Cozy Pages, Curious Ears
NewPages Newsletter #217: New lit mag highlights, bookstore updates, submission opportunities, and a creativity boost from auditory illusions.
Happy Monday!
Here in the mitten state, we’re headed for some balmy weather—temperatures in the 30s and maybe even a day in the 40s. After last week’s arctic shock, it feels like an honest‑to‑goodness heat wave.
We have been doing an overhaul and update to our Guide to Writing Contests and our catalogue of annual contests. If you haven’t stopped by that page in a while, now is a good time to check it out!
In recommended reading: as a lifelong Midwesterner, I thoroughly enjoyed the inaugural issue of Poetry Midwest, especially Paul Hostovsky’s “Flents.” With my grandfather having passed in December, the poem hit hard—its meditation on the small items left behind by those we love and how we revisit them with new meaning later in life. The issue features eight poems in what they call “Midwestern noir”—a great lineup to keep you company during these long winter nights or a short (or extended) commute.
Also not to be missed: Bob Johnson’s “The Train to Union Station,” the first story published by new journal Brown Hound Press, in which the narrator makes a bold choice to leave her old life behind at a moment when most people have already settled in—full of second guesses and wondering whether she’s done the right thing.
Looking for more great reading, submission opportunities, or even a bookstore to visit? NewPages has you covered—keep reading.
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📚 Magazine Stand
Love reading a wide variety of work? Drop by the Magazine Stand to explore the latest issues from literary journals across the spectrum and around the world. And don’t miss the full slate of new issues from January!
The Common – Issue 30
The Common’s Issue 30 opens with Editor Jennifer Acker celebrating the magazine’s 15th anniversary and concludes with an interview with Teju Cole. Highlights include a special Ukraine portfolio, global short fiction, essays from the Argentine Pampas, and poems by Wyatt Townley, Robert Cording, Lawrence Joseph, and more.
Shenandoah – Fall 2025
Shenandoah’s Fall 2025 online issue debuts its “Catalyst” series with a conversation with Virginia Lt. Governor–Elect Ghazala Hashmi. The issue also includes an interview with artist Kristen Mills, Hope Prize winner Isaac Kanyinji, plus new fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and comics from diverse contributors.
Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine – Fall/Winter 2025
Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine’s Fall/Winter 2025 issue honors founding member Peter Solet with new fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual art from contributors including Marie Manilla, Pamela Schoenewaldt, Megan Trihey, and more. SBLAAM is a sponsored project of the Creative Aging Network‑NC.
Coming Soon
The Lake February 2026, The Missouri Review Winter 2025, and The Midwest Quarterly Winter 2026 — keep an eye out for these upcoming releases; we’ll share highlights in future newsletters!
🌟Sponsor New Book Spotlight
Winner of the Dorset Prize for Poetry, Janée J. Baugher’s The Andrew Wyeth Chronicles (Tupelo Press, Feb. 2026) offers a book‑length ekphrastic narrative voiced through the painter himself. Using inventive footnote form, Baugher responds to sixty‑three Wyeth works from 1938–2008, finding tenderness in quotidian details and exploring deep-looking as a decades‑long meditative practice. Wyeth’s paintings become portals into interior worlds and expanding linguistic possibility.
Looking for more books to build up your 2026 reading list? Check out the first New Books update for January 2026!
🖋️ Inspiration Prompt: Auditory Illusions
Naomi Shihab Nye asks whether we can hear “the words under the words.” Jane Arden wonders how you can silence a voice you’d know anywhere. Throughout history, animals have mimicked human speech, machines have produced uncanny echoes, and our own minds have conjured sounds that were never there.
Sometimes we mishear out of longing or grief. Sometimes trauma sharpens or distorts the world around us. Sometimes the brain simply fills in the gaps, creating auditory illusions—false perceptions shaped by memory, fear, desire, or the body’s private logic.
For this week’s piece, explore what it means to hear, mishear, or reinterpret sound:
A conversation with two layers: the bland public exchange and the charged private meaning beneath it.
