Sycamore Review is Purdue University’s internationally acclaimed literary journal, affiliated with Purdue’s College of Liberal Arts and the Department of English. Sycamore Review is looking for original poetry, fiction, non-fiction and art. POETRY manuscripts should be typed single-spaced, one poem to a page, up to five poems. FICTION & NONFICTION should be typed double-spaced, with numbered pages and the author’s name and title of the work easily visible on each page. There is not have a specific word count limit, suggest less than 6,000 words. NONFICTION should be literary memoir or creative personal essay, interested in originality, brevity, significance, strong dialogue, and vivid detail. There is no maximum page count, the longer the piece is, the more compelling each page must be. ART Sycamore Review is currently seeking artists for both the magazine’s cover and features artwork inside the issue. Interested artists should follow the instructions under the Art category on Submittable. You may attach 10-15 images or simply…
Month: March 2021
Healing. Prompt #565
Write about a time you experienced a healing—physically, spiritually, or emotionally. Or, if you are in the process of pursuing healing . . . write about what you are doing. Or, what healing methods do you want to pursue? Let me count the ways . . . Aromatherapy, autogenic relaxation, art, biofeedback, deep breathing, exercise, Feldenkrais, guided imagery, hydrotherapy massage, meditation, music, prayer, progressive muscle relaxation, qi gong, tai chi, tapping, visualization, yoga. There are a number of resources listed in The Write Spot: Writing as a Path to Healing, especially ideas about how to write about difficult events without adding trauma. Available at Amazon, print ($15) and ebook ($3.49).
Student’s Epiphany In a Pandemic Year
By Luci Hagen Finding triumphs through tribulations in the past school year: When I began this project, I found it nearly impossible to try and describe in 650 words how drastically COVID has affected every part of my life. I hope that by focusing on the unique positives these unprecedented circumstances have presented for young folks like me, rather than the obvious negatives, I can help the community understand our perspective just a little bit more. At the beginning of quarantine and as distance learning first began, I was already struggling to keep up in school. I was at a loss for motivation to do anything, and any semblance of order in my life was out the window. The only constant in my schedule was that every night in the first few months, starting at 11 pm until around two or three am, I would practice writing on my computer….
A place you have visited. Prompt #564
Sit back. Get comfortable and relaxed in your chair. Think about a place you have visited. It doesn’t matter where. It could be the downtown area in your city. It could be the city where you were born. Could be a vacation. Take a few minutes to scroll through your mind and choose a place you have visited. Let your mind drift back to your visit or time you spent at this location. If you are working on fiction, how would one of your characters respond to the prompts below. Prompt #1: What is the first picture, or scene, that appears? Prompt #2: I can still hear . . . Prompt #3: I can smell . . . Prompt #4: This place is important to me because . . . Prompt #5: I wish I could . . .
Increscent Moon
Increscent Moon By Su Shafer Starless, Starless Night I gaze up, surprised to see The moon looking down Not at me, she is watching Something far over the horizon, Her face radiant with golden pleasure. Maybe she is looking at tomorrow, The baby day, still pink and new, Gently urging it forward as it crawls along dragging its giant blanket of light behind it. Her smile is serene and comforts me, Standing alone in the night, The quiet space between today and tomorrow. I feel oddly hopeful as I go back inside. If the moon is beaming, Tomorrow must be a better day. Su Shafer is a creative writer and fledgling poet who lives in the Pacific Northwest, where flannel shirts are acceptable as formal wear and strong coffee is a way of life. There, in a small Baba Yaga house perched near the entrance to The Hidden Forest, odd characters are…
I think I’ll stay . . .
By Amie Windsor A girlfriend and I recently fell in love with a song titled, “Golden G String.” “I legit never thought I could fall in love with a song called that, but I totally have,” she texted me. I knew exactly what she meant. The title of the Miley Cyrus track makes me want to cringe. But that’s kind of the beauty of it, because Cyrus’ lyrics are all about understanding femininity and how to harness our female power amid a world dominated by men. Read a few of the lyrics: “Yes, I’ve worn the golden G-string Put my hand into hellfireI did it all to make you love me and to feel alive Oh, that’s just the world that we’re livin’ inThe old boys hold all the cards and they ain’t playin’ ginYou dare to call me crazy, have you looked around this place?I should walk awayOh, I should walk…
Just Write
By Ken Delpit “Just write.” It sounds so simple. It seems so wrong, and yet is so right. Planning and preconception have their places, certainly. But it really is OK, and better, to just write. Leave behind the pressures, the impediments, the anxieties. Put aside your doubts, your fears, your insecurities. Just write. Let it go. Let it flow. Write without knowing what comes next. Let yourself be surprised by yourself. Don’t peek beyond the current thought. Deal with the moments in front of you, around you, within you. Don’t make it happen. Let it happen. Just write. It sounds so easy. And it can be. When the shackles are discarded, one’s pace can go from stumbling to walking, and from walking to running. The bottleneck can move from its usual place, the mind, to the fingers, which are suddenly unable to keep up. But “Just write” as a guiding…
Notre Dame Review
The Notre Dame Review is an independent, non-commercial magazine of contemporary American and international fiction, poetry, criticism and art. Our goal is to present a panoramic view of contemporary art and literature—no one style is advocated over another. We are especially interested in work that takes on big issues by making the invisible seen, that gives voice to the voiceless—work that gives message form through aesthetic experience. Submission Guidelines
Perseverance: Biosignatures and Heartbeats
By Deb Fenwick It’s February 2021, and the red planet is on the screen. News headline: We’re looking at Perseverance. The world watches as Perseverance plummets and parachutes onto the surface of Mars. Back in July 2020, we Earthlings launched our perseverance high into space with all the ambition, engineering precision, and imagination we could stuff into a carrier rocket and an SUV-sized robot. NASA’s landing of the rover seven months later was flawless—a picture-perfect touchdown of six wheels hitting dusty rocks on the red-orange Mars-scape. According to reports, one aim of the mission is to search for ancient microbial life—biosignatures and astrobiology that will provide insights into early evolution and the universe’s future. The biggest questions about our ancient past and cosmic future, indeed the nature of life itself, are being explored up there by a Star Wars-like robotic traveler and its little mini-helicopter drone of a friend. And,…
The rule was . . .
By Lynn Levy Daria stood with her nose up against the glass, peeking in at the door. She didn’t go in—she knew better. And when someone came out, she melted away, back into the shadows, back where she couldn’t be seen. But the tall blond man saw her anyway, and walked toward her. He was a giant, an enormous bulk of branches and limbs that looked like he shouldn’t be able to balance, let alone walk. She imagined him crashing over, like her string doll did when she pressed the button on the bottom. But instead, he folded himself down, quiet as a sheet, until he was squatting in front of her. “Are you Daria?” he asked. Daria furrowed her brow. The rule was, you don’t tell strangers your name. But another rule was that you don’t lie. “Yes,” she finally decided upon, because she liked his pale blue eyes,…