Aims & Scopes
“Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.”
— Fernando Pessoa
Section 1
About the Journal
Creative Saplings is an international, open-access, double-blind peer-reviewed monthly journal devoted to the scholarly and creative study of English language, literature, and culture. Founded in 2007 and published by the Society for Academic Facilitation and Extension (SAFE), Regd., Bareilly, India, the journal has grown into a genuinely international forum where researchers, academics, postgraduate students, and creative practitioners from across the world come together to advance knowledge in the English literary and linguistic disciplines.
The journal takes its name from an image of organic growth — the sapling as an emblem of emerging thought, nurtured scholarship, and the perpetual vitality of literary inquiry. Creative Saplings is committed equally to the rigorous examination of established literary traditions and to the cultivation of new critical voices, methodologies, and creative expressions that continue to enrich and expand the field of English literary studies.
| Feature | Detail |
|---|---|
| Review Type | Double-blind peer review conducted by at least two independent expert reviewers per submission |
| Publication Model | Diamond Open Access — no subscription, no APC, no hidden charges to authors or readers |
| Frequency | Monthly — twelve issues published per year |
| Ethics Framework | Full COPE compliance at every stage of submission, review, editing, and publication |
| Licence | Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) |
Section 2
Mission & Vision
The mission of Creative Saplings is to provide a high-quality, ethically governed, and freely accessible scholarly forum for original research, critical inquiry, and creative expression in English literature, language, and culture. The journal holds that significant literary scholarship must be freely available to readers everywhere — without financial, institutional, or geographical barriers — and that the open exchange of ideas is the foundation upon which a vital academic culture is built.
The journal recognises that English literary studies is a discipline of extraordinary breadth, encompassing not only the analysis of canonical texts but also the interdisciplinary examination of culture, society, history, identity, and language. It warmly welcomes scholarship that crosses disciplinary boundaries while remaining grounded in the close reading and sustained critical analysis of literary texts, and it is particularly committed to work that brings marginalised, minority, and underrepresented literatures into productive dialogue with the wider global literary tradition.
Section 3
Scope of the Journal
Creative Saplings invites original, previously unpublished contributions across the following areas of English literary and cultural study. Submissions may take the form of full-length research articles, critical essays, review articles, creative works, or scholarly book and film reviews. All submissions are subject to the journal’s rigorous double-blind peer review process.
| Area | Topics Covered |
|---|---|
| Literary Studies & Criticism | British, American, and Anglophone world literatures; Indian Writing in English (poetry, fiction, drama, non-fiction); postcolonial, Commonwealth, and diasporic writing; African and Afro-American literature; comparative literature; life writing and memoir; science fiction and children’s literature; Dalit, tribal, indigenous, and cyber literatures |
| Critical Theory & Methodology | Postcolonial theory and decolonial criticism; feminist, gender, and sexuality studies; ecocriticism and environmental humanities; New Historicism and cultural materialism; psychoanalytic, Marxist, and ideological criticism; poststructuralism, narratology, and discourse theory; interdisciplinary approaches connecting literature with history, philosophy, and sociology |
| Language & Linguistics | English language teaching (ELT) and pedagogy; applied linguistics and discourse analysis; stylistics and literary linguistics; sociolinguistics of English as a global language; translation studies and multilingual literary cultures |
| Interdisciplinary & Cultural Studies | Cultural studies, media studies, and film criticism; folklore, oral tradition, and ethnoliterary studies; digital humanities and cyber literature; gender, sexuality, and identity in literary culture; literature and the visual arts |
| Creative & Practice-Based Writing | Original poetry subject to double-blind peer review; short fiction, flash fiction, and creative non-fiction; personal essays, interviews, and memoirs; scholarly book reviews and film reviews |
Creative and practice-based contributions are evaluated for literary merit, originality, and contribution to the journal’s scholarly community. All submissions — whether research articles or creative writing — undergo the journal’s full double-blind peer review process.
Section 4
Distinctive Focus
Creative Saplings holds a particular commitment to publishing research that engages with Indian, South Asian, and Global South literary and cultural traditions alongside the broader English literary canon. The journal regards diversity of perspective — geographical, methodological, theoretical, and cultural — as a core intellectual value, not merely an institutional aspiration. It actively promotes scholarly engagement with literatures and voices that have been historically marginalised or underrepresented in mainstream academic discourse.
