ZO Magazine
ZO Magazine is a “Daily Changing” online publication. Our online launch in 2014 took off with such energy and acceptance that operations and reach left little time and resources to print, so we forged ahead with our Cloud and perhaps that was destiny! . . .
Now, after 12 years of exciting online creative features and live events, we will publish our first Collector’s Edition in June of 2027. The hard copy will be in 4 Volumes and we will feature the artistry and work of many in the amazing artist community that has helped us build and touch the world. The Collector’s Edition will include highlights from the artists featured on this page: ZO CREATIVE
ZO SUBMISSION
GUIDELINES
“Parameters”
These submission Guidelines (“Parameters”) are general and meant as basic criteria for submitting all content to the magazine.
All submissions are subject to these Parameters and these Guidelines should be read and reviewed before sending content or entering any of our Expos or contests. Everyone submitting content to ZO Magazine is subject to these Guidelines. If you disagree with the Parameters for content submission, please do not submit material.
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• All artists and authors published in our magazine are acknowledged as creators of their respective work (with name, byline, or other creator-requested acknowledgments).
• All submissions must be in English.
• ZO Magazine accepts unsolicited submissions. All submissions must be from the creator of the work.
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SUBMISSIONS
Annual submissions to ZO Expos have at least one “free entry.” (The Fee for those free Expo entries is paid for by Artitude International, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts organization.) We established this so that anyone (over 13) from anywhere in the world has an opportunity to submit their creativity. All other entries are charged at a rate noted on each project. Submission fees allow us to offer awards. Fees also help with costs for the Expos and support our mission to broaden positive artistic communications between diverse people around the world.
Generally, we need to garner at least 100 submissions in each category for all Expos to make an award in it (if not otherwise specified).
Unsolicited submissions are welcome, but we must charge a fee for processing unsolicited content at the following rates.
• $5 per poem for poetry (poems should not be over 25 lines, and will not be considered if so)
• $10 for articles, artistic interviews, and fiction between 300 and 700 words
• $20 for articles, artistic interviews, and fiction between 701 to 1500 words – we do not accept unsolicited material over 1500 words
- We do not accept non-relative unsolicited submissions while Expos are in progress
- We do not accept unsolicited editorial content that promotes a product, brand or creative enterprise. If you would like to promote your product, brand, or creative enterprise – connect with the ZO Community by Advertising or taking a City Sponsor page which is a really fun way to link to the world. (Page cost starts at $120 annually — and this is a really cool way to creatively advertise — in our opinion!). Cities are sponsored on a first come basis, so do it as soon as you can before someone takes the City you want.
• We are not set up to give editorial feedback at this time
• We do not accept submissions through email. Unsolicited email submissions will go unread.
Content and submissions for ZO Magazine are screened and chosen based on theme and continuity with our magazine’s style. Please review the abundance of material on our site to find out what we like from what has already been published.
ZO is a community of artists with a growing vision. We invite you to fully explore the creative offerings presented by our “different kind of Universe.” You will gather as you read through our content, that we are not a typical business type — hence, most of our outreaches and creative expos have a certain unique tilt. ZO is an experiment in human artistic connection with the high concept of building respect between people, cultures, and creative disciplines while working to promote peace through the arts.
ALL content must be submitted through a Submission Portal that ZO Magazine opens.
2026—2027
TIME THEATRE CREATIVE RPG BEGINS . . .
GAME ON
WE ARE ALL TIME TRAVELERS — SOME JUST DON’T KNOW IT YET . . .
CREATIVE GAME PARAMETERS
ZO Magazine’s TIME THEATRE* is a game that ZO is developing in connection with, and as a part of The O.D.D. Room film project** (“O.D.D.” — “Project” — “Game”). The Project is a Wheel Within a Wheel of Another Wheel. Rather than viewers watching the film, then responding — we started our OTHER DIMENSIONAL DISCUSSION Room journey in interactive sequence — bringing its audience in as Players, and projecting the discussion aspect of O.D.D. into the language of art, poetry, photography and other unique creative conversation. We are now inviting all artists, poets, musicians, photographers and creatives that have been a part of our 12 year journey, and those who connect through Submittable to join with us in 2027 as we continue the Project and prepare the Game for New Travelers. We treasure our building community of Creatives and look forward to working with many of you in Beta development of our new Time Theatre!
Creative Submission
Like our creative Expos, Time Theatre is open to submissions from creatives from anywhere in the world who are 13 years old or over (“Submitters”).*** All outside submissions (not from our Team) must come through ZO’s portal on Submittable. The goal of this initial beta development of our Time Theatre Game is to find up to 777 Time Masters to begin another level of the Project. This designation will have significance to the history and depth of the Game. Toward that goal, we will receive creative submissions that sync with the Time Theatre gameplay and O.D.D. projects that we are developing. These creative submissions will include art, poetry, photography, writing, and other unique creations that complement the Game (“Submissions” or “Project submissions”). These Submissions are specific to the Time Theatre and O.D.D. Projects. We do not ask for exclusive use of any of the Project Submissions. Because we are developing the Game and beta testing the gameplay on our website, we do ask that creations being submitted be those that the creator is comfortable sharing with a public audience.
Time Theatre and The O.D.D. Room are sci-fi, metaphysical, fictional documentary film, and game projects. While documentaries almost exclusively lie within the nonfictional — as to ‘document’ is to record a thing, person, or event as it happened, or even ex post-facto . . . ZO — a Different Kind of Universe, whose mission is to promote creativity and imagination will be knowingly breaking ground into a new genre. We believe our vocation to enhance the collaboration of artists, actors, writers, and thinkers promotes more light and understanding and that it is part of a greater circle of invention linked to some already imagined, theoretical, and existing principalities, powers, and rulers of the greater cosmos. Our production company, Collective Serendipity, studies, mirrors, discusses and expounds on these concepts — hence the name Other Dimensional Discussion.
