submissions
Writing to right
“Writing is the only way I know how to survive. It is the way I find out who I am.”
— Cherríe Moraga, Loving in the War Years
barrio side hero cover design contest
Calling All East San José High School Artists!
Are you ready to have your artwork featured on the cover of a published book? This is your chance to design the official cover for the 2nd edition of Barrio Side Hero by local author Enrique S. Flores—a powerful story rooted in community.
Who Can Enter: High school students from East San José (East Side Union High School District and surrounding charter schools).
Deadline to Submit: May 23, 2025
Prize: $230. Your artwork will be featured on the cover of the new edition—plus bragging rights and two signed copies of the book!
Design Guidelines:
🎯 Create an original cover inspired by Barrio Side Hero
📏 Cover Size: 5.5 x 8.5
cover design submission form
EASTSIDE Echoes ANTHOLOGY
Call for Submissions
El Lado Este: Eastside Echoes Anthology
We are the stories we've been waiting for.
Whether it’s the barrio that raised you, the streets that taught you, or the stories that shaped your sense of self—El Lado Este is more than geography. It’s culture. It’s memory. It’s resistance. It's home.
Ocote Libre Press invites you to submit essays, prose, or poetry for El Lado Este: Eastside Echoes, a forthcoming anthology that honors the vibrancy, struggle, joy, and truth that pulses through the Eastside. This collection will center the rich, complex, and resilient voices that shape our barrios, our identities, and our collective memory.
We welcome voices that are rooted, reflective, raw, and real. Whether you’ve published with EASTSIDE Magazine before or are bringing your story to the page for the first time, your voice belongs here. If your words reflect cultura, resistance, love, struggle, or transformation—we want to hear from you.
Submission Guidelines:
Genres: Essays, creative nonfiction, short fiction, and poetry
Word count: Up to 2,000 words for prose; up to 3 poems (2 pages max per poem)
Languages: English, Spanish, or bilingual
Who can submit: Open to past contributors of EASTSIDE Magazine or those who share in its mission, regardless of previous publication history
Submission deadline: July 25, 2025
Submit to: Submit your work via the form here, or, if you prefer, email us directly at rosanna@ocotelibrepress.com. The aim is to make the process accessible for all.
Please include a brief author bio (100 words)
This anthology will honor the voices that have long sustained us—and spotlight new ones ready to rise. Let your story burn bright on the page. Let your words echo across generations.
Optional prompts to inspire your submission:
A memory from your first barrio home
What the Eastside taught you about survival, joy, or identity
A letter to your younger self or your ancestors
Love stories—romantic, familial, or communal
Street corners and sacred places
What gentrification cannot erase
Queer joy on the Eastside
The soundscape of your neighborhood
Food as memory and cultural archive
Stories your abuelita told you
Resistance, resilience, and rebellion in everyday life
Eastside Echoes submission form
"Personal experiences – revised and in other ways redrawn – become a lens with which to reread and rewrite the cultural stories into which we are born."
— Gloria E. Anzaldúa