Category Archives: Nonfiction

5 Lit Mags Focused on the Environment

Posted in Fiction, Nonfiction, Online, Poetry, Region: The South, University Based by

I have a confession: in college, I was an environmental science minor, but I’ve never really used the environmental knowledge I gained from those courses, nor have I lived a particularly eco-friendly lifestyle. What drew me to environmental science courses was not just the plight of our planet, which I do care about despite not having the most climate-friendly habits, but the narratives embedded in our discussions of the environment- the apocalyptic scenarios, the stories of how places change over time, how ecosystems evolve and adapt. In my literary studies, I was drawn to ecocriticism, which examines the portrayal of the natural world in literature.

Eventually, I became cynical of these analyses. How would reading or writing environmental narratives change anything? I wondered. Maybe some blockbusters like The Day After Tomorrow or WALL-E, could influence the public opinion on climate change and the environment, but what would writing an essay here, or a short story there really do?

However, I remained drawn to these narratives not because they claim to create any sort of social or ecological change, but because they still fascinate me. I realized it doesn’t have to be an either/or proposition. You can care about the environment and advocate for political change while also reading apocalyptic narratives or poems about the ephemeral beauty of spring. Just reading stories or poems is not enough, of course, but stories can serve as reminders of what matters to us, warning what the future may hold, and keeping us grounded in our values.

So here are 5 lit mags I’ve read recently that have an environmental focus. Some spotlight climate fiction (speculative stories about climate change) while others celebrate the Earth as it is in the present and urge us to preserve it.

Little Blue Marble

Little Blue Marble is an online literary journal that publishes articles, fiction, and poetry focused on the issue of climate change, especially speculative fiction. . One recent story from their site that stood out to me was, “Exiled Together: The Faces of Contemporary New York” by Marcus M. Tyler, which is told in journalistic style quotes by people from the future. I also enjoyed the poem, “A Child Gambles in Petroleum Country” by Deb O’Rourke which portrays the earth as blue marble gambled away in a game. The site include several resources about climate change, and they also pay their contributors. In their submission guidelines, they specify that they are looking for optimistic climate stories. They accept fiction stories up to 2000 words and reprints of up to 5000 words.

Split Rock Review

Split Rock Review publishes writing focused on place and the environment, including nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. Many poems in their latest issue grapple with crises that have been all too visible in this past year: the pandemic and wildfires. Some notable poems included, “Dendrochronology” by Heidi Seaborn, which reminded me that despite all the insanity of this past year, trees have continued to grow and time has continued to pass despite it all. There is a poem about the infamous cicadas by Cathy Barber. Malaika King Albrecht wrote a fitting tribute to Wallace Stevens adapted for the age of COVID-19 with the poem, “Ways of Looking at a Mask.” And finally, I found the poem “Patriotism” by Joshua McKinney to be particularly moving. Split Rock Review will be open for submissions starting July 1. See their submission page for more specific guidelines for each genre.

Ecotone Magazine

Ecotone Magazine is run by graduate students at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and publishes place-based writing. They accept both poetry and prose, and will next open to submissions to the general public in September. They will also have an open submission period for BIPOC writers in August. In their latest issue, Garden, Aimee Nezhukumatathil has a piece about cultivating a garden and a life in Oxford, Mississippi. Cathy Ulrich describes the disorientation of an astronaut returning to her loved ones on earth in the story, “A Lovelier World.” I also enjoyed the poem, “Ditch” by Anne Liu, which reminded me that place-based writing doesn’t have to only show beautiful places, it can also reveal the sublime in what may seem mundane and ugly.

Terrain.org

Terrain.org bills itself as the first place-based online journal. It offers a plethora of work that engages with place and the environment, including poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, as well as reviews, interviews, and art. I discovered Terrain.org because my former professor, Pam Houston, is the fiction editor for the site. I was drawn to a recent story on Terrain.org called, “Results” by Maggie Pathos because it didn’t at first strike me as a story that was about place, since it discusses a young couple’s relationship and how it is affected by the 2016 election, but once I read through it could see its connection to the environment. The nonfiction piece “Space Mountain” by Eric Aldrich was a fascinating glimpse into a conversation between the speaker and his hiking companion that leads to a rabbit hole of real and imagined injustices and conspiracies told partially through embedded footnotes. The poem, “Red Flag Warning” by Pepper Trail resonated with me, as it seems like wildfire season has already started again in the West. Terrain.org is currently open for contest submissions, and will open to regular submissions in September.

Sinking City Review

Sinking City Review is published by MFA students at the University of Miami and seeks writing focused on environmental disruption. Quick disclaimer: I have a story published in their most recent issue, so I may be biased when I say they publish phenomenal work. One reason I submitted to them in the first place is that they accept both realist and speculative fiction with an environmental lens. Alongside my short story, “The Firemonger,” which takes place in a dystopian future ravaged by wildfires, there is a short story about a couple keeping a live gnome, “The Gnome” by M. Shaw, and another short story about a teacher who struggles harassment at work, “Fair Game” by Brian McVety. There’s also an interesting meditation on compost in the nonfiction piece, “The Compost Manifesto” by Dot Armstrong, and an eerie poem called, “Ghost Nets” by Danielle Zipkin. They do not currently have an open call for submissions, but since it is published twice a year, submissions probably will open again in the fall.

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Youth-Led Journals

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Image credit: Sandra Bisotti

If you’re on Twitter and you follow different writers and journals, you will find that there are folks of all ages interacting across different generations, sharing their passion of writing and literature. As a high school teacher, I try to encourage my own students to write and read literature, so it warms my heart every time I see that there are high school students discussing submissions to literary journals or even leading editorial teams. The great thing about the diversity of literary journals on the internet is that these young authors, whether they are in high school or in early adulthood, have the opportunity to shoot their shot to the most prestigious journals, but they also have spaces dedicated to them and their writing.

