I was working with a new client who had come to me because she said she hated her writing life. As I sat with her on Zoom and asked her questions about her writing, I watched her face change as she described how she used to feel about writing when she was much younger, and how she felt about it now. She looked troubled, and sad. And also confused. Why was writing so hard for her now? she asked. She didn’t understand why it felt like pulling teeth to sit down and crank out five … Continue reading When Writing Isn’t Fun Anymore by Lauren Sapala→
Collateral Damage: 48 Stories, the title of Nancy Ludmerer’s debut collection of captivating short stories, invites threat and suspense, but her sterling craft and literary sensibilities upend all expectations. The collateral part is clear, if often subtle; the damage comes from uncommon revelations, each convincing, each a wonderment. I held my breath (and laughed) for the celebrant in the propulsive and detailed single-sentence flash fiction, Bar Mitzvah, when he choked on his piece of celery “stuffed with scallion cream cheese”; delighted in the guileless turnaround in the page-long Tiffy; and admired the imaginative conceit in … Continue reading Review by Denise B. Dailey of Collateral Damage: 48 Stories by Nancy Ludmerer→
Every year, hundreds of new books on productivity are published on Amazon. Out of all these books, a significant slice is dedicated to productivity for writers. Many of the titles promise to teach us how to write faster, how to schedule our time more efficiently, or how to publish our books more rapidly. But no matter what they promise, they all contain a common theme: The way you are working now is not good enough. You are too slow, and if you are too slow as a writer, you will get left behind. I shudder … Continue reading Why Reading Books on Productivity Is the Worst Thing a Writer Could Do by Lauren Sapala→
STREETLIGHT’S 2022 SUMMER FLASH FICTION CONTEST Send us your shorts by July 11! 1st Prize — $125 2nd — $75 3rd — $50 Entry Fee: $10 CONTEST GUIDELINES: Up to 500 of your best, previously unpublished words. Any subject. Multiple submissions are fine — one work per entry. This is a blind contest. Please remove all personal information from the story pages. We encourage simultaneous submissions but if your piece is accepted elsewhere, inform us at fiction@streetlightmag.com, right away. Contest deadline is Monday, July 11, 2022 midnight EST. Competition winners will be announced July 25, … Continue reading 2022 Essay/Memoir Contest→
STREETLIGHT’S 2022 SUMMER FLASH FICTION CONTEST Send us your shorts by July 11! 1st Prize — $125 2nd — $75 3rd — $50 Entry Fee: $10 CONTEST GUIDELINES: Up to 500 of your best, previously unpublished words. Any subject. Multiple submissions are fine — one work per entry. This is a blind contest. Please remove all personal information from the story pages. We encourage simultaneous submissions but if your piece is accepted elsewhere, inform us at fiction@streetlightmag.com, right away. Contest deadline is Monday, July 11, 2022 midnight EST. Competition winners will be announced July 25, … Continue reading 2022 Flash Fiction Contest→
STREETLIGHT’S 2022 POETRY CONTEST August 15 to October 31 1st Prize — $125 2nd — $75 3rd — $50 Entry Fee: $10 FOR UP TO 3 POEMS CONTEST GUIDELINES: Up to three of your best, previously unpublished poems. Any subject. Multiple submissions are fine. This is a blind contest. Please remove all personal information from the story pages. We encourage simultaneous submissions but if your piece is accepted elsewhere, inform us at poetry1@streetlightmag.com or poetry2@streetlightmag.com, right away. Contest deadline is Monday, October 31, 2022 midnight EST. Competition winners will be announced November 14, 2022. Only … Continue reading 2022 Poetry Contest→
Cottonmouth As the boat eased out on the pond, there was just enough light to see pale ribbons of sky rippling in the water. Dad paddled ahead with slow, heavy strokes, but the lives watching from trees, listening in the grass knew what had just arrived. As he rested the paddle on his knees, the boat glided on as if it knew where it was going, pulling a wide scarf of quiet behind it. Then the first deep croak sounded in duckweed near the far bank. When he dipped the paddle over the side to … Continue reading Cottonmouth by Ron Stottlemyer→
Hello Book Lovers! I’m happy to share that my novel, The Book Lovers, will be published in October 2023 by Regal House Publishing, a small, highly congenial press that specializes in literary fiction. Set in Gilded Age Boston, The Book Lovers tells the story of an author of romance and adventure novels who becomes a champion of the working women who are her faithful readers as she takes on the male literary establishment. It’s also a love story—about people and books, and about how revision on the page can mirror revision in life and vice … Continue reading Book News and More . . . by Virginia Pye→
My sister and I have always loved each other, but we really didn’t like each other until I moved out of the house. During a few of the rare occasions we were “getting along”, we created a number of stories about a pair of sisters whose strained relationship reflected our own. The infamous Sarah and Anna series. In every iteration, Sarah was the obvious parental favorite, while poor Anna suffered in her shadow. That’s it. There was never any type of redemption for Anna, her situation always stayed the same. Whether she was left at … Continue reading Sarah and Anna by Emily Littlewood→
I’ve published five books (three nonfiction and two fiction) and there’s so much I wish I would have known before publishing, that I now know through the long, hard road of experience. Whether you’re going the traditional publishing route, or you’re choosing to self-publish, there’s definitely a learning curve to becoming a new published author. My hope is that I can save you the headache of figuring it all out on your own so that the whole process goes a bit easier for you. Everything Takes Longer (Sometimes Much, Much Longer) Than You Think It … Continue reading Three Things You Should Know Before You Publish Your Book by Lauren Sapala→
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