Uplifting Inspiration & Lit Perfect for Fall
NewPages Newsletter #149 Featuring 45 Submission Opportunities & Events
It seems October just started and already it is nearly half over with. But you know what that means, don’t you? Our monthly eLitPak newsletter will be hitting your inboxes on Wednesday afternoon with even more literary and writing goodies to keep you occupied during the long and cold nights ahead.
Speaking of literary goodies, hop on over to the Magazine Stand to devour new issues of your favorite, or soon-to-be favorite, literary magazines. Still Point Arts Quarterly Fall 2024 issue features a hauntingly good cover and is themed “Walking.” Sharing in this joy of walking are writers and artists Kevin Browne, J. R. Solonche, Nancy Buonaccorsi, Kit Carlson, and more. Meanwhile, Southern Humanities Review issue 57.3 features the 2024 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize winner, Erika Jing, and her poem “Follow” along with runners-ups and honorable mentions.
Hot off the press is a beautiful new Issue of Jewish Fiction (formerly Jewish Fiction .net)! Issue 37 contains 18 stories, originally written in German, Yiddish, Hebrew, and English and, for the first time, Ukrainian. The October 2024 issue The Lake is available to read online with works by Carol Casey, Judy Brackett Crowe, J. H. Hill, Mary Makofske, and Lauren K. Nixon just to name a few contributors.
Arriving right on time with election season around the corner, we have the October 2024 issue of About Place Journal themed Shaping Destiny: Election Season, Before, During and After, with contents that respond to the realities of the most important election of our times.
Jelly Squid Magazine becomes the latest journal featured in our New Lit on the Block series. If you’re looking for writing that’s playful and unconventional (maybe even a little mysterious), truly new works that stay with you long after you’ve read the final line, and a publication that makes you excited for each next issue, then click on over to Jelly Squid.
Looking for some great new titles to read this fall? Head on over to our Book Stand to find your next great read. On the Wrong Side: How Universities Protect Perpetrators and Betray Survivors of Sexual Violence by Nicole Bedera provides the first comprehensive account of the inner workings of the secretive Title IX system. Drawing on a yearlong study of survivors, perpetrators, and the administrators who oversaw their cases, Bedera exposes the structures that predictably punish survivors who come forward in the service of protecting—or even rewarding—their perpetrators.
In her aptly titled fourth chapbook, The Whole Catastrophe, Jami Macarty takes readers on a road trip to the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico while reflecting on fragility of life, greed of corporations, and the disasters we must withstand, from plastics pollution to toxic feedlots to carbon monoxide poisoning.
If you need some book recommendations to help you out, check out the NewPages Blog for book reviews. Kevin Brown tackles Naomi Klein’s Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World in which Klein talks about her being confused with Naomi Wolf, author of The Beauty Myth. Klein uses the confusion with Wolf to talk about the mirror world of the title, the one that Wolf now lives in, creating and perpetuating a reality that is similar to the real world, but different in dangerous ways.
Jami Macarty gives her opinion on Tangled in Vow & Beseech by Jill McCabe Johnson. In this collection, Jill McCabe Johnson tangles with self as daughter, sister, mother, survivor, and poet. Come back to the blog throughout the week to enjoy even more reviews of Ali Blythe’s Stedfast, Matthew Desmond’s Poverty, by America, and Precedented Parroting by Barbara Tran.
Inspiration
Admittedly I have been less and less active across all of my own personal social media platforms and I am bad and don’t necessarily look at all the missed update notifications from those that I follow. This morning, I did finally look and instead of political and world news gloom, I found an inspiring post from a friend with a disability.
Around my age, this friend has an arm that does not work properly due to a medical error that happened after birth. For the first time in his life, he was offered hope that his special arm may be able to have some functionality restored and has now been undergoing intense physical therapy to help improve it. He is happy that for the first time in his life someone noticed and cared enough to ask and that has led him on a new journey.
How about you? What happenings in your life have made you feel heard, feel noticed, and maybe even feel vindicated? Can you write verse about an uplifting or life-changing moment? Finally feel brave enough to write that essay you have always wanted about that thing in your life, whatever it may be, that you now have a new perspective on? Or find an uplifting true story that maybe you can utilize to inspire and uplift others by imaging it in a fictional world?
Calls, Contests, & More
Below are this week’s writing contests, calls for submissions, and literary and writing events. Enjoy 45 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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