Articles by Emily Harstone

Emily Harstone is the pen name of a published writer. Her work has been published in ten countries, four continents, by over fifty different journals. She is a professional submissions adviser and editor. If she owned a dog it would be named Wystan.

Writing Prompt: Life Without Computers

What if there were no computers? Obviously you wouldn’t be reading this right now, but many other important things that factor into your daily life would be different. Your prompt today is to imagine, in a poem or a story, what life would be without computers. Remember, if there were no computers there would also…

Quote of the Week

Writing Prompt: First Sentence, Last Sentence

This week the prompt is a little different. There are two options for it. The first is to do it with a friend, the second is to do it on your own. Pick your option and then proceed. Option One: Ask a friend to write down two sentences. The sentences should be seemingly unrelated. These…

4 Anthologies Accepting Submissions

Below are a number of publications with calls for submissions. Only the basics are listed here, not full reviews, but we try to give enough information to pique your interest. One of the reasons we started this new series is because placing your work in anthologies are a great way to get your foot in…

Contest: Why Do You Write?

Congratulations to the winners of this week’s writing contest! They are listed below. But first, a bit about our contest series. Every week we are going to have a contest on our Facebook Page. The contests will change from week to week, but the winners will always be published in the magazine. The contest winner…

Quote of The Week

Writing Contest: The Last Line

Congratulations to the winners of this week’s writing contest! They are listed below. But first, a bit about our contest series. Every week we are going to have a contest on our Facebook Page. The contests will change from week to week, but the winners will always be published in the magazine. The contest winner…

Arcadia Publishing: Open to Book Proposals

Updated November 6th, 2025: In July Arcadia sold content to an AI company but did allow authors to opt out of it. You can learn more here. sold access to the books they published to an AI developer for scraping Arcadia Publishing is an unusual kind of publishing company. In fact, the first thing that…

Writing Prompt: Groundhog Hour

Groundhog Day is a movie about a TV weatherman played by Bill Murray. His character relives the same day over and over again for almost the entirety of the movie. Only he knows that he is reliving the day over and over again; everyone else around him resets, and they do not know they are…

The Ten Word Poem Contest

Congratulations to the winners of this week’s writing contest! They are listed below. But first, a bit about our contest series. Every week we are going to have a contest on our Facebook Page. The contests will change from week to week, but the winners will always be published in the magazine. The contest winner…

The “Best Memoir Title” Contest

Congratulations to the winners of this week’s writing contest! They are listed below. But first, a bit about our contest series. Every week we are going to have a contest on our Facebook Page. The contests will change from week to week, but the winners will always be published in the magazine. The contest winner…

Shotgun Honey

Shotgun Honey is an online literary journal that has very specific content. They publish only fiction that is under 700 words in length and is in the genre of crime fiction. Within that genre, they like hard-boiled and noir fiction the best. Think of authors like Hammet and Chandler. Although they will accept general crime…

Red Flags: A Guide to Avoiding the Wrong Publishers

Updated February 20th, 2016 This article is all about how to avoid signing a book contract with the wrong publisher. It is hard to find good publishers, and it involves a lot of research just to find a legitimate publisher that accepts work if you do not have an agent. However, there are great options…

Beachwalk Press: Closed

UPDATED MARCH 30th, 2021: No web presence online. Consider defunct. Beachwalk Press is an independent publisher that was started in 2011 by Pamela Tyner. They largely publish romantic eBooks, but some of their books have been released in print as well. Most of the books they publish are on the sensual side. They are open…

Writing Prompt: Mad Scientist

Mad Scientists are an established stereotype now and they appear in movies, in TV shows, and books. It is usually hard to take them seriously. Still, they manage to be an enticing theme and many people play with the audience’s expectations. In the TV show Fringe, one of the main characters, Walter, was a mad scientist….

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