Submissions are now open for Backlit 2025.
Backlit is the annual magazine of Inkspillers Raglan Writers’ Collective. Following a successful debut in 2024, the magazine is now making an open call for submissions from writers from the Whaingaroa rohe (Raglan area).
Backlit was the brainchild of collective member, Matt Kambic, who was inspired after seeing a similar literary magazine while visiting family in the United States. The magazine showcases the work of the collective’s members and is distributed free in local cafes, galleries and shops.
Feedback last year was overwhelmingly positive, with readers appreciating having something interesting, local and varied to read with their coffee.
This year, thanks to the generosity of the Waikato District Council’s Creative Communities Scheme, Backlit is able to extend its reach, offering the opportunity for other local writers to submit their work for publication.
We’re looking for stories, poems, essays and musings, fiction and non-fiction – let your pen (or fingers) fly and your imagination run wild.
Because of the nature of some of the content, submissions this year are only open to adults. But for the future, we’re hoping to find a way to include work from our talented local youth too.
The rules for submission:
• writers living in the wider Whaingaroa rohe can enter
• writers must be 18 years or over to enter
• one entry per writer
• any genre
• the word limit is 1000 word for prose, or up to 4 poems
• entry is free
• there’s no payment, but you’ll get five copies of the magazine to share with family and friends (or complete strangers).
The deadline for submissions is Wednesday 18 June 2025. Send your work as an attachment or in the body of an email, along with your name, address and contact details to: inkspillersraglan@gmail.com.
The work of two to three writers will be selected for inclusion in the magazine, and we’ll let you know around the end of June if you’ve been successful.
