Spooktacularly Great Lit
NewPages Newsletter #151 Featuring 48 Submission Opportunities & Upcoming Events
It is here! Almost the end of spooky season. As a child I can recall wearing my Halloween costume under a winter coat…or over one. We also had to be driven door to door since we lived out in the country. This year Michigan will be unseasonably warm. If you will also be able to enjoy warmer than average temperatures, it will be great to find time to head outdoors with a great book, lit mag, or laptop for writing and editing to soak up what may be the final nice days of the year.
This week on the Magazine Stand, you can enjoy learning more about Sky Island Journal’s stunning 29th issue with poetry, flash fiction, and creative nonfiction from Ada Genavia, Amy Han, Doug Jacquier, E.N. Loizis, Elizabeth Rae Bullmer, and more! Later this week, you can also discover more information about the very first issue of Megacity Review, a bold journal dedicated to spotlighting underrepresented voices in urban arts and culture.
If you want a full overview of journals with new issues available, stay tuned to our New & Noted Literary & Alternative Magazine Issues roundup! We will also be releasing a full list of new and forthcoming titles this week as well!
If you are looking for some book recommendations, our reviewers are here to help you find your next best read. Jami Macarty reviews Robert Colman’s Ghost Work which “joins recent fatherhood-focused poetry collections.” Colman’s collection diverges from others by offering readers a sober and heartbreaking meditation on the gradual loss of his father from dementia.
Macarty also reviews Song of the Ground Jay: Poems by Iranian Women 1960 to 2023. In this expanded edition, Mojdeh Bahar has selected and translated poems by 104 Persian women poets born after September 1941. This bilingual Persian and English anthology features poems that have not previously appeared in books.
Eleanor J. Bader tackles Joel Edward Goza’s Rebirth of a Nation: Reparations and Remaking America. Goza is a white professor of ethics at Simmons College who believes the US cannot become a truly interracial democracy unless white people find ways to “repent, repay, and repair.” He delves into history to find ideological underpinnings and takes a hard look at popular culture.
Bader also reviews Freeman’s Challenge by Robin Bernstein. In this book, “Bernstein masterfully transports contemporary readers to the 19th century” to tell the story of inmate William Freeman, a free-born Black teenager who was incarcerated from 1840-45 in Auburn State Prison where prisoners were forced to do unpaid work in several for-profit industries.
Come back to the NewPages Blog throughout the week for reviews of Rosanna Deerchild’s She Falls Again and Lynne Thompson’s Blue on a Blue Palette.
In other news, if you enjoy readings, Tint Journal will be hosting Tinted Tales: reading across cultures on Friday, November 8 at 6PM CET. The event will be livestreamed. You can enjoy readings by Lucy Braun, Bora Hah, Gabriela Halas, Klau Stępień, Saheed Sunday, Nikola Živković Takšev, and open mic guest Aung Zaw Myo.
Inspiration
Coincidence. Defined as “a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection.” Movies and books love to build up “coincidences.” Some are real and some are actually carefully constructed plots for nefarious…or not so nefarious purposes.
If you look back at your life, have you ever had a strong coincidence pop up that still baffles you this day? Like being down on your luck and jobless for years only to have a job seemingly fall into your lap when someone comes to pay a visit to your father-in-law who has been deceased for several years? Or perhaps something you’ve always longed for finally and unexpectedly falling into place?
I once travelled to Germany to visit my father on an air force base and coincidentally met someone on a neighboring army base that I graduated high school with. What are the odds? The odds are always in favor of presenting some of the strangest and uncanny occurrences.
What fiction can you craft around a coincidence? Can you write a love poem based on coincidence? Or how about that essay about the strangest coincidence you have experienced in life and what lesson it may have taught you?
Calls, Contests, & More
Below are this week’s writing contests, calls for submissions, and literary and writing events. Enjoy 48 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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