PAID OPPORTUNITY

This publication is being conceptualized and compiled on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations. We acknowledge that this land was never surrendered, relinquished, or handed over by these nations to Canada or British Columbia. It is sovereign and unsurrendered. 

Submissions Close: July 24, 2025 Deadline extended to July 31st (11:59pm PDT)

An inlet’s tidal flat is filled for development. A city’s so-called ‘undesirables’ are relegated to the edge of a swamp. Over a hundred years later, the basements in the neighbourhood known as “Chinatown” still flood. Water remembers and water remains.

In Chinatown Stories’ first fully bilingual publication, we invite you to explore the complexities of Chinatown through the theme of “潮” or “Tide”.

In the literal sense, Chinatown is marked by the tide. Its history entangled with marginalization of migrant settlers who crossed oceans to arrive and displacement of the Coast Salish peoples who have stewarded the area for millennia. 鹹水埠 (Saltwater City) was the name given to Vancouver by early Chinese settlers. Just as the shorelines of this port city have shifted and changed, the boundaries of Chinatown are fluid and in flux. But it is never as simple as the act of just drawing lines on a map, or filling in the sea and expecting the water to never reclaim it. Who gets to claim Chinatown? Where are its borders permeable? What stories lie beneath this unsettled ground? 

Tides also allude to movements of thought / 思潮. As individual water droplets accumulate and gather, they become powerful forces of nature to be reckoned with. Chinatown is the site of significant activist and organizing initiatives, past and present. It is also a space rich with cultural heritage and artistic production. What tides have you seen turn? What waves / 浪潮 have pulled you in? What trends / 潮流 have you noticed sweeping through the neighbourhood?

The daily rise and fall of the tide / 潮汐 traces the cycle of the moon, marking time, history and memory. Legacies and new beginnings. The cleansing properties of salt. What ebb and flows of Chinatown bring you comfort? What rituals or ways of being have seeped into your pores? Tides erode and they support life. They can drag you under and they can also reveal. What has threatened to drown you? What taste, smell or sounds linger when you surface? What revelations have you discovered washed up on the shore? 

Through forms such as creative non-fiction, interviews, poetry, recipes, visual art, and others, we invite those connected to Chinatown and/or the Downtown Eastside to share stories that engage with these prompts—as well as submissions that interpret the theme in entirely new ways. Examples of stories published in the past are available on the Chinatown Today website and in the five Volumes of Chinatown Stories already published. 

Chinatown does not belong to any one community. We welcome submissions from Indigenous, Black, and other racialized storytellers of all ages. We appreciate stories that challenge and expand the idea of “Chinatown” itself, and stories that can connect Chinatown and the Downtown Eastside, Hogan’s Alley, Paueru Gai, and other communities who share space or a relationship to the neighbourhood.

Eligibility:

• Contributors do not necessarily need to reside within Chinatown or the Downtown Eastside but should have some connection to either, or both, of these communities.
• Submissions can include (but are not limited to) non-fiction or fiction, essays, prose, poetry, interviews, photography illustration, painting, digital art, or any combination thereof. We welcome multimedia (e.g., films, website, audio, etc.) submissions, but Chinatown Stories is first and foremost a print magazine. If you are submitting a piece with a multimedia component, please include a rationale for submission with an explanation on how you intend the project to be adapted for the print medium in your artist statement.
• Both English and Chinese (all dialects) submissions will be accepted in this volume. English language submissions will be translated into standard written Chinese.
• As a community oriented publication, Chinatown Stories is committed to supporting the development of craft by emerging and underrepresented creatives. We are not interested in AI generated work, unless there is specific, justifiable rationale and full disclosure for its use.

General Instructions:

Submissions will be processed through a google form linked at the bottom of this page. In addition to your piece(s), including submissions and pitches, you will be asked to include a brief bio of up to three sentences. If you are submitting multiple pieces, please fill out a separate form for each submission.

Submissions of Completed Work: 

Please ensure that your submission adheres to the following guidelines:

Guidelines for Non-Fiction, Fiction, Prose, Poetry, Recipes, Interviews or Other Written Pieces (online and print):

• No more than 1,000 words per piece.
• Please use 12pt Times New Roman and double-space your submission.
• Please submit in your application form in one Word file named “Your Name_Title_Type of Writing”, unless you have specific formatting constraints, in which case please submit a PDF file using the same naming convention above.

Guidelines for Photography, Illustration, Zines, Painting, Calligraphy, or Other 2D files (online and print):

* Due to page limit constraints longer works such as photo essays or zines may be excerpted in the final volume

• Maximum 9 images in .jpg or .png format.
• 300dpi preferred. 
• Please name each file “Number_Your Name_Title_Medium”
• You may also include an optional artist statement of up to 300 words when you submit your work.

Guidelines for Multimedia / Audiovisual files (online and print):

• Please submit the link to the project in a Word file named “Your Name_Title_Medium”
• Please include a rationale for submission with an explanation on how you intend the project to be adapted for the print medium in your artist statement.

Pitches for Potential Stories:

We are once again inviting applicants to pitch their ideas for stories to be included in Volume six. We hope this will allow us to work more closely with contributors to support the development of their piece and tailor it to this volume’s theme “潮” or “Tide”.

For contributors interested in pitching, our goal is to provide a minimum of two opportunities to receive direct feedback from the editorial team, which will require having a draft of the piece ready to share at a midpoint check-in, and shortly before the final deadline.

Please ensure that the intended pitch and resulting piece adheres to the existing aforementioned guidelines for completed submissions.

Guidelines for Pitches in Any Medium:

• No more than 400 words per pitch, including a brief description of the final piece, why it fits with this volume’s theme, and how you’d ideally plan to create it. If you are pitching multiple pieces, please fill out a new form for each separate pitch. 
• Please include one example from your portfolio of a past piece of yours that is of the same medium as your pitch. If you do not have an example, please let us know in your pitch document. 
• Please use 12pt Times New Roman and double-space your pitch.
• Please submit in one Word file named “Your Name_Pitch_medium”, indicating which type of medium you intend your finished piece to be completed in (for example, if your name is Chinatown Today, and you are pitching a photography project, the file would be named “ChinatownToday_Pitch_Photography”)

Notes for Contributors:

Because this is intended to be the first fully bilingual (Chinese & English) issue of Chinatown Stories, we are still exploring the possibilities within the translation process. If your work is selected, we will reach out and discuss further what your preference for involvement in the translation process may look like.  

Chinatown Today purchases first North American Serial Rights for published works that revert back to the author/contributor upon publication. We ask that the pieces we publish are appearing in publication for the first time. We accept pieces that have appeared on personal blogs or portfolios. This includes social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. We ask that you include a statement of acknowledgment to Chinatown Today in any subsequent reprints.

All accepted submissions will be paid honorariums of $80-$120, dependent on length.

Any collection of personal or personally identifying information will be in accordance with Chinatown Today’s Confidentiality Policy and Privacy Policy.

If you have any questions, please email submissions[at]chinatown.today.

Submission Form

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