There are several different types of journals that cater to youth, and they all define youth slightly differently. Some are well-established national publications that have moved into the online world, such as Teen Ink. (Fun fact: my first ever publication was in Teen Ink- I got a college essay about having tea time with my friends published. Ironically, I did not get into the college that I applied to using that essay). There are other journals that aren’t aimed at publishing young writers but offer opportunity for students and youth in general such as Peach Mag, which offers an internship for editors, The Adroit Journal, which offers a mentorship program (applications are open until March 22), and Polyphony Lit, which offers high school students editing opportunities, and more.

These opportunities for students just starting their literary careers to receive advice and training are great, but what I find even more exciting are the journals created and run by youth. These journals may only accept submissions from youth or they may be open to the general public, but their backbone are the young editors who are enacting their exciting creative visions. Here are a few youth-led publications which also are aimed at young writers and readers.

Clandestine Lit

Clandestine Lit published its first issue, Blossom, in February, and is currently accepting submissions in both prose and poetry from authors age 13-22. Some pieces I enjoyed from its first issue include the haunting poem, “asylum” by Abdulmueed Balogun, and, “tonight the sunset” by Emily Norton, which has really cool spacing and rhythm, and “the girl without hands” by Dana Blatte, which unspools a chilling fairy tale in verse.

The Augment Review

The Augment Review is another recently founded youth-led journal. It recently published its first issue, Indulge. They accept poetry, prose, art, and photography from artists between the ages of 13 and 25. They are open to submissions for their next issue, Pierce. In the first issue I enjoyed the poem, ” 2009″ by Allision Stein, which filled me with nostalgia for my own childhood. I also liked, “to the girl who finds paintings in locker 312” by Emma Chan and the backstory behind it. Finally, the poem, “Indulge Yourself” by Naoise Gale was raw and gutting. The Augment Review includes artists statements with all of its pieces, which gives some interesting insight into the work and also is a cool way for young aspiring writers to see inside the heads of other artists like them. They also provide both verbal inspiration (a list of words), visual inspiration (a Pinterest board), and musical inspiration (a Spotify playlist) to their would-be submitters.

Paper Crane

Paper Crane Journal only accepts work from people under 20 years old. They accept poetry, prose, and art, and are currently open to submissions for their issue Flight. On their website, they have a super comprehensive resources page with links to writing resources especially aimed at newcomers to the literary scene. I really liked two prose pieces from their volume Beginnings: “Leaving Homes” by Jyotsa Nair which is about the narrator’s family fleeing the UK after the India/Pakistan Partition and “Imprinted” by Tyler Godsey-Kellog, which is a more experimental piece reflecting on childhood memories. I also liked the poem, “Love Letter for a Bygone Jurassic” by Rena Su.

Blue Marble Review

Blue Marble Review is a more established outlet for young writers, but its editors are all students from the Minnetonka Writing Center. The journal, which is celebrating its five-year anniversary by publishing an anthology, accepts work from writers aged 13-22. They currently are publishing stories about the effects of the COVID 19 pandemic on youth, but they also accept general poetry and prose. Significantly, they pay their writers $25 per piece!

Much of their most recent issue documents the impact this past year had on young people. The essay, “2020 Grads: We Will be Okay” by Hannalee Isaacs resonated with me since last year was my first year of teaching high school, and I never had a chance to say goodbye to my first graduating class. The poem, “Letter from Mateo in Portland to Stella in Cleveland” by Mateo Sifuentes reflects on the experience of living in Portland in the past year, during a pandemic, protests, and wildfires. I also liked the lyrical fiction piece, “Sundays,” by Amy Wang which captures grief and the hurt of covering it up.

Love Letters Magazine

Finally, Love Letters Magazine is a journal for teens with a twist: it focuses on the heart. They accept work from teens age 14-19, and they publish poetry, prose, op-eds, songs, art, and photography. Each of their issues focuses on an aspect of love. Some of their latest posts that I enjoyed included the story “Sleepwalking,” by Ash Reynolds, which almost felt like a fairy tale or a fable. The “how to” style poem, “how to settle into joy/ how to create joy” by Amy Carranza made me smile and recall simple pleasures. I loved the essay, “Something Special About Staria Ace” by Reyna Ace, a eulogy to the writer’s cat, because what can I say? I love cats, and this piece struck a chord with me.

Even if you’re not a young writer yourself, I encourage you to check out the words the next generation are sending out into the world. After reading these journals, I feel inspired and refreshed to dive back into my own writing, even though I’m definitely a few years past the age limit of these journals.

New 2020 Lit Journals Part 2

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Image Credit: Dafne Cholet

As this seemingly endless year finally comes to a close, I realized that among the many things I will recall about this year, one unexpected positive of 2020 was that I rediscovered literary journals. They beckoned to me, drawing my attention away from the news and giving my mind something to contemplate other than the despair that accompanied this year. So in the last couple days of the year, I want to highlight some more new journals that came into existence during the past few months. I hope this post helps you find some interesting reading material for this holiday weekend, and maybe inspires you to send your work to one of these new journals.

Tunafish Journal

               Tunafish Journal just published its first issue this month. Their focus is on publishing light-hearted positive work, and they also include videos of some of their authors reading their works to increase accessibility. One thing I like about this journal is that they announce their themes well in advance of opening for submissions, so if you wanted to write something that matched the theme to submit to them, you could do so even if you aren’t someone who writes super quickly.  They accept poetry, flash fiction, and flash nonfiction. From their first issue, which had the theme Celebration, I particularly enjoyed the flash fiction “I’ll Turn a Cartwheel For You” by Leah Holbrook Satchett, which is about the rituals of a summer barbecue. I also liked Linda McCullen’s retelling of Cinderella, “Stella,” which had a nice twist at the end of it. The poem “Happy Hour Luau at the Nursing Home” by Lynn Finger made me smile and remember when I used to volunteer at a senior home when I was in high school. There is also a video of the author reading it here. Finally, I also enjoyed the poem, “I’m Pretty Much an Expert at Showers, Except When I Fell and Got Three Stitches” by Matthew Miller which showcases the joys of boyhood innocence. They are currently taking submissions for their issue on Endings until the end of December, after which they will be looking for submissions for their issue on Growth.

