Black Writing Bulletin #17 - Publishing and Employment Opportunities
Get paid for your writing.
Hello Creatives!
I’m staring down the barrel of a deadline. Usually, deadlines are a big motivator for me. In my day to day work, they drive me to get things done and to put in my best effort. They are a challenge that I want to and will overcome. But when it comes to creative work, deadlines are paralyzing. What if I’m unable to produce anything good? What if I can’t type fast enough? What if I produce the best work I’ve ever done and get denied? Those are all demotivators, and that last one is the final boss.
Situations like these are why community matters.
We all need people in our corner to support us, push us, and comfort us in our times of need. This is what friends and family are for. This is what accountability partners are for. This is what I (and Colored Convos Media) am for. If you need support, you can always reach out to me, but I’d suggest you find a circle of like minds you can take with you into battle. you can try Meetup.com to find a local or online writing group to join, and you can also try Scribophile to find online writing groups and beta readers for your work. Writing doesn’t have to be a solo endeavor, and I’d argue you get the best results when you don’t do it alone.
- Daren
This week, there are featured opportunities to publish at:
THE DODGE | RETURN TO ROOTS: WRITING TOWARDS LAND — A SPECIAL TEACHING ISSUE ON PALESTINE AND THE GLOBAL INDIGENOUS STRUGGLE
This issue welcomes submissions exploring returns, roots, and land largely writ—be it physical, imagined, occupied, liberated or in any possible condition which art and literature may make possible. This is a teaching issue across genres and languages committed to creating conversations around the curated works to enliven their mediums, extend their afterlife as well as generate fruitful conversation toward solidarity. We welcome submissions from Arab and Indigenous writers, artists, and educators in solidarity with Palestine.Deadline: July 31, 2025
Details here.
STRANGE HYMNAL
Strange Hymnal is a literary magazine of mystery, ritual, and obsession. A biome of writing and art that worships the strange and unusual. An investigation of liminal spaces, the ineffable, the profane, the god that lives inside the car wash. A made religion, consumed by possibility, the duality of self, the tension between fear and curiosity, the seen and unseen. We’re especially interested in seeing work from BIPOC writers and artists, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, neurodiverse and disabled creators, folks from rural places, makers both emerging and late-career, and folks who make hard-to-categorize art: poems in a series, hybrid writing, mixed-media art, art with digital elements, so on and on.Deadline: August 31, 2025
Details here.
Head over to the main Substack page to view previously shared opportunities.
This is your sign to get your work out there. Submit to literary journals. Get your essay published. Take your writing seriously.
Fiction Submission Opportunities
THE LEMONWOOD QUARTERLY
Open submissions call for The Lemonwood Quarterly! Submissions for our Summer 2025 issue are due July 14. We accept short stories and plays between 2,000 and 10,000 words. Authors are paid a flat rate when their work appears in the magazine. All stories and plays published in The Lemonwood Quarterly are automatically entered in our annual contests: the $1000 Charlotte Ann Porter Prize for Fiction, or the $500 Hononegah Mack Prize for the Best Play. Submissions can be made via the link on The Lemonwood Quarterly’s Submissions Guidelines page. One submission per person. The submission fee is $4.
Deadline: July 14, 2025
Submission fee: $4
Details here.
EPISTEMIC LITERARY
For our sixth issue, we’re exploring the idea of NOSTALGIA. Whether a longing for the sentiments of the past, or a marketing trend that capitalizes on childhood favorites, we often find comfort in yesterday when today presents challenges. But that comfort is often rooted in the pain of longing, the disdain for change, and the fear of moving forward. How does this powerful force influence your life?
Deadline: July 15, 2025
Details here.
THE FOOL’S WORLD
We are open for poetry, prose, and visual art submissions during two annual windows: November 1st – December 31st, and June 1st – July 31st. Please keep in mind that although we are a travel magazine, we recognize “travel” as a broad and deliciously ambiguous term. Submit all kinds of travel writing and visuals, whatever the word means to you! We’re a small team and it may take a few months to respond to your submission, but we endeavor to get back to you as quickly as we can. Generally, it takes us between 4-6 weeks to respond. Please see our guidelines below.
