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- Video - Award-winning storyteller Sage Tyrtle takes learners through the foundations of surrealistic writing with an example and a basic framework in this workshop excerpt.
- Markets and contests with submissions open or opening soon.
- STILL AVAILABLE ON-DEMAND - Mastering Structure And Plot: The Blueprint Of A Story led by award-winning author Lavie Tidhar. Discount code!
- 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, supersponges of just a few grams which have the surface area of a football field.
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Award-winning storyteller Sage Tyrtle takes learners through the foundations of surrealistic writing with an example and a basic framework in this workshop excerpt.
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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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- 🫏 Okay Donkey is open to submissions of flash fiction and poetry. Send them a story of up to 1,200 words or a single poem of any length. Their free submissions will close once they reach their submission cap, so don’t delay. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- 💼 The Carrier Bag is open to submissions of stories of up to 3,000 words, and poems of up to three pages, until February 13th. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- 🧪 Pharmacopeia Obscura: The August Doctor’s Notes is a forthcoming anthology of speculative short stories of up to 12,000 words that explore “medicine’s strangest frontiers”. Don’t delay, because this call will close once they’ve collected enough stories that are a good fit. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- 👻 The Phantom Pulse is open to dark speculative fiction stories of up to 3,000 words until February 14th. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- 🧛🏻♂️ Flame Tree Publishing is open to submissions of short stories for a forthcoming anthology all about vampires. Send them work between (approximately) 2,000 and 4,000 words. This call closes on February 15th. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- 🕵🏻♀️ Gumshoe Review is open to flash fiction and essays in the crime and mystery genres. They welcome submissions of up to 1,000 words. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- 💫 Luna Station Quarterly is open to submissions of speculative short fiction from women-identifying writers. Send them work of up to 7,000 words before February 15th. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- 🌚 The Rebis is open to submissions of writing inspired by the moon. Send them up to 2,000 words of prose writing or up to three poems before *February 17th. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- ❄️ Winter Papers is open to submissions of short stories and personal essays between 1,500 and 5,000 words. This window closes on February 18th. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- 📖 Invisible Press is open to submissions of full-length novels, memoirs, and poetry collections. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- 📚 Great Plains Press is open to submissions of literary fiction novels and short story collections for adults, teens, and middle-grade readers, as well as creative nonfiction work. Send them a detailed query letter, synopsis, and writing sample. Note that this press only accepts submissions from Canadian citizens and residents. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- ❤️🔥 Scandalous Books is open to submissions of dual-PoV historical romance novels and novellas. Send them a query letter and the first three chapters. This press has more imprints for other romance subgenres, so check them out as well. No submissions fee! 💰Paying market!💰
- 📜 Poet in Verse is open to submissions of up to three poems in any style until February 17th. No submissions fee!
- 🪞 Panorama is open to submissions of writing on the theme of “Reflections”. They’re particularly interested in travel writing and nature writing. Their word counts vary by topic, so have a browse through their rather lengthy guidelines. This call closes on February 14th. No submissions fee!
- 📝 Cimarron Review is open to literary short stories, essays, and poems. Send them up to 25 pages of prose writing or up to six poems. No submissions fee!
- 🎭 The Writers & Artistis Short Story Competition is open to entries of short fiction on the theme of “Play”. The winner receives a free place on an Arvon residential writing course. Submit work of up to 2,000 words before February 13th. No submissions fee!
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What does a story do, and how does it work? In this workshop, we take an in-depth look at the shape of a narrative, understanding the role of both plot and structure as the hidden design of any work of fiction. We’ll look at breaking down a story to its simplest components, then scaling it up, from short story to novel and back again.
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Join award-winning author Lavie Tidhar to examine:
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- Paragraphs as the smallest building blocks of fiction: action, dialogue, description
- The Rule of Three
- The who, what, why, where and how of fiction
- The difference between short, novelette, novella and novel and how it affects the writing of each
- Characters and their goals
- Names and their significance
- The role of the narrator
- Writing the perfect shape short story
- Time and its relation to narrative
You'll leave this workshop with a concrete understanding of structure and plot to employ in your short stories, novelettes, novellas, and novels. Plus, you'll have new tools in your kit for addressing problems with structure and plot in your work, including Lavie’s own checklist he uses, himself.
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AVAILABLE ON-DEMAND FOR A LIMITED TIME
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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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Chemist Omar Yaghi invented materials called MOFs, a few grams of which have the surface area of a football field. He explains why he thinks these super-sponges will define the next century.
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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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