The Aurora Journal

               The Aurora Journal is another new journal that published its first issue this winter. They are interested in surrealist work in particular. They publish both prose and poetry, although the current issue seems skewed more towards verse. Two poems I enjoyed from their current issue are “The Guns Are Hungry” by Joseph C.P. Christopher and “History” by Sophie Chiang, who is also the editor of the journal. One unique feature of this journal is that they have an inspiration page where they post inspirational imagery and words to jumpstart your writing process.

Five South

               Five South’s name comes from the 5 highway (I cringed a little bit as a wrote “the” in front of the highway name, but since they are referring to the Southern California portion of the highway, it seems apt to say it in a Southern California fashion). They publish poetry, short stories, and flash fiction, and from reading their first issue, it seems like they value everyday realistic stories as well as stories with some speculative elements. I enjoyed the short story, “I didn’t know what to say, so I said thanks” by David Joseph, a classic short story about a high school kid who is longing to be cool. Another short story that gripped by attention was “Mountain Rats” by E.G. Rand, about mutant sewer rats poised to take over Los Angeles. I also liked the flash fiction, “Universal Days” by Jeanne Julian, which if I had not known any better, I would have guessed was non-fiction, since it describes the very believable and funny experiences of a retiree who works at Universal Studios in Florida. One poem I enjoyed was “Undiagnosis” by Jacob Nantz, which I found to be rich with detail and emotion. Five South currently has free submissions until January 7. They also are running the Ray Bradbury short story challenge in January, which is an event in which they challenge writers to write a short story every day for four weeks.

Biological Creatures

               Lastly, I appreciated Biological Creatures’ minimalist set up, which I think allowed me to more fully appreciate the writing in their first issue. One poem I connected with, probably because I’m a teacher, was “an open letter for back to school night” by MEH. I also was entranced by “Eels (Never Apologize” by Joanna Vogel. While they don’t publish any explicit submissions guidelines, they accept both poetry and flash fiction, and they will open again for submissions on January 28.

In Praise of the Themed Submission

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If you’re a writer who is finding it hard to focus on your writing or submitting to literary journals at this time, you are far from alone. With so much happening in the world, it might seem almost superfluous to keep submitting to journals. However, I found that when I can carve out the time to read literary journals and hone my own writing for submissions, I am able to relax in a peaceful corner of the internet. Of course, literary world is not isolated from the rest of the world and needs to address its issues with racism, but there are a lot of great journals who are publishing writing that is necessary and important, as well as writing that is distracting and fun. I need a combination of both to inject some hope into my life these days. One type of journal I’ve enjoyed reading and submitting to are themed journals, whether the journal is just having a themed issue or they are devoted to publishing work about a particular topic. The more niche a journal is, the more I find myself drawn to it these days. Perhaps it’s because I am craving order and structure in a chaotic world, or perhaps it’s because submitting to these journals doesn’t feel like trying to read a black box.

I have nothing against journals that don’t have themes. They often have a variety of interesting short stories, poetry, and essays that I enjoy. However, these journals are daunting to submit to. Every submission page at a literary magazine will direct you to read past issues to get a sense of their aesthetic style. But even if you read previous issues it’s hard to get a sense of what they are looking for unless you have a very honed perception of writing styles. Even then, editors rotate, and the aesthetic preferences of journals change. I liked themed submissions because at least I can check off one box that the journals are looking for: it’s about the right topic. Plus it’s often a fun challenge to write about a topic that you haven’t considered before or to try to shape your works in progress to fit the theme. It’s similar to using writing prompts as inspiration.

Here are some journals with thematic content, or at least themed submissions, that I have enjoyed recently. After you check them out, let me know what you think in the comments. Do you prefer themed submissions, or would you rather submit to journals that don’t have as narrow criteria for their acceptances?

Perhappened Mag

Perhappened Mag is a relatively new journal that has themed issues. Each one is really unique, and they also seem open to interesting experimentation. Their issue from last month, Mix Tape, has poetry and creative nonfiction accompanied by a playlist of songs. Each submission was inspired by a song that evokes nostalgia in the writer. Their latest issue, Lights Out, just came out today, and they are accepting submissions for their next issue, Fairy Tale, until Nov 10. They accept both poetry and prose submissions.

One poem I enjoyed from their Mix Tape issue was “Beyond Turnt” by Caroline Dinh. It’s a poem about the price of assimilation, and it had some incredible lines in it like, “If you peeled the Earth like a clementine/ and spread its skin across his Spotify playlists there would still/ be room to spare.”

I also enjoyed, “Joni sings of freedom” by Ikjot Kaur, a prose poem that evokes the boundless feeling of traveling with someone by your side.

Porcupine Literary

Porcupine Lit is a journal by teachers about teaching, but it’s not for sharing pedagogy. It publishes creative pieces about the experience of teaching. This journal is near and dear to my heart because I’m a teacher. When I found it, I was so excited that such a journal existed that I immediately submitted to it. I will probably keep submitting to it with the hope that one day my ramblings about teaching get published. Porcupine Lit publishes fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. They are open for submissions until Nov 1.

Some pieces I enjoyed from their most recent issue include, “Secondary Certification” by Michelle Campagne, which I thought did a great job of capturing the small indignities of the profession.

I connected with the creative nonfiction piece, “Accept No Substitute” by Christina Fishburne about the experience of a teacher who has an MFA. While I don’t teach kindergarten, I enjoyed the writerly attention she bestows onto the small details of teaching kindergarten. I find that as a teacher, my writer’s eye comes in handy quite often.

