“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.”

George Orwell, 1984

In our contemporary moment, characterized by disinformation, censorship, and political doublespeak, language is weaponized to obscure the truth and manipulate reality. From state-sanctioned propaganda to the repetition of empty slogans, the force of words has become more perilous, with individuals and governments wielding language for personal and political gain. Words are repeated until they lose meaning; politicians and headlines contradict themselves; euphemisms conceal violence. Freedom is invoked while rights are dismantled. Jacques Derrida’s notion of iterability – that any utterance can be repeated and emptied of original intent and repurposed in new contexts – has become a discursive tool. Repetition in political rhetoric often serves to confuse rather than clarify. George Orwell’s concept of “Newspeak” is no longer fictional, as truth is reframed, erased, or drowned in a cacophony of competing narratives. As he writes in his post-war dystopian classic 1984, “[p]ower is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing” (224). Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky similarly note, “the media serve, and propagandize on behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them” (17), manufacturing consent and silencing dissent through fear. Language, then, is never neutral – it is a site of struggle, capable of oppression and resistance.

Literature, however, has long served as a site of resistance, remembrance, and radical possibility. As a poet preoccupied with injustice, Muriel Rukeyser has demonstrated that writers bear a responsibility to voice resistance. Poetry becomes a political act, a space for dissent, transformation, and survival. Fiction, too, challenges official narratives, amplifies marginalized voices, and renders visible what structures seek to erase. From the dystopian warnings of The Handmaid’s Tale, Fahrenheit 451, and The Memory Police to the defiance of racial violence in Citizen, to the indictment of colonial violence in The History of Mary Prince and Zong!, literature bears witness. In Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies, the colonial narrative form is challenged altogether, the work instead offering a fragmented and relational Indigenous mode of storytelling. Short stories like “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” encourage us to confront our complicity in systems of injustice, while young adult novels like The Hunger Games and The Marrow Thieves show how story and survival intertwine. Literary texts hold space for uncertainty, ambiguity, and moral questioning in ways that dogma cannot.

This issue of The Harbour Journal invites creative works that explore these tensions and possibilities. How do writers intervene in dominant discourses? How can narrative (de)construct truth? How does literature amplify marginalized voices or challenge institutional power? How does literature position ambiguity as a discourse of resistance?

Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following.

• Satire, allegory, and dystopia as tools of political critique

• Literature and protest: standing against censorship and control

• Wordplay, irony, and subversion in times of authoritarianism

• Decolonizing literature: reclaiming language, stories, and truth

• Speech acts, silence, and the poetics of refusal

• Literary responses to fake news, media consolidation, and cognitive dissonance

• Works that engage with complicity, self-delusion, and systematic gaslighting

• The politics of repetition and erasure: when words lose meaning

• Empathy, storytelling, and solidarity as acts of resistance

Submission Guidelines

The Harbour - true to its name - aspires to be a literary haven for all voices. We extend a warm invitation to individuals who identify as BIPOC, 2SLGBTQ+, disabled, or neurodivergent and those living with mental health challenges or conditions.

We invite previously unpublished original works of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.

Poetry submissions may include up to three poems totalling no more than ten pages. When submitting multiple poems, begin subsequent poems on a new page within the same document.

Fiction and creative non-fiction works should not exceed 5,000 words.

Multilingual submissions are welcome, provided that English remains the primary language.

Please send your work in a Microsoft Word format (.doc/.docx) with no identifying information.

Kindly include a short bio (100-150 words) in a separate document.

Submissions close on 11 January, 2026.

For questions or to send your work, you can contact The Harbour at theharboureditors@gmail.com