Deadline: July 31, 2025
Details here.
RAW MAN ZINE
Horny. Macho. Surreal. A new gay men’s interest zine launching late 2025. If you have work that fits the Horny/Macho/Surreal vibe, please consider submitting your work to submissions@nocobo.co with the subject line: “RMZ [Author Name] [Work Title]”.
Deadline: August 1, 2025
Learn more here.
Non-Fiction Submission Opportunities
SUSURRUS THE MAGAZINE
Susurrus accepts previously unpublished poetry, flash, fiction, creative nonfiction, and photography from artists across the American South. We publish three times a year, during April, August, and December. We value lush imagery, vivid language, and imaginative, skillful writing. We particularly encourage submissions from underrepresented communities, including BIPOC and 2SLGBTQIA+ writers. Please take a look through our past issues for examples of what we look for.
Deadline: July 15, 2025
Details here.
THE DODGE | RETURN TO ROOTS: WRITING TOWARDS LAND — A SPECIAL TEACHING ISSUE ON PALESTINE AND THE GLOBAL INDIGENOUS STRUGGLE
This issue welcomes submissions exploring returns, roots, and land largely writ—be it physical, imagined, occupied, liberated or in any possible condition which art and literature may make possible. This is a teaching issue across genres and languages committed to creating conversations around the curated works to enliven their mediums, extend their afterlife as well as generate fruitful conversation toward solidarity. We welcome submissions from Arab and Indigenous writers, artists, and educators in solidarity with Palestine.
Deadline: July 31, 2025
Details here.
9vt5
9vt is seeking fiction and creative nonfiction short stories for inclusion in our upcoming anthology. Submissions may be in any genre or on any subject matter, but should be no longer than 10,000 words. There is no limit to the number of stories an author may submit. However, we ask that authors submitting flash-length pieces (under 1,500 words) submit at least two stories for consideration. We are especially interested in distinct voices, experimental forms, and unconventional prose. Our soft deadline is August 1st, but submissions are considered on a rolling basis—we’ll close the call as soon as the remaining spots in the anthology are filled. Early submissions are encouraged.
Deadline: August 1, 2025
Details here.
HOOD OF BONE REVIEW
We are looking for southern musing. Appalachian avant-garde. Slash-pile stuff.
Deadline: August 6, 2025
Details here.
Poetry Opportunities
MER – MOM EGG REVIEW
This will be a themed issue, “Mother and Family.” Often mothers are the nuclei of families—of the legacies, obligations, and stories that orbit around us. Family of heritage, family of birth, family of choice, our greater human family: our families can be sources of support, of exhaustion, of love, of pain. Our families can pass down to us lore or trauma. For MER 24, we are exploring poems that address our role as mother in these unwieldy units, how we embroider with and untangle these familial threads that can heal or hinder. Send us your poems, your family recipes, your generational myths, your memories that you’ve borne, your visions for the future. We publish poetry (up to 3 poems, no more than 5 pages), and fiction, creative prose/nonfiction, and hybrid works (up to 1000 words) on mothering or motherhood. We also seek mother-themed art. You need not be a mother to submit.
Deadline: July 15, 2025
Submission fee: $3
Details here.
RAWHEAD
Rawhead is an online journal publishing poetry, prose, and visual art that resists easy categories. We seek to champion work with emotional depth, sharp craft, and the power to unsettle. We see the arts as resistance against monsters in all their forms, and we’re seeking work that confronts, transforms, or exposes those forces with clarity and care. For Issue #1, we’re accepting submissions via email with no fee, or with an optional $3 donation for expedited (48-hour) responses; we welcome up to 7 poems, prose up to 4,000 words, or 3–10 visual art pieces in any medium. Each issue features our Editor’s Spotlight Award of $100 for one writer and one artist. We especially welcome submissions from BIPOC, queer, disabled, and neurodiverse creators whose voices have been overlooked or underestimated.
Deadline: July 31, 2025
Details here.