Longridge Review

Longridge Review is a creative nonfiction journal that publishes essays about childhood experiences. I love their theme because of just how rich and broad it is. Anybody could think of something interest to write about on this topic.

Some pieces I enjoyed from their most recent issue include, “Baby Steps” by Miriam Glassman, which discusses the pitfalls of trying to fill a void in your life with a creepy, walking doll, and “Breathing Lessons” by Brenna Sowder, which weaves together the author’s breathing lessons as an asthmatic child with her anxieties and fears during the current pandemic.

Burning Jade Magazine

Again, this is a relatively new journal, but their first issue really wowed me. Its theme was #Americaisoverparty, and it included some biting political poetry and prose. They just closed the submissions for their next issue on Spirituality, but they will probably have submissions open for their next issue on October 23. Full disclosure: I had a piece accepted in the next issue which I will share on this blog once it’s online, so I might be a little biased, but I was already excited about this magazine before they accepted my work.

Here are some pieces I enjoyed from their first issue:

The poem, “Portrait of a Pandemic” by Anisha Narain really struck me because it voiced so many things I’ve been feeling since March but have not been able to say as eloquently.

“#WhiteButWoke Work Week Social Media Challenge” by Jennifer Dines made me laugh and cringe at the same time (is there a word for that?).

“For Ahmaud Arbery” by Leela Raj-Sankar left me feeling broken and angry, reminding of the reason poetry and writing are necessary in this moment.

September Recommendations

Posted in Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Region: The South, University Based by

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Image: Ian Sane

It’s back-to-school season for teachers and students alike, and I know as well as anyone that it’s hard to find time to read lit journals for fun when you have so many other responsibilities. But I’m making a commitment this school year to squeeze in time for good writing here and there, and I hope you do too.

I have two picks this month, Wigleaf and South 85. I’ve chosen these two journals because they are almost complete opposites in terms of the length of their pieces. As someone who gravitates towards writing really long stories or flash fiction, I appreciate that there are journals catering to these niches.

Wigleaf is a journal that publishes “(very) short fiction” of 1000 words or less. Their contributors also write letters to the journal published alongside their stories which are as imaginative as the stories in the first place. These letters are quirky, puzzling, and poetic. For example, in one letter, contributor Brianne Kohl laments how she’s not sure if she belongs in the wild west. I’m not sure how writers get the inspiration for these little notes, but they are certainly entertaining and unique.

In Wigleaf’s latest issue, I was amazed by just how much ground their stories covered in less than 1000 words. The short story, “Preservation” by Tessa Yang, takes us into a future in which people sign up to sleep away years of their life in a coma for science. I also liked the story, “The Magician” by Kara Oakleaf, which features a delightfully whimsical child who plays magic tricks on his parents from infancy. This issue culminates in a featured story by published author Amber Sparks, who imagines what Zeus would be like as a football-watching American dad. Most of their submissions delve into the fantastic and surreal, weaving impressively developed narratives for such short pieces. Wigleaf takes submissions during the last week of each academic month, so that’s coming up this week! Check out their submissions page for more information.

I discovered South 85 from my writer friend Mary Jane White who has an excerpt from  her memoir about raising a son with autism published in their latest issue. South 85 is a university-affiliated journal, run by the low-residency MFA program at Converse College in South Carolina, publishing fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. It is one of the few online journals I’ve encountered that does not shy away from publishing longer pieces.

In their latest issue, poet John Nizalowski  presents the tragic contrast of the mundane, despairing reality of a gas station near the Hopi Reservation and the nearby ruins of ancient civilization in “High Noon at the Hopi Gas Station.”  I particularly like the final turn of phrase, “the smell of colonial commerce.” In the nonfiction piece, “Behind the Walls in the Land of the Pure” the Pakistani-Canadian author, Mariam S. Pal describes her experiences hanging out at luxurious private parties in Pakistan, Lahore in the 1980’s, showing how her perceptions of Pakistan are overturned while she also debunks Pakistanis’ misconceptions of the West. Finally, I thoroughly enjoyed the short story, “The Buffalo of Sentinel Meadows” by Lawrence Cady, in which a music critic accompanies his biologist research wife on a fieldwork trip to Yellowstone, where they draw DNA samples of ancient bacteria from hot springs. While taking the samples, the narrator lets his mind wander through the memories of his relationship with his wife. I loved the slow build-up of emotion in this story, which is so rare to find in much of the fast-paced fiction published in the age of the Internet.

South 85 is open for submissions until November 1. For more information on submitting to South 85, check out their submission guidelines.

 

August Recommendations

Posted in Fiction, Nonfiction, Online, Poetry, Region: The South, Uncategorized, University Based by

 

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Image: Tony Hisgett

This summer has been the summer of many tabs. I always have at least 10 tabs open, and about half of them are literary journals. Part of what inspired me to come back to this blog was the renewed excitement I felt for exploring the pages of the internet following a writing workshop I took last spring. My professor, the poet Greg Glazner, asked us each to present on a particular writer whose “poetic prose” we were really fascinated by (the them of the class was “Poet’s Prose” but we read a range of texts from prose poems to flash fiction to creative nonfiction). He requested that instead of uploading pdfs of excerpts of the writer’s work, we post links. At first I was a bit skeptical of his insistence on links, since it was sometimes less convenient to find links to a person’s writing on the web than to just make a copy of pages of a book from the library. But Professor Glazner has this theory about links, that they allow us to discover more things about the writer and his or her context and also lead us on these interesting quests through the internet to find things we never knew existed.

I was presenting The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon, a Japanese writer who lived in the Emperor’s court in the 10th century, so initially I was skeptical that I would be able to find her work published online, and I wasn’t sure if giving a link would add anything to the conversation. However, when I searched for Sei Shonagon, I stumbled upon a really insightful and informative essay by Meredith McKinney on translating The Pillow Book in the Kyoto Journal.

