Writing Prompt: Translate This

This is a writing prompt I encountered several times in graduate school. The task is to take a poem in a language you do not understand and “translate it”. I don’t mean look every word on google or try to use babble fish (a translation site). I just want you to read this poem in…

3 Very Unusual Literary Journals

Most literary journals are pretty predictable. There is a front cover and a back cover if it is a print journal. Online the format is more varied, but usually with similar results. There might be some art work or some audio that makes the presentation have a little more depth. But mostly they are variations…

Anaiah Press: Open to Manuscript Submissions

Updated August 2024: As they continue to remain closed to submissions long after they said they’d reopen, I’m removing them from current lists and the Manuscript Publishers Guide for the time being. Anaiah Press is a Christian digital first publisher. They publish faith based fiction and non fiction.  However they have a large number of…

Zest Literary Journal: Open to Submissions

Zest is an electronic literary journal based out of the UK. They publish poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction. They have been around since 2013. They release four issues every year. They are closing to submissions after November 30th. The theme of the issue is “Wake me up”. You must submit something that interacts with this…

Writing Prompt: The Adventures of Clarinata

Many authors spend hours, days, even weeks trying to figure out what to name their characters. One author who is a friend of mine, told me that it was much harder to name his main character in his first novel than it was to name his first child. I doubt it takes most people that…

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Evernight: Open To Romance Manuscripts

Evernight is an eBook publisher of romance and erotica novels that is currently open to submissions from writers. They also publish print versions of some books. They publish a lot of books and have a relatively high acceptance rate. The authors that have published with them have had a mixed experience. The lack of the…

Granta: Open To Submissions

Updated November 2017 Granta just started charging 4 dollars for prose submissions, although poetry submissions are still free. They said the prose submission charge is experimental. Granta is one of those established journals that has a great reputation and actually appears to have active readers. They publish a wide variety of fiction, creative non-fiction, and…

5 Ways to Get Out of a Writing Rut

Slump, funk, and rut are all names I have heard used more than once to describe that feeling writers get of being stuck. The details differ depending on the author, however many describe it as not writing anything new. Instead they are rehashing the same topic over and over again. Or, even if they are…

Sundress Publications Seeking Political Poetry for Anthology

Sundress Publications is a publishing collective that is responsible for a number of journals, anthologies, and manuscripts. They also run the annual Best of the Net Awards. This year they are putting together a collection of political poetry for publication. The anthology was inspired by and is a reaction to an essay published by NPR….

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Dzanc Books: Open To Manuscript Submissions

UPDATE July 6th 2016: They now charge 25 dollars for all manuscript submissions. We do not recommend working with them based on this. Dzanc Books is a respected independent publisher that also owns and operates a wide variety of imprints, and literary journals, including the highly respected electronic journal The Collagist. Dzanc books is based…

Memoir Title Contest

Congratulations to the winners of this week’s writing contest! They are listed below. This week the challenge was to write a memoir title. It was brought to our attention that the original winner’s title was not original. So we have selected a new winner and runner up. We apologize for the initial mistake and any…

Joffe Books: Accepting Novel Submissions

Updated Febuary 2019 Joffe Books is an independent publisher based out of London. They were founded in 2013. The originally focused on publishing new e-books and making classic books and short stories available electronically. They started out publishing almost any genre, although over the last year they really focused in on crime and mystery fiction….

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