Mission Statement for Mason’s Road
Mason’s Road is an online literary journal sponsored by Fairfield University’s MFA in Creative Writing and a collaborative effort among graduate students in the program. We are emerging writers of all ages and in all stages of our writing careers, who come together twice a year for our residencies at Enders Island, off the coast of Mystic, Connecticut, where we discuss and practice the writing craft. Mason’s Island Road is the final stretch that leads us to Enders.
Mason’s Road is a place but it is also a time; like any journey, it provides a “liminality, ” or period of transition. We hope you will join us on this road as we search to better understand our craft by exploring thought, sound, and sight through words, audio, and art. Like masons who labor to piece together their work – finding the right combination of stone, rock, and mortar to create something that will last and survive the test of time – we as writers are first and foremost craftspeople. We must arrange and rearrange words until we get them right. Toward that end, we seek writing that teaches us the basics as well as the subtleties of the writing craft, writing that has been polished through hard labor and industrious practice – writing that is honest, and earnest, and strong.
To honor this goal, each issue of Mason’s Road will be dedicated to a particular aspect of the writing craft. For our inaugural issue, we are accepting submissions of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, and drama that showcase exemplary or innovative uses of “voice” or “persona.” In upcoming issues, we may focus on dialogue or metaphors or rhythm or beginnings or endings, whatever our staff and our readers would like to learn more about. And we will be turning to the international writing community – to emerging and established writers – to travel with us down Mason’s Road to the threshold of inspiration.
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Call for Submissions
Mason’s Road is published twice a year. We currently have a rolling, blind submissions policy and are accepting work in fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, drama (stage or screen), and art from both emerging and established writers and artists.
For our inaugural issue, we are accepting submissions that showcase exemplary or innovative uses of “voice” or “persona.” While submissions are accepted on a rolling basis, the cut-off date for this first issue is May 15, 2010. Please submit only once in a genre for each issue, and limit prose to 9,000 words, poetry to 5 poems, and visual art to 5-10 pieces (must be a series). For creative non-fiction, we accept personal essays or memoir excerpts, not book reviews, critiques or other non-fiction.
All work should be sent to <mfajournal( at)fairfield. edu> (replace (at) with @). Your name, address, phone number, e-mail address, and title of your work must be in the body of your e-mail. The subject line should identify the genre and title of work (i.e., POETRY – “The Road”), and every page of your work should include the Title in the footer or header, but NOT your name or any other identification.
Poetry, drama, and prose submissions must be sent as a Word (.doc) or rich-text format (.rtf) file. Art submissions must be sent as a web-ready, *.jpg file. Any files that do not adhere to these guidelines will not be considered.
Mason’s Road does not accept previously published work. Simultaneous submissions are accepted as long as they are indicated as such and we are notified immediately upon acceptance elsewhere. All published work will be archived online, and after publication all rights revert back to the author/artist. We currently do not pay contributors, but we plan to hold annual contests with monetary prizes of $200-$500 for which only contributors will be eligible.