Ever since, I’ve been considering just how cool it is that this whole vast repository of writing is available to us for free online, and I’m continually inspired whenever I find more online journals publishing great work. Here are some of the journals that have recently caught my eye:

The Southeast Review

The Southeast Review’s journal is technically not online, but they do post fiction, nonfiction, interviews, and poetry to their “online sister,” SER TWO (which stands for This Week Online). There I found some really great writing during the past month including the short story “Ruth’s Red Ale” by Ann Stuart McBee and the nonfiction piece “Two Boyfriends” by Lareign Ward. McBee’s story ferments language in exciting ways (pun intended), and I was dazzled by the sensory details in her piece about an impoverished couple home-brewing beer while life falls apart around them. Ward’s piece depicts the strange untethered grief of a narrator who has recently lost a lover but doesn’t quite know what her future with that person would have been or if they even were heading for a future together.

The Southeast Review is affiliated with Florida State University and is currently accepting submissions in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and book reviews. You can find out more information about their submission guidelines here.

 

The Yemassee Journal

This journal, which is run by the University of South Carolina, recently published its first online issue, which I perused. Some of the highlights from that issue include the poem “I Tried to Be a Good Mexican Son,” by José Olivarez, a prose piece called “The Saving Apocalypse” by Matthew Hummer, and “Three Poems” by Shaina Monet. Olivarez’s poem depicts the speaker’s failure to live up to his mother’s expectations and also serves as a sweet tribute to the speaker’s mother, who clearly loves her son despite his shortcomings. It’s humorous, straightforward, and filled with delightful lines. Hummer’s piece, which I think is nonfiction (although it’s not labeled) is a lament of the demise of the print newspaper and also discusses the paranoia the narrator experiences while trying to not be tracked by technology, a paranoia that feels familiar to anyone with a smartphone or a social media account. The essay slips into its subject indirectly, slyly, almost like it is is trying to hide something. Ironically, it’s online for everyone to read. Finally, Monet’s poems have a really interesting concept behind them: they are in the form of a “beau présent” which is when you take the letters of someone’s name and combine them into different words to create a poem. The form limits the writer to only using the letters available in the original word or words. Monet describes her reasons for doing this: each poem honors an ancestor of hers, persons of color who society didn’t deem worthy of recording. Her poems try to correct that injustice. The poems’ form leads to an interesting sense of circularity as you read the same letters come to life in different ways.

Yemassee is currently open to submissions of fiction and poetry. Here are there submission guidelines.

Split Lip Magazine

I like that Split Lip Magazine releases just one piece from each genre every issue. It makes reading an entire journal feel less daunting, and it will definitely keep me coming back to see more cool writing. In this latest issue, I particularly enjoyed the short story “Bound” by Belinda Hermawan and the nonfiction essay “Cary” by Lorelei Glaser. Hermawan’s story about fate and adoption drew me in from the start. The main character, a Chinese-American who was adopted, feels drawn to one of her cousins, and and that attraction is so well written that it didn’t come across as gross or weird. It was definitely original in its language and emotional intensity. On the other hand, Glaser’s story about coping with her son’s mental illness was a familiar narrative, but the details were fresh and cut to the quick.

Here’s information on how to submit to Split Lip.

I hope you enjoy these recommendations. Check in about a week from now because I have a flash fiction forthcoming in an online journal (not any of the ones I’ve featured), and I’ll be excited to announce that once it is published. I’m going to do my best to keep updating this blog at least once a month, but now that the school year is starting I will sadly have less time to peruse online journals and my tabs will be tucked away into folders, bookmarked for later. Until next time, happy reading and writing.

July Recommendations

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Image: matryosha

While trying to decide how to re-vamp this blog, I’ve been plucking stories and essays from the internet here and there, reading a bit of this and that and trying to come up with some sort of system for how to read literature on the web. But I keep feeling overwhelmed by just how much content there is out there online. There are thousands of literary journals, each diligently producing issues. How is it possible to find what kind of work you like reading and how can you possibly find a place to submit to that fits your style and actually might accept your submission?

Reader, I have no easy answers for you. I wish there were some sort of cataloguing system, an app maybe (I’m not a tech person so don’t expect me to come up with this), that recorded all the different literary content out on the web and sorted it to help a reader who has some time to read from the web, but not all the time in the world, to find cool new writing. But as of right now, I have yet to discover such a system. LitHub.com  comes close- they feature content from many different magazines and presses around the web. But they don’t encompass everything. Duotrope.com is a paid service that shows you statistics about different publications, such as their response times and approximately how many people are submitting to them, but it doesn’t cover the content in the journals. I still think the best way to go about finding stories, essays, and poems that you might like is to a) make friends with other literary-minded people (whether you’re friends with them in person or just over the internet) and see what they recommend and b) find random literary journals, click on a random link, and see what they have to offer.

I’ve been doing a bit of both for the past year, and I’d like to share you, my friends, some of my personal recommendations. In each post I will feature 3-4 journals with a few works that I liked from their site. If you happen to be a writer who is featured in the journal I recommend (or in another journal), and you’re disappointed that I didn’t mention your piece, email me a link to your piece (litbloom at gmail dot com), and I’ll take a look at it. I promise you, I wasn’t trying to overlook your piece, I probably just didn’t happen to click on it. I’ll try not to feature too many of my friends’ work since I don’t think that would be totally fair, but if I really believe in the writing they’ve published, I will share it.

 

Entropy

My first recommendation for the month of is for a site for which I have a personal fondness: Entropy.  Yes, they have published two of my nonfiction essays, but aside from being grateful for their patronage, I genuinely love their site. Every couple months, they feature places to submit your writing, including journals, presses, chapbooks, and writing retreats and residencies. Here is the where-to-submit page for this summer. They also have really insightful nonfiction essays and they publish some fiction and poetry. Right now, I’m keeping tabs on the “Woven” series, essays on the #MeToo movement, including this really heartbreaking and powerful essay about the culture of sexism and sexual violence in medicine, “The Men in Medicine and the Theory of Evolution” by Helena Rho.

