A new issue of The Dillydoun Review is only a couple days away, but don’t miss Issue 7 with poetry by Julie Benesh, Robert Beveridge, Eve Chilali, Robin Gow, Lily Mayo, Anita Nahal, and more; prose poetry by Cecilia M. Gigliotti; nonfiction by Jeff Lawenda; and more. See what else you can find at The Dillydoun Review website.
The Baltimore Review is pleased to present their Summer 2021 issue with poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction by: Jeffrey Bean, David Bergman, Stephen Cramer, Vishnas R. Gaitonde, Robin Gow, Claire Kortyna, Kelley J. P. Lindberg, Jarid McCarthy, and more. See a full list of contributors at The Baltimore Review website.
Issue 38 of The Adroit Journal is out! Poetry by David Hernandez, Mark Doty, Patricia Liu, Margaret Ray, Chris Santiago, Maja Lukic, Rachel Long, Mai Der Vang, Rebecca Morton, Rita Dove, and more; prose by Tucker Leighty-Phillips, Raye Hendrix, Krystle DiCristofalo, and Perry Lopez; and interviews with Rachel Yoder, Forrest Gander, Brandon Taylor, and Shangyang Fang. Read more info at The Androit Journal website.
I was surprised by the change of scenery when visiting 2River View’s website. The online literary journal just had a small makeover. Like before, the new design spotlights the four latest publications but they’re now at the center of the homepage with larger thumbnails of their always stunning featured art. The rest of the layout is mostly the same, but there is less text on the homepage, bringing the focus to those issues. So what are you waiting for? Go check out them out at their newly designed home!
On August 17 literary magazine The Common featured a conversation between Ilan Stavans and Haoran Tong on poetry and the use of multiple languages. Besides talking on how language is used and how they consider it in their own work, you also get to learn how they grew up and learned their languages from it being completely natural with no dominance of one language over the other to acquiring a new language as being an invasion.
My English education, in contrast, focused more on practical dialogues than on literature. English was taught to me as a useful tool to acquire more knowledge, but Chinese was me. This probably explains my initial reluctance to use English elements in Chinese poems, or vice versa. Moreover, I seriously scrutinized my poems, out of guilt, for any “latinized” syntax that sounded “unChinese.”
Stavans and Tong also talk on “decidophobia” and how common it is now when in societies today choices are constantly demanded and their is always the underlying fear that you may make the wrong one.
Decidophobia is a common social trait, especially in capitalist societies: we are constantly demanding ourselves to make a choice. This, obviously, comes with the fear of making the wrong one. Is it possible to have too many choices before us? Should one try to avoid such a situation? Probably not.
And if you are interested in translation versus translingualism, Stavans and Tong have a lot to bring to the table on the subject as well: “Whereas translation tells, explains, or instructs, translingual writing shows, infuses and liberates.” Check out the interview in it’s entirety.
Walter M. Robinson was selected by guest judge Megan Stielstra as the winner of River Teeth‘s 2020 Literary Nonfiction Book Prize. His book, What Cannot Be Undone, will be published by the University of New Mexico Press in Spring 2022. Stielstra writes that Dr. Robinson’s book gave her was “the deep humanity of the people called to save our lives.” Dr. Robinson also received a cash prize of $1,000.
The 2021 Literary Nonfiction Book Prize officially opened on August 1 with a deadline of October 31. The guest judge is award-winning author Rigoberto González. The winner receives $1,000 and book publication by The University of New Mexico Press.
Runner Up
Souvenirs from Paradise by Erin Langner
Three Finalists
Afterlight by Joshua Bernstein
How to Live by Kelle Groom
Swampitude by Quitman Marshall
Five Semi-Finalists
The Mothers by Rebe Huntman
Homemaker by Jessica Johnson
From Your Friend Carey Dean by Lisa Knopp
Poisons of War by Sabrina Veroczi
The Mary Years by Julie Marie Wade
Deadline: October 1, 2021
The Missouri Review is pleased to announce that the 31st annual Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize is now open. Winners in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction receive $5000 and publication, promotion, and an event to be determined later. All entries are considered for publication in TMR, or in our web-exclusive features, BLAST and/or Poem of the Week. Visit our website to learn more: www.missourireview.com/contests/jeffrey-e-smith-editors-prize/.
