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- VIDEO — Rebecca Treasure On How To Use Setting To Heighten Your Story in this workshop video excerpt.
- Markets and contests with submissions open or opening soon.
- THIS SATURDAY, APRIL 18 - Rebecca E Treasure's Worldbuilding From The Inside Out: Weave Rich Unique Environments And Societies Into Your Stories with Apex Magazine Managing Editor and published novelist, Rebecca E Treasure.
- Care to drabble with us? Each week our drabble community writes 100 words (or they don't—their call) to a single-word prompt.
- This Week's Prompt. An interesting item from the news to provide you with fodder for your creativity. This week, human echolocators can 'see' with sound, and brain scans reveal how.
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“Something I love to see is filtering the setting through the character. Take into account the things your character would see, and pay attention to the things your character wouldn’t see. A librarian and a criminal investigator are going to notice different things and their brains are going to travel down different paths.”
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Apex Magazine Managing Editor, Rebecca E Treasure, shares how to use setting to heighten your story in this excerpt from her live workshop, “Six Powerful Exercises For Polishing Your Prose.”
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Markets and Contests
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Many thanks to Scribophile for sponsoring this week's open submissions. Scribophile is a free welcoming community of writers where you're guaranteed to get solid critiques on your work. You can also get 20% off your first purchase using coupon code APEX20.
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- 🩻 Sci-fi Shorts is open to submissions of “classy” sci-fi flash fiction of up to 1,000 words. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- 📝 Not One Of Us is open to submissions of character-driven stories and poems. Send them stories of up to 6,000 words (under 5k is ideal), or poems of up to 40 lines. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- 🐖 The Pig’s Back is open to submissions of short stories and personal essays. Send them work between 2,000 and 5,000 words before April 15th. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- 🎟️ The Verity Bargate Award is open to entries of one-hour plays from emerging playwrights from Ireland and the UK. The winner receives a top prize of £12,000(!) and has their play adapted for the stage. Get those scripts ready and submit before April 13th. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- 🥇 The Cahava Short Story Contest is open to entries of short fiction of up to 3,000 words, with a top prize of $500. Submit before April 15th. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- 📚 Hera Books is open to submissions of full-length novels in a range of genres including crime, women’s fiction, horror, romance, and more. Send them a synopsis and full manuscript of at least 80,000 words. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- 📗 Xnital Books is open to submissions of full-length poetry collections. Send them an author bio and full manuscript before April 30th. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- 📘 House of Riviera is open to submissions of full-length women’s fiction and romance. Note that they don’t seem to have published any books yet, so review any potential contracts carefully. Send them a query letter, synopsis, and full manuscript. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- 📙 Black Lyon Publishing is open to submissions of political and legal thriller novels, as well as select nonfiction. Send them a query letter, blurb, and the first three paragraphs. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- 👵🏻 Little Old Lady Comedy is open to submissions of humorous stories, essays, and poems. As far as we can tell, you don’t have to be a little old lady to submit (although your work may well be read by one). Send them work of up to 1,200 words. No submissions fee!
- ⚡️ Jagged Edge is open to submissions of short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Send them up to two works of prose writing, any length (“but be reasonable”), or up to five poems. No submissions fee!
- 🚀 AntipodeanSF is open to submissions of speculative flash fiction between 500 and 1,000 words. No submissions fee!
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THIS SATURDAY join Apex Magazine Managing Editor, Rebecca E Treasure as she puts her anthropology studies to use for once and talks about culture, creating worlds, and how to weave rich and unique environments and societies into your stories. Includes a 5-page critique with an emphasis on worldbuilding details and a PDF of the slides used for the class.
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You’ll leave this webinar with a better understanding of the relationship between individuals, families, communities, and societies, as well as ways to use the real world as inspiration for your fictional ones.
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April 18, 2026 – Saturday
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3PM ET | 2PM CT | 1PM MT | 12PM PT | 19:00 UTC
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RUNTIME: Approximately 60 minutes
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Each week our drabble community writes 100 words (or they don't—their call) to a single-word prompt. No fame. No fortune. Just fun. Well, maybe a teensy bit of fame if you count the animated adaptations we create and share on social media. Check 'em out on our YouTube channel and Bluesky.
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This Week's Prompt
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Echolocation is not just a skill that dolphins or bats possess. Believe it or not, humans can also 'see with sound', and it's surprisingly easy for people to learn.
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Thank you so much for being a newsletter subscriber. We love our supportive, weird, and wonderful community. Don't hesitate to reply to this email if you have something to tell us. I read every email and will respond.
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