Open Calls

No Tears 2026 Summer Issue

No Tears is a project revolving around gothic subculture and the beauty in darkness.

Please note, formatting is done at the discretion of our creative team. You may include your preferences for how work should appear, but note that this may not reflect the final product.

The prompt

“What makes you wanna dance?”

What to send

Send up to 3 individual pieces of work, along with a short artist/author bio (at most 250 words) to Valentinekesterton@gmail.com

What we’re looking for

You can see examples of previous zine issues by clicking here.

Photography or Illustration

  • Send each piece of work as a JPEG. We will not accept PNGs, RAWs, SVGs, images in a PDF, or any other file type.

  • Please ensure that the pieces of work you send align with the prompt for this issue.

  • For photography, we allow diptychs and triptychs, but please specify which images are intended to be in sequence.

  • For illustration, if you intend to send a comic strip-style piece of work, please include all slides you wish to submit in the same JPEG.

  • We will not be accepting any work graphic in nature, depicting violence or suffering, assault or harassment, nudity, vulgar language, or works with explicit bigotry or undertones thereof.

Poetry or Long Prose

  • Send each piece of work as a PDF. We will not accept DOCX, TXT, or any other file type.

  • Your work should not already be published elsewhere, and should be relevant to the publication’s themes of gothic romance and horror.

  • For poetry, we are expecting submissions to fit across either an A5 page or a double-page spread in size 12 font, so your poem should be between 12 and 48 lines.

  • For long form prose, your passage should fit across at most one A5 double-page spread in size 12 font. If you are sending a selected passage from a much larger piece of work, please send either a synopsis or blurb for your work as you see fit, as well as your author bio.

  • We will not be accepting any work depicting assault or harassment, smut or explicit sexual content, overuse of vulgar language, or works with explicit bigotry or undertones thereof.

Gothic Events or Gothic Locales

  • Send a poster for an upcoming event, or a photo taken in the summertime at your locale, as a JPEG. We will not accept other file types.

  • Send a description of the event or locale (up to 250 words), as well as a link/qr code to your website.

Music Artists

  • Send a poster for an upcoming event, the cover for an upcoming release, photo of you/your band, or your artist logo, as a JPEG. We will not accept other file types.

  • Send a brief description of the upcoming release and/or yourself as an artist (up to 250 words).

  • (Optional) Include up to 4 lines of lyrics from a track on the upcoming release.

  • We will not be accepting any work graphic in nature, depicting violence or suffering, assault or harassment, overuse of vulgar language, or works with explicit bigotry or undertones thereof.

A woman dressed in gothic attire with pink and purple hair, dark makeup, and black lipstick, leaning against a stone wall at night. The image is the cover of a magazine titled 'No Tears,' with text indicating it's the Summer 2026 issue, an homage to Gothic style by Val Kesterton, with photography also by Val Kesterton.