Lit in a Colorful Array
NewPages Newsletter #216: A kaleidoscope of lit mags, 160+ calls, and creative sparks!
Happy Monday!
Here in Michigan, this past weekend brought the annual Frankenmuth Snow Fest. Our own Little Bavaria welcomed snow sculptors, ice carvers, and plenty of visitors—and this year, the deep freeze actually helped preserve all those incredible details. Hopefully, even with the harsh weather, you’re finding small bright spots to break up the winter blues.
As always, NewPages is here with inspiration, upcoming submission opportunities, and great lit to keep you going—and, apparently, a newfound devotion to whipped‑honey walnut‑milk “lattes,” which contain absolutely zero coffee. (Don’t ask. It’s a phase.)
📩 If this email gets cut off, click ‘View Entire Message’ at the bottom or head to Substack to read the full newsletter!
📚 Magazine Stand
Love reading a large variety of work? Drop by the Magazine Stand to explore the latest issues from literary journals across the spectrum and the world.
Kaleidoscope – Winter/Spring 2026
Kaleidoscope’s final issue reflects on its decades‑long mission to reshape perceptions of disability. Unified by themes of movement and forward momentum, standout pieces like “Papa was a Rollin’,” “We Walk,” and “Falling Forward” honor resilience. The editors bid farewell, urging readers to continue the work of expanding understanding.
River Teeth – Fall 2025
River Teeth’s Fall 2025 issue explores voice as sacred, unteachable, and politically vulnerable, with editor Steven Harvey underscoring the magazine’s role in protecting it. The issue features work from Jim Daniels, Corrie Williamson, and Phong Nguyen. River Teeth also spotlights its micro‑essay series Beautiful Things, celebrating everyday meaning.
Rogue Agent - Issue 130
Rogue Agent’s Issue 130, guest edited by Allison Blevins, centers the body as a site of truth, risk, and resistance. Chosen while she undergoes chemo, these poems offer balm and hope. Standout contributors include Travis Chi Wing Lau, Amie Whittemore, Emily Hockaday, and Sean Thomas Dougherty.
Sky Island Journal – Winter 2026
Sky Island Journal’s Winter 2026 issue renews editors’ commitments to free, empathetic, and resistance‑minded literature. Issue 34 centers on hope amid oppression, featuring standout work from contributors like Bex Hainsworth, Jay Udall, Morrow Dowdle, and Zoe Culbertson, inviting readers into a global community driven by art’s sustaining power.
Coming Soon
The Common Issue 130, Shenandoah Fall 2025, and Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine Fall/Winter 2025
Keep an eye out for these upcoming releases—we’ll share highlights in future newsletters!
🆕 Introducing: The Dolomite Review
The Dolomite Review launches its inaugural issue, offering open‑access poetry, short stories, and essays with a strong Midwest sensibility. Managing Editor Maryann Lawrence aims to create a reader‑focused journal that showcases writing connected to the region’s landscapes, culture, and character.
Named after the dolomite formations on Michigan’s Drummond Island, the magazine reflects both the beauty and brutality of Midwest life. A small but skilled masthead guides submissions, aiming for two‑week responses.
The journal emphasizes accessible storytelling, clean design, and an ad‑free reading experience. Contributors in the first issue include Diane Scholl, Darcy Hicks, Steve Gardiner, and more.
Learn more about The Dolomite Review.
📑 Editor’s Choice Book Pick
Explore standout titles handpicked by NewPages Editor Denise Hill—books that spark thought, emotion, and conversation.
Doomer Anthology Edited by Dana Stamps II and Jeff Green
To open this collection is to feel the locks click shut behind you. Doomer Anthology gathers poems, stories, and essays that chronicle endings rather than warnings: vanishing coastlines, broken seasons, and the quiet collapse of human and non-human worlds. The prevailing mood is not rage or urgency, but a settled stillness. This book is not a call to action. It is a eulogy.
🌟Journal Spotlight
Discover the literary magazines, creative writing programs, and indie and university presses currently with paid listings on NewPages. Explore their missions, submission opportunities, and standout titles below.
VOLTA publishes innovative writing twice per year, seeking work that startles readers into new ways of seeing. Guided by the belief that literature “trains our emotional muscles,” VOLTA champions art that confronts, challenges, and provokes deeper feeling. Open to emerging and established creators, the magazine aims to reinvigorate the written word for its generation.
🖋️ Inspiration Prompt: It’s a Gray World After All
We like to imagine life as simple as black and white: clean lines, clear choices, easy binaries. Zeroes and ones. On or off. Right or wrong. There’s always some moment in a person’s life when they wish the world worked that way.
But reality rarely cooperates. The world is messier, richer, and far more nuanced than any two-color palette or tidy string of code.
Imagine a world that really is limited to black and white.
What happens the first time those two absolutes begin to blur? When edges smudge, borders soften, and unexpected shades of gray emerge?
How would you react to colorless shadows that suddenly deepen into complexity?
Can you show—through image, scene, or voice—the transition from stark contrast to subtle gradation?
Write into that moment when certainty dissolves and the gray world begins.
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.
With so many recent additions (and, unfortunately, the removal of stores that have closed), now is an ideal time to take advantage of our bookstore data. NewPages offers electronic mailing lists for independent bookstores in the U.S. and Canada, including mailing addresses, social media, phone numbers, and emails when available—an invaluable resource for presses, publications, and literary organizers looking to connect directly with booksellers.
Calls, Contests, & More
Ready to submit your work or attend a literary event? We’ve got 165 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.
🔔 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!
❧ Stay Glittering
Whether you’re waddling outside in layers like a human onion or tucked into an oversized sweater with a book or notebook, may this winter bring you unexpected sparks of joy.
As always, keep writing words that matter.
— The NewPages Crew