Able Muse has just released the announcement of their 2021 Write Prize for Poetry and Fiction winners. The submissions were judged anonymously by the Able Muse Contest Committee and the final judges, William Baer (fiction) and Jehanne Dubrow (poetry).
Amina Gautier’s “We Ask Why” wins the Write Prize for fiction. Baer said the piece is “a deeply moving story that raises serious questions about personal identity and parentage.” The winning story will be published in the Winter 2021/22 edition of Able Muse.
FICTION HONORABLE MENTION:
FICTION SHORTLIST:
E. D. Watson’s “Twelfth of May” wins the Write Prize for Poetry. Dubrow states “What I so appreciate abut this poem is the wryness, its gift for evoking landscape…and the speaker’s sudden hunger in the early aftermath of trauma.” The winning poem and the finalists will be also be published in the Winter 2021/22 issue.
POETRY FINALISTS:
POETRY HONORABLE MENTION:
Stay tuned for the 2021 Able Muse Book Award announcement.
Endings & Beginnings. Fiction by Sruthi Narayanan, Titus Chalk, Michael Nye, and others; creative nonfiction by Katie Culligan and Kirsten L. Parkinson; and poetry by Chelsea Wagenaar, Richard K. Kent, Grant Clauser, John A. Nieves, Chelsea Bayouth, Emma Aylor, Suzie Eckl, Magpie Miller, Christen Noel Kauffman, Carol Guess & Rochelle Hurt, and more. See more contributors at the Nimrod website.
In this issue: fiction by Kristi Humphrey Davis, Brett Dixon, Ankur Razdan, Babak Movahed, Douglas K. Currier, and David Sapp; poetry by Michael S. Glaser, Buffy Aakaash, Ellen Austin-Li, Rachel Barton, Anthony Butts, Ted Clausen, Richard Cole, John Cullen, Holly Day, John Philip Drury, Susan Entsminger, Craig Evenson, Ken Fifer, Kasha Martin Gauthier, Carol Hamilton, Ken Holland, William Snyder, Jr., William R. Stoddart, Maryfrances Wagner, Kari Wergeland, Nicole Walker, Richard Widerkehr, Beth Oast Williams, and more. See who else you can find in this issue at The Main Street Rag website.
See what Grand Little Things has published in the past month: poetry by Jane Kennedy Mitchell, Steve Mentz, Sean Patrick, David Russell Mosley, Evan Vandermeer, Ken Gosse, Tonya Walter, Amanda Ryan, Martin Potter, and Bob McAfee. Get more info at the Grand Little Things website.
In this issue, Vanessa Nirode deciphers the vague alteration notes left for the often-over-looked, behind-the-scenes tailors for television shows. Benjamin Woodard gives a breath-taking account of Barry, a man in his mid-50s, who acts impulsively while out for an evening stroll with his wife. Ohio Poet Laureate Kari Gunter-Seymour writes about what happens when you try to love someone who thinks he doesn’t deserve to be loved. Learn more about this issue’s images at the Cutleaf website.
Deadline: December 1, 2021
Woodcrest is pleased to announce an open submission period. We welcome submissions from everyone. The literary journal of Cabrini University, Woodcrest aims to publish work that is surprising, challenging, and grounded in the human experience. We want to read your submissions of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, hybrid genres, and graphic arts. Please use our Submittable page for more information about submissions: woodcrestmagazine.submittable.com/submit.
Literary magazine CARVE offers the Raymond Carver Short Story Contest annually in the spring with winners appearing in their fall issue. The contest awards $3,000 across five prizes and is open to stories written in English from around the world.
The 2021 contest was judged by Leesa Cross-Smith who chose the top three prizewinners.
