Come one, come all! For Bat City Review’s upcoming issue, our theme is Bread & Circuses. We’re looking for work that entertains, that gives us something to chew on, that makes us hungry for more. 

Coined by the first-century poet Juvenal to describe the pacification of the Roman populace, panem et circenses has re-emerged as a contemporary diagnosis of our times. We want prose, poetry, and art about extravagance and empire, consumption and distraction, pleasure and pageantry. Give us the surreal, the real, the superficial. What are we being fed, and who gets to decide? What do we need and what are we given instead?

Bring us the feast. Bring us the spectacle. Bring us what’s hiding underneath.

Note: This theme a prompt and not a prescription. If your work has another appetite, we’d still love to see it!

Please upload visual art submissions here. 

We are receptive to art submissions of all kinds, inclusive of drawing, painting, photography, digital works, and documentation of sculpture and performance. We welcome anything that can be represented well in our print publication or on our website.

Editors may elect to publish accepted visual submissions either online or in our print issue, or both. 

Accepted file formats include: pdf, doc, docx, jpg, jpeg, mp4, tif, tiff, png, mov, avi.

If the file type you need is not available, please contact the Art Editor for assistance, or upload a .jpg photo or .pdf with a SAMPLE OF THE WORK. Specify the nature of the submission in your cover letter. The editors will review your sample and contact you if they wish to see more.

If you have further questions, contact our art editor at art@batcityreview.com

Students and faculty at the University of Texas at Austin cannot submit. If we have published your work, please wait a full issue cycle before submitting again (2 years).