New Magazine Listing
firstwriter.com – Friday February 14, 2020
Publishes: Articles; Essays; Fiction; Nonfiction; Poetry;
Areas include: Culture; Humour; Politics; Short Stories;
Markets: Adult;
Preferred styles: Satirical
Describes itself as "America's leading voice of interesting and unexpected left-wing political criticism, cultural analysis, short stories, poems and art". Submit pitch using online form on website.
New Magazine Listing
firstwriter.com – Wednesday February 12, 2020
Publishes: Essays; Fiction; Nonfiction; Poetry;
Areas include: Short Stories;
Markets: Adult;
Preferred styles: Literary
Publishes poetry, fiction, and essays / creative nonfiction. Accepts submissions during specific submission windows. See website for details and for themes.
New Magazine Listing
firstwriter.com – Monday February 10, 2020
Publishes: Fiction;
Areas include: Sci-Fi; Short Stories;
Markets: Adult
Website publishing daily flash fiction up to 600 words. Accepts all kinds of science fiction. Submit via form on website.
How to be a film writer
source.wustl.edu – Sunday February 9, 2020
Joey Clarke, AB ’07, moved to Los Angeles after graduation in hopes of making it as a film writer. He worked a variety of low-level jobs but admits he didn’t put the effort he needed into writing. A relationship and a change of scenery helped kick-start his film writing career, and in 2018 he won the Academy Awards’ Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting for his script Miles. Here, he shares some tips about what has worked for him and how writing for film is — and isn’t — the same as other types of writing.
New Publisher Listing
firstwriter.com – Friday February 7, 2020
Publishes: Fiction; Poetry;
Markets: Adult;
Preferred styles: Literary
Accepts submissions of fiction and poetry between April 1 and May 15, and via its two contests in autumn.
New Literary Agent Listing: Jessica Friedman
firstwriter.com – Friday February 7, 2020
Represents literary fiction and nonfiction. Interested in distinctive voices and writing that challenges the expected -- stylistically, formally, or otherwise. Particularly drawn to incisive, voice-driven writing and underrepresented narratives.
American Dirt’s problem is bad writing, not cultural appropriation
theguardian.com – Monday February 3, 2020
Sometimes, allies can be more harmful than enemies. American Dirt, a novel about a mother and son fleeing a drugs cartel in Mexico, has the literary world clutching its pearls. The problem? Does the writer, Jeanine Cummins (whose grandmother is Puerto Rican but who has identified as white) have the right (or the ability) to portray an authentic Mexican story? The background of the author, something that should have been an irrelevant matter, became the focal point of reviews.
In the New York Times, a white reviewer agonised over whether it was her place to review such a book at all. “I could never speak to the accuracy of the book’s representation of Mexican culture or the plights of migrants; I have never been Mexican or a migrant,” Lauren Groff wrote. To her horror, she discovers that the writer herself is not Mexican nor a migrant.
This well-meaning nonsense got us, the readers, nowhere. The question that a review answers is simply, is the book any good? If it were a work of nonfiction, all these questions about identity, access and the problematic “white gaze” as Groff called it, become more relevant. But American Dirt is a novel, and a thriller at that, so the angst over the accuracy of its portrayal, rather than whether the world feels authentic, seems misplaced and forced.
New Magazine Listing
firstwriter.com – Monday February 3, 2020
Publishes: Articles; Features; Fiction; Interviews; Nonfiction; Reviews;
Areas include: Entertainment; Music; Short Stories;
Markets: Adult
Entertainment periodical, online-only since 2009. Accepts short stories between 500 and 3,000 words. For features or music reviews contact by email in advance. See website for specific email addresses and full submission guidelines.
Top ten writing tips and resolutions for aspiring writers by Jane Riley
femalefirst.co.uk – Saturday February 1, 2020
How satisfying is it to start the year off with a set of resolutions you assure yourself you’ll achieve – or, as my character Oliver Clock does in The Likely Resolutions of Oliver Clock, jots down goals in his ‘Notebook of Resolutions’ throughout the year? The problem is, however, that like Oliver, many of us never even start the resolutions we make, let alone achieve them. For all those aspiring writers out there, here are my top ten tips and resolutions that are, hopefully, achievable all year round.
Publishing's 'American Dirt' Problem
publishersweekly.com – Saturday February 1, 2020
Ask someone who works in publishing what they think of American Dirt and they might tell you they’re not the best person to speak to the situation. Or that they haven’t read the novel. They might directly reference their privilege, then suggest you ask one of the handful of Latinx people who edit or sell books.
This was the reaction from myriad publishing professionals when questions were put to them about the latest controversy that has engulfed their business.
Two weeks ago Jeanine Cummins’s novel, about a bookseller from Mexico who flees to America with her son in tow to escape the local drug cartel, was a bestseller-in-waiting, riding a wave of critical support to its January 21 release date. Now it is a cultural lightening rod, and its author is at the center of a complex debate about power, privilege, and who should be given a platform to tell what stories. Though many insiders say they welcome the conversation that the book’s publication has inadvertently raised—about which books the industry chooses to elevate, and whether it’s properly equipped to champion the work of diverse voices—they’re stunned at the aggressive turn the debate has taken. And, even if they won’t say so publicly, they admit feeling sorry for Cummins who, as an author, should not have to answer for the shortcomings of the publishing industry as a whole.
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