First – $2000: “Habits” by Morgan Green in Abington, PA
Second – $500: “The Pit” by Chris Blexrud in New Orleans, LA
Third – $250: “Field Dressing” by Mariah Rigg in Eugene, OR
Editors’ Choice – $125: “What Happened with the Librarian?” by Haley Hach in Rhinebeck, NY
Editors’ Choice – $125: “The Kingdom of the Shades” by Nina Ellis in London, UK
Finalists
“Disappear” by Patricia King
“Eyrie Hours” by Stephanie Pushaw
“Mapping the New Hell” by Shana Hartmann
“Those People” by Melissa Gardea
“St. Felix Dance & Bowl” by Joshua Wales
Find Willow Springs Fall 2021 is out. New poetry by Roy Bentley, John Blair, Bruce Bond, Kathryn Hunt, Melissa Kwasny, Sandra McPherson, Melanie Tafejian, Lyuba Yakimchuk, and more; fiction by Robert Long Foreman, Amanda Marbais, and Wendy Elizabeth Wallace; and nonfiction by Andrew Farkas, Jeremy Alves da Silva Klemin, and Holly Spencer. Plus closing the issue: an interview with Kevin McIlvoy. Read more at the Willow Springs website.
Featuring some wonderful poetry, fiction, and narrative nonfiction from: Katie Berta, Krysta Lee Frost, Huan He, Laetitia Keok, Alyse Knorr, Kyle Liang, Zefyr Lisowski, lisa luxx, Livia Meneghin, Meghana Mysore, and more. See additional contributors at the wildness website.
The Summer 2021 issue of Snapdragon is out. This issue is filled with poetry, creative nonfiction, and photography from around the globe. This year, we’re focused on the stages of grief and using art to explore the various complexities of grief. This is our second issue of the series, and the theme is “anger.” But, rest assured, though the issue explores the raw pain of anger, it explores it beautifully and artistically. Read more info at the Snapdragon website.
The latest issue of Hole in the Head Review features work by Sheleen McElhinney, Cindy Buchanan,, David Dixon, Miriam N. Kotzin, Jocelyn Ulevicus, Kenneth Rosen, Cal Freeman, Jefferson Navicky, Julio Maran, Jill DeGroff, Lisa Bellamy, Tania Runyan, Jacklyn Hogan, JC Reilly, Cynthia Good, Christopher Rubio-Goldsmith, Dan McLeod, Jean Kane, and more. Find a full list of contributors at the Hole in the Head Review website.
Deadline: September 17, 2021
The Hole in the Head Review is a vibrant online journal of poetry and art that is attracting an international audience and submissions from new and established poets, including Richard Blanco, Cyrus Cassells, Denise Duhamel, Richard Foerster, Kimberly Cloutier Green, Larkin Warren, Marie Harris, Michael Hettich, Marilyn A. Johnson, Maurya Kerr, Stuart Kestenbaum, Kenneth Rosen, Ralph Savarese, Betsy Sholl, Charles Simic, David Weiss, J.D. Whitney. Plus a host of photographers, painters, collagists, textile and tattoo artists…even fishing lure makers. Submit today!
Magazine Review by Katy Haas.
128 words. That’s what Cathy Ulrich gives us in “I Do Not Want to Live Without You.” Just 128 words. And somehow that’s exactly enough.
We’re introduced to characters in a motel and the motel’s swimming pool, a quick snapshot but a vivid one. The narrator says, “maybe later there will be consequences and police cars, maybe later it will be like our parents said,” and this is the perfect amount of information to allow readers to put together a backstory for this snapshot.
Is it the backstory Ulrich imagined when writing this piece of flash? Is the backstory you assign it the same as mine? Maybe or maybe not. And that’s what I love about it. There’s beauty in the language used and beauty in what’s kept from us.
“I Do Not Want to Live Without You” by Cathy Ulrich. Flash Frog, June 2021.
Last night Club Plum Literary Journal announced their 2021 Best of the Net nominees!
Fiction:
“U. Vulgaris” by Mary Alice Long
“The Swing” by t.m. thomson
Prose Poetry
“Natures Mortes” by Katherine Cart
“escape” by L. Kardon
“Downpour” by Lorette C. Luzajic
“How to Make a Shroud” by Kristen Roach
“If This Is the Truth” by Sean Rys
Art
“Plums” by Ann-Marie Brown
“The Jellyfish Invasion of Asbury Park” by Joe Lugara
“Blithe #2” by Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad
You can check out these nominated pieces at the journal’s website.
