The Top Five Journals That Have Re-opened to Submissions This Month

A lot of good and interesting literary journals have re-opened to submissions this April. Here are the five journals I am most excited about seeing open to submissions again.  They are not listed in any particular order. 1. Stoneboat Stoneboat is a print journal that tries to publish a mix of established and emerging writers….

Writing Prompt: Abandoned House

There is an abandoned house in your fictional neighborhood. It has been abandoned for decades under mysterious circumstances. No one knows where the owners went. But for some reason the house was never sold again and the city has never torn it down. The rest of your fictional neighborhood is up to you, the one…

Quote of the Week

Announcing the Winners of the Six Word Biography 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…

Alloy Entertainment: Accepting Manuscript Queries

Note: This article was initially published in April, 2014, updates were made in January and February 2015. I’m updating it on November 20th 2019 to say that they seem to be no longer open to submissions and serving a very different purpose, if they are around at all. Consider defunct. Alloy Entertainment is a large…

Writing Prompt: Sonnet

There are many kinds of sonnets. Shakespeare’s sonnets are not the only option.  There are sonnets that stick to the Italian method. There are ones that are only concerned with iambic pentameter. One only contains the word watermelon over and over again for fourteen lines, and it is still technically a sonnet. Gerald Stern has…

The Six Word Memoir 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…

Quote of the Week

Dark Futures: Open To Submissions

Dark Futures is an established online journal that pays their writers a small token payment. They publish short stories and poetry.They are interested in work with post apocalyptic or cyber punk themes. They are also interested in science fiction and horror, or anything that would fit under the heading of Dark Futures. They are interested…

Announcing the Winners of the One Sentence Pitch Competition

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

How To Write A Good Pitch for Your Novel

“Pitch” was such a foreign term for me as a young author, that when the first agent asked for my novel’s pitch at a conference, I blinked and shrugged. I was seventeen at the time so I suppose my reaction was understandable. The agent then had to explain to me what a pitch was. How…

Stirring: Open to Submissions

Stirring is an online journal published by Sundress Publishing. Sundress is a mostly women run publishing collective that publishes a number of literary journals, anthologies, chapbooks, and books. They also run the prestigious Best of the Net competition and the Gone Dark Archives a place to preserve journals that are no longer active. It is…

Skyhorse Publishing: Open To Book Proposals

Updated October 8th, 2024. CNN reported that after requesting an interview with Melania Trump, related to her newly released book (published by Skyhorse), the publisher asked that CNN pay a licensing fee of 250,000 for the interview and excerpts from/photos of the book. Publishers Marketplace ran the full story here, if you have a membership,…

Writing Prompt: In The Dark

This is a prompt that is simple but effective. You can use new characters, ones you have previously created, or even ones other authors have created. Put them in a normal situation, or rather, what would be a normal situation for them. Do they work at an office building? Place them there. Do they go…