UNWOVEN LITERARY AND ARTS MAGAZINE
Unwoven Literary & Arts Magazine is committed to publishing original poetry, fiction, and non-fiction works that represent a wide aesthetic range, from the traditional to the experimental. We’re looking for authors with an awareness of diverse points of view. We welcome voices from BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and neurodiverse communities that have been underrepresented in literature.
Deadline: August 4, 2025
Details here.
COUNTY LINES: A LITERARY JOURNAL
County Lines is published annually by the Carolina Piedmont Writers Guild, showcasing a curated collection of the finest poetry, prose, and interior art/photography by creators of all ages from all over North Carolina Piedmont, the United States, and beyond. Writers, poets, and artists whose works are accepted for publication will receive one complimentary copy of the journal.
Deadline: August 15, 2025
Learn more here.
PLAINSONGS POETRY JOURNAL
Plainsongs’ title suggests not only its location on the Great Plains but also its preference for the living language, whether in free or formal verse. Published each year from Corpus Callosum Press’s home base in Hastings, Nebraska, Plainsongs presents poems that seem to be aware of modernist and postmodernist influences, not necessarily by imitation or allusion, but by using the tools provided by that rich heritage. Featuring poetry that runs the gamut from traditional to experimental, from realist to surrealist, Plainsongs strives to capture the multiplicity of voices, including those of feminist, nonwhite, immigrant, and LGBTQ+ writers, that make up this vibrant and diverse Midwestern soundscape. Poets from all fifty states and many foreign countries contribute regularly to Plainsongs.
Deadline: August 15
Details here.
STRANGE HYMNAL
Strange Hymnal is a literary magazine of mystery, ritual, and obsession. A biome of writing and art that worships the strange and unusual. An investigation of liminal spaces, the ineffable, the profane, the god that lives inside the car wash. A made religion, consumed by possibility, the duality of self, the tension between fear and curiosity, the seen and unseen. We’re especially interested in seeing work from BIPOC writers and artists, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, neurodiverse and disabled creators, folks from rural places, makers both emerging and late-career, and folks who make hard-to-categorize art: poems in a series, hybrid writing, mixed-media art, art with digital elements, so on and on.
Deadline: August 31
Details here.
SHŌ POETRY JOURNAL
Shō Poetry Journal is an Arizona-based nonprofit print journal coming out of a 20-year hibernation. We publish an eclectic range of poetry twice a year and release audio features on a rolling basis. We strive to champion voices that have been historically underrepresented or overlooked. We offer at least one free pop-up for BIPOC poets during every reading period. Each issue of Shō Poetry Journal features 40 to 50 poets, many of whom are emerging or early-career poets. Our tastes are eclectic. We welcome poetry that engages us with energy, clarity, and vulnerability, with a focus on voice and image.
Deadline: August 31
Details here.
Contests, Awards, and Fellowships
BARELY SOUTH REVIEW SUMMER NONFICTION CONTEST
At Barely South Review, we invite all creative non-fiction that is previously unpublished, original, and under 5,000 words. This contest is judged blind and identifying information should be scrubbed from your manuscript. Submissions should be 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced, with a wordcount on the first page. Please submit only once. Although we understand submitting simultaneously, we appreciate those who do not. All submissions will be considered for publication.
Deadline: July 31, 2025
Prize: $300 and publication in Barely South Review
Details here.
HISTORY THROUGH FICTION SHORT STORY CONTEST
History Through Fiction is proud to announce its third annual short story contest. We’re opening submissions on June 15, 2025, and they’ll close on August 15, 2025. We invite writers to send in their historical fiction short stories. Each story will be reviewed by our editors, including one volunteer judge who will provide direct feedback. All shortlisted stories will be published in a paperback anthology. Look for the anthology’s release on March 3, 2026.
Deadline: August 15, 2025
Prize: First place - $250, Second place - $150, Shortlisted - $75
Entry Fee: $17.50 Early Bird Submission Fee; $25 on July 15, 2025.
Details here.
