April 10, 2025

How to Play The Subtext Game with Your Dialogue

By Sabyasachi Roy Writing dialogue can feel like a balancing act. If you use too much, you run the risk of overloading the reader. Too little leaves them perplexed. Finding the sweet spot where something magical occurs is difficult, and frequently it all comes down to what you choose not to say. Subtext—those delicious layers…

April 7, 2025

32 Themed Submission Calls and Contests for April 2025

These are themed calls and contests for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Some of the call themes are: solarpunk; seaside gothic; witchcraft; tributes to late bloomers; epiphany; where legends walk (superhero stories); creature feature; women of the weird west; feast or famine?; (sub)liminal; and eldritch. THEMED CALLS Solarpunk MagazineThis is a magazine of solarpunk fiction; they…

April 3, 2025

10 Manuscript Publishers Open to Direct Submissions in April, 2025

This list focuses on ten publishers that we are excited about that are open to submissions this month. Some are only open for a short period of time, others will be open the whole month and beyond. At least four of these are presses we have not covered previously. Please note that if a publisher…

Merganser Magazine: Now Seeking Submissions

Merganser Magazine is a new online journal of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. They accept all genres of poetry and prose: “We’re eager to find strong, well-written pieces across a wide range of material.” That said, they seem to favor science fiction and fantasy themes, as the visual aesthetic of the journal suggests. Merganser Magazine…

No-Fee Contests for Published Books (So You Can Become an Award Winning Author)

If you’ve recently published a book, you can leverage no-fee contests to get more visibility for your work. Even writers who forego the traditional publication route are not always disqualified from entering their books into these contests. Fee-free contests can offer everything from extra promotion and notoriety to monetary awards or invitations to read at…