Falling into Place with Great Literature
NewPages Newsletter #144 Featuring 35 Submission Opportunities & Events
The best laid plans…the best of intentions. Sometimes things just don’t work out as we envisioned or hoped for. Sometimes due to external factors and sometimes just us getting in our own way. If you are in a slump and need a little help getting out of it, NewPages is here to help with some great literature to pick you up and some submission opportunities that will hopefully excite you and get the creative juices flowing.
First, be inspired by the latest issues of your favorite literary magazines. Hop on over to the Magazine Stand to receive regular new issue announcements. Chestnut Review’s Summer 2024 Issue ushers in a new season at the magazine, Volume Six, Year Six (6:1). Editor-in-Chief James Rawlings’ interview with Chestnut Review Chapbooks author, Javeria Hasnain (SIN), opens this issue with cover art by Jules Ostara whose wild and unpredictable, “Ink Flowers,” sets the scene for stubborn artists and writers.
The online literary and art magazine 805 August 2024 offers readers one final glimpse of summer, on the cusp of fall, just as Margaret Lynch writes about cancer, “teetering between the joy of life and fear of death,” and debut poet Anna Han “pens the boundless possibilities that bloom in a child’s heart.” The Lake September 2024 issue is now available online if you are looking for the best in contemporary poetry from new and established poets, i.e. Ian Badcoe, Ann Heath, and Jeffery Allen Tobin.
Stay tuned to learn more about Pictura Journal as they become the latest journal to be featured in our New Lit on the Block series.
If you are looking for some good books to check out at your local library or indie bookstore, don’t forget to check out our Book Stand. Available this month, discover I.M. Aiken’s The Little Ambulance War of Winchester County. The novel is based on Aiken’s 40 years of work in the paramedic field and centers on main character Alex Flynn. Following in the footsteps of their beloved Boston cop father, Alex trains as an EMT and spends years chasing emergencies in an ambulance. But the person Alex becomes is a far cry from the hero they signed up to be.
Come back to the Book Stand throughout the week to discover 90 Ways of Community: Nurturing Safe & Inclusive Classrooms Writing One Poem at a Time by Sarah J Donovan, Mo Daley, and Maureen Young Ingram.
If you need more book recommendations, our reviewers are here to help! Eleanor J. Bader reviews Mark Haddon’s short story collection Dogs and Monsters. Featuring eight stories that run the gamut between the touching and the creepy, most are adaptations of well-known tales like the myth of the Minotaur, The Island of Dr. Moreau, etc. “As the title suggests, dogs play a role in many of the tales. But they are not always humankind’s best friends. Indeed, the boundaries between humans and animals are often murky as they serve as both savior and antagonist.”
Need even more recommendations? Stay tuned to our blog to discover a review of Enzo Silon Surin’s American Scapegoat.
Find Inspiration
Sometimes, whether you want to call it fate or divine intervention or something else, things fall into place in a way that just seems to click with you. Like maybe there is possibly something else at work in our lives, whether or good or bad, after all. Like attending church for the first time in months to hear your pastor talk openly about dealing with crippling anxiety and not being ashamed to seek help to not being able to visit someone as expected and taking an unplanned trip to a forest preserve you’ve never been to on the opposite side of the state and finding yourself healing a bit with nature and finding seven acorns only to lose two leaving you with five and realizing that is a perfect and significant number in your life.
It could be our minds making connections that may not be there, or it could be something else. What do you think of these moments where things actually seem to fall into some semblance of place that just makes sense. A door that closed and a window that opened and something wholly unexpected, and not unpleasant, landed in your lap exactly when you needed it the most.
Can you write an essay exploring both sides of that coin between coincidence or fate or tackle a sonnet on this rough patch that saw an unexpected rainbow shine through the dense fog you have been mired in?
Calls, Contests, & More
Below are this week’s writing contests, calls for submissions, and literary and writing events. Enjoy 35 opportunities to get your work published or to enhance your writing craft. Please note: only paid subscribers get access to this information! You can become a paid subscriber for only $5 a month and get early access to submission opportunities and events before they go live on our site.
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