This monthly column is published on the fourth Thursday of every month, and is a space 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.
Opportunities:
Tokyo Poetry Journal is open for submissions from now through February 28th, 2026 on the theme of Gather ‘Round Children which will be a special issue “celebrating oral-tradition poetry and the timeless power of stories carried by the human voice. We seek poems that feel as if they could be shared around a fire: lyrical, narrative, rooted in memory or myth, and crafted to live strongly on the page.”
Submissions can be in English or Japanese, but “Japanese submissions must include an English translation (author-translated or translator-assisted)”. To see their full guidelines go here.
ELA Literary Magazine has a call for submissions from authors that are 18+ on the theme of Sultry Monstrous Untamed Tales (or S.M.U.T.) They are seeking work that is “A “new” way to look at old relationships.” and they expand on this by saying the following “We’re tired of reading the old tropes, and we’re tired of seeing the same tropes saturate the market. If we’re honest, we’re just a little tired of romance. We want to see what happens if the one night stand doesn’t go to plan, if the second chance romance goes just as badly the second time, if the fake relationship is a little too convincing. What happens when the forbidden love is actually something horrifying, if your crush never finds out you exist, if you actually decide to date a werewolf… and we’re sure there are more! We are looking for stories that fuel the fire, that bring passion back into the romance genre in new ways, that, true to our brand, subvert and surprise. So take those tired tropes, old and new, and reinvent them. Take the romance genre, take the concept of relationships, and turn it upside down. This is a collection of Stories Made Uncomfortably Tender!” Work can contain a little spice (which is to say it can be a little explicit). They close to submissions for this call on December 31st. Additional details on their submission guidelines page here.
Epistle Literary Magazine describes itself as “a love letter to educators everywhere. We publish writing that honors and appreciates the impact made on you by an educator or mentor in your life.” They are open to submissions for their second issue here. They are open to a wide variety of forms as long as your work answers the question: “How has an educator or mentor shaped you?”. They close to submissions on January 1st, 2026.
Procrastinating Writers United (PWU) is open to multimedia submissions open for a 2026 print anthology. They are seeking prose, poetry, illustration, comics, and multimedia work for their anthology entitled I Haven’t Made It Home Yet. They say they are looking for pieces about the search for belonging, particularly:
“returning to a familiar place and finding it changed or unrecognizable;
being displaced or out of place, feeling like a stranger;
memories and how they warp over time;
nostalgia, and missing something irretrievable.”
They close to submissions on January 11th, 2026. You can learn more here.
Blanket Gravity Magazine is a journal for fiction, creative nonfiction, and visual art. They look for writing and art that exploresmental health or emotional life. For their second issue they welcome fiction and nonfiction the explore the optional theme of “Technology and Love.” There will be a special collection focused on that theme within the issue. They pay $40 per chosen piece. To see their complete submission guidelines, go here. They close to submissions on January 10th.
News:
On a personal note, the five best books for adults I read in 2025 were Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin, The Unseen World by Liz Moore, Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Conner, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency by Chen Chen, and The Harder I Fight The More I love You by Neko Case.
If you have young(ish) children in your life, I also highly recommend the following books I read for the first time last year: How to Talk to your Succulent by Zoe Persico, The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street by Karina Yan Glaser, and Rodeo Hawkins and the Daughters of Mayham by John Claude Bemis.
Psychopomp is no longer publishing novellas or novelettes. They also are putting nonfiction publications on hiatus at Psychopomp. They are also putting Fantasy Magazine on hiatus after publishing the December issue. The Deadlands, their other literary journal will not be impacted at this point. You can learn more here.
Subscriber Success Stories:
Greg Blake Miller‘s story The Ninth Chime was published in Red Canary Magazine.
Alicia Maskley’s poem The Shedding was published in Nocturne Magazine and their short story The Worm-Gitter was published in Altitude Press’s Gen X Anthology.
Daniel Speechly‘s story To Be an Author was published in Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature.
SueBird Sparrow‘s The Devil Drinks Monsoons, was published by Bayou Wolf Press.
Alan Simmons’s short story, The Green Hills of Mars, was published by Merganser Magazine.
Chris Morey’s short story The One You Love was published by winnamop.
Lilian Pomeroy Edmonds‘s story My Ghosts was published by Friends Journal and another story by them was published in Paddler Press’s issue on faith.
Dr. John A. Tures had his story Death Comes A Story published in the anthology LAXtras and had his book Branded published by Huntsville Independent Press.
Sara Winslow‘s short story Clear Cut, was published in Inlandia Journal.
Maria D’Antonio-Reich‘s short story, Hana’s Pack was recently published in the Spirit of the Wolf anthology by Wolfsinger Publications.
Richard Simonds’s short story The Broken Leaf was published in Freedom Fiction and his poem Math and the Universe was published in Star*Line and his flash piece Leaves of Silicon was published in 365tomorrows.
Steven Streeter published a short story in the winter issue of Tales From The Crosstimbers.
Bleh 👅‘s story I Haven’t Felt My Grief was published by Inner Worlds.
Jaimie Mackie’s story was published in the anthology Eerie Christmas from Black Hare Press.
E.H. Jacobs published two poems, Just Another Day, Honest! and On Another Planet in Abandoned Mine.
LindaAnn LoSchiavo’s book Cancer Courts My Mother was published by Prolific Pulse Press and their book Vampire Verses: Poems was published by Twisted Dreams Press on Nov. 28th, 2025.
Lewis Brett Smiler’s story Brave Ramon was published in Academy of the Heart and Mind.
Charles Sartorius’s microfiction Final Submission was recently published in Rat Bag Lit.
Peter Gregg Slater’s flash fiction piece And I Can’t Get Up was published in The Airgonaut.
Coira MacHaffie has a story in Professor Feiff’s Trans-Dimensional Travelogue from JayHenge Publishing.
Lance Mason‘s story The Brass Ring was published in Retreats from Oblivion. His short story, Straight, No Ice, was published by The Argyle as the first part in a serialized fiction chapbook.
Cindy Kluck-Nygren’s flash fiction Feeling Deflated was published by the Roe River Review.
Greg Bell’s poem Chicken Little 2016 was published in Changing Skies from Hindsight Journal.
F.I. Goldhaber’s shadorma Siren Song was published by the The Orchards Poetry Journal.
Elisabeth Frischauf’s poem In my dream I became an iris was published by Plants & Poetry.
Cithara Patra‘s poem Together was published by Microromance, and their flash fiction Dinner with Grandma was published by Instant Noodles. Their flash fiction piece, The Butterfly, was published by CommuterLIT.
Ignatius Fernandez’s book Jesus Christ: True Leader and Perfect Gentleman was reviewed in LatinosUSA.
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 January update your work must be published no earlier than November. 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. We can only list three successes per person per update.
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 her website or follow her on Facebook,