A voice that follows you—familiar, insistent, impossible to quiet.
The cry of a new cat that registers in your body as something else entirely.
A voice calling your name in the night, belonging to someone who is no longer alive.
An echo, a misunderstanding, a phantom sound that changes the course of a moment.
Write into the strangeness of perception. Let misheard words, imagined noises, or auditory hauntings shape the emotional truth of your piece. What do we hear when no one else hears it? What does the mind insist on repeating? What sound won’t let you go?
Looking for more inspiration? Stop by our Weekly Roundup of Submission Opportunities for more prompts.
🏬 Bookstore Updates
Since the beginning of the year, NewPages has been adding—and actively updating—a growing number of new and used indie bookstores across the United States and Canada in our Guide to Independent Bookstores.
📍 Nomadic Bookshop – Oakland, California
A community‑rooted Oakland space uplifting BIPOC, queer, and marginalized voices through radical imagination, collective study, and the next chapter of Nomadic Press.
📍 Russo’s Books – Bakersfield, California
This general interest bookstore devoted to new books has moved! They are now located at 1601 New Stine Rd. #105!
📍 Small Town Stories – Lutz, Florida
Small Town Stories is an independent bookstore celebrating unique voices by uplifting self‑published and small press authors from its community and across the globe.
Want to reach bookstores directly? Explore our curated mailing lists to connect your next project with the right audience.
Calls, Contests, & More
Ready to submit your work or attend a literary event? We’ve got 178 total opportunities waiting for you this week!
Qua Magazine Seeks Submissions for Winter Semester 2026 Issue
Deadline: February 22, 2026
Qua Literary and Fine Arts Magazine is a student-run publication of the University of Michigan-Flint. Founded over 50 years ago, we invite submissions of Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Poetry, Visual Arts, Photography, etc. from anyone living in the state of Michigan. No submission fees. For the Winter Semester 2026 issue, all submissions must be made by February 22nd here.
🔔New from Jerboa Lit: Mini Contests!
Registration Deadline: February 27, 2026
Announcing a new mini-contest from Jerboa Lit! On Friday, February 27, we’ll pull a random prompt from our Video Hat that includes a genre and a character. You’ll have the weekend (until 11:59 pm CT on Sunday, March 1) to write a 250-word story based on the prompt. Winners are announced just 1 month later, and first place will take home $500! There is a $15 entry fee, but Community Passes are available for writers in need—just email us! Check out our contest page for more info.
🔔6th Annual Gutsy Great Novelist Chapter One Prize
Deadline: March 3, 2026
$20 ENTRY FEE. Submissions open Tuesday, Feb 3, 2026. Deadline Tuesday March 3, 2026. The 6th Annual Gutsy Great Novelist Chapter One Prize is awarded for an outstanding first chapter of an unpublished novel. First prize is $1,000; 2nd is $500; and 3rd is $250. The prize is open internationally to anyone over 18 writing a novel in English in any genre for adult or YA readers (fiction only). Winners will be announced Tuesday, April 14, 2026. Learn more here.
Sand Hills Literary Magazine Call for Submissions! (50th Anniversary Issue)
Deadline: March 8, 2026
Sand Hills Literary Magazine, in print since 1973, is now open for its 50th anniversary issue! We are a national publication based in Augusta, Georgia, accepting prose, poetry, and art from emerging and established writers and artists in the United States. We are also accepting submissions for our annual poetry and prose contests judged by the Sand Hills editorial team. Winning entries in each category receive $500 and publication in the issue. The deadline for general and contest submissions is March 8th, 2026. Learn more here. We look forward to reviewing your work.
National Baseball Poetry Festival Call for Submissions
Deadline: Noon, March 27, 2026
The National Baseball Poetry Festival invites submissions of poems that deal with any aspect of the gamesmanship, nature, and atmosphere of Baseball and/or Softball, for example: opening day, ballpark food, childhood memories, first pitch, athletic heroes, uniforms, ball parks, Little League, dugout chatter, the season of the game, etc. No restriction on form. Poets may submit one (1) poem for consideration, which should fit on a single page. The thematic views of baseball/softball and the game will be given wide interpretation by the judge(s). Submissions are free. For full submission guidelines, please visit our website.
