Lit Sparks & Lightning Bolts
NewPages Newsletter #198: 120 Submission Opportunities + New Reviews, Bookstore Finds, and Inspiration to Spark Your Week
Happy Monday!
The cooler weather that was flirting with us backed off a bit, and we got to enjoy a lovely, sunny, warm weekend. Hopefully you had a chance to step away from your screen and make like a plant or a cat—soaking up some fresh air and warmth before the cold snaps its fingers and settles in.
In NewPages news, our monthly special eLitPak newsletter will hit inboxes Wednesday afternoon, so expect a little extra literary goodness in your inbox.
And since it’s September 15, don’t forget—a passel of submission opportunities are ending soon!
📩 If this email gets cut off, click ‘View Entire Message’ at the bottom or head to Substack to read the full newsletter!
📚 Magazine News
Here’s what’s new on the Magazine Stand—fresh issues, interviews, and literary features worth checking out.
Baltimore Review - Print Annual 2025
The 2025 print annual features work from 63 writers across four seasons, plus winners of its short-form contests. Meet the editors at upcoming events including the Baltimore Book Festival, Writers’ Conference, and AWP 2026.
Coming soon: Palooka Issue 15
📖 Book Spotlight
Later today, we’ll be posting Editor Denise Hill’s latest Editor’s Choice pick: Black Silk and Other Poems: Creative Work of Ruth Mountaingrove.
Black Silk and Other Poems: Creative Work of Ruth Mountaingrove, Edited by Vincent Peloso & Sue Hilton
This collection honors Ruth Mountaingrove’s vibrant legacy with poetry, art, and photography from archives and loved ones. A tribute to a pioneering lesbian feminist artist, published by Many Name Press with support from the Ink People.
🔍 In Review
With so many books released each year, finding a great read can feel daunting. Our reviewers are here to help keep you informed to help find your next great read.
If I Had Said Beauty by Tami Haaland (review by Jami Macarty)
Tami Haaland’s If I Had Said Beauty explores ancestry, identity, and transformation through inventive poetic forms and meditative lyricism. A rich, spiritual inquiry into legacy, loss, and the infinite connections between beings.
Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li (review by Kevin Brown)
Yiyun Li’s memoir Things in Nature Merely Grow explores enduring grief after the loss of both her sons, offering a raw, reflective look at living within the abyss.
A powerful meditation on sorrow, survival, and the quiet persistence of life.
Coming Soon: Reviews of I want to Burn This Place Down by Maris Kreizman, Kids on Earth: The Learning Potential of 5 Billion Minds by Howard Blumenthal and Robert C. Pianta, Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy, The Safekeep b Yael van der Wouden, and the artemesia by William S. Barnes
🏬 Bookstore Updates
It’s been a while since we last shared bookstore updates! With autumn nearly upon us, this is the perfect time to visit your local indies for good books and maybe some good coffee and conversations, too!
Check out these newly added or updated listings in our Guide to Indie Bookstores:
📍 Anna’s New, Used & A Little Abused Books & More – Rockmart, GA
A cozy downtown indie bookstore offering a wide range of genres, local author titles, handcrafted gifts, and occasional book clubs and craft classes.
📍 Bella’s Books & Curiosities - Nappanee, IN
A one-of-a-kind bookstore housed in a historic downtown Nappanee bank, offering quality used books, puzzles, and delightful curiosities you won’t expect—but will love.
📍 Cooks & Books – Meridian, ID
A lively community hub where hands-on cooking classes and a curated bookshop for all ages come together for learning, connection, and fun.
📍 NOVEL HeARTs – Versailles, IN
A welcoming indie bookstore offering books, arts, and gifts while championing the right to read, create, and learn.
📍 Scrawl, Scribble & Smirch Bookshop – Gustine, CA
A new woman-owned indie bookstore offering books, vinyl, collectibles, and community events inside a charming 118-year-old building.
📍 Wild Book Company – Newfane, VT
A seasonal indie bookstore in a beautifully restored Vermont barn, offering thoughtfully selected new and used books that celebrate adventure, creativity, and the natural world.
✍️ Inspiration Prompt: Lightning Never Strikes the Same Place Twice
That’s what they say. But tell that to the ash tree in my backyard—scarred but proud after its first strike, split and silent after the second. Now it’s just a memory, like the shed that once stood beneath its branches.
And tell that to the people who’ve survived not one, but multiple lightning strikes—living proof that the improbable can happen again, and again. What does it mean to be marked more than once by the same force? To carry the charge of recurrence in your body, your story, your silence?
This prompt invites you to explore repetition, inevitability, and the myth of safety. What happens when the extraordinary returns? When the pattern repeats? When the storm circles back?
Write, draw, compose, or create something that wrestles with recurrence—a second chance, a repeated trauma, a rekindled love, or a pattern that refuses to break.
Does lightning strike again in your story?
And if it does, what’s left standing?
Looking for more inspiration? Stop by our Weekly Roundup of Submission Opportunities for more prompts.
Calls, Contests, & More
Ready to submit your work or attend a literary event? We’ve got 120 opportunities waiting for you this week!
Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest
Deadline: October 1, 2025
The Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest, now in its 23rd year, sponsored by Winning Writers, co-sponsored by Duotrope, and recommended by Reedsy. Submit published or unpublished work online to win $3,500 for the best poem in any style and $3,500 for the best poem that rhymes or has a traditional style. Ten Honorable Mentions will receive $500 each. Length limit: 250 lines per poem. Entry fee: $25 for 1-3 poems. Top 12 entries published online. Final judge: Michal ‘MJ’ Jones. Deadline: October 1. Learn more at our website.
Two Weeks. One Plush Bathrobe. Zero Interruptions.
Deadline: October 6, 2025
Imagine two glorious, all-expenses-paid weeks at a hotel to do nothing but write in solitude. Free room service. A housekeeping staff. A breakfast bar. Your own TV remote. The sun rising over the Great Miami River (aka the Dayton Riviera). And — most importantly — a “Do Not Disturb” sign. Applications for the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop’s A Hotel Room of One’s Own: The Erma Bombeck Humorist-in-Residence Program will be accepted Sept. 2-Oct. 6. The package is worth approximately $5,000. The experience? Priceless. Cash prizes also will be awarded to finalists and honorable mentions. Forbes says this "may be the best writer's residency in the country." Fee: $30. Learn more here.
Impermanence of Home
Deadline: October 16, 2025
Global City Review is now accepting submissions for our 26th issue, titled Impermanence of Home. This issue invites contributors to consider the emotional, political, and physical dimensions of home in flux. We’re interested in work that explores how sanctuary—whether a person, place, memory, language, or idea—can be lost, reshaped, reimagined, or even fabricated. Possible areas of focus: Environmental collapse and ecological change; Forced migration, exile, and statelessness; Censorship, surveillance, and the erosion of free expression; Housing insecurity, gentrification, and urban dislocation; Cultural memory, ancestral loss, and intergenerational rupture; Digital disorientation, AI fatigue, and virtual estrangement; and Imagined or speculative forms of refuge. Visit website for more information.
Vern Rutsala Book Contest $1000 Prize
Deadline: October 31, 2025
A prize of $1,000 is awarded, plus publication of the manuscript and 50 free books to the winner of the Vern Rutsala Book Contest. Submit 70 to 90 pages of poetry and/or flash fiction, including a Table of Contents and Acknowledgments page. Reading fee is $25. Electronic and postal submissions are accepted from around the world with no citizenship limitations. The first 50 writers submitting to contest receive a Cloudbank book or journal. Everywhere, Everywhere by Jeffrey Bean was the winner of the 2025 Contest. For complete guidelines go to Rutsala Book Prize page on the Cloudbank Books website.
Qua Magazine Seeks Submissions for Fall Semester 2025 Issue
Deadline: November 2, 2025
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 Fall Semester 2025 issue, all submissions must be made by deadline here.
Call For Submissions From Girls Worldwide
Deadline: December 31, 2025
Girls Right the World is a literary journal inviting girls and young, gender-expansive writers and artists, ages 14–21, to submit work for consideration for the tenth annual issue. We believe girls’ voices transform the world for the better. We accept poetry, prose, and visual art of any style or theme. We ask to be the first to publish your work in North America; after publication, the rights return to you. Send your best art and/or writing, in English or English translation, via email by December 31, 2025. Please include a note mentioning your age, where you’re from, and a bit about your submission. See website for more details.
2026 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction
Deadline: December 31, 2025
Awarded to an outstanding, unpublished collection of stories. Reading Fee: $30. Award: publication, $1,000 advance, 53 copies. If runner-up is named, publication, $500 advance, 25 copies. Submit online via Submittable until December 31. Press 53 publisher Kevin Morgan Watson will serve as judge. Winner and finalists announced by May 3, 2026. Publication in May 2027. Details at our website.
RCC MUSE Now Accepting Submissions & Spangler Poetry Award Entries
Deadline: January 31, 2026
RCC MUSE is now accepting general submissions for the Spring 2026 edition and poetry submissions for the Spangler Award. For the Spangler Award—Submit up to 3 poems about a child or childhood for a chance to win $200 and publication in the Spring 2026 edition of RCC MUSE. A $5 entry fee is required (payable by check to “RCC MUSE” or via Venmo @RCCMUSE). Email your submission as an attachment with the subject line: "LastName–Spangler Award–Title." General submissions are also open through January 31, 2026. You may submit 1 prose piece (1,500 words max) or up to 3 poems. Use the subject line format: "LastName–Genre–Title" and include your contact info and a short bio. Full guidelines at 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.
Palooka Seeks Chapbooks, Prose, Poetry, Artwork, Photography
Deadline: Year-round
Palooka is an international literary magazine. For fifteen years we’ve featured new, up-and-coming, and established writers, artists, and photographers from around the world. We’re open to all forms and styles and are always seeking unique chapbooks, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, artwork, photography, and graphic narratives. Submissions open year-round. palookamag.com
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⚡Until Next Time…
Wishing you a week full of clarity, courage, and creative sparks—may lightning strike and illuminate the perfect home for the work you’ve poured your heart into.
— The NewPages Crew
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