Category: Just Write

  • The Common Literary Journal

    The Common is an award-winning print and digital literary journal published biannually, in the fall and spring. The Common includes short stories, essays, poems, and images that embody a strong sense of place. The Common Online publishes original content four times per week, including book reviews, interviews, personal essays, short dispatches, poetry, contributor podcasts and recordings, and multimedia features.

    MISSION

    To deepen our individual and collective sense of place through bold, engaging literature and art.

    VISION

    To serve as a vibrant common space for the global exchange of ideas and experiences. To be an essential destination for creative work that embodies particular times and places, both real and imagined. To mentor and promote the next generation of writers, editors, and publishers.

    Finding the extraordinary in the common has long been the mission of literature. Inspired by this mission and the role of the town common, a public gathering place for the display and exchange of ideas, The Common seeks to recapture an old idea. The Common publishes pieces of literature that embody particular times and places both real and imagined; from deserts to teeming ports; from Winnipeg to Beijing; from Earth to the Moon: literature and art powerful enough to reach from there to here. In short, we seek a modern sense of place.

    In our hectic and sometimes alienating world, themes of place provoke us to reflect on our situations and both comfort and fascinate us. Sense of place is not provincial nor old fashioned. It is a characteristic of great literature from all ages around the world. It is, simply, the feeling of being transported, of “being there.”

    Marlene C

  • Poems for Coffee Anthology

     

    As Ellen Bass says: “Writers and coffee go together like coffee and cream, or coffee and donuts.”

    Do you have poems in which coffee plays a role? If so, this anthology is for you!

    Deadline for Submission: February 28, 2018.

    World Enough Writers seeks poems for its Coffee Poems Anthology edited by Lorraine Healy to be published Winter 2019.

    Marlene C

  • Five on the Fifth

    ~ Online literary magazine

    ~ Publishes five short stories on the fifth of each month:

    Horror

    Fantasy/Science Fiction

    General Fiction

    Non-fiction

    Flash Fiction

    Submit.

    Marlene C

  • Literary Juice

    Sara Rajan founded Literary Juice as an outlet for authors to share their most honest works without having to conform to conventional narrative guidelines.

    LJ encourages writers to break all ties with convention and free their inner weird-sad-happy-freaky-romantic selves!  

    “We accept all genres of prose, poetry, and, more recently, art. Lately, we’ve done away with all artistic boundaries. There are no rules here. We have no direction. Sometimes we don’t even know where we’re going. We go up. Down. Sideways. All over the place. Welcome to the Mad Hatter’s literary circle.”

    Submit!  

    Marlene C

  • Flyway Magazine

    Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment is an online journal publishing poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and visual art that explores the many complicated facets of the word environment – whether rural, urban, or suburban; whether built or wild – and all its social and political implications.

    Submission Period: October 1 to May 1.  Visual art: year-round.

    In addition to publishing issues on a rolling schedule, Flyway sponsors a yearly Sweet Corn Prize in Poetry and Fiction and a Notes from the Field Nonfiction Award.

    “We are interested in work that explores the intersection of human experience and the environment, broadly interpreted: work that focuses on ecology, science and the environmental imagination, certainly, but also work that focuses on place, on natural and built environments, and on the ways that people interact with their environments. We are looking for work that surprises, moves, haunts, or affects the reader in some significant way.”

    Authors of all walks of life should feel encouraged to send us stories, poems, essays, and art celebrating the diverse characters and settings all around us.

    Submit!

    Marlene C

  • Epoch Magazine

    EPOCH is an open forum for literary fiction, poetry, essays, screenplays, cartoons, graphic art, and graphic fiction.

    Reading Period: September 15 to April 15

    Guidelines: Submissions by mail only, addressed to the appropriate editor: e.g. Fiction Editor, Poetry Editor, Essay Editor. Screenplays, cartoons, graphic art, and graphic fiction should be so labeled on the envelope.

    Good Luck

    Marlene C

  • Write Memoir in Voice of Narrator

    Whether you tell your story chronologically, or with flashbacks, or with intercutting, it’s important to write your memoir in the voice of the narrator. Examples of these different ways of telling a story are used in The Write Spot Anthology: Discoveries.

    “Maintaining a solid narrative structure is critical to ensure readers move in step with the sequence of life events. . . When they [readers] can follow your progression as a character, they can also fully enter your story.” —Dorit Sasson, “Refresher Course,” The Writer, February 2016

    Note from Marlene: When writing about something that happened in childhood, use appropriate age-based language. Show character growth by using adult language when writing about the character as an adult.

    Examples of narrative structure, character growth and details on how to use intercutting in your writing can be found in The Write Spot Anthology: Discoveries.

    Marlene C

  • Helen – Literary and Arts Magazine

    Helen – A Literary and Arts Magazine is published biannually in innovative print options and digital media. In Spring 2016, Helen moved from a traditional print form to a more innovative structure. Most writing is published online except for the micro prose printed on poker chips to celebrate their hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada.

    “Our goal is to inspire and support emerging writers in all genres.”

    They also publish a weekly blog series called “Friday Night Specials.”

    Submit: Contests
    Visual Prompts
    Visual Prompt Contest

    Marlene C

  • Personal Essay As Therapy

    “One reason we choose to write essays instead of another kind of nonfiction piece is because we can use the personal essay as a kind of therapy. Sometimes the act of writing gives us the opportunity to work through the conflict and come up with another way of looking at the situation.

    As the writer explores her problem, owns it, and then comes up with a resolution that will change how she relates to her problem in the future, the reader will be looking at her own life and doing the same thing. That’s why the essayist must be committed to the process of discovery and must be as honest as she possibly can be about what she uncovers.

    More than any other piece of nonfiction, the personal essay has to be written and rewritten and rewritten, often many times, to get to the heart of what it is we really want to say.” — Gloria Kempton, “Making a Point,” August 2006 Writer’s Digest Magazine

    Note from Marlene:  So true! Much of writing is re-visioning, re-thinking, re-writing. My essay in The Write Spot Anthology: Discoveries about how I spent my summer in 1974 was originally written that autumn. I spent the next 43 years revamping it. Yeah, that’s a lot of rewriting, but it got better with each twist and turn. It took that many years to fine tune my writing and to realize what the message was. I’m not suggesting you need 43 years to tweak your writing to where you like it. I am suggesting that you Never Give Up.

    Just write!

    Photo: The Schooner Gold Star, my home for most of the summer in 1974.

    Marlene C

  • Wordrunner: Rites of Passage

    Wordrunner is accepting fiction, memoir and poetry, with the theme rites of passage  for an echapbook anthology to be published March 2018.

    The rites of passage theme includes any kind of passage through life, time or space.

    Submissions will be open from December 1, 2017 through January 31, 2018. *

    Submit up to three poems or a short story, novel or memoir excerpt, or personal essay (1,000 to 5,000 words). There are separate categories for each genre (poetry, fiction, nonfiction). Note that really long poems are not suitable for this venue. Send us your best.

    *Note from Marlene:  Polish your writing now, so you will be ready to submit during the submissions timeline.

    Payment: $100 for collections, $5 to $25 for poems, stories and essays published in the annual anthology.

    Submission fee: $2 for poems; $3 for prose

    All rights revert to authors.

    Marlene C