CHESTNUT REVIEW (“for stubborn artists”) invites submissions year round of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, art, and photography. We offer free submissions for poetry (3 poems), flash fiction (<1000 words), and art/photography (20 images); $5 submissions for fiction/nonfiction (<5k words), or 4-6 poems. Published artists receive $120. Notification in <30 days or submission fee refunded. We appreciate stories in every genre we publish. All issues free online which illustrates what we have liked, but we are always ready to be surprised by the new! Currently reading for our Winter issue. chestnutreview.com
This month’s feature includes a selection of Veronica Golos’s work. The poet is also interviewed by Amy Beeder. Sonia Greenfield reviews Finding Token Creek by Robert Alexander. In nonfiction: “The Only Critic” by J.T. Barbarese. Check out some of this issue’s poets at the Plume website.
River Heron Review Issue 4.2 has launched and is ready for you to read and enjoy. Issue 4.2 includes the work of 20 poets: J.I. Kleinberg, Tresha Faye Haefner, Dean Schabner, Wendy Steginsky, John Sibley Williams, Maliká Duff, Hannah Larrabee, Julie Cooper-Fratrik, and more. See a full contributor list at the River Heron Review website.
In this issue, John Davis, Jr. shares four poems beginning with a praise to the coast in “Inland: A Breakup Letter.” Matt Cashion relishes in the complexities of human nature that emerge when a mysterious light source appears in the sky in “See You Soon?” And Meredith McCarroll extols the virtues of packing lightly while always having precisely what you need in “Bags.” See what images are in store for you at the Cutleaf website.
In this issue: short stories by and interviews with Matt Jones, Vanessa Bernice De La Cruz, Jose Diego Medina, and Amanda Hartzell. New poetry by Eric Bodwell, Despy Boutris, Katherine Riegel, and Eric Wang. New nonfiction by Ashley Memory and Craig Coray. See what else is in this issue at the Carve website.
Next month, Snapdragon will resume hosting their Art & Healing Popups. The donation-based online events feature a different artist and artistic practice each month. The series was on pause for the summer, but will return on Sunday, September 12 with “Introduction to Zentangle” with Vanesa Simon.
You can RSVP for this event to receive a reminder when it gets a little closer at Snapdragon‘s website. While you’re there, you can see what materials you’ll need, as well as a list of past events.
If you aren’t subscribed to Ruminate‘s newsletter (you probably should be), they announced in their July 31 edition that Jess Jelsma Masterton is joining their team as Editor. She was unanimously elected to the position due to her “compelling vision for the magazine” and care for the staff, readers, and their mission.
Masterton has previously worked on the Cincinnati Review where she served as an Assistant and Associate Editor. She has also recently completed her PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Cincinnati. Her own fiction, nonfiction, and audio works can be found in recent issues of The Arkansas International, The Southern Review, and The Normal School.
Interim Editor Jen Stewart Fueston will work with Masterton to ensure a smooth transition before returning to her board position later this fall.
The team at Ruminate are committed to being an independent magazine with the freedom to cultivate their authentic selves through nourishing conversations, actions, and art that spiritually sustains and are excited to continue their united journey with Masterton at the helm.
Able Muse has announced its next reading will take place Saturday, August 21 from 3-4PM EDT. This will be a virtual event with a Q&A with three Able Muse authors.
The lineup consists of Maryann Corbett, Frank Osen, and Matthew Buckley Smith. Corbett has had three titles published by Able Muse Press with the most recent being In Code published last year. Frank Osen was the winner of the Able Muse Book Award 2012 while Matthew Buckley Smith won the award in 2011.
The event is hosted by Ellen Kaufman whose book Double-Parked, with Tosca was published by Able Muse Press earlier this year.
As with their past readings, admission is free, but you do need to register to save your spot!
If you missed out on the last reading with David Alpaugh, James Kochalka, and Sydney Lea, they have uploaded the recording to their official YouTube channel.
