May 28, 2020

Coastal Shelf: Now Seeking Submissions

Coastal Shelf is a brand new online journal of poetry and prose paying authors at least $20 per published piece. After over twenty years of experience working at other literary magazines, editor Zebulon Huset wanted to do things differently. In addition to paying authors for their work (often well over $20), he provides constructive feedback…

New South Publishing: Open to Queries

New South Publishing is an Australia based university press. New South is the publishing arm of UNSW Press Ltd, based out of the of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) – Sydney. It has won the Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) for small publisher twice – in 2016 and 2017. New South has a…

5 Literary Markets That Will Open for Brief Submission Periods in June 2020

These markets are scheduled to open for brief submission periods in June 2020 (and one is open now). They accept fiction, and most will accept other genres as well, like nonfiction and poetry. Also, most of these are submission periods that will recur monthly. And though these submission windows are announced on their websites, it…

Adventures in Publishing: The Small Press Edition

by: Samantha Bryant I didn’t think it would get as bad as it did. In fact, at the outset, I imagined myself the heroine of a fairy tale, the newly crowned princess–or, rather, published author. But fairy tales are seldom as simple as they seem, and “happily ever after” is sometimes quite short lived. When…

May 25, 2020

23 Respected Literary Journals and Magazines that Publish Creative Writing

The literary journals and magazines on this list reject the vast majority of what is submitted to them. Sometimes authors’ works are rejected for years, decades even, before they receive an acceptance. But these literary journals are respected and trusted. Most have a large readership and good distribution in libraries and bookstores. Many of these…

May 21, 2020

Dust Poetry: Now Seeking Submissions

A brand new online poetry magazine, Dust Poetry, is currently seeking poems on the theme, “Landscape.” They welcome all interpretations of the theme, and they’re accepting submissions for this issue through the end of June. Since launching in January 2020, Dust Poetry has published three issues online. Each edition contains work from around fifteen poets….

Manuscript Publishing as Part of a Larger Story

Most authors who are new to writing think of publishing as a three-step process. The first step is to write a manuscript, the second is to submit a manuscript, and then the third step is to publish that manuscript. This is an over-simplification, and all of these steps have multiple components. For example, as part…

May 14, 2020

Owl Canyon Press: Now Accepting Manuscript Queries

Owl Canyon Press is an independent publisher based out of Boulder, Colorado. They were founded in 2011. They publish fiction, nonfiction, young adult fiction, and works in translation. It’s easy to get a feel for what sort of work they publish by browsing their catalog. They have local distribution, but outside of Colorado, I suspect…

Miracle Monocle: Now Seeking Submissions

Helmed at the University of Louisville, Miracle Monocle is an established publisher of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. They also publish a broad range of experimental and hybrid work, and they actively seek flash and micro-fiction as well as work that can’t be categorized by traditional genres. They encourage unpublished and emerging authors to submit….

How the Coronavirus Turned My Puzzle Book Into an Amazon Bestseller

By Michael Wiesenberg Two years ago I assembled 105 Canadian-themed crossword puzzles that I published as an 8.5×11” soft cover book on Amazon’s self-publishing facility. The book did moderately well, until the coronavirus came along. A lot of people were finding themselves with a lot more time on their hands. In these times of self-isolating,…

Implementing Objective Correlative

By Sherry Shahan I recently helped facilitate a writing workshop focusing on revision. Most of the participants had agents and were widely published. Yet brows furrowed when I mentioned the literary device Objective Correlative. Simply put, an objective correlative is an object in a story with a symbolic purpose. It can be an everyday item…

May 11, 2020

The Top 40 Publishers for New Authors

The writing market can be overwhelming, particularly for new authors who do not have a history of past publication. It is important to note that no legitimate established presses specifically look for unpublished authors. The presses on this list were chosen because they have published a number of debut books before. The publishers on this…

May 7, 2020

Kane Miller: Now Accepting Manuscript Queries

UPDATED August 2024: They have not been open to unsolicited submissions for over two years now. Their phrasing implies they may reopen someday, but we are removing them from the guide and they will not be added to lists going forward. Kane Miller is an award winning publisher of educational children’s books. In 2019 they…

Bad Pony: Now Seeking Submissions

Bad Pony is an online journal of good writing about bad behavior. Inspired by a fictional pony who had a bad childhood, Bad Pony is seeking mischievous fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. You can read more about their aesthetic here. And, you can get a sense of their style by reading the journal online. Since launching…

5 Paying Literary Markets to Submit to in May 2020

These magazines are open for submissions in May, and accept fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and translations. They’re a mix of literary and genre markets. AGNIThis respected literary journal accepts fiction, poetry, nonfiction, translations, and essays. All work will be considered for print and online publishing.Deadline: 31 May 2020Length: No word limit for prose; up to five…