Writing Prompt: For the Love of a Good Title

A good title can go a long way. It can intrigue the reader and it can even change one aspect of a story, so that the reader interprets it in a different way. Some of my favorite classic titles include A Widow for A Year, Love in the Time of Cholera, Pig Earth, A Wrinkle…

The 10 Best Writing Quotes

Over the last 2 years I have made over 3,000 literary quote memes, including the one featured above. This means that I have spent many hours seeking quotes out, reading them, and re-reading them. I now like to think that I can spot a fake quote a mile away, although this is not always the…

The Six Word Memoir

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…

Writing Prompt: Words from Another

For this prompt I want you to grab a book off your shelf, it should be a book that is written by someone who has a writing style that is very different than your natural style. It can be a book you have read or one you have not. It could be a book of…

Seven Stories Press: Open To Book Submissions

UPDATED October 6th 2020: They are no longer open to unsolicited submissions. Seven Stories Press is an independent publisher that has been around for twenty years. They have published a number of highly respected books. Their books are distributed by Random House. Seven Stories Press primarily publishes fiction and non-fiction as well as the occasional…

The Best Original 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…

The Climate Fiction Controversy

One of the first challenges an author faces is understanding the genre he or she is writing. From elevator pitches to query letters and beyond, professionals in the industry and the public use the idea of genre to help classify, organize, and clarify the contents of books. Cli-Fi or climate fiction is a relatively new…

Quote of the Week

Squalorly: Now Accepting Submissions

Squalorly is an online magazine publishing fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and art grounded in the grit and complexity of quotidian reality. They don’t want fantasy, and they don’t want scholarly investigations. They’re looking for reckless, inescapable, emotion, coddled by meticulous craft. They don’t want angst-driven diary writing. They want the kind of writing that keeps writers…

Felony & Mayhem: Open To Book Submissions

Updated: March 7th, 2024: They are no longer accepting submissions and appear to have to stopped publishing new work, at least for the time being. Felony & Mayhem is a print mystery book publisher founded in 2005, with fairly good distribution in brick and mortar bookstores. They initially focused only on re-issuing books that had…

Quote of the Week

Writing Prompt: The Curse

A curse is a common trope, from Fairy Tales to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, curses have been used to throw a twist into the plot. Sometimes the reader knows the curse from the start, which is how most fairy tales work. Or sometimes they know the curse from the start but they don’t know the…

The Best First Line Writing 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…

5 Books Every Writer Should Read

There are a lot of books on writing out there. In fact it can seem overwhelming at times. However, whether you are a poet, a fiction writer, or a non fiction writer, there are four books that I think everyone should read. I did not enjoy reading all of these books, but they all impacted…

Wiseblood: Open To Query Letters

Wiseblood is a small independent literary book publisher. They publish a wide range of literary  work including short story collections, novels, novellas, literary nonfiction, poetry, and, on occasion, critical or essay works. They are a Christian publisher that is deeply influenced by Flannery O’Connor’s work. Because of this not all of the work they publish…