty languages and are prominent in over one hundred anthologies worldwide.
Miraglia is a writer with considerable skills. She has an exquisite imagination; her style is lucid, transparent in thought, philosophical and meaningful in substance. She can skillfully intertwine emotions and creativity, philosophy, logic and reason, giving her poems an air of new beauty. She expresses her broad humanity, magnanimity, aesthetic abilities, delicate sensitivity and concern for global peace and harmony. Her originality makes her a truly brilliant writer.
Dr Miraglia Maria Antonietta Literary Director of P. Neruda Founder President of WFP. Member of the European Academy of Science and Arts- Salzburg
………
Interview conducted by
Eva Petropoulou Lianou
Please share your thoughts about the future of literature.
Literature has always held fundamental importance in developing societies, and it seems right to recognise poetry’s merit as the first means of spreading knowledge when writing did not yet exist. With the advent of printing, access to culture became more manageable, but even today, masses of individuals are not granted this privilege. Culture is the only tool that can facilitate social mobility, improve economic conditions, and provide a better quality of life. However, in many areas of the world, young people are not even given access to basic education. This is especially true for women, who remain subjected to a slavery that is not only economic but also intellectual, depriving them of individual choices.
The Good and the Bad. Who is winning nowadays?
I was born in a Catholic country where the belief in an individual’s struggle between good and evil has always been present. Beyond Catholic thought, historical facts tell us of a world in which struggles have prevailed, a world in which wars have continually devastated entire countries and created tears and death. And even today, the media inundates us with news of the same type that sometimes makes hope difficult. This does not mean that we should give up, on the contrary, we should increasingly commit our forces so that men can live in harmony so that the idea of justice does not remain in the pages of the codes, and there is a better distribution of wealth.
For this to happen, everyone must be allowed compulsory education without gender distinction. Only knowledge can help people make better choices in every social sector. I want to address a cry for help to intellectuals so that they become champions of a rebirth of consciences. It is easy to make the responsibility of conducting public welfare fall on the people in power. We must also ask ourselves who put them in that position and why. The masses have tremendous power that they may not realize.
How many books have you written, and when can we find your books?
Twenty-one of my poetry anthologies have been published, mainly in Italian and English but also in Arabic, Telugu, Hindi, and many other languages. I have enjoyed translating some of the most appreciated contemporary authors. My poems are also in over one hundred anthologies in various Italian and international magazines and have been translated into over thirty languages.
My books can be found on Amazon.
The book. E-book or hard book. What will be the future?
I wish for any form of diffusion of books, even though I prefer the paper form. I can read and reread a text, mark it, and consider it a personal object to take and take again over time.
A Wish for 2025
I am a woman of peace. Some international organisations have kindly wanted to give me the honour of being an ambassador of peace. It is in this role that last year I presented, together with a group of various authors, in the council hall of the municipalities of Assisi, a city universally recognised as a centre of peace, the book “Give Me Peace – Anicia Editore.” Peace and harmony between peoples require education in welcoming and accepting diversity, yet schools in all countries forget education in goodness and beauty. Young people are induced to compete, not collaborate, which is one of the attitudes we should work on.
A phrase from your book
…………..
women and men on earth
in holy silence
for the massacre and horror
could sense the fear
of the little martyrs
of the human foolishness
hear their cries
imaging the violated bodies
the tears of their mothers
their eternal mourning
From Martyrs of Human Foolishness – Coloured Butterflies
Maria Teresa Liuzzo was born in Saline di Montebello Jonico and lives in Reggio di Calabria (Italy). President of the Lyric-Dramatic Association ”P. Benintende” – Journalist – Publisher. Chief Editor of the literary magazine ”LE MUSE” – Essayist – Lyricist – Literary and art critic – Director of Public Relations – Translator – Opinionist – Writer – Doctor of Psychology – Leibniz University Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. – Professor of Philosophy and Modern Literature – USA. – Correspondent of ”IL PONTE ITALO – AMERICANO” – USA – ”NUOVA CORVINA” EUROPA – (Hunedoara) – Collaborator of ”ALB-SPIRIT” TIRANA (ALBANIA), ”Gazzetta Nazionale” (Tirana). ”Perqasje” (Tirana); ”Gazeta Destinacioni” (Valona – Albania); ”Dritare” and ”Albania Press” (based in Rome); ”Atunis” (Belgium – Brussels); Alessandria Today (Italy); ”EZGULIK” – Bukhara (UZBEKISTAN) dir. Obid KOLDOSH.
Please send your Abstracts in about 500 words to 