Time Theatre and The O.D.D. Room are the Property of ZO International LLC (“ZO”) and their titles, game, gameplay and game development are the intellectual property of ZO. We feel that other artists and creators that may be working on similar creative projects (to Time Theatre or the O.D.D. Room film) in the sci-fi realm, may not want to submit to this Project, especially if they have specific intellectual property that may be similar. (For clarity and to reiterate our rights in regard to the Project, if, in the course of sharing with the Project, Submitters share content, products, processes, or other work that may have prior intellectual property ownership, ZO will be granted and have “nonexclusive”, royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide license to use that prior intellectual property as part of, or in connection with its Project.)
We currently project that submissions in regard to Time Theatre and the continuing O.D.D. Room Project will run through 2027. Like our Expos, we may offer awards or honorariums for certain designated creative submissions in particular categories. Exceptional or unique work in these categories will be highlighted with featured acknowledgements for the same. Those of you who have participated in our annual Expos (held for the past 12 years) will understand this feature process. For those who may be new to ZO, please see EXPOS at this link.
We are already planning for a significant honorarium for the FIRST GAME MOVE for Time Theatre, which is to — CREATE YOUR “ART ID CARD.” These Art ID Cards will be used as Identification throughout the Game to highlight and establish your “presence.” Obviously, we will be playing with a digital copy of your Art ID. We will encourage submitters to keep the original of their Art ID because over the years, if they continue in gameplay and their Art ID becomes known, the original art may become very valuable. The original Art will remain the property of the Submitter. (See Time Theatre page for more info.)
We are now tagging the game as | AN ABSTRACT ART GAME OF DEEP INTROSPECTION, STRATEGY, TIME & CREATIVE CONNECTION — GLOBAL PLAY. It now has 4 Levels of Play, but all of us at ZO know it is developing into much more, including its continuing film.
Information is developing at these links:
CREATIVE EXPO PARAMETERS
ZO’s creative Expos are designed as expository contributions to our expanding community of artists and authors. As such, the goals are not only to find the creative piece judged best — but also to reveal the wealth of work that we receive. We have worked hard to provide clear guidelines regarding the Expos and we continually evolve and improve, clarify, and enhance our communications to accurately evaluate and fairly present content.
Creative Submission, Evaluation, and Selection
Most of our Expos run for three to four months, but 2020 began a very unusual worldwide drama. The worldwide pandemic that we all dealt with and continuing global issues have changed access, especially for young artists in high school and college, who are usually a large part of our constituency. We have extended the time durations for our Expos to offer more time for consideration. It is certainly our feeling that creativity, art, thoughts, and life in general, could stand to be a bit slowed down and more fully enjoyed. During the term of the Expo, content is assessed and rated by a diverse group of evaluators who compile a blind top tier of finalists to be forwarded to Expo Judges. The Judges then rate the blinded submissions with numerical ratings. Those numerical ratings are then averaged, and winners are chosen based on these mathematical calculations.
Per our developing tradition, we may formulate a schedule from other top-tiered entries for feature and publication and post that schedule. Awards must be claimed within 30 days of notification. If our email (with notification of the award) is not responded to within thirty (30) days, the award will be donated to charity. Any listed cash awards are in U.S. dollars. We consider our awards a kind of honorarium for great work. We do not ask for exclusivity to publish the works, nor do we need anything other than a photo for art entries. For video entries, we ask that those be published and we judge from the already published work. Creators of the works retain full copyright to their original work, and we only ask for the courtesy of being able to publish the work in perpetuity (especially since we keep an archive of winners to continue to highlight their work). The awards are intended as a token of our appreciation and celebration of your work. For some entering, the awards may cover no more than a nice dinner with friends, for others, it may buy books, (dependent on where you are in the world — help with rent), etc. ZO has a broad array of international viewers, and we are mainly hoping to inspire and provide an enjoyable place for creative sharing.
We have found a lot of the entries we receive to be quirky, avant-garde, often excellently precise, and at other times deliberately abstract — and there are simply only “subjective” rulings for such when weighed together. The very talented international community that we now reach, and decisions on winners, have been very close and are subject to the broad tastes of our diverse community. That said, we have determined that all our viewers and the large constituency of artists that we deal with are all eligible to enter any of the Expos. We debated whether we should allow past winners to enter and have, for the moment, decided that “yes” past winners may enter all Expos. We believe our diverse constituency of evaluators, along with the blind judging does yield a very fair and mathematically derived winner — so if you win 4+ years in a row — congratulations.
Our highest hope is that you are inspired, enlightened, and feel a part of a supportive community when you visit ZO. We want you to have fun with the creative and literary offerings that we present. Good Luck in all your positive creative endeavors!
Parameters are subject to change and will be announced on this page. All submissions are subject to these parameters and any changes made.
* Time Theatre Title and Game © 2026 — ZO International LLC. All rights reserved.
** The O.D.D. Room © 2025 — ZO International LLC. All rights reserved.
*** ZO Magazine has orchestrated several Teen Expos and works with youth through its affiliated non-profit “Artitude.” By participating, accessing, and using our Site, you agree that, if you are 13 years (or between the ages of 13 and 18), you represent that your legal guardian is aware of and has reviewed and agreed to the Parameters, Terms of Use, and Privacy Policy for our Site (if required).
