Hugo Awards Involved in Major Controversy (Again); Authors Guild Fights Grant Cancellations; 3 Publishing Opportunities
This monthly column is published on the fourth Thursday of every month, and is an opportunity for me 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 subscriber’s recent success stories.
Also as someone who has been a long term member of the literary community, I have increasingly wondering about what role in this community the CLMP plays in the literary community currently. If you have any thoughts on this I’d love to hear them at support@authorspublish.com. Full disclaimer, I am in the early stages of putting an article together related to this topic.
Opportunities:
ELA. Literary Magazine is seeking submissions on the theme of Twisted Kingdom. Their details for the submission call are as follows: “Forget everything you think you know about British folklore and start asking, What if..? What if Robin Hood stole from the poor to give to the rich? What if Merlin pulled the sword from the stone? What if Brigadoon was actually just a real place? What if a Cu Sith visited a fourth time? What if a Puca decided to do more than trick people? What if the Lantern Man was actually there as a guide not a reaper? What if a Baobhan-Sith fell in love? We want stories that keep us guessing. Take any piece of UK mythology and reimagine it completely. Give us something new, something unexpected, and something that subverts what we think we know.” They are open to prose between 150 to 3,000 word in length. Submissions close September 1st. You can learn more here.
Alma Lit, a newly formed online micro magazine dedicated to publishing lyrical nonfiction and micro essays of 250 words or less. They don’t have a deadline at this time.
Kitchen Table Quarterly is looking for volunteer readers. Poetry readers commit to reading 10-15 submissions per week in the lead up to new issue releases. Nonfiction readers commit to reading 5-7 submissions per week in the lead up to new issue releases. To learn more go here.
News:
While it’s not over yet, so far the Authors Guild v. NEH court battle, Authors Guild has been doing well. The case is over the “mass Cancellation of grants previously awarded”. You can learn more about it here and here.
The winners of the 2025 Hugo Awards have been announced here. For the second year in a row, the awards involved a major controversy, this time involving AI. You can learn more about that here. You can learn more about last year’s scandal here.
Duotrope redesigned their site this summer and added a helpful feature where they identify if a journal charges a standard or average fee, or above average fee. It looks like this on an entry:
One of the publishers we reviewed in June, Watertower Hill Publishing, recently posted on FB, to clarify that they are going on indefinite hiatus, for reasons disclosed here. I am in no way diminishing those reasons, but I’m clarifying here, because they still have not updated their website to reflect the hiatus. I have made it clear in my review.
Our review of Turner Publishing Company was also updated, because they added this note to their website “*Please note, we are not affiliated with Turner Book Writers and will not request any money from you to submit your work to us.” A subscriber brought Turner Book Writers to our attention. They are very much a vanity press, and have designed their website to mimic Turner Publishing Company and are located in the same city (at least according to their website).
Subscriber Success Stories:
Allen Billy’s story The Commie Squirrels of Chisholm Lookout was published in The Writing Disorder.
Odi Welter’s creative nonfiction piece The Girl Jedi was published by My Galvanized Friend.
Lindsey Goldstein’s book Gap Year is available for pre-sale now on Amazon also, and will be published by Egret Lake Books.
Scott Craven’s book Upton Arms: A Retirement Home for Supernaturals is available for pre-order now and will be published by City Owl Press.
Janet Shafer’s short story Pepper appeared in the summer issue of Grain Magazine.
Mona Mehas‘s chapbook Breathing Through my Spine was published by PopTab Press.
Laurie Stoker’s true story Abandoned was published on Twenty-two Twenty-eight and included, at the bottom, a photo the author took of the scene.
Noelle Sterne’s article Kick the Competition Habit was published in Spirituality & Health and their essay Am I Spiritually Deprived was published in Feed the Holy,
Julio Puente García’s short story These Dark Summer Days was published in International Human Rights Art Movement Magazine (IHRAM).
Deborah Douglas Wilbrink‘s short story The Way In was published by Asymptote, and her microfiction Cut it Off was published by Bright Flash Literary Review.
Stephanie Jones published two poems, Ode on Fentanyl and Lunch Hour published in Four Tulips, one poem Perspectives From Underneath an Empty Parking Garage in Eye to the Telescope and one poem Home in The Orchards Poetry Journal.
Rutger Middelburg‘s short story The Galleon was published on The Wave.
Lance Mazmanian’s short story All Access was published by Fiction on the Web.
Laura Buxbaum had two poems published in Verse-Virtual.
John A. Tures had his short story Revenge of the Slasher Film Archetypes and the flash fiction The Devil’s in the Details in the anthology Speak of the Devil from Free Spirit/Poet’s Choice Publishing.
Carol Shamon‘s poem Stockholm Breeze was published in Harrow House and their chapbook ART TYPE was published by boats against the current.
Itto Outini and Mekiya Outini have published the following co-authored stories: Old Meats and No Service, in The Stonecoast Review , The Long Now in Stickman Review (July of 2025), and The New Sufyan with Gargoyle.
Al Simon short story I’ve Never Seen Her Before was published by Twenty-two Twenty-eight.
Laurence Klaven‘s short story GOAT was published by The Under Review and their one-act play The Lift was published in The Westchester Review.
CM Pickard’s poems Bittersweet Reunion, The Pulse, and Discovering Hope were published by The Poetry Lighthouse.
Louisa Prince’s flash fiction story Made for Walking was published online by Certain Age Magazine.
Ignatius Fernandez’s short story The Pain Passes But the Beauty Remains was published in Literary Yard.
Ndaba Sibanda’s poetry collection, Dear Dawn and Daylight was published by Clare Songbirds Publishing House.
LindaAnn LoSchiavo’s story Exploring the Hudson Street Hauntings was shared on YouTube by Zoetic Press.
Peter Gregg Slater’s poem Breaking News was published in The Fifty-Two Crime Poetry Weekly.
Daniel Speechly‘s article The Importance of (Good) Promotion was published in Lit Mag News. In addition his flash creative nonfiction story Paris Syndrome: Pari Shōkōgun was published in Panorama: The Journal of Travel Place and Nature.
Neal Lipschutz’s suspense novel No Write Way to Die, was published by TuckerDS Press.
B Shawn Clark‘s story The Black Seed was published in Mobius Blvd, an imprint of Dark Horses. His story Psalms of Hiawatha was published in the Academy of the Heart and Mind.
Charles Sartorius’s story, New Construction, was recently featured in MetaStellar.
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 July. 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.
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 www.caitlinthomson.com.
