Tag Archives: essay

$100 for 100 Words Contest Closing Soon

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Microfiction, micro essay, micro memoir, short poem, micro script, micro screenplay…if it’s 100 words or less, it might be worth $100. No restrictions on theme or category.
First place winners and finalists in various prose categories will be published in Sunspot Literary Journal. A byline and bio will be included, and select pieces will receive special attention on the website.
Enter as many times as you like. One piece per submission. Pieces must be unpublished except on a personal blog or website. Simultaneous submissions accepted. Work can have won other awards without being disqualified. Cash award of $100. Closing July 30, 2019.

Sunspot Lit and Other Opportunities

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Sunspot Literary Journal got a boost from Submittable​ this week in their listing of opportunities for writers and artists. Thanks!

V1 I1 March 2019 Cover Image

Sunspot Lit Inaugural Edition Free Download

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V1 I1 March 2019 Cover ImageThe inaugural edition of Sunspot Literary Journal is now available. Featuring art, flash fiction, poetry, photos, short stories, and essays from around the world.

Download the PDF free on SunspotLit.com under the Editions tab. Newsletter subscribers get early access, direct delivery of the quarterly editions to their inbox, and a carefully curated selection of news about creativity in the world.

Check back on the website as the journal selects specific artists and authors from the inaugural edition for a Spotlight feature.

Sunspot’s current open call closes May 31, 2019. Don’t miss the $100 for 100 Words contest. This is a paying market.

100 Bucks for 100 Words Writing Contest

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greeting-1936817_1280Sunspot Literary Journal currently has three contests open to authors and artists. The newest pays $100 for 100 words. Continue reading →

Contest for Authors and Artists

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C*nt Contest for Authors and Artists from Sunspot Literary Journal

Words are important. Words are so powerful that certain ones have been weaponized to use against specific groups of people.

C*nt is one of many, but in the world today, it is more incendiary than ever. Submit a story, essay, poem, or art piece that talks about c*nt in your life:

-When did you first encounter the word?

-Have you taken on this word and ones like it as a rallying cry?

-Have you ever used it to refer to someone else?

Send your rants, your ribald comedy, a poem, or a photo that cuts to the core. You do not have to use the word within your submission as long as you are conjuring the essence of some element of this word and its use.

All submissions for this contest will be compiled for a special edition of Sunspot Literary Journal. First place winners and two runners-up from each category will be published in summer of 2019.

All first-place winners will be considered for a cash award. The best of the best will receive $50.

The C*nt Contest is now open for submissions. Deadline: March 31, 2019.

Tin House to Close; Sunspot to Open

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books-2158737_1920June of 2019 will see the last Tin House literary magazine roll off the presses. After twenty years publishing original fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, Tin House is saying goodbye.

The move was done in the face of mounting costs associated with print publishing. Rob Spillman, the co-founder and editor, is moving on to other areas. The closing brings an end to a very long stretch of quality contributions to the literary arena.

While some new works will still be published on Tin House’s website, the loss of yet another print publication is difficult for writers. Much of the industry still gives more weight to credits in print publications, so the loss of even one magazine can be bad news.

There is a bright spot, however. Sunspot Literary Magazine is launching in January of 2019. For the first year, one print edition will be published. The magazine hopes to add additional print editions in subsequent years.

Meanwhile, digital editions are scheduled for every quarter. The founder is also considering adding frequent special editions that focus on a single author or a single category.

The magazine’s mission is to “change the world through words,” and is open to new and established authors and artists. Submissions of short stories, flash fiction, poetry, essays, art, interviews, and reviews of books, movies and galleries are being accepted through Sunspot’s Submittable portal.

This is an excellent opportunity to be heard and to enact the change you want to see.

New Literary Journal Sunspot Open for Submissions

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Sunspot Literary Journal is launching at the beginning of 2019. Submissions are already open for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and hybrid forms. (Links to their website and the submission portal are at the bottom of this blog entry.)

Words speak truth to those in power by drawing on the power of every human being. Sunspot, intent on being a force for change, hears every voice. Write a new world with words…your words.

Now accepting:

Fiction Without Boundaries

Flash fiction, poetry, shorts of every length, literary works and genre stories are welcome at Sunspot.

Essays That Expand

Send your lyric essays. Offer up thoughts that blind. If it’s unique, Sunspot wants to consider it.

Poetry

Poetry can run any number of pages. Yes, that means Sunspot will consider epic poems and stories-in-verse.

For more details about the journal, visit their website SunspotLit.com.

To submit brilliant, unique work that moves across the universe, go to their submission portal on Submittable.

Wind, Waves, and Wonder: Where Dolphins Walk

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Where dolphins walk_CoverToday is the first day you can buy Where Dolphins Walk. This memoir from a commercial airline pilot who has traveled the world brings a level of thoughtfulness and meaning to how we move through the world…not only while traveling, but in our daily lives.

