Participants of the 21st Annual Conference of the European Society for Textual Scholarship are warmly invited to submit a full-paper version of their talk to Variants, the Journal of the European Society for Textual Scholarship. As always, scholars who did not attend the ESTS 2026 conference are also welcome to contribute to our journal.

Variants is a diamond Open Access journal that publishes high-quality research in textual scholarship and is maintained by and for the ESTS community. The journal always welcomes spontaneous submissions but also puts out targeted calls for papers after relevant conferences to invite presenters to develop their talks into full-length articles for publication. Submissions that fall within the scope of the journal will be considered for the next available issue and included in our external single-blind peer review process. 

Papers submitted in response to this call will be considered for Variants 21, scheduled for publication in 2027. We expect to receive the full text in the Fall. Please note that since Variants is an English language journal, only submissions in English are eligible. The suggested length of submissions for Variants is approximately 7000 words, excluding references and appendices. Keep in mind that this usually implies a substantial extension of the presented paper and/or situating the demonstrated work more explicitly within a relevant theoretical framework. For more details, please check out our page with Information for Authors. 

If you are interested in submitting a paper for Variants, please send an Expression of Interest to variants@textualscholarship.eu by 30 June. In your message, please include: 

• The name(s) of the author(s);
• A preliminary title for the contribution;
• A preliminary abstract of approximately 200 words; and
• At least two suggestions for possible reviewers.

If you are basing your contribution on your conference paper, you are free to repurpose the title and abstract you submitted to the conference to the extent that it is still relevant. 

For the reviewers, please include their name, affiliation, and work email address. The reviewers you suggest must be relevant to your field and unlikely to decline an invitation for purely conflict of interest reasons. Please be aware that these reviewers are suggestions and that the editors of the issue may or may not decide to contact one or more of your suggestions in the review process. 

The preliminary timeline for the publication process for this issue looks as follows:

• 30 June 2026: Expression of Interest
• 31 October 2026: Full paper deadline
• Winter 2026: conclusion of reviewing process
• 2027: Publication 

If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to send a message to variants@textualscholarship.eu. 

We very much look forward to receiving your Expression of Interest and reading your full submissions!

On behalf of the Editorial Board of Variants,

Wout Dillen (General Editor)

Elsa Pereira (Associate Editor)

Stefano Rosignoli (Review Editor)