This monthly column is published on the fourth Thursday of every month, and is a space to share information that doesn’t fit anywhere else in our publication. This includes a wide range of opportunities for writers, news and information, and subscribers’ recent success stories.
Opportunities:
The Conroy Center Writer’s Residency is open for applications till August 30th for it’s Fall 2026, residency. Coinciding with the annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival, the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center offers this residency. The residency at MarshSong Cottage is for October 20th to 27th, 2026 overlapping with the 11th annual Pat Conroy Literary Festival on October 23, 24, and 25, which the selected writer will be invited to attend. It is open to all prose writers. You can learn more here.
Epistle Literary Magazine is open for submissions from now through September 15th, 2026. They are seeking work on the theme “How has an educator or mentor shaped you?” They will consider poetry, short fiction, creative nonfiction, and letters to honor educators. For this issue, only authors based in the US will receive a print contributor copies. Please read the full guidelines before submitting.
Wordrunner eChapbooks has free open submissions to their 4th micro-prose issue. No payment except to Editors’ Choice ($25). They close to submissions on August 31st.
The Hooghly Review is open to submissions through August 31st of fiction, creative nonfiction, play and script, as well as art and photography. You can learn more about this call here.
Annick Press has a respected editorial mentorship program that reopens for applications on September 1st, 2026. Only Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Canada who are part of an underrepresented community in Children’s publishing may apply. Details here.
Stoat Poetry is currently reading for their second issue. They are open for until 31st August 2026. They consider up to six poems per issue (40 lines maximum per poem) on any theme. Their full guidelines are here.
The PERCH is a creative arts journal with mental health themes focused on original voices. They reading for their next issue which they are calling The Mix. This is what they have to say about the theme: “THE MIX, refers to the double-sided nature of mental illness and mental health. Put together, it creates a complex, tangled and beautiful mixture of emotions, attitudes and experiences. To be more specific: there is no doubt that mental illness is painful, sometimes excruciatingly so, and at times cruelly limits its sufferers from attaining their hopes and dreams. At the same time, many psychiatric survivors have spoken about the newfound depth and awareness that their journeys have brought them, and their appreciation of every moment, and the new stories that they have experienced and learned to tell. Without romanticizing the burdens of illness, this issue of THE PERCH will attempt to get at the puzzle of it all: the highs and low, the joys and sorrows, and the brilliant things that can derive from the experience. ” You can learn more about this submission call here. They close to submissions on October 31st.
The Rush Magazine is the online literary journal of the MFA program at Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles. They are currently “looking for poetry that emphasizes form. The forms may vary – from sonnets to villanelles, from pastoral odes to elegies, and everything in between – however, no matter the form, the verse must contain a strong sense of structure. Please submit no more than six poems at a time, and do not exceed six pages.” They also accept micro fiction & micro non-fiction as well as photo poetry, video poetry, and photo stories.
News:
Over the past year, from friends and subscribers, I’ve heard many complaints about the same issue, across a wide range of journals. I’m sharing this now, not to call out a particular journal, but to warn readers who pay to enter contests, to be aware of this issue. For some contests, when you pay the entry fee you are then signed up for a year’s subscription to the journal, or to at least one issue of the journal. This is actually generally helpful, as long as the subscription doesn’t automatically renew. Now many of these contests, including ones offered by Ploughshares, involve automatic renewal. This is not a helpful practice and can be very costly if you don’t find out in time to cancel your subscription.
Subscriber Success Stories:
Kathy O’ Fallon won the 2026 Henry Morgenthau III Poetry Prize for her book Proof of Life from Passager Books.
Robert M Tobias’ book What Lives in Me was published by Finishing Line Press.
David Cleofas Avila’ s poem Hearts Aplenty was published in the Magnets and Ladders.
Patti Heisler‘s book, BOONDOCKS BRIDE, was published by Cupid’s Arrow Publishing.
Laurie Hall’s story Growing Hope was published in Critical Blast‘s anthology, Fantastic Voyages.
Justin Warren Jackson’s short story What’s Wrong with Candlewood? was published in Kaleidoscope – A Queer Anthology, 2026 Edition from Cloaked Press. His short story Bleb Central, the Best Address in Town was published in Survival from Dragon Soul Press.
Roy Barnes’s nonfiction The Backyard That Became Our Major League Dream was published by Narratively.