2026 National Indie Excellence© Awards
Deadline: March 31, 2026
The 2026 National Indie Excellence© Awards (NIEA) are open to all English language printed books currently for sale including self-published authors, small to midsize independent publishers, and university presses. Now in our twentieth year, NIEA is a proud champion of self and independent publishing and authors of all genres who produce books of excellence and distinction. Eligible books must have been published within the two calendar years prior to our deadline. Please visit our website for more information about our prizes, awards, and how to submit.
2026 Prime Number Magazine Awards
Deadline: March 31, 2026
Two prizes of $1,000 each and publication in Prime Number Magazine are given annually for a poem and a short story. Two runners-up in each category receive $250 each and publication. Using only the online submission system, submit a poem of up to three pages or a short story of up to 5,300 words with a $15 entry fee by March 31. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
New American Voices Award for Immigrant Writers
Deadline: March 31, 2026
The New American Voices Award is a $5,000 post-publication book prize from Fall for the Book and the Institute for Immigration Research, which recognizes prose works that illuminate the complexity of the human experience as told by immigrants. Two finalists each will receive $1,000. All finalists will appear at the Fall for the Book Festival in October 2026. $20 entry fee. Previous winners include Shubha Sunder, Shahnaz Habib, Rachel Heng, and Sindya Bhanoo. Visit website to learn more.
Submit to Ploughshares’ Emerging Writers’ Contest!
Deadline: March 31, 2026 at 12PM EST
Ready to be discovered? Submit your fiction, nonfiction, and poetry to the Emerging Writers’ Contest between February 1 and March 31 for the chance to see your work in print. Winners receive $2,000, publication in Ploughshares, and a conversation with the literary agency Aevitas Creative Management. Learn more here.
Write at Jack Kerouac’s Residency in Orlando for Seven Weeks
Deadline: April 14, 2026
Write where Jack Kerouac wrote The Dharma Bums. The Kerouac Project residency of Orlando, FL offers the house to yourself, $600 grocery stipend, utilities paid. Finish your project in seven weeks. Six time slots available per year. We accept: Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Poetry, Plays, Screenplays. Fiction and Nonfiction can be in graphic narrative form if preferred. Applications due April 14, 2026, but we’ve been known to extend it. Learn more and apply here.
Read ALOCASIA: A Journal of Queer Planty Writing!
Deadline: Rolling
ALOCASIA is an online literary journal of queer creative writing about plants, nature, and horticulture. Based in the United States, we publish writing from both established and emerging writers around the world in all genres. We publish traditional work, as well as the weird, erotic, explicit, and anti-colonial. Our writers are celebratory, fierce, wounded, loving, and rebellious. Come visit our garden on the web. Also, we would love to read your work, click here for submission information.
JackLeg Press is Looking for the Next Great Thing
Deadline: Rolling
JackLeg Press seeks bold, vibrant, authentic writers. Is that you? We’d love to find out. We focus on poetry, short fiction collections, select novels & creative nonfiction. Query us today!
Palooka Seeks Chapbooks, Prose, Poetry, Artwork, Photography
Deadline: Year-round
Palooka is a global literary magazine of daring prose, art, photography, comics, and chapbooks drawn exclusively from unsolicited submissions. We champion underdog voices, read anonymously, and only publish what we love. Bold voices. Brave stories. Learn more.
Want access to the full list of opportunities and upcoming events? Upgrade to a paid subscription for exclusive early access to the full list of submission calls, writing contests, and events!
❧ Keep Your Ears Opened
ven with your beanie or muffs pulled tight to keep them warm. Until next time, may your week be full of small heat waves, good reads, and the delightful sounds your brain invents.
As always, keep writing words that matter.
— The NewPages Crew