Creative Nonfiction is currently having a sale on back issues, subscriptions, books, and merchandise through August 10 to help make room with the new magazine debuting this fall.
This means a digital subscription is available for just $3/month or $25/year! Plus, you can get back issues of CNF for just $2.50 and back issues of True Story for only $1!
Love their line of books, but haven’t snapped up the title you want yet? Books are starting as low as $8. How about getting a gift for a teacher who is gearing up to go back to school soon? Check out the anthology What I Didn’t Know: True Stories of Becoming a Teacher.
Love t-shirts? They are on sale, too. You can get them in white, blue, black, and red and they are only $4.
Plus, if you subscribe today as a Supporting or Sustaining subscriber (these options aren’t part of the summer sale), you gain priority registration for their fall roster of online courses, which is a pretty nice perk. So if you’ve been on the fence about subscribing, maybe it’s time to take the plunge?
Literary magazine The First Line recently realized they haven’t asked their readers and writers to supply first lines in a few years and decided to change that with The First Line 2022 First (and Last) Line Contest.
You have until September 15 at 6PM EST to submit up to three first lines and one last line. These must be original and unpublished. Those whose first or last line are selected will receive $100 and five copies of the issue inspired by their line. Pretty cool, huh? Oh, and there is no fee to enter!
Also, The First Line is giving away 22 one-year PDF subscriptions. All you have to do is enter you’re first and last lines and you’ll be put in the running for the subscription, too.
upstreet 2021 is out. New fiction by Sam Fletcher, David Hammond, Emily Lackey, Sarah Mollie Silberman, and more; nonfiction by Gail Hosking, Beth Kephart, Allen Price, Nadya Semenova, and others; and poetry by Katharine Coles, Jennifer Franklin, Jessica Greenbaum, Rachel Hadas, Richard Jones, Sydney Lea, D. Nurkse, Yehoshua November, Nicholas Samaras, Jason Schneiderman, Sean Singer, Mervyn Taylor, Anton Yakovlev, and more. Read more info at the upstreet website.
The August issue of The Lake is now online featuring Joe Balaz, Rachel Burns, Clive Donovan, George Franklin, Peter Grandbois, Nels Hanson, Sheila Jacob, Jennifer A. McGowan, Yvette Naden, Carlos Reyes, George Ryan. Check out this month’s reviews at The Lake website.
The Summer 2021 issue of Emerald City is out. New work by Brittany Ackerman, Dante Di Stefano, Melissa Feinman, Frenci Nguyen, Francesca Halikias, Liam Strong, T.D. Johnston, Sarah Rose Cadorette, and Michael Putnam. More info at the Emerald City website.
New on bioStories so far this year: Tim Bascom “At Ease,” Emma Berndt “Wisdom from the Alligator Purse,” Deborah Burghardt “Leaving Mum Behind,” Joe Dworetzky “Big League,” Patricia Feeney “Holy Mother,” Karen Foster “Carrying Sam,” J. Malcolm Garcia “The Reporter and the Reporter’s Mother,” and more. See a list of all of 2021’s contributors so far at the bioStories website.
Deadline: Rolling
Storm Cellar, a print-and-ebook journal of safety and danger since 2011, seeks amazing new work for volume 10! Send emotionally, aesthetically, technically, and linguistically ambitious writing, photos, and art. We’re especially listening for Indigenous, Black, POC, LGBTQIA+, enby, fat, disabled, neuroatypical, poor, border-straddling, and other marginalized voices. Our roots are in the American Midwest. Surprise us! Full guidelines at stormcellar.org/submit and submission portal at stormcellar.submittable.com.
Interim Test Site Poetry Series Call for ManuscriptsDeadline: November 15, 2021
We’re looking for manuscripts of at least 48 pages that engage the perilous conditions of life in the 21st century, as they pertain to issues of social justice and the earth. Because we believe the truth is always experimental, we’ll especially appreciate books with innovative approaches. Beginning in 2021 and going forward, Interim will be publishing two books in their Test Site Poetry series—one title publicized as the winner of the Test Site Poetry Series and the other as the Betsy Joiner Flanagan Award in Poetry. Both winners will receive $1,000 and publication by the University of Nevada Press. www.interimpoetics.org/test-site-poetry-series
The Massachusetts Review aids readers in learning more about the writers they publish on their MR Online component. In a section called “10 Questions,” contributors answer the same ten questions. Because these are the same ten questions and are not personalized, the interviews are all pretty casual, but they do offer insight into writing rituals and inspiration.
