Call for Texts and image works on the topic “The Other”
Genre: Existentialist horror, Topic “The Other”
The newly founded literary association dyster e.V. is looking for unpublished prose texts, lyrical works, essays, comics and visual artistic works for the first edition of its booklet.
Dyster is looking for literary and visual confrontations with the stranger, the divergent, the non-ego – in the field of tension of existentialist horror. Works that deal with questions of identity, alienation, isolation, physicality, consciousness, fear, loss of meaning or metaphysical uncertainty are desirable.
The “other” can appear internal or external, concrete or abstract, social, psychological or metaphysical. The focus is on atmospherically dense, philosophically open works that create discomfort and raise existential questions. Pure shock effects or illustrative clichés are not in the foreground. Searched posts Prose (short stories, short prose texts) lyricism (poems, cycles, experimental lyrical forms) Essays (literary-essayistic, reflective; no scientific works) Comics Drawings Photographs
Formalia – Text
Texts must be unpublished Language: German Scope Prose: max. 18,000 characters incl. Spaces Essays: max. 18,000 characters incl. Spaces Lyric: Single poems or cycles Max. 8 pages or 6,000 characters incl. Spaces Shape, Metric and Style Free (also experimental) Format file format: only .docx Please a short author:innenvita (max. 5 lines) add
All texts receive a professional proofreading and proofreading.
Formalia – Paintings / Comics Drawings, Photographs and Comics to match the theme
Submission as JPEG or PNG (comics also possible as PDF) Minimum resolution: 300 dpi (suitable for print) Please title, technology and, if necessary, The work must be copyright free from the rights of third parties About us dyster e.V. is a newly founded literary association dedicated to the promotion of dark, existential and philosophical literature as well as adjacent art forms. Our focus is on works that deal with horror beyond the mainstream as an aesthetic and epistemological form of expression. We see ourselves as a platform for new and established voices and want to create a space for aesthetic risk, thematic depth and interdisciplinary experiments.
The booklet
The booklet of dyster e.V. is published twice a year: as a print edition as an e-pub and as a podcast format, in which selected texts are read in full and arranged in literature All authors: inside the published texts receive a copy of the document. Participation in the podcast takes place by prior arrangement and with the consent of the authors. Notes dyster e.V. is under construction and pursues a long-term, professional claim All contributors are named and visibly presented The rights remain with the authors; only a simple right of publication for the respective issue requested submission deadline 15.08.2026
Submission to dyster.ev@gmail.com
deadline: 15. August 2026
more info: https://www.instagram.com/dyster.mag/