For more information, here are Entropy’s submission guidelines.

 

N+1

I’ve also been checking out’s N+1’s online content. I remember looking at N+1 back in my college days back when it had a barebones html design, and it definitely seems to have blossomed since then. You need a subscription to read their magazine, but they do produce some online content. Two essays I read from them recently include “The Church of Food,” by Collier Meyerson and Elias Roriques, which eulogizes Anthony Bourdain, and “An Account of My Hut,” by Christina Nichol, which recounts the author’s struggle to figure out the best way to fight climate change through collective action and storytelling while also dealing concurrently with the effects of environmental and economic degradation– wildfires and gentrification.

You can find more information about submitting to N+1 here.

 

Wildness

Another journal that I have recently happened upon is called Wildness. I skimmed through their latest issue and found plenty to encourage me to go back and read through the whole thing. The short story, “Blood Sister” by Ariel Chu, caught my eye, and I found that I really enjoyed its depiction of a brother and sister sharing a meal on their own terms, away from the expectations of their parents, but still unable to escape familial tensions. I also enjoyed the poems in the issue by Sara Ryan, “Loving With Scissors” and “Self-Portrait As/With Sister” due to their striking imagery and the sharpness of their emotional landscapes.

Here are Wildness’s submission guidelines.

 

West Texas Literary Review,

I have yet to fully explore this particular journal, but everything I’ve read so far from the West Texas Literary Review. I have enjoyed. I was particularly struck by the short story, “Thank You for Noticing” by Rebecca Jensen, when a young woman’s memory of her mother’s pregnancy resurfaces. The poem, “Alien Encounter” by Marilee Richards was a pleasant jaunt, and “Their Gaze” by Nick Conrad evoked a nostalgic lost moment of beauty.

Here are their submission guidelines.

I hope you liked some of the recommendations from this post. I plan on posting new recommendations at least once a month, barring life events that get in the way. In the meantime, happy reading, writing, and submitting!

 

 

 

 

 

The Missouri Review

Posted in Fiction, Nonfiction, Online, Poetry, Print, Region: The South by

This fall, I submitted a short story to the Missouri Review’s Editor’s Prize. I didn’t win. But, luckily, the contest submission also came with a year-long subscription to the literary journal (the fee for the contest was $20). I just finished reading the fall issue, and I have to say, I really enjoyed it. I think everyone who considers him- or herself a writer should read at least one literary journal on a regular basis, and I think from here on out, the Missouri Review will be mine. While not all the stories were perfect, and I wasn’t personally interested in all of the works in the issue, overall, the review’s fall issue had fresh writing with rich language and fascinating subject matter. I definitely recommend that you check it out.

The Missouri review publishes poetry, short fiction, and essays. I found the poetry in the latest issue to be accessible. Most of it was free-verse and more on the traditional side. There was nothing that could be called experimental in all of the magazine, in fact, but that was fine by me, since I tend to like more conventional literature.

Most of the poetry I read I would characterize as concise, filled with sharp, curt images, but at the same time it was layered, ready for deeper exploration. It was the kind of poetry you could read and think that it was rather simple, but if you go back and reread it you will find more than you thought was there. One of the poems that I liked in this issue was actually reflecting on this very topic, the layers of poetry. It’s called “The Poem About the Henhouse” by Lawrence Raab, and it is prefaced by a quotation by Jose Saramago, who said that a writer can’t find much to say about a henhouse.  And of course, the poet finds a way to say something about a henhouse which is quite poignant.

As for fiction, in general I liked the short stories in this issue. In particular I really enjoyed reading “Bury Me” by Allegra Hyde which offers surprising images of a funeral and fresh portrait of a friendship between two women. During college, the two firends use spirit of carpe diem as almost a crutch, to avoid thinking about one of woman’s mother who has cancer and who eventually passes away from it. The story opens at the mother’s funeral and explores the women’s past together and how they have grown apart. I really liked it, and I found both the narrator’s voice and the main character, the narrator’s friend, quite compelling.

However, occasionally I found the stories in the journal to be clichéd, with characters or situations that were predictable. Overall, I liked the story “A Bellyful of Sparrows” which is told from the perspective of an ailing Southerner with lung-cancer living in an RV. In general, I found his character to be quite fun to read about. He still craves cigarette smoke, despite the fact that he has to breathe from an oxygen tank, and he craves the taste of squirrel. But when he nearly dies at one point and he starts to see his life flash before his eyes, I rolled my eyes. In general, I saw a few moments like this in the stories I read, but of course all literature is susceptible to falling back on formulaic templates such as that one. In general, even in the stories I found to be clichéd, the writing was intricate, detailed, and vibrant, so I could get past a few clichés.

I also highly enjoyed reading the essays and interviews in the journal, which had a wide range of fascinating topics, from one man who lives in New Mexico reflecting on the importance of the atomic bomb in his life, to a woman discussing an enigmatic figure from her past, her landlady’s son, whose life profoundly touched hers. Reading essays like these ones really makes me want to try my hand at creative nonfiction. They are able to weave real moments together to form a coherent narrative that reads like literature, but carries more weight because it has the emotional backing of the author who is invoking his or her personal experience.

The Missouri Review accept online submissions, but they do charge $3 per submission. This magazine is highly competitive, so I would advise only submitting your best work to it and to be ready for a polite rejection letter in response. Personally, I think my writing is not yet at the level of the works that I read in the journal. That won’t stop me from trying to improve and to continue to submit my writing to places like the Missouri Review, even if I don’t have much of a chance. However, if your writing is really good, you do have a chance to be published. The Missouri Review does publish new or emerging writers quite often. For example, one of the writers I interviewed for this blog, Julia Glassman, had one of her first publications in the Missouri Review.