Contributors also answer the question, “What did you want to be when you were young?” I loved seeing the variety of responses and especially appreciated Amanda Hawkins’s answer:
When I was seven I wanted to be sixteen so I could drive. When I was ten I wanted to be a writer. When I was thirteen I wanted to be an English professor. When I was seventeen I wanted to be a person who kept lentils and and rice in jars. When I was twenty I wanted to be a baker. I’m not sure looking back if I’ve been determined or just unimaginative, because I’ve done all these things to some degree, but not exactly in that order.
Other recent interviewed contributors from the Summer 2021 issue include Mike White, Bettina Judd, Adrian Matejka, and Joshua Garcia.
Magazine Review by Katy Haas.
Shoshana Akabas begins “By the Creeks of Wyoming” with just a hint of what’s happening: “Aspen leans over and says, ‘You know, Natalie’s telling everyone about your brother,’ [ . . . ].” Who is Natalie and what’s going on with the narrator’s brother? Akabas hooks us into the story and then reels slowly, the answers appearing one by one, so brief they could almost be overlooked.
While the story of what happened to the narrator’s brother becomes distorted through the gossip of Natalie, the narrator’s friend who is slowly drifting in a different direction now that they’re in high school, it becomes clearer for the readers each time the narrator responds to the classmates who have heard the gossip. I loved this slow burn, the piecing together of the puzzle until the full picture is revealed.
The narrator’s brother plays a large role in the story, but Akabas chooses never to actually place him in the story. He’s always on the other side of the door or wall, an unreachable and almost legendary figure.
Melancholy and rife with the emotional ups and downs of high school, “By the Creeks of Wyoming,” is a quick yet beautiful read.
“By the Creeks of Wyoming” by Shoshana Akabas. AGNI, 2021.
Our first issue of volume three is ready and free to read on our site. Find work by Jenny Hykes Jiang, Jacqueline Staikos, Tara Isabel Zambrano, Lindy Biller, Christina Yoseph, Akhim Alexis, Richard Lingo, and more. Find a full list of contributors at the Chestnut Review website.
Ruminate has announced the winner, runner up, and honorable mention for their 2021 William Van Dyke Short Story Prize. The final judge of the prize this year was Kelli Jo Ford whose debut novel Crooked Hallelujah made waves last year.
First Place: “The Florist” by Alex Cothren
Second Place: “A Guide to Removal” by Amber Baleser-Wardzala
Honorable Mention: “Kantingo Carried 16,980 Tons and a Gentleman” by George Choundas
These stories will be published in the Fall 2021 issue of Ruminate due out in mid-September. The issue is currently available for pre-order, so don’t forget to reserve your copy today if you aren’t a subscriber already.
Stop by and peruse our ever-growing Summer Online Edition! Escape into the world of “Dispatches from the Poetry Wars” as presented in an interview with creators Michael Boughn and Kent Johnson. Turn a corner with Kent and enter the synchronous world of César Aira in “How I Became the Narrator of a César Aira Novel.” Reviews of poetry by Nico Vassilakis; nonfiction exploring Black Mountain writers John Wieners and Larry Eigner; and more. See what else is online at the Rain Taxi website.
The July/August issue of the Kenyon Review features work by two poets who piercingly explore race and historical memory at a time when these issues seem more urgent than ever before. The noted writer Paisley Rekdal offers three poems from the online project “West: A Translation.” The issue also includes two poems by Bryan Byrdlong, whose work interrogates the figure of the zombie as it relates to Blackness and Black precarity in the face of white supremacy, and as a general symbol for those struggling with marginalization. Plus work by Betsy Boyd, Perry Lopez, Christopher Blackman, Kelsey Norris, Austyn Gaffney, and more. Read more at the Kenyon Review website.
