Through narrative journalism, experimental essays, fiction, poetry, commentary, and art, Adi celebrates the conversations often marginalized from mainstream Western debates on policy, creating a space for exploration and insisting that policy reflects lived experiences.

Adi Magazine is a literary magazine of global politics founded in 2019 that is dedicated to rehumanizing policy.

Adi means “to strike” in Tamil, and has multiple connotations: a military intervention or attack, a form of protest, and a euphemism used by women to describe rape.

There is a gulf between the policies enacted by our political leaders and the people most affected by those decisions. Adi publishes new work each week that strikes back against the rules and structures that divide us. Through essays, reportage, fiction, poetry, and art, Adi rehumanizes policy by creating spaces for conversations marginalized from mainstream debates. We pull from a wide array of international and multicultural voices to foster nuanced analyses and offer intimate reflections on the impact of policies on everyday lives.

The magazine aims to bridge the gap between those most affected by policies and the decision-makers, fostering nuanced conversations often marginalized in mainstream Western debates. 


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Adi Magazine

We are living through a moment of acute political, social, economic, and environmental retrenchment across the globe, and it’s hard not to succumb to a feeling of powerlessness. But we know that, as Saidiya Hartman has shared, “So much of the work of oppression is policing the imagination.” 

So at Adi we are giving our imaginations free rein to combat political ennui and nihilism. We know that narratives themselves have power: the ability to build alliances and strategies, the capacity to foster hope for change, and the power to remake the ways we understand our world in the past, present, and future. 

We are looking for pieces about practices, ideas, and movements that were/are suppressed by economic, socio-cultural, religious, or (neo)colonial powers. We privilege perspectives from the global majority—people of color, queer people, all marginalized peoples—as they reflect on how politics and policies influence their daily lives. We are always interested in exploring how we might reorient our political universe toward those organic alliances, intertwined liberation theologies, grassroots movements, and revolutionary philosophies. 

But we are also excited by writing that explores alternative economies, subversive strategies, and surprising solidarities. Pieces could be based on historical events; grounded in contemporary, lived realities; or focused on imagined futures that subvert the current status quo. While the dominant voices in the media are focused on men in suits and geopolitics, we are trying to tell fresh stories and pulling perspectives from the margins to the center. Our editorial sensibilities are channeling Toni Morrison’s strategy for dealing with a monolithic literary world in which she was an outlier: “I was more interesting than they were. I knew more than they did. And I wasn’t afraid to show it.”

What kinds of stories might we tell, and what kinds of communities might we foster, if we stop being afraid to tell our own stories, real or imagined? 

As always, please interpret this call expansively and imaginatively. Familiarize yourself with the range and spirit of our archive; Adi tends toward creative, experimental approaches to political writing, measuring the effects of policy through the personal lives and direct experiences of people.

We shun dreary agitprop but love work that bends genres, that embraces the absurd, that excavates interior lives alongside external conflicts. Send us your best work that analyzes, satirizes, critically fabulizes, and fantasizes, that disturbs, beguiles, moves, challenges, surprises, and ignites.   

Fiction Open Call

Interviews

We welcome essay pitches from interested writers. Send us a short summary (3 paragraphs maximum) that describes the story you want to tell, how you will tell it, why it’s important, and why you’re the person to write it. Please include 1-2 links of your previous work and send it to admin[at]adimagazine[dot]com with “ESSAY PITCH” in the subject line. Please do not send attachments unless requested by the editors. Adi pays $600 USD for essays and $800 USD for graphic essays.

Essays & Reportage

Adi is seeking new poetry. Send us your work!

I will no longer lightly walk behind
a one of you who fear me
-June Jordan

Adi is thinking about alternative political visions for a world in desperate need of them. We are living through a moment of acute political, social, economic, and environmental retrenchment across the globe, and it’s hard not to succumb to a feeling of powerlessness. But we know that, as Saidiya Hartman has shared, “So much of the work of oppression is policing the imagination.”

So at Adi we are giving our imaginations free rein to combat political ennui and nihilism. We know that narratives themselves have power: the ability to build alliances and strategies, the capacity to foster hope for change, and the power to remake the ways we understand our world in the past, present, and future.

