Issue One:
First Light/Primera Luz
EDITORIAL THEME
This season, we're seeking work that explores beginnings, emergence, and the quiet moments that bring us into the light. Like the desert at dawn, every story begins with a first light.
HonOraria
LANGUAGES
English & Español
We're currently accepting submissions for:
Help Shape the Story of This Place
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Poetry
Essays, Fiction &
Creative Non-Fiction
Photography
Visual
Art
Every published contribution receives compensation
Help write the first chapter of Desert Luz
We're assembling a collection of writing, photography, and visual art that reflects the beauty, complexity, and living cultures of the Sonoran Desert and the US–Mexico borderlands.
This inaugural issue will establish the foundation of our journal and introduce a new literary home dedicated to this place.
We welcome submissions in English and Spanish.
Every published contributor receives an honorarium and retains the rights to their work.
Join us in creating something that will endure.
"A culture fluent in its own voice, finally given the pages it deserves."
"Una cultura con voz propia, finalmente en las páginas que merece."
CALL FOR SUBMISSONS
A Journal Born from a Question
MISSION
What is missing?
Desert Luz is an arts and culture journal for the Sonoran Desert and the US-Mexico borderlands. We were born from a single question: What is missing? The answer was a bilingual journal rooted in this place, treating its bicultural, Spanish-language, and Indigenous artistic traditions as the story - not a footnote, not a special issue.
We publish writing, photography, and visual art in English and Spanish because this land has always spoken more than one language. We are celebratory, illuminating, a select number of voices, thoughtfully chosen, given the spaciousness to be heard.
VISION
Impossible to overlook
A world where the arts of the Sonoran Desert and borderlands are impossible to overlook. Where a print journal so beautiful it lives on the coffee table holds work that has earned its spaciousness - writing that knows when to breathe, images that trust the viewer, and stories that reward the kind of attention this land has always deserved.
We are building a legacy of creative work that outlasts its makers, making visible what was here all along: a culture fluent in its own voice, finally given the pages it deserves.
We're building the inaugural issue of Desert Luz and invite writers, poets, photographers, and visual artists to submit original work rooted in the Sonoran Desert and the US–Mexico borderlands.
We believe the stories of this place deserve care—and the artists who tell them deserve to be paid. Every published contributor receives an honorarium in recognition of their work.
Review our Contributor Guidelines, then submit your work for editorial consideration.
READY TO SHARE YOUR WORK?
Frequently asked questions