BURN

Every fire needs something to consume. Time, attention, a body, a place. Something keeps it alive, and something pays for it. Sometimes we choose what burns. Sometimes we only notice once there's damage.

Issue 03's theme is BURN. Desire, obsession, anger, ambition. The things that drive us and the things that wear us down. The impulse to make something, the impulse to destroy it, and the uncomfortable possibility that both come from the same place.

This is the winter issue, so bring the dark if that's where your work takes you. BURN can be intimate, ugly, ecstatic, exhausted.

Some directions

The appetite.
Wanting something until it consumes everything else. Obsession, intimacy, envy, devotion. The thing you keep feeding even when you know what it's costing you.

The exhaustion.
Burnout. Work that takes more than it gives. A body running on what's left. The pressure to keep producing after the pleasure has gone. What does that look like before everything finally stops?

The explosion.
Rage, refusal, the decision to burn a bridge. Something destroyed deliberately, whether to escape it, punish it, or make room. Consider who gets to walk away and who has to live with the aftermath.

The evidence.
Scorched surfaces, faded photographs, a mark that won't disappear. The fire might be long over, but something still carries it. This is fertile ground for texture, found material, collage, and damaged archives.

What makes it sing

Flames give you an immediate image. Push further into what they reveal. What feeds this particular fire? Why does someone keep it going? What has already been lost?

A kitchen table after an argument. An untouched bed. A workspace full of unfinished things. A photograph bleached almost beyond recognition. Heat can be present in an image without a flame anywhere in it.

Push BURN through your own process. Let repetition, abrasion, exposure, erasure, or saturation do some of the work. If you use fire literally, give it a reason to be there. I'm interested in the particular thing being consumed, and what you leave us to find afterward.

SUBMISSION DETAILS

Submission window opens: October 31, 2026

Submission deadline: November 30, 2026

Issue releases: December 31, 2026

What you're committing to

- 1 to 4 finished submissions. These can be single pages or up to four two-page spreads.

- Completed, ready-to-publish work only. I arrange the issue but do not edit, retouch, recolor, or resize submissions. What you send is what appears.

- Hitting the deadline. The one hard ask. If you can't make it, tell me early.

Technical specs

Because I don't adjust submissions, your files have to drop straight into the layout. Anything off-spec can't be included.

Format: A4 portrait.
Exact dimensions: 1240 × 1754 px. Build your canvas at this size. Full-bleed or not, your choice.
Resolution / color: 150 DPI, RGB.
File type: Flattened PNG at the exact dimensions above.
One page = one file. Doing a two-page spread? Totally cool, but spreads must be delivered as a single merged 2480 × 1754 px file, not two halves.

Creative & content guidelines

• Work **must** respond to the theme in some way.
• Content rating: Mature themes, dark imagery, and tasteful nudity are welcome. Flag anything NSFW when you submit so i can label it. **Absolutely no content that is illegal, hateful, or sexualizes minors.**
• Work must be original, or built from source material you have the right to use.
  Collage and mixed-media artists especially: you are responsible for clearing your own source material, because this gets published and distributed publicly. Recognizable brand marks and copyrighted characters can't be included. That's the one I can't wave through.
• No fully AI-generated artwork. Using AI to generate a source image you then cut up, alter, or build from is fine. Using it to generate the entire finished piece is not.

Submitting your art

I'll follow up by email after you sign up and supply an email address to submit your work to. If your artwork files end up being larger than 20 MB total, I'll set up a Dropbox folder for you to upload your work to.

COVER ARTWORK

If you want to opt in for cover consideration, please indicate it on the form below.

Same specs as everything else.

You're 100% free to create your own logo for it. Here's a vector version of the existing logo if you would prefer to use or destroy it.

Please include:
Issue 03, BURN, and Winter 2026 somewhere on the cover. Those elements can be small, large, destroyed, anything you want to do as long as they're somewhere on it.

Rights & ownership

You keep your copyright. Always.

By submitting, you grant Blight Collective a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, display, and distribute your work in this and future issues and in related promotion of the publication; you retain full copyright and all other rights to your work.

Credit

Every contributor is credited in the issue itself, and each artist will be added to the artist directory on the Blight Collective website.