We are looking for pieces about practices, ideas, and movements that were/are suppressed by economic, socio-cultural, religious, or (neo)colonial powers. We privilege perspectives from the global majority—people of color, queer people, all marginalized peoples—as they reflect on how politics and policies influence their daily lives. We are always interested in exploring how we might reorient our political universe toward those organic alliances, intertwined liberation theologies, grassroots movements, and revolutionary philosophies.
But we are also excited by writing that explores alternative economies, subversive strategies, and surprising solidarities. Pieces could be based on historical events; grounded in contemporary, lived realities; or focused on imagined futures that subvert the current status quo. While the dominant voices in the media are focused on men in suits and geopolitics, we are trying to tell fresh stories and pulling perspectives from the margins to the center. Our editorial sensibilities are channeling Toni Morrison’s strategy for dealing with a monolithic literary world in which she was an outlier: “I was more interesting than they were. I knew more than they did. And I wasn’t afraid to show it.”
What kinds of stories might we tell, and what kinds of communities might we foster, if we stop being afraid to tell our own stories, real or imagined?

As always, please interpret this call expansively and imaginatively. Familiarize yourself with the range and spirit of our archive; Adi tends toward creative, experimental approaches to political writing, measuring the effects of policy through the personal lives and direct experiences of people.

We shun dreary agitprop but love work that bends genres, that embraces the absurd, that excavates interior lives alongside external conflicts. Send us your best work that analyzes, satirizes, critically fabulizes, and fantasizes, that disturbs, beguiles, moves, challenges, surprises, and ignites.

SUBMISSION LIMIT: UP TO 5 POEMS IN ONE SUBMISSION PACKET, NO MORE THAN 5 PAGES. Previously unpublished poems only.
If accepted, we pay $150/poem.

The deadline for submissions is MAY 31, though we welcome them earlier.

Translators: we’d love to hear from you, too! If you have unpublished work from writers who fit the bill, please get in touch. (If the story’s already been translated, just go ahead and submit, but if not, feel free to email us with a blurb about the potential story and we’ll take it from there).
INFO FOR SUBMITTERS:
Please send one submission at a time. We will automatically reject additional submissions. We do accept simultaneous submissions; please withdraw individual pieces if they are accepted elsewhere. Adi does not accept submissions generated with AI. Adi does not tolerate hate speech or discriminatory language of any kind.
***
Adi is a feminist literary journal of global politics. Founded in 2019, we’ve published new work from such writers as Tracy K. Smith, Nadifa Mohamed, Meena Kandasamy, Evie Shockley, Terese Mailhot, K-Ming Chang, and Rafia Zakaria. Named after a Tamil word with three meanings—protest, intervention, and violence—Adi’s aim is to platform political writing rooted in lived experience and a commitment to inventiveness, both formally and conceptually.

Spring 2026 Open Call for Poetry

We are inviting applications for a nonfiction editor for our literary journal of global politics. This is a part-time, remote position that reports to Adi’s editor in chief.<div><br></div><div>Founded in 2019 and named after a Tamil word with three meanings—protest, intervention, and violence—the magazine is rooted in the lived experience of politics and policy, with a focus on the global majority. Adi publishes essays, fiction, poetry, and original illustrations, with a particular interest in genre-bending and interdisciplinary works from established and emerging writers. </div><div><br></div><div>As nonfiction editor, you will help shape the direction of the magazine’s nonfiction selection by commissioning both established and new writers and soliciting and evaluating nonfiction pitches (essays, graphic essays, interviews, Again columns, and hybrid works). This position requires a strong editorial eye, good instincts, a deep appreciation for the craft of writing, an ability to engage with diverse voices from around the world, and a knack for helping new and established writers express themselves. You will help shape the tone, values, orientations, and politics of our magazine.</div><div><br></div><div>Responsibilities:</div><div><br></div><div><ul><li>Commissioning (10%): Solicit work from emerging and established writers, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds and from the global majority. Review pitches for clarity, style, structure, innovative voice, diversity, and thematic relevance to Adi’s core concerns. </li><li>Editing (75%): Provide constructive feedback to writers, guiding them through the editing process. Work in collaboration with the editorial team and fact checkers. </li><li>Editorial Meetings (10%): Participate in weekly editorial meetings to discuss pitches, submissions, magazine themes, upcoming publication schedules, and special events.  Collaborate with other editors.</li><li>Outreach and Engagement (5%): Seek out new and underrepresented voices that engage with global politics. Develop relationships with writers, organizations, activist and literary networks that focus on related themes.</li></ul></div><div><br></div><div>This is a remote, part-time position (10 hours/week) offering the opportunity to work closely with a dynamic team of editors currently based in the United States and the United Kingdom. This position is open to international candidates. The salary is $40 USD/hour.</div>

Adi Magazine

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