The Bohemian invites you to “Step Up to the Mic.” The Bohemian is “an award-winning alternative newsweekly serving Sonoma, Napa and Marin Counties [in Northern California].” However, you don’t have to live in Northern California for this challenge. The Bohemian wants to hear from you! From The Editors: “Ah, the Open Mic. This is the one space in the paper, besides the letters section, where we don’t just want your input—we rely on your input. It’s a space we leave open and free to all comers, where a fiery and well-turned argument will always find a home. Please don’t take this as a threat, but—you really do not want the Bohemian staff to start filling the Open Mic with half-baked opinions about everything and everything.” Click here to read the challenge from the editors in its entirety. The Bohemian wants to “hear from our readers—all of our readers—who have an…
Category: Just Write
Modern Love, The New York Times
Modern Love is an essay column in The New York Times. “Modern Love is an ideal place for beginning writers to break in with a piece written from the heart.” — February 2015 issue of Writer’s Digest magazine. Click here for how to submit essays to Modern Love.
Gemini Magazine Short Story Contest is open for submissions.
Gemini Magazine Sixth Annual Short Story Contest is open for submissions. Open to any subject, style, genre or length. Send your best unpublished work. Grand Prize: $1,000 Second Place: $100 Three Honorable Mentions: $25 each Entry fee: $5 Deadline: March 31, 2015
Sometimes you just want to sit down and write.
Sometimes we just want to sit down and write. No particular place to go. Nothing in particular to write about. Just enjoy the feel of pen across paper, or fingers flying atop keyboard. Sometimes it’s fun to have a writing prompt to play with. There are two places to explore on The Write Spot for writing prompts. One is here, on The Write Spot Blog. The other is here on The Write Spot Website. On this one, read the prompt on the plaque. Click on the plaque to read what others have written on the prompt. Follow your heart, let your mind wander, trust your intuition. Select a prompt. Set a timer for 12-15 minutes and just write. Discover where your writing path takes you. Photo by Breana Marie
Coffee House Press
Coffee House Press publishes literary novels, full-length short story collections, poetry, creative nonfiction, book-length essays and essay collections, and the occasional memoir. CHP does not accept submissions for anthologies. CHP also does not publish genre fiction such as mysteries, Gothic romances, Westerns, science fiction, or books for children. CHP looks for writing that instructs, inspires, and/or entertains the reader, and that does so with a unique voice. CHP currently publishes fourteen to sixteen trade titles annually. During the next reading period (March 1 – 31, 2016), Coffee House Press will accept electronic submissions through their online submissions manager.
Lose Control and Just Write!
Natalie Goldberg expands her thinking about writing practice in her latest book, The True Secret of Writing. You may have heard these ideas before and may be familiar with her other books, Wild Mind and Writing Down The Bones. And it’s good to be reminded of “the basics” of freewrites. Helpful ideas for writing from Nat: Keep your hand moving. If you say you will write for ten minutes, twenty, an hour, keep your hand going. Not frantically, clutching the pen. But don’t stop. This is your chance to break through to wild mind, to the way you really think, see, and feel, rather than how you think you should think, see and feel. This does not mean you have to write orgasmic sex scenes smeared with butter to touch wild mind. You might end up writing about toast, your sore throat, your fingernail. But it will be alive, real….
Waterways – Poetry in the Mainstream
The Waterways Project of Ten Penny Players and the related Bard Press has published both established and emerging poets. The literary magazine, Waterways: Poetry in the Mainstream, has been in continuous publication since 1979. For thirty years, Waterways and Ten Penny Players worked with special needs and incarcerated children in New York City schools. (Wikipedia) Waterways asks that poems relate to photos on their website, scroll to this page for the photos. Scroll to the bottom of the page for submission details. Deadlines for January through May: The 15th of each month. Waterways was introduced to The Write Spot Blog by Arlene Mandell. Now, go write . . . dig through your poems. . . as Arlene says: Edit and Submit!
“When there is an obstacle . . . ” Angelina Jolie
“When there is an obstacle, you have to rise to the challenge, not be overwhelmed by it. And we’re not alone in the world. I don’t know if there’s a name for that — religion or faith — just that there’s something greater than all of us, and it’s uniting and beautiful.” — Angelina Jolie, December 22, 2014 People magazine. From Marlene: Writing unites and connects us and that is, indeed, beautiful. When you reach an obstacle or challenge with your writing, see if you can work around it. Write sideways, in the margins. Come at the problem from a new angle. See the stumbling block as an opportunity to explore the problem and create a new solution. How? By doing a freewrite. Write down the first word that pops into your head and then write, for 12-15 minutes. Click here and here for more writing prompts. Just Write! Photo…
Reader’s Digest Poetry Contest
Dazzle ’em with your best poem, 15 lines or fewer. One grand-prize winner will receive $500 and will be published in the June 2015 issue of Reader’s Digest magazine. Additional winners will receive $100. Contest ends January 30, 2015. Click here to go to the Reader’s Digest submission page. Warning: There will be some pop-up ads. . . click the “x” in the upper right-hand corner to get out of that screen and back to the Reader’s Digest submission page.
Write a telegram . . . Prompt #121
Compose a telegram — a brief note that could be sent over the wires. Oh, I guess this sounds like an email, or a text message. But doesn’t “telegram” sound dramatic and perhaps romantic? Nostalgic for some people, a curiosity for others. So . . . write a telegram to someone who has touched your life in a significant way. Have your message tell him or her something you wish you could say in person. Or, if the person is no longer in your life, what do you wish you could have said? You could also write a telegram to or from your fictional character. Idea inspired from From Family Tales, Family Wisdom — How to gather the stories of a lifetime and share them with your family, by Dr. Robert U. Akeret with Daniel Klein