The second edition of 2024 is now available for free from Sunspot Lit. This issue showcases art by Aimee Bungard on the cover, a poem by Leah Skay selected for the Editor’s Prize, and the winners and finalists of the Inception, Solar Flare, and Goldilocks Zone contests.

Enjoy these works and much, much more by visiting Sunspot’s website.

To submit and possibly see your work alongside these new international creatives, check out the current open calls here. Longform authors might find the call for novella-length fiction and nonfiction, open for limited times each year, of interest. This includes longer graphic novels; other open calls take graphic novels that run to lower page counts.

San Diego Writers, Ink is pleased to announce that submissions for their A Year in Ink, Volume 18 anthology will be open starting on July 15, 2024 and will remain open until September 15, 2024 at 11:59 PM. Open to San Diego residents and members of SDWI. Learn more at writeyourstorynow.org!

Rosemary’s House has some unique programs for writers in October. Apply early and receive a significant discount to the fees while moving through your current or new work.

Residential Workshop Retreats: apply to one of our multi-genre residential workshops to expand your creative horizons, learn from talented peers, and receive diverse feedback. These retreats feature a daily group workshop and promote social discourse and investigation of story. We encourage writers of all genres to apply to the cohort(s) with the mentor of their choice. All genres and mediums are welcome! 
October 2-9: Mentor Heather Aimee O’Neill

Heather Aimee O’Neill has worked with hundreds of novelists, memoirists, short-story and essay writers in her roles as the assistant director of the Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop and as an independent editor and writing coach. She helps writers start, finish, polish, and find publication for their work. Many of her students and clients have gone on to publish with major publishers, including Viking, W.W. Norton, Harper Collins, Double Day, Flatiron Books, and Simon & Schuster, among others. As a Lambda Literary Poetry Fellow, Heather co-authored the poetry collection “Obliterations” with Jessica Piazza, published by Red Hen Press. Additionally, her poetry chapbook, “Memory Future,” earned the University of Southern California’s Gold Line Press Award. 

The Individualized Study Retreat: this retreat is geared towards writers who would like to spend the majority of their retreat writing, under the careful and intensive supervision of a writer with immense experience completing long-form projects. Writer Sally Bayley and Rosemary’s House have engineered this week to mimic a supervision term at Oxford University, with review of up to 10,000 words of a larger project and individualized mentorship sessions. 

October 2-9: Mentor Sally Bayley 

Sally Bayley is a writer of fiction and non-fiction. She is particularly interested in the shifting relationship between genres. Girl with Dove (William Collins, 2018), is a literary coming of age story. It has been lauded as a completely original work that invents a new genre. The second part of this sequence, No Boys Play Here (William Collins, January 2022), combines forms of drawing and song with scenes from Shakespeare’s plays. The final part of the trilogy, The Green Lady (William Collins, July 2023) sees the child-narrator complete her journey from reader to writer with the help of folklore and the laws of nature. Sally also hosts and performs the highly successful immersive podcast, A READING LIFE, A WRITING LIFE, which offers innovative forms of storytelling set to music and soundscapes as well as creative prompts for writers, readers and creatives. She is currently a Lecturer in English at Hertford College, Oxford. Sally teaches on the Sarah Lawrence visiting programme at Wadham College, Oxford. From 2018-2020 she was a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Oxford Brookes University.

Generative Retreat: Rosemary’s House is a grief-friendly space, and we are excited to be introducing a themed-generator week;  this year’s theme is: “The Healer’s Journey”. This residency will not feature a group workshop but will instead be centered upon generative writing exercises. We ask that applicants for this residency are considering stories that in some way relate to the theme of healing; alternatively or in addition, we invite applicants who are investigating writing’s therapeutic power. Whether you are looking to get started on a project or take the week to heal, this retreat is the space for you. 

October 15-22: Mentor Chloe Dulce Louvouezo Qadree 

Chloe Dulce Louvouezo Qadree is a Congolese-American author, creative and narrative strategist, and advocate for women whose work is driven by storytelling that advances narrative change. She helps emerging writers, organizations, firms, and women leaders translate their work into powerful stories that bridge divides and amplify unheard voices. For nearly two decades, Chloe has advanced inclusive storytelling at national and global organizations addressing inequities in gender, education, socioeconomics, and mental and maternal health. From visual storytelling to message development to event curation of world leaders, Chloe’s work has reached global audiences in the global north and south. Chloe is author of Life, I Swear: Intimate Stories from Black Women on Identity, Healing, and Self-Trust (HarperCollins Publishers, November 2021), through which she explores nuances and insights around identity, mental wellness, and healing from the lens of women from the Black diaspora. She currently serves as a Senior Communications Officer at The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where she produces human-centered stories and leads creative strategy.