For our first issue, Loom is seeking work that critically, thematically or formally engages with music and sound. Music writing in its broadest possible form: deep dives into beloved artists, collaborations between writers and musicians, ekphrastic poetry, your name fanfiction (...literary), industry examinations etc etc etc.

Deadline

Pitches and full drafts for fiction, nonfiction, poetry and comics are open until Midnight AEST, Thursday 12 June 2025.

Pay

All selected artists will receive $180 for their work.

Constraints

• We are seeking previously unpublished work.

• Feel free to send a pitch, draft or something more fully fleshed out.

• You may submit up to three pitches and/or drafts for consideration.

• Pieces from ‘Quaver’ will first appear in print, and subsequently on our website. We encourage work that challenges and expands out of the page (requiring digital elements), but all pieces need to function effectively in print.

• For fiction and essays, we are generally looking for work between 1500–3000 words.

• We’ll be printing in duotone, page dimensions are 160mm by 200mm.

How to Submit

Fill out the submissions form on our Wufoo here.

Quaver sounds like quarter, although it is actually a half or an eighth, depending on what you’re dividing. Imagine being American and using measurements for music—‘full note’, ‘half note’ etc. Imagine being American—apparently they don’t like P!nk as much over there, or Kylie, or Robbie. What other celebrities should be represented by animals in their biopics, or toys, like Pharrell. 

♪♪♪

It is easy to understand how a pipe organ would reinforce belief in God. The Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ was refurbished in 2001—debuting with a commission from Phillip Glass. Glass was flown out—first class tickets funded by wealthy benefactors he had picked up when he still drove cabs, they’d just seen Einstein at the Beach. Or at least that’s the story that is told to emerging arts workers learning to build philanthropic relationships.

♪♪♪

On a hike you hear birdsong—first kookaburra, then raven, then something you don’t recognise, then magpie warbles, gang-gang creaks—pouring forth from a single source. Your uncle found a lyrebird feather nearby, but has never knowingly seen or heard them before. The sound feels like a magic trick; you can understand being seduced by it. 

♪♪♪

If a lo-fi beat hip-hopped with no-one around to study it, would it still make a sound? Everything in creation is noisy, from the hum of a blackhole to the pulse of blood in your ears. The spring burbles into the stream babbling to the river roaring to the ocean, where cetacean songs rise from mystical depths, evaporate in the whisper of sea foam, and then come raining back to earth to fill a lake where you skip a rock to make a harmony with the surface...

plip-plip-plip-

plonk!

♪♪♪

You’re standing right at the back and someone passes you a tub of earplugs. The same six guys just switching between sets all day. They’re a duo, and now they’re a four-piece band. You find the earplugs in your pocket the next weekend: there’s a new set of guys, a disco ball, a bassist who smiles.

Header: Timepiece for a Solo Performer, Udo Kasemets