Love Me, Love My Belly

a body image zine

Love Me, Love My Belly (LMLMB) is a print zine dedicated to the acceptance of self and imperfection as beauty. It’s about the space between us, our differences, our scars, our wobbly bits, and our power as it relates to the bodies we live in. We publish as our issues fill, about every year to year and a half.

Our zine reading period fluctuates. We consider electronic submissions only.

submission guidelines

reading period

May 1st - May 31

LMLMB considers a variety of works ranging from photographs or other artworks to poetry and essay in which size or body image is a central theme. We’re looking for work that ultimately comes to a positive message or close, work that revolves around self acceptance, or work that seeks to accept perceived-imperfection as beautiful.

Please do not submit work that apologizes for itself.

We do not consider AI generated pieces.

the details

Creative Nonfiction

All kinds of work will be considered, including essay, lyric essays, letters, lists, profiles, and chunks of memoir. Works should range from 500 to 3,000 words in standard manuscript format. We will consider stand-alone excerpts of longer pieces.

Poetry

We will read up to 5 poems at a time (no more than 10 pages total for those writing long poems). Please include all of your poems in one document. (Note: We are not interested in rhyming poetry.)

Art

We prefer high contrast black and white work (we print via b&w laser). All media will be considered. Please include a list of titles, media, and sizes with up to 5 pieces of work. Initial submission should be .jpgs of up to 7 inches on the longest side. Vertical images are preferred. If we agree to publish your work, we'll ask for high res files.

Notes

All Submissions must be in standard manuscript format. Please do not submit in Courier. Garamond or Times New Roman are best for us! 

Rights

We ask for First North American Serial Rights—copyright reverts to respective poets/artists upon publication. We may contact various authors to request rights to feature content/excerpts on the website or in promo materials. 

Notification

We will do our best to make notification of acceptance within 8-12 weeks of submission, schedule permitting. If you do not receive a reply within 90 days, please query via submittable using the activity tab to add a note to your submission. This auto-generates a notification for us.

Payment

LMLMB pays in one contributor copy.
No monetary compensation is available at this time.
30% (or more) discount on additional contributor copies is offered.

submit

We read via Submittable, an online submission manager.