Submissions for the third quarterly edition open June 1, 2020. Sunspot Lit accepts all prose forms from 1 to 49,000 words, poetry from 1 to 50 pages, and artwork. No restriction on theme or content. Submit here as many times as you like.
Sunspot Lit’s second edition of the year is now available. Thanks to our contributors for sending exceptional artwork, fiction, and essays about the pandemic (among other standout pieces). This quarter’s cover art comes from Hediana Utarti. This sixty-year-old API immigrant came to the US in 1986 to study political science. After graduating, she found more purpose in her continuing role at the San Francisco Asian Women’s Shelter (sfaws.org).
Download your edition for free on the website.
Remember that we’ll select as many pieces as possible for the annual print edition. This year, we’re adding artwork to the print edition to further support our contributors. Keep an eye out as fall approaches for more information on contributors, pub dates, and more.
Marion Grace Woolley, author and piano maker, lives in Rwanda. She’s posted an interesting commentary on YouTube.
Link here to view, comment, and learn.
Sunspot Lit offers $100 cash and publication for one winner, and the chance to be published as a finalist.
For this contest, all forms of prose are accepted: poetry, plays, stories, essays, memoirs, travel pieces, opinions, rants…just keep it to 100 words or less.
Artists are also welcome to submit. Instead of submitting 100 words, utilize a title of up to 10 words for your photo, digital art, painting, or other work. All art entries will be considered for use on the cover of the next edition, so you might end up with the stipend offered for cover artwork. (And yes, if you win and are used on the cover, you’ll be paid twice.)
Submit as many times as you like. One piece per submission. The fee to enter is $5, and goes to support the magazine, stipends for contributors, and other expenses. Contest ends on June 30, 2020.
Sunspot Lit just updated the guidelines for the 2020 edition of the $100 for 100 Words contest. Previous contests that allowed visual artists to submit received such powerful entries that this contest was adjusted to allow them to enter it, as well. Prize is $100 cash and publication for one winner, and the chance to be published as a finalist. Here are the updated guidelines:
For this contest, all forms of prose are accepted: poetry, plays, stories, essays, memoirs, travel pieces, opinions, rants…just keep it to 100 words or less.
Artists are also welcome to submit. Instead of submitting 100 words, utilize a title of up to 10 words for your photo, digital art, painting, or other work. All art entries will be considered for use on the cover of the next edition, so you might end up with the stipend offered for cover artwork.
Submit as many times as you like. One piece per submission. The fee to enter is $5, and goes to support the magazine, stipends for contributors, and other expenses. Contest ends on June 30, 2020.
Sunspot Lit announces the results of the Single Word contest’s 2020 edition. Submissions were open for any prose form, poetry, and visual art. We received entries that made us laugh, thoughtful pieces that dealt with the current pandemic, and works that hold meaning no matter what state the world is in.
Truly, this crop of entries showed exceptional talent. It’s heartening to know that people are working creatively to make the world a better place. The lists below reflect the results of multiple judging rounds. Look for the finalists and the winner in the next quarterly edition, due out around the end of June.
Congratulations to everyone on these lists!
Longlist
Compassion, Joshua Molina
Confidence, Tara Strahl
Faith, Trever Sinanovic
Enough, Lisa DeAngelis
One, Wes Finch
Weapon, Mary Lash
Light, Tanita Cree
Equanimity, Hunter Liguore
Consequence, Elizabeth Cain
Chinese, Jill Bronfman
Faith, Jennifer Jones
Unidistancing/Uni-distancing, Corinne Beasley
Turbine, Cameron Lings
Gender, Vicky Prior
Exit, Thomas Mangan
Us, Mary Sheehan
Jarabi, Doley Henderson
Anomie, Angela Kaufman
Shortlist
e/motion, Kerry Rawlinson
Dream, Michael Noonan
Aloha, Stephanie Launiu
You’re Mine, You (for They), Valyntina Grenier
Another Word for Beauty, Mark Henderson
The Meaning of Free, Hannah van Didden
Ubuntu, Ethel Maqeda
Rega, Rosalie Sydes
Yes, Lisa Friedlander
Burning, Olga Gonzalez Latapi
We, Larry Mellman
Self-quarantined, Christopher Buckley
Viral, Claire Lawrence
Stoic, Aileen Boyer
Vulnerability, Hazel Whitehead
The Letter “Hey,” Omer Wissman
Finalists
Aloha, Stephanie Launiu
You’re Mine, You (for They), Valyntina Grenier
Ubuntu, Ethel Maqeda
Burning, Olga Gonzalez Latapi
We, Larry Mellman
Self-quarantined, Christopher Buckley
Viral, Claire Lawrence
The Letter “Hey,” Omer Wissman
Winner and Runners-up
Runner-up: Ubuntu, Ethel Maqeda
Runner-up: Viral, Claire Lawrence
First place: The Meaning of Free, Hannah van Didden
For the 2020 edition of the Single Word contest, Sunspot is handing the megaphone over to authors and artists. Submit the single word you feel is the most important in today’s world.
