Braided Way is a publication of the non-profit Spiritual Quest Foundation, showcasing the faces and voices of spiritual practice. We publish beautiful, honest, wide-awake work by new and established writers. We seek pieces exploring spiritual development that show respect for the diversity of and interconnection between the world’s faith traditions.
We nominate for Best of the Net, Pushcart Prize, and Best Spiritual Literature. We hope to begin publishing an annual Braided Way Anthology with selected pieces from our online magazine soon. (Prize nominees listed below How To Submit section.)
Our readers want to know more about:
- Personal spiritual journeys
- Braiding (intertwining) different faith practices
- Meditation, prayer
- First Peoples’ beliefs and practices
- Dreamwork
- Creativity and spirituality
- Mental health and physical health relating to spirituality
- Healing practices including Earth-based healing
- Death and dying
- Mysticism
- Insight into wisdom texts
Genres:
We are not yet a paying publication, but welcome you to promote your publications, workshops, and/or website in your bio. Simultaneous submissions welcome, but please let us know immediately if your work has been accepted elsewhere. We currently consider select reprints — please indicate if your submission has been published elsewhere.
Personal essays: up to 3,000 words
Articles: up to 3,000 words
Poetry: one to five poems
Interviews: up to 5,000 words
Fiction: up to 5,000 words
Photography and other forms of original art
Voices: themed reflections up to 250 words (themes listed here)
Faces: original images of spiritual significance to the artist (more info here)
How to submit:
Send to editor Laura Weldon: BraidedWay.submissions@gmail.com
Email subject line: indicate genre
Submissions may be in the text of the email or in attached Word document.
Include a bio of no more than 300 words, plus any website and social media handles you would like to accompany your bio.
Include a headshot.
Include your preferred email address.
Please include a line attesting you are the originator of the work(s) and own all rights.
If you don’t receive an acceptance or pass on your submission within two months, please
send an email to check its status.
If your submission is a reprint please make that clear. (We publish very few reprints.)
Authors retain all rights.
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2024 Pushcart Prize nominations
Ben Groner, III “A Sea Strewn Generously”
Bonner Odell “Poem For My Dying Father”
Fred LaMotte “Light of the Body”
James Hannon “Forsake Naming”
Kayden Vargas “Blooming Ashes”
Lory Widmer Hess “Relearning The Alphabet”
2024 Best Spiritual Literature nominations
Angela Townsend “Keep A Good Thought”
Alfred LaMotte “Smudge”
Alison Davis “I Marvel At”
John Backman “How To Help Your God Make Friends”
2024 Best of the Net nominations
Patrice DiChristina “The Story Beyond You“
Pauletta Hansel “To You“
Sam Hauff “Baptist Girl“
Miles Hitchcock “The Seventh Day“
Gary Phillips “Gurley and Nell“
Ellen Rowland “When The World Was Whole“
Michael David Sowder “उषस् UṢAS: Goddess of Dawn“
Dick Westheimer “Perhaps Prayer Is Thinly Scattered Matter“
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2023 Pushcart Prize nominations
B.J. Buckley “Hosanna”
Erin Esaryk “Sky Camp”
Fred LaMotte “Sweep”
Jackie Henshall “The Air”
Kitty Yanson “The Uses of Water”
Sophie Strand “The Animate Everything”
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2023 Best of the Net nominations
Bayo Akomolafe “Hum the Apple”
Benjamin Bagocius “Apple or Baby Jesus”
Jennifer Bullis “Placebo Effect”
Paula J. Lambert “Undone”
Alfred K. LaMotte “Return”
Andrea Potos “Be Receptive To Signs, She Said”
Maj Ragain “These Blues”
Sophie Strand “The Fairies Are Back & They’re Even Smaller”
Michael McCormick “Twelfth Pilgrim”
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer “And Mean It, Too”
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2022 Pushcart Prize nominations
John Backman “Love May Be All of This”
Catherine Hamrick “At Sunrise: For My Teacher”
Alfred K. LaMotte “Election”
Joe Plicka “Brain Trauma OR, Nothing Is Lost”
Sophie Strand “Your Body Is An Ancestor”
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer “There Is Only The Field”
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2022 Best of the Net nominations
Andi Shahu “I Would Like To Call It Beauty”
Sophie Strand “Mentorship With The More-Than-Human-World”
Paula J. Lambert “Christmas”
Tiffany Lee Brown “How To Stay Connected During The Covid-19 Crisis”
Joe Cottonwood “Like Pigs”
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer “On The Last Day of the World“
Godstime Nwaeze “The Way To God”
Jeff Hardin “Mysteries We Only Wander The Edges Of”
