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What is Beatdom?

About Beatdom & the Beat Generation

The Beat Generation is something people have trouble in defining. The participating members often later contested the name and their role within the group, and if we’re being strict and specific about it, one could boil the group down to a handful of writers.

More than that, the Beat Generation was an ethos. The Beats embodied a spirit that was created in reaction to their surroundings. They existed at a specific place in time and probably would not have existed elsewhere.

People become confused about who the Beats were. They might know a few names and facts, but often the word “Beat” or “Beatnik” is applied incorrectly.

Beatdom began as a literary journal devoted to the study of the Beat Generation. However, it has changed since then. Today more than 95% of submissions for Beatdom are poetry or short fiction. Also, the bulk of our fan mail is in praise of our poets and fiction writers.

It seems that our readers consider themselves modern Beatniks…

Which as I’ve noted is a silly notion. We are not Beatniks. We are something different. As the Beats recognised their influences, so shall we. We shall hold Ginsberg as our inspiration as he held Blake.

We can take their ethos and change it and apply it and become something significant in ourselves. The Beats sought to make their own special place in a cold, unforgiving world, and that is an important message. They sought to reveal their souls through their art, and that is something we can do.

We are not part of the Beat Generation. We may perhaps be a New Beat Generation or Beatdom Generation, but we are something different from our predecessors

And so Beatdom magazine will be different from our original ideas. We will no longer devote the majority of our pages to studies of the past, but instead focus on tying the past, the present and the future together with the Beat ethos.

Beatdom will publish more modern poetry and fiction, and help advance the cause of literature today.

In doing this, we need the help of our readers and contributors, so please see our new submission guidelines.

Updated Submission Guidelines

As the editor of a magazine I spend a lot of time reading submissions, and 95% of these are entirely inappropriate for Beatdom.

The thing is, Beatdom’s a tough magazine to describe. If you read the description above you might get it, but the only sure-fire way to understand is to read the magazine. But if you really find yourself eager to send me your work, please read this over first… I’ll make it as simple as possible. Anything that doesn’t fit this will be dismissed. Sorry to be harsh, but it’s gotten to the stage that I can no longer read every poorly conceived submission.

What do we want?

The ideal submission for Beatdom would be an essay on some aspect of the Beat Generation. It can be contrived – we don’t mind that. The best submissions would be well written, and on a topic that is interesting and yet has not been thoroughly covered by other books or literary journals.

We also accept poetry and fiction that relates to the Beat Generation in some way… Which is where the next section comes in…

How do we want it?

I don’t care if you call me “Sir” or if you double space your submission at 12pt in a certain font. As long as it’s readable I’ll probably read it.

Having said that, I want a few things from potential contributors that have been overlooked in the past.

I want to know why you’re writing to me. Don’t send me a poem and say “I wrote this”. Tell me what you think of Beatdom. Tell me why your poem should be in the magazine.

Explain what link your work has to the Beats. Again, I don’t care if it’s contrived. Just tell me what inspiration some piece of Beat fiction had on your writing.

I try to reply to each and every submission, but if you litter your e-mail with misspelled words, grammatical errors and it’s clear that you just want to fire away another submission without caring about the goals of this particular magazine, I will not even bother to reply.

Assuming you've read all this, e-mail me at editor@beatdom.com