Joanne Durham‘s poetry book Chasing Justice, was published by Shanti Arts. Sample poems are posted on her website.
Kate LaDew‘s book what it feels like to be run over (mm/dd/yyyy) is available for pre-order from Westbrae Literary Group.
Robert C Yeager’s book The Great Mogul was published by Rogue Phoenix Press.
Barton Paul Levenson’s novelette, Witches, has been published by The Arcanist Online.
Beth Sherman’s novella-in-flash, How to Get There From Here, was recently published by Ad Hoc Fiction.
Julie Novak-McSweeney’s poem A Given Language was published in The Dilettante.
Ashok Shenolikar’s story An Afternoon at the Ballgame was published at Freedom Fiction.
Paul Benkendorfer’s flash fiction, The Dancing Lights, was published by Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
Cortnie B Duran’s CNF piece Starlights was featured in the July 2026 edition of The Esthetic Apostle.
Glenna Turnbull‘s short story, White Elephant, was published in Toronto Journal and her novel, The Art of Getting Lost and Found, was published by Breakwater Books.
R. P. Singletary’s debut novel Speak Softly Among Iceburgs, was published by Parlyaree.
Tytti Heikkinen’s art piece While Europe Was Burning was published in Writers Resist.
Dick Kellogg’s poem Modern Verse was published in Gather Magazine.
Caroline Wolf Mansour’s novel The Sun in Winter is available for pre-sale from Left Field Publishers.
A.J. Parker‘s short story Pony was published in Space & Time Magazine.
Diane Carmony’s poem Precise Wonder was published by Poets for Science.
Sam F. Hutchins’ short story The Blood Donation was published by The Piker Press.
Kelli A. Wilkins’s short story Neighborhood Watch was published in the Witches Save the World: Covens, Cauldrons, and Curses Gone Right anthology, released by Gorgon’s Gaze Press.
S.Burgess’s fiction piece The Being of a Poet was published by egophobia.
Charles Sartorius’s short story Fire Then Ice was featured online at MetaStellar. His song Follow the Heart was included in Wild Greens.
Alice Rose’s chapbook Post Humanist Religion was published by Parlyaree Press.
Valerie Thornton‘s short story Murder in the Skies was published by Freedom Fiction Journal.
Giles Kelvage’s short story The Sweeper and the Child was published by JMWW.
John Tures’s story The Pickets II: Keeping Secrets was published by Gaslamp Pulp and his short story A Decent Level of Tranquility was published by AcademFic. His story A New Precedent: Legal Jeopardy II was published in The Alien Buddha’s Got Beef from Alien Buddha Press.
Sunitha Mookken’s poem The Pain, It Gets Better was published by Poem dStellium. Their poem Eternal Stranglehold of Eternity is part of the Poets of the Parthenon anthology published by the Creative Writing Academy of Greece. Their microchap The Good Things in Life was published by Origami Poems.
Clive Radford’s novel The Speed House On James Street was published by Rogue Phoenix Press.
Nancy Antle‘s story Here I Am was published by The Orange Rose Lit Mag.
F.I. Goldhaber‘s poem Do They Hate Their Children? was included in My Galvanized Friend. Their poem Boycott Bewilderment was published in Cacti Fur; and A Matter of Privilege was featured on The Five-Two.
Chris Clemens‘s micro flash Last Sunset at Lake Temagami was published by Fictive Dream, and their poem Six Minutes Till School was published in Heartlines Spec, and their dribble flash How We Kept Going was in selected for Best Microfiction 2026.
Please send us an email at success.stories@authorspublish.com if you have a publication success you want to share in our next update. You must include a link to the publication. You can also include a link to your website (if you have one), and the publisher/journals main landing page. To be featured in the September update your work must be published no earlier than June. Work available for pre-order can be shared. Please note that we are only listing work that has been traditionally published by literary journals, magazines, or traditional presses. We are not covering vanity presses or self-published books. We are not vetting presses before adding them to this list. We can only list three successes per person per update.
Bio: Caitlin Jans has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She is the co-founder of Authors Publish and The Poetry Marathon. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and literary journals including: The Literary Review of Canada, The Fiddlehead, Jelly Bucket, The Penn Review, The Adroit Journal, and Killer Verse. Her prose and poetry has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize, BILiNE, The Best Small Fictions Anthology, and The Best of the Net. You can learn more at her website or follow her on Facebook.