You’ll have 1,000 words to describe why using any form of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. If you feel the word speaks for itself, your description can simply state that fact.
Artwork is also accepted for this prize. Submit one image and up to 250 words describing the artwork’s relationship to the single word.
Since English doesn’t always convey exact shades of meaning, the word you select can be in any language. A definition written in English will be required, and the definition will count toward the total word count of the description. The description must also be in English.
For the first edition of this contest in 2019, the prize was $50. In 2020, the prize has increased to $500.
In addition to receiving the cash prize, the winner will be published. Select finalists will have the chance to be published. Sunspot asks for first rights only; all rights revert to the contributor after publication. Works, along with the creators’ bylines, are published in the next quarterly digital edition an average of one month after contest completion as well as the annual fall print edition.
Enter as many times as you like through Submittable, but only one piece per submission. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please withdraw your piece if it is published elsewhere before the winner is selected.
Entry fee is $10.
Opens January 1, 2020.
Closes March 31, 2020 at midnight EST.
Selected as one of Reedsy’s Best Writing Contests in 2019. 
I met Dasha Ziborova at a residency program, and signed up for her occasional newsletter here. She offers thoughtful, fun, and lovingly illustrated stories based on her life and her experiences. “Heavenly Baby” is about her cat, parenting, and Russia.
If you like the newsletter, you can pick up books she illustrated and produced here. They include “Pussy from Hell” and “This Land is My Land.”
From the artist:
Sunspot Literary Journal’s Single Word contest is open to artists, photographers, and collage artists as well as authors. Link here for full details.
Submit one image and up to 250 words describing the artwork’s relationship to the single word.
For the 2020 edition of the Single Word contest, Sunspot is handing the megaphone over to you. Submit the single word you feel is the most important in today’s world.
You’ll have 1,000 words to describe why using any form of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. If you feel the word speaks for itself, your description can simply state that fact.
Artwork is also accepted for this prize. Submit one image and up to 250 words describing the artwork’s relationship to the single word.
Since English doesn’t always convey exact shades of meaning, the word you select can be in any language. A definition written in English will be required, and the definition will count toward the total word count of the description. The description must also be in English.
For the first edition of this contest in 2019, the prize was $50. In 2020, the prize has increased to $500.
In addition to receiving the cash prize, the winner will be published. Select finalists will have the chance to be published.
Enter as many times as you like, but only one piece per submission. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, but please withdraw your piece if it is published elsewhere before the winner is selected.
Closing March 31, 2020 at midnight EST.
Sunspot Literary Journal is dedicated to amplifying diverse multinational voices. We offer an Editor’s Prize of $50 for the annual edition. Artwork selected for a cover will be paid $20. Visit SunspotLit.com to download digital editions for free.
All types of prose from flash fiction and poetry to stories and essays, including scripts and screenplays, are welcome. We also accept long-form, novelette, and novella length works. Translations welcome, especially with access to the piece in the author’s original language.
One piece per prose submission, including poetry; two works of visual art per submission.
Use the General form for prose from 501 to 3,500 words. Flash fiction and works longer than 3,500 words must be submitted through one of the other forms. If they are submitted through the General form, they will be declined unread.
Using the Fast Flux (two-week turnaround or less)? Select the correct fee option to avoid delays.
All submissions must be unpublished (except on a personal blog). Simultaneous submissions welcome. Submit as many times as you like.
Closes February 29, 2020 at midnight.
I first had the pleasure of encountering Valyntina Grenier’s work through Sunspot Literary Journal’s Single Word contest. Since then, this talented artist was picked up by Cathexis North West Press.
Fever Dream / Take Heart is a doubled poetry book. Two chapbooks have been produced in a flip-book format. Bound in the tête-bêche style, Fever Dream and Take Heart provide two forays through this poet’s feverishly delicious style.
Lifting off from nature, Grenier leaps intuitively between images that comment on humanity’s impact on the climate, corrosive politics, and all that is ferociously feminine.
Leap anywhere into these works and emerge with your senses swollen and your will to enact change fortified with iron.
Valyntina Grenier is a poet and visual artist living in Tucson, Arizona. She was born in Lancaster, California, and educated at The University of California, Berkeley, and St. Mary’s College, Moraga. Graduating with an MFA in poetry, she is self-taught as a painter, installation and Neon artist. In both language and visual art, she pushes the boundaries of representation and abstraction to create a vantage from which to view violence and prejudice. An LGBTQIA artist and activist, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Lana Turner, High Shelf Press, JuxtaProse, Sunspot Lit, Bat City Review and The Impossible Beast: Poems of Queer Eroticism. Find her at valyntinagrenier.com or Insta @valyntinagrenier.
Since launching in January of 2019, Sunspot has amplified multinational voices from around the world. The p
ublication is accepting fiction, poetry, nonfiction, scripts, screenplays, photography, and art until November 30. Translations and extremely long-form pieces are accepted. Submit here or visit the website here.
Writer's Resource/Sunspot Lit 