Theme for Issue 05: Rooted & Ruptured

We are born of nature, yet we have been socialised to see ourselves as separate from it: visitors in a park, managers of a resource, consumers of a view. This severance is a profound wound; a primary rupture that mirrors the ways we are taught to distrust our own instincts, silence our inner rhythms, and exile parts of ourselves deemed "wild" or "unproductive."

To heal this rupture is a radical, political act. It is important to remember that our nervous system is calibrated to the sound of water and the scent of damp soil. We believe that healing our relationship with the natural world is a foundational act of self-care. It is the practice of listening to an intelligence older than thought, of finding our own wild rhythm in the cadence of seasons and decay. It is the rebellious act of remembering we are animal, we are ecosystem, we are interdependent. To care for a river is to care for the self. To grieve a species is to grieve a part of our own possible future.

This edition lives in that potent, painful, and beautiful overlap. We welcome submissions in any genre and style that explore the intricate, intimate ties between our inner landscapes and the outer wild. Show us:

• The Practices: The dirt-under-fingernails rituals that ground you. Is it foraging, gardening, bird-watching at dawn, or simply lying on the grass? How does this conscious communion rewrite your sense of time, purpose, or belonging?

• The Kinship: The specific, non-human relationship that has shaped you. A tree that witnessed your grief, a mountain that put your problems in scale, and an animal encounter that shifted your perspective.

• The Grief: The honest ache of ecological loss – for a place that has been developed, a species that is vanishing, a climate that is shifting. How does this mourning alter your understanding of self-care, community, and responsibility?

• The Reclamation: How does recognising your own "wildness"—your instincts, cycles, and feral heart—become a tool for breaking free from societal scripts of productivity, politeness, or disassociation?

• The Politics of Soil: How does growing your own food, rewilding a lot, or protecting a watershed become an act of communal care and systemic resistance?

Let’s create an issue that serves as a manual and a lament, a guide and a griever’s circle. Let it be a space where we remember: to defend the earth is to defend the self. The path to personal liberation is rooted in the soil of collective care.

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DEADLINE: 15 February 2026

PUBLICATION: March 2026

Please read the guidelines before submitting your work. Any work that does not meet our guidelines will automatically be disqualified.

redrosethorns publishes original short stories, creative non-fiction, fiction, poems, prose, memoirs, academia and more.

• Please submit your work through our secure online forms found on the right side of this page. You may submit your work either by uploading documents in PDF or Word format. (If you experience any issues with uploading your document, please reach out to us at contact@redrosethorns.com.)

• All submissions must be uploaded to the forms portal on the right side of this page. To comply with GDPR and CCPA requirements regarding the secure handling of personal data, we can only consider work submitted through our official submission portal. Please do not email your manuscript to our email address.

• redrosethorns (including this publication, Thorn & Bloom) only considers original, unpublished work. We do not accept pieces that have appeared anywhere else, including on personal websites, blogs, or social media.

• In alignment with our mission to champion authentic human voices, we do not accept submissions written or edited by artificial intelligence. Furthermore, our editorial process is entirely human-led; we do not use AI to evaluate, edit, or select work.

• You retain all copyrights of your work and full license to use your work after Thorn & Bloom publication. We require First Publication Rights, so please only submit work that has not been published elsewhere.

• All written work needs to be 2500 words max.

• You can submit as many pieces as you wish, though only submit one piece at a time. Please note that not all pieces submitted may be selected. 

• We do not charge for submissions; however, donations are always appreciated. 

• Please note that we do not offer compensation for pieces published in our publications. Nor do we offer complimentary print publications.

• DEADLINE for all submissions: 15 February 2026

We encourage folks of marginalised communities, including but not limited to women - both cisgender and transgender women, transgender men, non-binary, gender neutral, and Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour to contribute their work.​

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Please get in touch with us with any questions, concerns, or compliments at contact@redrosethorns.com

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redrosethorns does not tolerate any rudeness, discrimination, or aggressive behaviour of any kind for any reason. Only love and kindness are accepted in this space.