Scuffed Writing

As part of More Than One Boyfriend’s focus on art-making as a communal pursuit, throughout the month we’re going to be interviewing some of the incredible artists we’re in community with about the non-writing practices that inspire them and make them feel connected to the communities they’re part of. Today’s feature is on Jaric Sarmiento, co-editor of More Than One Boyfriend, and his cooking!

What is Boyfriend Village?

Boyfriend Village is, acclaimed literary journal, Black Warrior Review’s online edition, released once and sometimes twice a year. 

We just opened submissions for our new issue More Than One Boyfriend!

Our submission call for the issue is as follows:

Black Warrior Review is seeking submissions of all genres for our eighth edition of Boyfriend Village: More Than One Boyfriend.

There’s a misconception about writing being a solitary pursuit. Even as a singular author working with a single piece of paper at a desk with only one chair, you have to ask: who provided the ink? How many people were involved in making the desk and the chair? How much history of production, engineering, mathematics, government, and philosophy is behind this single moment? More Than One Boyfriend seeks to correct this misconception by encapsulating the ways in which writing, like everything else, is a communal pursuit.

This might mean work authored by more than one person, yes, but also any work that is informed by more than one practice, more than one medium, more than one language, more than one voice, and more than one piece of art. It means ekphrastic work, erasure, reiteration, and bilingual writing. It means writing in conversation with and incorporating visual art, music, and interactivity; art that moves more than one of the senses. It means intersectional writing from writers with multifaceted backgrounds, whose work speaks to more than one mode of being. Writing that highlights more than one experience, more than one point of view, more than one voice, more than the one perspective we’re used to hearing the story from. Writing about the collaborative spirit; writing that tells the reader that they are more than just one.

More Than One Boyfriend asks for work that is more than itself.

This year’s issue is helmed by our first collaborative team of Online Editors, Darby Power & Jaric Sarmiento! Find out more about this dream team, and their vision for this year’s Boyfriend Village, on Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and Mastodon. 

Submissions are open between April 1st, 2024, and May 1st, 2024. While themed, this is open to interpretation. If you think your boyfriend(s) might belong in our village, don’t hesitate—send them along!