Tag: photography

  • Call for Submissions

    Turn out’s been great so far, but that doesn’t mean we’re done yet! If you’re interested in submitting a piece for the Fall 2016 issue of El Portal, there’s only five days left! Fiction, nonfiction, flash fiction, poetry, photography, and art are all welcome internationally! Simultaneous submissions are welcome. Deadline March 31st. For Terms of Submission: Click…

  • This is West – Skies of Brown, Clouds of Gray

    There was nothing beautiful about a New Mexican spring. For every flower and warm, sunny afternoon there were six or seven lung-fuls of dust and needle-like torrents of sand blasted at her face at thirty (sometimes forty or, God forbid, even fifty) miles per hour. There was no beauty in a sky painted brown, a…

  • Call for Submissions

    Did you know El Portal has been published since 1939? Get in on our long publication tradition and submit to the Fall 2016 issue! Fiction, nonfiction, flash fiction, poetry, photography, and art are all welcome internationally! Simultaneous submissions are welcome. Deadline March 31st. For Terms of Submission: Click Here For Submission Guidelines: Click Here El Portal also recently released…

  • Call for Submissions

    It’s two weeks until the deadline and El Portal is still accepting submissions for its Fall 2016 issue! Fiction, nonfiction, flash fiction, poetry, photography, and art are all welcome internationally! Simultaneous submissions are welcome. Deadline March 31st. For Terms of Submission: Click Here For Submission Guidelines: Click Here El Portal also recently released its Fall 2015 issue,…

  • This is West – Dear Samantha

    Dear Samantha, It’s been hard out here in the desert without you, even though the desert here in Afghanistan often looks a lot like New Mexico. I want you to know I got your letter with the picture of you at the Grand Canyon with your mom. Looks like fun! I don’t have any pictures…

  • Call for Submissions

    The deadline’s fast approaching, but El Portal is still accepting submissions for its Fall 2016 issue! Fiction, nonfiction, flash fiction, poetry, photography, and art are all welcome internationally! Simultaneous submissions are welcome. Deadline March 31st. For Terms of Submission: Click Here For Submission Guidelines: Click Here El Portal also recently released its Fall 2015 issue, which we’re…

  • This is West – Coral and Mesquite

    “It’s not the same,” you remind her gently, still several dozen miles from your destination. Even though you can’t look at her, you can feel her eyes scanning the horizon, miles upon miles of sun-baked earth and yellow grass, mesquite bushes and cracked asphalt patched once, twice, a thousand times, the sealed lines spreading out with…

  • This is West – Down Range

    “I’m suffocating in all of this openness,” he said over a pecan beer and our favorite sugary sunrise. “Jerry, stop it. There’s plenty of room to breathe here.” We’d spent most of our savings on the move. On the truck we hadn’t needed in the city. On some specific sort of peace of mind. Quiet.…

  • Call for Submissions

    El Portal is still accepting submissions for its Fall 2016 issue! Fiction, nonfiction, flash fiction, poetry, photography, and art are all welcome internationally! Simultaneous submissions are welcome. Deadline March 31st. For Terms of Submission: Click Here For Submission Guidelines: Click Here El Portal also recently released its Fall 2015 issue, which we’re proud to say includes a…

  • This is West – Light of the World

    Look up, dear wanderer, dear withered man scorched brown by ten thousand rising suns. Look up over the wall of your mortality to the morning star that has finally stolen your life. Your ancestors worshiped the light of the world, wondered at the renewed blessings of illumination that wiped away the shadows from the face…

  • This Is West – Red-Pepper Trailer

    “There’s no magic here.” She said. Her hair was black ice, slippery shine. Her fat lips formed around the words as if she were praying to the god she couldn’t find again. She’d tried. Time and again, she’d tried. Bending knees never led her back to Mexico–the sharp incline of rock where her grandmother had…

  • A Welcome and Call for Submissions

    Welcome back! Today marks the beginning of ENMU’s Spring 2016 semester and with the Spring 2016 issue well under way, it’s time to look towards the future. El Portal is now accepting submissions for its Fall 2016 issue. Fiction, nonfiction, flash fiction, poetry, photography, and art are all welcome internationally! Deadline March 31st. For Terms of…

  • This Is West – Eyes for Living; Hands for Growing

    Andrew stoops down to the snow-dusted earth and claws out a scoop of dirt into his hand. His four-year-old daughter Abigail, held with the other hand, watches him with searching eyes. She loves to watch her father move in his deliberate way, burly arms swinging beneath three layers of clothing in the new winter cold;…

  • This Is West – Winter Nights

    There is no stillness like winter nights on the plains, cold creeping through the cracks in the earth and the gaps around aged windows, chilling skin and bone even through layers as I stand just inside the screen door listening to the watery whisper of rain against concrete, chain-link, and dust. Nobody ventures outside these days.…

  • El Portal – Fall 2015 Edition

    Readers can now access the PDF version of El Portal’s Fall 2015 issue.  Click on the image above to access the PDF file.  If you have any questions about the Fall 2015 issue, please feel free to contact the editor at el.portal@enmu.edu. Full List of Contributors: Sreyash Sarkar “Whirligig” Justin J. Murphy “Space-time Snakebite Continuum…

  • This Is West – Wildflower Ranch

    Dried rhubarb hangs from a small golden chain over a kitchen sink where his grandmother used to bathe him. “She thinks it keeps spirits away.” He says as he dips his grease-stained mechanic hands into soapy unfiltered water. He’s lived in this brown place all of his life. His grandfather helped lay the brick that…