Palaver Mission Statement

Traditional sources offer many definitions for the word palaver. These show a turbulent history in the word’s vernacular—from tribal  “palaver huts” where Portuguese traders negotiated with African tribesmen in a dialogue between native and invader, to the colloquial hijack: a “fuss or commotion”—palaver comes to us with some proverbial  baggage.

Palaver is UNCW’s online interdisciplinary journal housed in the Graduate Liberal Studies program. At Palaver, we challenge and embrace the vintage definition of “an often prolonged  parley usually between persons of different levels of culture and  sophistication.” A palaver encourages a dialogue of multiple perspectives. We showcase the distinct intellectual pursuits of contributors, merging those diverse endeavors to give rise to a new dialogue.

Palaver seeks submissions that defy the confines of a single discipline and explore the multiple disciplinary influences that the subject necessitates. We publish creative and research-based work that values the nonrestrictive and looks beyond the paradigms of the discipline to converge versatility, skill, and ingenuity. Palaver is a venue for this innovative work, promoting the visionary talents of contributors across an array of interests. We encourage palaver within your work.

Submission Guidelines

Submissions to Palaver are open February 15 until September 14. We publish on an annual basis in May. 

Palaver is extremely interested in exploring interdisciplinarity, not only in content, but also in form. We accept poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, visual art, multimedia submissions, multimedia-text hybrids, and research-based prose.

Creative prose: Please submit only one story or creative essay. Due to the volume of submissions Palaver receives, please limit your prose to thirty pages.

Poetry: You may submit up to five poems.

Multimedia:  We allow up to ten file uploads of visual art/multimedia. Our Submittable account accepts jpg, tiff, gif, png, MP4, and mov files for art submissions.

Research-based prose: Research-based prose should  be typed, double-spaced, and follow MLA (8th edition) guidelines. Due  to the volume of submissions Palaver receives, we ask that academic pieces run no longer than twenty-five pages.

No multiple submissions. Please wait until you have heard back from the first submission before submitting a second time.

No self-identifying information should be present in the body of your work, due to our blind review process. The file name should only include the title of your submission. Only fill out identifying information on the form provided by Submittable. If your submission includes your name in the content and cannot be removed (e.g. the credits of a video), don't sweat it.

Palaver does not accept previously  published work, be it print or online. Simultaneous submissions are encouraged. If the submission is accepted elsewhere, please notify us immediately and withdraw it from Palaver. If a portion of your submission is accepted elsewhere—for example: one or more poems from a submission of multiple poems, or a portion from a longer work of  prose—please update your submission with a note in Submittable.

If any part of your submission contains images or other elements for which you do not own the copyright, it is your responsibility to obtain formal permission to reproduce those works. If this pertains to your work, please note this in your cover letter.

Unfortunately, due to limited resources, Palaver cannot pay for accepted submissions at this time.

Palaver contacts submitters about their submission status within six months.

All submissions should be submitted via Palaver's Submittable account (only open during our reading period). No submissions should be e-mailed. If you have questions, please contact us at submissions@palaverjournal.com or scottj@uncw.edu