With profound consideration and lively stops in a number of the world’s most beautiful countries, Douglas Andrew Keehn gives readers a global cultural tour. The weight of his experiences happen in South America, where he eventually lived for a time before returning to the US.

Throughout his journeys and the book, Keehn returns time and again to the message conveyed by the subtitle: A Memoir of Bridging National Lifestyles, Positive Change, and the Powers of Silence. 

Destined to become the modern-day A Year in Provence for South America’s many jewels, Where Dolphins Walk connects readers with the global harmony that Keehn so clearly feels is not only possible, but is present for everyone who wishes to engage respectfully with other cultures.

Read this over the holidays, and you’ll know exactly where you want to go for your vacations…and possibly for the rest of your life.

Keen CockpitDouglas Andrew Keehn was an avid saltwater angler and deckhand as a teenager. Born in NYC, he was raised in the Chelsea section of Manhattan. He began flying at age seventeen, and has been a flight officer for a major commercial airline for thirty-three years.

After crossing numerous U.S., Canadian, and Mexican cities, his travels shifted south to Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. He resided in Florianopolis, SC, Brazil for more than six years.

Book Marketing with Adjunct Stories

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Often I talk to authors about selling themselves to readers as much as their books. It’s natural for readers to want to know more about authors, their motivation for writing a particular book, even about the writing process.

Nowadays, with short books and short stories being produced in ebook and even print formats, there’s an added ability to market your books. No matter what you’re writing, you can create adjunct books.

Consider a self-help author with a workbook…the workbook isn’t the primary self-help book but it adds to the original publication in a helpful manner. Novelists, too, can use this idea by writing short stories about appealing secondary characters in their stories.

These can be sold, of course, or given away to generate interest in the book. Since most adjunct books are short, the time and effort to produce them is often much less than what the original project required.

Essays

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Here’s a great article on essay writing: what to keep in mind, goals for the author, and a bit on what to expect after your essays go out into the world.

Author as Entrepreneur

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Here’s an article listing the 10 aspects of every entrepreneur. Every one of these applies to authors.

1. Passion. This is the sole driving force that will keep you moving through tough work days, endless rewrites, rejections, and deals that fall through at the last minute.

2. When you’re writing, you’re thinking about your idea…all the time.

3. You know that any issue in your piece is an opportunity to make it stronger.

4. Every new piece you work on is better than the one that came before.

5. There are no guarantees in publishing but you keep writing anyway.

6. You are social enough to network but know when to sit in the chair and be alone with your writing.

7. You know your strengths…and that means you also know where you are weak…and you get help from others with those weak areas.

8. You know your limits. You can’t write a book in a day. You can’t work on more than a few things at once. You pick the most important and get them done.

9. You are energized by writing. You are energized by talking about writing. You are energized by reading this blog!

10. You get something back from your work. It might be a paycheck. It might be a “thank you” from a reader whose hunger you fed particularly well. Both put something back into you.

Rejections

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For anyone who needs a laugh about all those “good” rejections they’ve been getting, check out this blog post.

Brainstorming

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Writers know that they have to help readers suspend their disbelief. It’s also critical that viewers watching a film do the same. This interview comes from the corporate world but if you read it with your author’s eye, you’ll find some great advice.

–Present your story in their context. That is, connect with readers where they are, not from your lofty position as all-seeing author. Use concrete details to evoke emotions, paint images and usher  readers into the fictional world.

–Be curious. Ask questions. What if the plot twists here? Why does this character act that way? Where does this one plot point happen? When in his life does the major turning point come? How can the character grow, change, develop?

–Weaknesses are irrelevant. Focus more on your strengths. That doesn’t mean ignore the weaknesses; just don’t get so hung up on them you forget your strengths.

New Trends

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No one doubts that electronic devices have dramatically changed the face of publishing today. For years, doomsayers brayed that print would shrivel and blow away. I’ve always held that the new devices would generate shifts but that print would still be alive centuries from now.

In particular, the bad-news prophets claimed that tablets, cell phones and ereaders were all supposed to suck subscribers from print versions of newspapers and magazines. For a time, that appeared to happen.

Now, however, there’s a big shift. Esubscribers are generating new and stronger sources of income for magazines and newspapers. This article presents yet another new way for readers to access their favorite journals…by paying MORE for the eversions than for print.

Oprah’s Next Big Thing

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The Oprah Channel has struggled since day one to reach the numbers it had hoped for. Part of the reason is that Oprah doesn’t show up in much of the programming. Another very real issue is simple oversaturation…the channel can’t offer the same thing all the time.

She’s trying a reboot by building on this interview with Armstrong. The struggle she’s facing is just a reminder that even the biggest celebrities can’t market just anything…and they can’t rely on their name along. Quality must always come first.

Takeaway: Know your audience and what they want. When you deliver it, you’ll automatically provide quality content.