BALLOONS Lit. Journal (BLJ) is an electronic literary journal of poetry, fiction and art that is primarily aimed at young readers aged around 10-16. They have a beautiful and easy to navigate website. BLJ is based out of Hong Kong. However they only publish English language writing. They are planning to publish their inaugural issue in early February.
Because they are aimed at a younger audience than most literary journals, they set themselves apart from a lot of the other journals out there. However, even if the work is aimed at children in middle school and teens in high school, they are open to submissions from anyone, of any age.
Even though they are geared towards a younger audiance BLJ’s editors ask that “Rather than writing anything specifically for BLJ‘s readers, you should consider if we could find in your submission, however complex and philosophical, the elements that could enlighten and amaze the young minds.”
They will be reading submissions year around, but anything received after January 31st 2015, will only be considered for issue two.
Submissions are accepted via email only. Your submission should include a cover letter with your brief bio note that contains something interesting and unique. If the author is a child or a teenager, they would like to know their age. You can submit between 3-5 poems at a time, one fiction piece, or 3-5 pieces of art.
Because BLJ is so new, it will be interesting to see what kind of work they publish and how they grow and develop over time. To learn more about BLJ or to submit, visit their submission page here.