In this summer issue of Kaleidoscope, we have personal essays, poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, a book review, a dance feature, and information regarding the release of the documentary film Fierce Love and Art. Featured essay by Kimberly Roblin. Featured art by Diane Reid. Additional work by Mariana Abeid-McDougall, Dyland Ward, Carrie Jade Williams, and more. See a further list of contributors at the Kaleidoscope website.
In this issue, Jesse Graves delves into that complicated space where family connects with history and place in three poems that begin with “An Exile.” Ace Boggess tells the story of the winding road the carries eight men to a West Virginia penitentiary in “Welcome to Rock Haul.” Amy Wright remembers the summer after her brother died from cancer, and the line of communication that opened, in “Life After Death,” an excerpt from her forthcoming book Paper Concert: A Conversation in the Round. Read more at the Cutleaf website.
If you’ve ever wondered which lit mags have the largest Twitter followings, Brecht De Poortere has you covered. On the writer’s website is a ranking of 500 literary journals with the highest Twitter follower counts. Being published by these ranked magazines may direct more traffic to a writer’s published piece, and can help followers find new work by writers that they may have otherwise missed.
You can find the rankings here. Happy following!
Magazine Review by Katy Haas
Rage Hezekiah has three poems in the Summer 2021 issue of Colorado Review. Of these, “Not For Us” stuck out to me the most, visually grabbing my attention as I paged through the issue.
“Not For Us” is an erasure of rejection letters. I assume these were taken from publication rejections, and appreciated the poet’s ability to create new writing out of these. The reader takes in the sparse words left over and it’s interesting to see how similar the language is, the repetition leading the reader’s eyes over the two-page spread of rejections.
Hezekiah’s piece is a good reminder that just because something is “not for us,” doesn’t mean that’s the end.
“Not For Us” by Rage Hezekiah. Colorado Review, Summer 2021.
Literary magazine StoryQuarterly has decided to do something new – general nonfiction and fiction reading periods versus running multiple contests. This year on July 31, they will begin accepting nonfiction submissions via Submittable. This submission period will run through Sunday, October 17.
They seek personal essays, narrative nonfiction, memoir, flash nonfiction, lyric essays, and other forms of creative nonfiction, preferably under 6,250 words.
Then, they will open up a reading period for fiction only from October 16 through December 19. If you would like to enter their Fiction Contest, that will open August 28 and run through November 7.
While waiting for these submissions opportunities to open up, don’t forget to read Issue 53 featuring work by Sophie Braxton, Nina de Gramont, Viet Dinh, Anthony Tognazzini, Kathleen Heil, Beatrice Baltuck Garrard, Jim Flanagan, Asher Dark, Chaney Kwak, Michelle Gurule, Cassie Mannes Murray, Rachel Toliver, Chris Stuck, Noel Alumit, James Magruder, Miah Jeffra, Rachel Howard, Kathy Anderson, J.E. Sills, and Amelia Martens.
Beginning in 2021, Inverted Syntax will be publishing its annual print issue in November. Their online issue, Fissured Tongue Series is published in the summer. Their submissions period is normally February through June, but they opened submissions later this year and they are now accepting work for online and print publication through July 29. They do charge a $4 fee.
If you’re interested in being part of the 4th installment of their “The Art of the Postcard” series, submissions are ongoing for that project, with the cutoff date being September 15. This is free to enter via Submittable and then you have to mail them your postcard.
Don’t forget to swing by their site to see all the cool things they are doing. Their Sublingua Prize is currently on hiatus for 2021.
In Zone 3‘s Spring 2021 issue you’ll find poetry by Olivia Kingery, Kat Neis, Alyse Knorr, D.C. Leonhardt, Alice Turski, Naoko Fujimoto, John Allen Taylor, Emma Aylor, Jessica Hincapie, Alicia Mountain, Anthony Sutton, Benjamin Cutler, Camille Ferguson, Jennifer Maritza McCauley, Laura Walker, and more. See prose contributors at the Zone 3 website.