For More Information

The Missouri Review

Website: www.missourireview.com

Fall Writing Contests and Submissions

Posted in Fiction, Nonfiction, Online, Poetry, Print, Updates by

It has been a while since my last post in July, but I’ve been so busy this past month, I haven’t had a chance to blog. I’ve been writing a couple articles for different publications, and once they are published I will be sure to spam you with links to them, don’t worry. In the meantime, I’ve been checking out more literary journals online and otherwise. We are nearing fall, and it turns out there are some great literary contests with upcoming deadlines.

You may wonder, why is a writer telling me about these contests? Isn’t she in direct competition with me for these prizes? You are right, of course. But I’m a nice person so that won’t stop me from telling you about these contests anyway. If you do win one of these competitions and you learned about it from this blog, please tell people about my website, at the very least.

Without further ado, here are some of the contests and open submissions at literary journals this fall. Happy writing and good luck!

 

The Missouri Review: Editor’s Prize

Deadline: October 1st

Every year The Missouri Review offers the Jeffrey E. Smith Editor’s Prize in three categories: poetry, fiction, and essay. The first place winners in each category receive a whopping $5,000 reward. You can bet the competition is stiff for this one, but I would still give it a shot. The Missouri Review says on its website that it has published “the first short story of more than 100 new fiction writers.” One of those writers who got their start with a publication in The Missouri Review, is Julia Glassman, a novelist who I interviewed earlier this year. The cost of entrance for this contest is $20 ($23 if you submit online), but I think it’s worth it because you get a free subscription to the journal for a year with your submission.

For More Information: www.missourireview.com/tmrsubmissions/editors-prize-contest

 

Spark Anthology: “Monsters and Marvels” Contest

Contest Dates: September 15- October 1

The Spark Anthology is a journal that offers publication and compensation to emerging writers for high-quality writing. It was established by alumni of the California State Summer School for the Arts, which I attended for Creative Writing back in 2009. Its current contest, which starts on September 15 and has a deadline of October 1 is themed “Monsters and Marvels.” They are offering prizes in three categories: prose, poetry, and artwork. First prize for all categories is $500 and publication in the magazine, and the details for the second and third prizes are on their website. And there’s no entry fee for this contest. Here is what the anthology says they are looking for: “Like darkness and light, Yin and Yang, monsters and marvels are two sides of the same coin. Each entry should include both a monster and a marvel—though ‘monster’ and ‘marvel’ may refer to same element of your entry. ”

For More Information: sparkanthology.org/contests/seven/

 

Sixfold

Deadline: October 24

Sixfold is one of the most intriguing online journals I’ve yet to encounter. I stumbled upon it last week when I saw that one of my friends and creative writing colleagues, Nancy Nguyen, had been published in it. Here’s her short story, “Truck Stop” (It’s really good by the way). I checked its submissions page, as I always do when I come across a new journal. It turns out Sixfold is a crowd-sourced journal. I’ve been meaning to write a whole blog post just about this journal, and probably will, but here’s a preview: to figure out what writing goes in each issue, Sixfold asks writers to vote and rank other people’s submissions. When you submit to the journal, you agree to read, edit, and vote on other submissions in your genre for several different rounds of consideration. The highest-voted stories and poems get published, and even the writers who don’t get published will receive feedback on their story from other writers. I think that’s pretty darn cool.

For More Information: www.sixfold.org/howitworks.html

 

Journals With Open Submissions This Fall

 

Transcendence Magazine

Open Submissions: September 5 – October 17

You may remember I reviewed this upcoming journal a while back. They are taking submissions for their second issue which is themed “People.” Here is what they say they want: “Tell us about a person who changed your life for better or worse, one who made a single impression on you before disappearing forever, or one you never met at all and never will. It doesn’t have to be non-fiction, but you should make us feel like it is.” They accept prose, poetry, and art.

Website: transcendencemag.wix.com/transcendencemag

 

Barely South Review

Open Submissions: September 1 – November 30

If you forgot about this journal, check out my review of this wonderful review. They are currently accepting submissions!

Website: barelysouthreview.digitalodu.com

 

Blackbird

Open Submissions: November 1 – April 15

One of my favorite online literary journals opens its gates to submissions on November 1.

Website: blackbird.vcu.edu

 

Cortland Review

Open Submissions: October- June

Another journal I previously reviewed, they accept submissions starting in October.

 

The Adroit Journal

Open Submisisons: Starting October 15

This journal is of particular interest to current students (both undergraduate and graduate) because they have prizes for student writers. Their submissions open up mid-October.

Website: www.theadroitjournal.org

 

Just as these literary journals are gearing up, this blog will be gearing up too. If you enjoy writing about literary topics, and you want to write for this blog, I am currently looking for contributors. You can email me at litbloom@gmail.com.

Serial Online Writing: Literature’s New Frontier?

Posted in Fiction, Nonfiction, Online, Poetry by

About a month ago, my interest was piqued by a New York Times Article on the Wattpad App, an app that is forming a new online literary community of readers and writers. I was fascinated by the article, which discusses how the app allows for readers to comment on works, which writers post in segments on the website or through the mobile app. Of course, as writers, we are always looking for people who would actually be interested in reading what we have to say, and sometimes it can feel a little lonely scribbling at our secluded desks, doubting whether anyone would actually want to read what we have written. Websites like Wattpad have existed for a long time, of course, especially for fanfiction. What is different and striking about these new applications, which include JukePop and Medium, is that they are technological start-ups, using social media tools to link writers and readers together.

But what are the pros and cons for a writer hoping to share their precious work? If you have been following the news at all, you have probably heard some recent success stories about writers such as Andy Weir, whose successful novel The Martian was originally posted online or Jack and Jasinda Wilder who were able to prevent their home from being foreclosed using the profits from their romance e-books.

