About

C21: Journal of 21st-century Writings is the official affiliated journal of the British Association for Contemporary Literary Studies (BACLS). The journal is dedicated to examining the genres, forms of publication, and circulation of 21st-century writings. Originally launched in 2012, and open access since 2016, C21 aims to create a critical, discursive space for the promotion and exploration of 21st-century writings in English. It addresses a range of narratives in contemporary culture, from the novel, poem and play to hypertext, digital gaming and contemporary creative writing. The journal features engaged theoretical pieces alongside new unpublished creative works and investigates the challenges that new media present to traditional categorisations of literary writing.
 
Articles are encouraged from academics, contemporary writers, publishers and readers. The journal publishes articles on 21st-century writings as well as reviews, features and opinion pieces from academics, readers and writers in the field, and conference reports.

Journal History

C21 was originally launched as a journal with Gylphi Press, an independent arts and humanities publisher specialising in the contemporary period. In 2016, C21 joined the Open Library of Humanities (OLH) and became Open Access. All content published since then is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.

Focus and Scope

C21 aims to create a critical, discursive space for the promotion and exploration of 21st-century writings in English. It addresses a range of narratives in contemporary culture, from the novel, poem and play to hypertext, digital gaming and contemporary creative writing. The journal features engaged theoretical pieces alongside new unpublished creative works and investigates the challenges that new media present to traditional categorisations of literary writing.

Articles are encouraged from academics, contemporary writers, publishers and readers. The journal publishes articles on 21st-century writings as well as reviews, features and opinion pieces from academics, readers and writers in the field, papers, review papers, case studies, rapid communications (letters), conference reports and calendars of events and provides a range of advertising opportunities for publishers and academic institutions.

The journal is supported by an interdisciplinary editorial board from North America, Europe and the Pacific Rim.

Publication Frequency

The journal is published online as a continuous volume and issue throughout the year. Articles are made available as soon as they are ready to ensure that there are no unnecessary delays in getting content publicly available.

Special collections of articles are welcomed and will be published as part of the normal issue, but also within a separate collection page.

Publication Fees

This journal is published by the OLH. Unlike many open-access publishers, OLH does not charge any author fees. This does not mean that we do not have costs. Instead, our costs are paid by an international library consortium.

If your institution is not currently supporting the platform, we request that you use our 'Recommend Us' tool. The OLH is extremely cost effective and is a not-for-profit charity. However, while we cannot function without financial support and we encourage universities to sign up, institutional commitment is not required to publish with us.

Citation Metrics

C21 is archived and indexed according to the publisher's policy.