FANTASTIC MISCHIEF (FOUR TULIPS)
Show us your rangers in taverns, your whimsical narrators, and your mischievous bards! We are looking for anything fantasy: magical battles, winged creatures, cozy wizards, whatever suits your fancy. Whether in poetry or prose, the Fantastic Mischief Contest winner will relay imagery in rich, vivid language.
Deadline: August 30, 2025
Details here.
2025 QTBIPOC PRIZE
We would like to announce Kelsey Street Press’s 2025 QTBIPOC Book Prize! This is a FREE book contest open to QTBIPOC-identified, feminist, innovative writers/poets. The winning manuscript will be chosen by Andrea Abi-Karam, author of Villainy (Night Boat Books 2021) and EXTRATRANSMISSION (Kelsey Street Press, 2019).
Deadline: September 1, 2025
Prize: $1,000
Details here.
Positions and Residencies
ASSISTANT - PARK, FINE & BROWER LITERARY MANAGEMENT
Park, Fine & Brower Literary Management is seeking an organized, motivated person to serve as an assistant to partner and literary agent Peter Knapp, in a fast-growing literary agency of 25+ employees. This position is for someone who is organized, detail-oriented, and adept at managing multiple tasks and responsibilities at any given time, which will include juggling deadlines. The ideal person for this role has exceptional communication skills (both verbal and written), is a proactive thinker and problem-solver, and has experience working with busy agents, executives, and/or high-performing colleagues. They listen effectively, learn quickly, and improve performance consistently. They use good judgment in organizing and prioritizing their workload, which will consist of a variety of large and small tasks, and must be comfortable in a fast-paced office environment, while also being quick to adapt to changing situations and needs. The right hire is high-energy with a lot of ambition and will love being the right-hand person to a busy agent and a central member of a thoughtful team. Experience in publishing or entertainment (including internships) is a plus, but not mandatory. This position is for someone looking to get on the agency track in publishing, with considerable mentorship opportunities.
Deadline: until position filled
Payment: $50,000
Details here.
FREELANCE SENIOR HEALTH BOOK EDITOR, MERCOLA
Inspire healthier living—one polished page at a time. Join Mercola’s editorial team and transform cutting‑edge nutrition research into a page‑turning book that empowers readers worldwide.
Deadline: until position filled
Payment: $0.06 per word (≈ $5,400)
Details here.
Events
WRITING FOR SHAME RESILIENCE: TURNING SHAME INTO YOUR SUPERPOWER, ESALEN INSTITUTE
What if your greatest vulnerability could become your greatest strength? This transformative language arts workshop is designed for anyone ready to level up by unlocking their authenticity. The curriculum draws from the wisdom in the instructor’s critically acclaimed book, Shame on You: How to Be a Woman in the Age of Mortification, which explores how shame is weaponized in our culture to keep us from knowing our worth and achieving our goals. Through reflective writing, shared stories, and guided readings, participants will explore ways to break free from shame’s grip and reclaim their power. Through the act of writing and reading inspirational texts — along with learning about the instructor’s journey as a former sex worker and survivor of sexual exploitation and media humiliation — we will explore essential questions about the insidious role that shame plays in our modern lives. We will examine how shame hinders us and discuss effective ways to reclaim ourselves and our communities from its grasp.
Date: July 14-18, 2025
Entry Fee: From $940 - $8560
Learn more here.
A PUBLIC SPACE 2025 WEEKEND WRITERS' RETREAT, KAATSBAAN CULTURAL PARK
Nurture new work and expand and explore technique with A Public Space at the Weekend Writers' Retreat: a long weekend of workshops, literary talks, and evening events at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park in Tivoli, New York. The retreat will take place Thursday, September 11 to Sunday, September 14. It will include morning workshops with limited participants (5 to 8 per workshop); afternoon literary talks; and an array of evening events, including readings and a Saturday celebratory dinner. There will also be opportunities for informal conversations with authors and editors, a variety of independent generative exercises, and the option to attend several events as part of Kaatsbaan’s Annual Festival, including a complimentary movement workshop with renowned experimental choreographer Deborah Hay.
Date: September 11 - September 14
Entry Fee: From $1,475 - $1,675
Learn more here.