Talking Writing features stories, poetry and first-person journalism. Talking Writing is a nonprofit literary site that features essays, first-person journalism, and poetry. New material is published weekly, focusing on provocative themes. ” Great writing makes us want to sing or shout or argue, and TW’s innovative format opens virtual doors to readers and writers everywhere. As the publishing industry continues to transform itself online, Talking Writing exemplifies why luminous stories and well-executed journalism matter more than ever.” Talking Writing magazine publishes four issues a year—Fall, Holiday, Winter, and Spring. Submission deadlines for upcoming themes can be found in TW’s Editorial Calendar. Holiday 2015 – Writing and Faith Submission Deadline: September 14, 2015 How do you tackle life’s Big Questions? During the holiday season, our annual faith issue will examine why writing is such a powerful tool for soul searching, creating meaning, and defining one’s spiritual beliefs.
Category: Just Write
Sensory Detail – Sound
I cranked up the music to prepare this post and was reminded of the sixties and seventies when I worked downtown San Francisco Monday through Friday. Saturdays were house cleaning days. I centered my Swan Lake record on the turntable and turned up the volume. By the time I was dusting and cleaning downstairs, I was rocking to West Side Story. To finish, I blasted Hair. Odd combinations, I know. But they worked for me . . . a satisfying way to completely clean the house and do laundry. Sound. . . how do we incorporate sound in our writing? But first, why do we want to use sensory detail in our writing? Sound can evoke strong memories: screeching tires, whining four-year-old, grinding gears when learning to drive a stick shift, songs from our teenage years, wedding songs, hymns, sing-song rhymes. When we employ sound in our writing, we transform…
Foliate Oak Literary Magazine wants quirky writing . . .
Foliate Oak Literary Magazine wants quirky writing . . . We love previously unpublished quirky writing that makes sense, preferably flash fiction (less than 1000 words). We are eager to read short creative nonfiction also. We rarely accept submissions that have over 2700 words. We enjoy poems that we understand, preferably not rhyming poems, unless you make the rhyme so fascinating we’ll wonder why we ever said anything about avoiding rhymes. Give us something fresh, unexpected, and will make us say, “Wow!” We are always interested in publishing intriguing photography, artwork, and graphic (you know, comics) literature. Send all artwork as jpg or gif. Always include a short (less than 50 words) third person bio. Submission Period: August 1 – April 24 We are unable to pay for work. If the work we have posted is later used in another magazine, we ask that you credit Foliate Oak for first…
Sensory Detail
Readers want to see the action and feel emotions. Readers want to be transported into other worlds. In a way, we want magical things to happen when we read: to be carried away, transformed. Writers can achieve these seemingly wondrous events by using sensory detail in writing. When including sensory detail, think of body parts: eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and some add a sixth sense: mind. Verbs that describe the senses: see/sight, hear/sound/auditory, smell, taste, feel/touch, intuit. The sixth sense can be described as telepathy, intuition, perception, imagination. . . those traits that use the mind to create and understand. Some people believe the sixth sense is the ability to problem solve; using our minds to read and interpret signals, to pick up or sense energy. You can access any of these sensory details in your writers tool kit to create vivid and memorable writing. For the next few…
Hoot . . . a literary magazine . . . on a postcard!
Hoot publishes fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and book reviews. “Our issues are small and cool looking, so you can also stick ’em on your fridge, or in your husband/wife’s briefcase, or leave one on a restaurant table for some random person to enjoy. Imagine, literature that you can pass around!” Hoot accepts submissions year-round. PROSE: 150 words or less POETRY: 10 lines or less. It has to fit on a postcard. BOOK REVIEWS: These will be published online, or on the back of a postcard when possible. Still 150 words or less. Must be of a recently published book (within the last year). The book must be published by an independent or small press. You may submit as many works as you like, but only two per submission. All work must be previously unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are allowed–but please let Hoot know if your work is placed elsewhere. “Depending on how…
Baby shoes for sale. Never worn.
“Baby shoes for sale. Never worn.” Hemingway wrote this six-word tale that has become the ultimate short, short-story. The reader can fill in the blanks. I wonder how many variations of a theme these few words have inspired. Grant Faulkner honed his skills to write short, 100-word essays and writes in the August 2015 issue of The Writer magazine: “A flash writer has to paint characters in deft brushstrokes, with the keenest of images in such limited space. Shorts require immediacy; they’re a flicker of light in the darkness, a prick, a thunderclap . . . Paring down my writing and focusing on what goes unsaid and unexplained help me build suspense.” Faulkner says, about Hemingway’s six-word story, “The story moves by implication– the empty space around those few words invite the reader to fill them, transforming the reader into a co-author.” If this type of writing appeals to you,…
Fiddleblack Journal might be right for you.
Fiddleblack journal might just be your cup of tea. “Fiddleblack’s mission is a basic path toward the discovery (and sometimes rediscovery) of literary and speculative works that eloquently capture what it means to know the finite bounds of self and place. A long road of inspiration led to Fiddleblack’s founding, trailed through many unconnected sources, from Cormac McCarthy to Michel Houellebecq.” Our role as a curator encourages us to accept diverse work, and to publish what sings, speaks, or stares as well as it possibly should. But we see our place in the world of small presses clearly: slipped off and secluded somewhere in the metaphorical sand. Fiddleblack is interested in works of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction that make purposeful commitments to figuring out whom one is meant to be, and how it is that one should exist in the space enclosed around him. We have a thin tie in each of…
Writing has been a freeing force
Do you want to write true stories, but worry about hurting people’s feelings? Megan Kaplon, in an interview with Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk: “When working on academic projects, she (Helen Macdonald) experiences anxiety about being correct, about saying the right thing, but writing memoir has been a freeing force.” “When it’s yourself, you feel the truth inside yourself. . . It becomes something utterly manifest when you know you’re writing something from the heart.” – Helen Macdonald Quotes from “Giving sorrow words,” The Writer, July 2015 Marlene’s Musings: In my opinion, you cannot go wrong when writing from the heart. Sometimes, when writing memoir, it’s wrong to write for an audience. Write for yourself. And if you find an audience, then hooray! But first, write from your heart. You can use these guidelines when writing about difficult subjects. Some of my favorite memoirs, where, I think,…
The Big Brick Review is ready for your submission.
The Big Brick Review wants original, non-fiction pieces up to 555 words by July 31, 2015. Submission must be in the form of a personal essay, prose, excerpt, or ramble that builds on the narrative of our lives, finding new insight to old struggles…old insight to new struggles…and all shades-of-gray in between. Pieces that include the concept of ‘building’ (which authors can interpret as creatively as they choose (it’s a noun! it’s a verb!)) are especially favored. For more info, visit Submissions Guidelines. Marlene’s Musings: Go for it! What do you have to lose?
When you set the mask aside . . . Prompt #171
From Write From the Heart by Hal Zina Bennett, one of my all-time favorite books. During a trip to Disneyland, a priest became fascinated with the costumed figure of Mickey Mouse. Every time Father Sean turned around, there was Mickey Mouse shaking hands with people, talking with kids, keeping everyone’s spirits up. And Father Sean began asking himself, “I wonder who that person is under that costume? What are they like at the end of the day, when they take off their Mickey Mouse suit?” Instead of being who we really can be, we take on masks like the Good Little Girl, or we become the Black Sheep of the Family or the Rebel. Early on, we learn that if we are to be loved and cared for we’d better buckle under and be what is safe for us to be. Prompt: Who or what is the character deep inside…