Can using these writing apps eventually lead to more traditional forms of publication? Do they necessarily need to? Can one make a living (or at least some money) from this avenue of writing? And how does publishing writing through these apps change the writing process- for better or for worse?

The jury is still out on a lot of these tricky questions. Some writers have been able to “make it” through these new non-traditional forms of writing, and, in my opinion it’s worth giving them a shot.

But before you post or submit to the following websites, you should think about your ultimate goal for a particular piece of writing that you have. Would it be better to save it and submit it to more traditional journals, newspapers, or magazines that accept fiction or freelanced articles? The answer to this question depends on your own personal goals and desire for prestige. Most of these sites lack traditional “gatekeepers” who will approve your work. Some of them do have bad writing on them. Thus, you might be hesitant about having your writing published on such a site, thinking that it should only be a last resort for people who can’t otherwise get published. That’s a valid concern, but not one that I think should prevent you from at least trying out these sites. There is plenty of excellent writing on these sites and dismissing all of it as unworthy simply because there is not an authority that is deeming it publishable is not fair to the writers on these sites.

Another defining feature of these sites is that writers rely on readers’ endorsements to popularize their work. This isn’t so different from traditional means of publication, in which writers whose works are “bestsellers” become well-known. However, in this case, you have easier to access readers, because the sites remove the middleman between you and the reader. Thus, you can more easily cultivate a base of fans and followers. Of course, the flip side is you are competing with all the other writers on these websites for readers.

Financially, posting on these sites is probably not going to pay off immediately (except for possibly writing for JukePop, which gives cash rewards to its authors under certain circumstances). But then again, most of the time you won’t be compensated for being published in a traditional journal or magazine either, and if you are it won’t be enough to make a living. These websites are opportunities to make yourself known, which could lead to a book deal with a traditional publisher in the future.

Most of these sites allow you to retain publishing rights, so you can publish the stories again somewhere else if you want to. However, you should note that a lot of times traditional publishing outlets, such as book publishers and most newspapers and magazines, often do not accept submissions that have already been published. You would have to check with the particular place you are submitting, but most of the time having a story published online, even if it is through one of these websites or through your own blog, counts as a previous “publication.” Of course, not all publishing outlets are strict about this, and there are always exceptions- for example, the writer of “The Martian,” Andy Weir, still got a book deal with a publisher after his novel had already been published on his website and put on Amazon as a self-published e-book.

One more consideration is that writing posted online can be easily plagiarized. But if you post through sites like the ones below, often times, they can offer some protection from plagiarism because they can establish that you published a piece of writing on their site on a particular date.

What are the advantages to the writing process that these sites can give you? Well, first of all, you can get reader feedback that can be valuable for your editing process. This could help you improve your writing in general or help you revise the particular story you are working on. Second of all, these sites can help motivate you to write on a regular basis in order to cultivate a following of readers. They can allow you to do interesting things like make your story into an interactive “choose your own adventure” serial: you can engage your readers directly by asking them to vote for what should happen next in the comments.

At the same time, writing in serial installments is not necessarily the best way to construct a coherent story. Most published writers compose several drafts of novels, which can involve going back and changing crucial details at the beginning of the story. You can lose this process if you only build on the chapters that you have written before without editing the piece as a whole. But just because these websites tend to publish stories serially doesn’t mean you have to write them that way. You can write a complete story and then publish it in chapters on a site. I doubt that famous writers who published their novels serially, such as Charles Dickens, just wrote chapters as they went along- they usually had a finished manuscript ready prior to publication.

Here are a few examples of emerging online writing websites that publish serial fiction, journalism, or blog posts. The majority of these also have mobile apps available.

Wattpad

Wattpad allows you to post stories and comment on other people’s writing. Most of the stories are serial installments that together make up a longer short story, novella, novel. They have sections for every type of prose genre imaginable from Mystery to Science Fiction to Romance, and they also have poetry and fanfiction. Wattpad allows you to choose what copyright you want to use for the writing you submit to their site (you can retaining all rights, make it public domain, or do something in between). You can also edit your posts once they have been put online.

Website: www.wattpad.com

JukePop Serials

JukePop is similar to Wattpad, in that it allows you to read stories and comment on them. However, it differs from Wattpad in that it restricts whose writing is posted on their website. People make submissions to their website which are then “curated” by the JukePop staff, so that only certain stories are selected for publication on the website. Then, once a story has been accepted, readers can vote to endorse the story. Authors who have popular stories are eligible to receive cash rewards. JukePop. Writers retain the rights to their serial stories, and they can choose to publish them elsewhere after they have been published on JukePop.

Website: www.jukepop.com

Medium

Medium is another site that allows people to publish their writing online and read other’s writing and recommend articles through social media. However, it is focused on journalistic and nonfiction writing. They allow you to post articles freely on their site, so in that sense it almost like a blogging platform. Writers retain the rights to their work. To post on Medium, you need to have a Twitter account. In my opinion, Medium’s layout is confusing and not very user-friendly, and I am still uncertain why a blogger or journalist would choose to use it over a different platform. According to this New York times article, the defining feature of Medium is that you can leave “notes” that link to your own posts, which differ from comments because they create more of a conversation and network than regular blogging. I’m not entirely convinced, but then again I haven’t played around with Medium that much yet.

Website: www.medium.com

Other Blogging Platforms

Of course, other ways of publishing your writing online include using tools like this blog, which is a WordPress blog. I’ve also used Blogger before. In my experience, WordPress has been more useful for allowing me to customize what I want my blog to look like and how I want to categorize my posts. It also has connected me to more writers and readers than my Blogspot blog, which I mainly used for sharing updates on my travels with my immediate family and friends. Both are definitely good platforms for blogging. However, I am hesitant to post any creative writing on a personal blog, just because I worry that it can easily be plagiarized. That’s my personal decision, of course, and perhaps not the one that you will make.

WordPress Website: www.wordpress.com

Blogger Website: www.blogger.com