The journal contributes to the ongoing decolonisation of literary scholarship while maintaining the highest international standards of peer review and publication ethics as recognised by DOAJ, the MLA International Bibliography, Crossref, and Web of Science indexing criteria.
In combining peer-reviewed scholarly research with peer-reviewed creative writing, Creative Saplings affirms its conviction that the creative and the critical are not opposed activities but mutually enriching dimensions of a single literary culture — that the scholar and the poet, the critic and the storyteller, inhabit and illuminate the same imaginative world.
Section 5
Target Readership
The journal addresses researchers, academics, postgraduate students, and practitioners in the humanities, with particular relevance to those engaged with English literary and cultural studies across national and institutional contexts. It equally welcomes contributions from independent scholars, emerging researchers, and creative practitioners worldwide who seek a rigorously peer-reviewed and internationally visible publication platform.
Section 6
What We Do Not Publish
In the interest of maintaining scholarly integrity and ethical responsibility, Creative Saplings does not accept or publish the following:
- —Plagiarised, previously published, or simultaneously submitted manuscripts
- —Content promoting discrimination on grounds of caste, religion, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, or sexual orientation
- —Commercially motivated, advertorial, or product-promotional material
- —Work that violates the rights, privacy, or dignity of any individual or community
- —Manuscripts solicited through commercial, fee-based, or direct-marketing channels
- —Submissions substantially generated by artificial intelligence tools without explicit author disclosure
Section 7
Open Access & Licensing
Creative Saplings is a Diamond Open Access journal. All published content is freely available online immediately upon publication — without subscription fee, article processing charge (APC), or any other cost to authors or readers. The journal operates entirely on a volunteer basis, with no financial barriers to publication or access of any kind.
| Provision | Detail |
|---|---|
| Licence | CC BY-NC 4.0 — permits free reading, downloading, sharing, and adaptation for non-commercial purposes with proper attribution to original authors and source |
| Author Copyright | Authors retain full copyright of their published work. The journal is granted a non-exclusive licence to publish and distribute the article in open-access form |
Section 8
Peer Review & Publication Standards
All submissions to Creative Saplings undergo a rigorous Double-Blind Peer Review process conducted by at least two independent expert reviewers. The journal adheres fully to the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and is committed to transparency, fairness, and the highest standards of academic integrity at every stage of the editorial process. Manuscripts are assessed for originality, scholarly rigour, clarity of argument, methodological soundness, and contribution to knowledge in the relevant field.
The journal maintains dedicated policies on retraction, plagiarism, conflict of interest, and complaint handling — all published in full on the journal website and aligned with international best-practice standards required by DOAJ, the MLA International Bibliography, Crossref, and Web of Science indexing criteria.
Section 9
Indexing, Abstracting & Digital Preservation
The journal is indexed, abstracted, and permanently preserved by the following internationally recognised scholarly databases, directories, and archiving systems. Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) are assigned to all articles published from April 2022 onwards via Crossref membership (prefix: 10.56062).
| Database / Service | Type |
|---|---|
| MLA International Bibliography | Indexing & Abstracting |
| Crossref (DOI Prefix: 10.56062) | DOI Registration |
| WorldCat / OCLC | Library Discovery |
| BASE — Bielefeld Academic Search Engine | Open Access Search |
| Index Copernicus International | Evaluation & Indexing |
| Sherpa Romeo / Jisc | OA Policy Registry |
| AURA / AmeliCA | OA Journal Discovery |
| Mir@bel | Journal Information Network |
| Archive-It (Internet Archive) | Digital Preservation |
| PKP PLN | Digital Preservation |
| LOCKSS | Distributed Digital Preservation |
Section 10
Invitation to Contributors
Creative Saplings warmly invites contributions from scholars, researchers, academics, and creative writers worldwide. Whether your work opens a new methodological window on a canonical text, recovers a neglected literary tradition, brings a marginalised voice into critical visibility, extends theory into unexplored territory, or gives form to an original creative vision — this journal offers a rigorous, open, and internationally visible home for your scholarship and your art.
Manuscripts may be submitted at any time through the journal’s online submission system. The journal publishes monthly and maintains a transparent, swift, and rigorous editorial process. Full submission guidelines, formatting requirements, and ethical standards are available on the journal website at: https://creativesaplings.in/index.php/1/about/submissions
