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 subscribers’ recent success stories.
Opportunities:
Poemancer: A Poetry Journey is a new card game “that poets can use to write inspired poetry”. The authors behind this game are seeking “excellent, thought-provoking poems in the game to prompt and inspire the players’ own poetry writing.” They have a lot of guidelines and additional context here. They are open to submissions till they reach their cap of 500 submissions. They are asking only for submissions of previously uncurated poems which is to say poems that have never appeared in an edited publication before, but it can be previously self-published by the author. If they reach their funding goal all contributors will receive a free copy of the Poemancer card game post publication and a $25 honorarium, paid via PayPal. If they don’t reach their funding goals rights will revert back to the author of the work.
Catalogue Zine is open to submissions on the theme “lifestyle” till the 20th of February. Their Zine as a whole is focused on climate advocacy, and submissions must reflect both themes. We featured their previous calls for submissions on the theme “Chow Down”, which you can read now here.
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.
News:
Recently I came across a brand new journal called PERUSE LIT. At the bottom of their webpage they share “PERUSE LIT never charges for editorial consideration or inclusion. Optional promotional services are available for authors who want expanded reach, and purchasing them has no impact on editorial decisions.” This is very troubling to me because while it doesn’t officially violate our guiding principals it is very much an up sell and it seems perplexing to me. Surely the editors of a journal are already motivated to promote their journal and the work they publish because it very much befits them. The idea that you would give your hard work to a journal for free and then for them to ask for your money to promote it seems outlandish to me. i’ve certainly never encountered it before in the 15 years I’ve been part of the literary journal comunity.
Harlequin France is switching over to AI translators. You can read more about it here and here.
Poetry Foundation, which has faced a lot of negative publicity in the last five years, is once again facing scrutiny. This time it is over program cuts. You can learn more here.
Subscriber Success Stories:
E.H. Jacobs’ poem Away Games was published by Streetlight Mag.
Denise Diehl’s The Card was published in The Academy of the Heart and Mind.
Tuesday Thomson‘s flash Leander was published on 101 words.
Sara Winslow‘s short play, My Body, Myself, was published by Knee Brace Press.
Laurinda Lind had a haiku published in Leaf, and a poem in Cold Moon Journal, and another in Snowfall & Starlight.
Richard Simonds’s short story What Waited for Us in the Garden was published by Eternal Haunted Summer.
Tiphanie Anderson’s poem Across the Liminal Divide was published by Poetry Habitat.
Jay Brodbar’s poem Still Life was published by Grain.
Dr. T. M. Asla and Jessica Augustsson’s The Santa Shank was published in Professor Feiff’s Trans-Dimensional Travelogue anthology, from Jayhenge Publishing.
Mark Scheel‘s creative nonfiction piece Fitting Pipe with a College Degree was published by the 105 Meadowlark Reader.
Melissa Sokulski‘s personal essay, Solvitur Ambulando, was published by Wild Greens.
Lia Tjokro’s short story The Caretaker of Tears was published in The Brussles Review, and they also did a podcast interview with Lia.
Madelaine Zadik‘s personal essay, The Photograph, was published in December in ContingulousLyt.
Maria B. Olujic’s essay The Tongue Remembers was published in AGNI and reprinted in Lit Hub. Her opinion piece The Words We Learn to Fear appeared in Public Seminar.
Camille Hernández-Ramdwar‘s short story The Flying River was published by Entre Magazine.
Jonni Dunn’s novel excerpt Balcones Fault was published as a short story by The Broken Teacup.
Stephanie Ross’s poem Arbutus was published by the League of Canadian Poets’ Fresh Voices.
Ellen Acconcia’s personal essay Tornadoes was published by The Drift and Dribble Miscellany.
Ayame’s short story The Valkyrie’s Lesson was published in Mythaxis Magazine.
John Tures’s short story The Price of Liberty was published by Dekalb Voices Review and his short story A Less Than Glowing Review From The Radiology Department was published by Bunker Squirrel.
Debra Lee was interviewed on the Author’s Show for her novel Pullman.
Donna Faulkner‘s poem Rumours was published in The Alchemy Spoon.
Tuesday Thomson’s story Susannah’s Solution was be published in the anthology Search for the Any Key from Wolfsinger Publications .
Vern Bryk‘s short story Erie View was published in the Great Lakes Review.
Monica Goertzen Hertlein‘s short story Key to an Unsuitable Birthright was published in the anthology Search for the Any Key from Wolfsinger Publications.
Chris Morey’s short story Lost In Translation was published in Ink Pantry.
Mike Sluchinski had two poems published in the Tulane Review, and his poem Fairy Wands published by Eternal Haunted Summer. Additionally one of his poems was featured in Remedios Varo: Ekphrastic Writing Responses published by the Ekphrastic Review.
John Tures’s short story Welcome to America was published by Jerry Jazz Musician.
Bart Plantenga‘s Interview with Malcolm Paul was published by Gonzo Weekly, and a number of his short stories were published in the International Times including WET DREAMS OF THE POPE and The Woman with One Too Many Faces.
Rachel Turney‘s poetry chapbook, Women Making Soup Together, is available from Vinegar Press.
Duane L. Hermann’s short story Rabbit Boy was published in Chewers.
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 February update your work must be published no earlier than December. 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 are not vetting presses before adding them to this list. 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,
