Resources

NEW LITERARY RESOURCES

Our New Literary Resources and Recommended Books features appear in our quarterly special issues, which are published on March 1, June 1, September 1, and December 1. Contest announcements and calls for submissions appear in our regular monthly newsletters.

48 Hour Books
This self-publishing company promises quick turnaround and responsive customer service. Pricing is easy to calculate on the website.

A&U: America's AIDS Magazine
A&U is a national HIV/AIDS magazine with a focus on advocacy, prevention and care, and literature and the arts. Their annual Summer Reading Issues have featured cover story interviews with Tony Kushner, Gore Vidal, E. Lynn Harris, and others. Each month, they publish work by established and emerging writers including Emanuel Xavier, Patrick Donnelly, and Julie E. Bloemeke. See website for their Christopher Hewitt Literary Award, a free contest with small prizes for fiction, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction.

A.Word.A.Day
Free daily emails from Wordsmith.org teach you a new vocabulary word or phrase, with its history and a lively quotation to illustrate usage.

Anne R. Allen's Blog...with Ruth Harris
Comic mystery writer Anne R. Allen publishes weekly posts about publishing and marketing your books in the digital age. Guest columnist Ruth Harris is a New York Times bestselling author and former Big Six editor who contributes a post each month. Popular posts include "Top Ten Questions from New Writers", "Top 10 Self-Sabotaging Mistakes of Author-Bloggers", and "12 Signs Your Novel Isn't Ready to Publish".

Avoiding Scams in Agent-Curated Self-Publishing
This article from David Gaughran's self-publishing blog "Let's Get Digital" warns about overpriced intermediaries.

Bath Short Story Award Blog
The website of this British contest for short fiction includes the "Get Writing" blog which features short craft essays and writing prompts.

Critique Circle
Critique Circle is a free online forum for writers of literary fiction, genre fiction, essays, and articles. Members can give feedback on each other's work, either on the public site or in a private group. The site includes tools for plot outlining, storyboarding, keeping track of submissions, and writing prompts.

Essay Daily
Curated by DIAGRAM editor Ander Monson, Essay Daily is a space for ongoing conversation about essays and essayists of note, contemporary and otherwise. They mostly publish critical/creative engagements with interesting essays (text and other), Q&As with essays or essayists, and reviews of essays, essay collections or book length essays, or literary journals that publish essays. Query before submitting.

Get Published Now: Molli Nickell, Publishing Consultant
Molli Nickell, a former Time-Life editor and journalist, now teaches writers to create marketing documents and make effective pitches to agents and editors. She also guides writers through the pros and cons of self-publishing. Her website features monthly contests with the prize of a free consultation. Based on the sample pitches and manuscript excerpts on the site, this service seems most appropriate for writers of genre fiction or commercial nonfiction.

Glossary Terms at the Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Foundation provides this glossary of poetic terms, with links to examples by outstanding contemporary and classic poets.

HEArt Journal Online: Human Equity Through Art
HEArt is an online journal that promotes the role of artists as human rights activists. They publish contemporary poetry, fiction, essays, music, videos, and artwork that challenge discrimination and promote social justice. Their print edition, published 1997-2002, featured writers such as Martin Espada, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Sekou Sundiata, and Stacey Waite. HEArt re-launched in online form in 2013.

(In)Visible Memoirs Project
Memoir Journal's (In)Visible Memoirs Project nurtures, publishes, and circulates memoirs that are too often excluded from dominant literary discourses. Editors say, "Our focus is on communities traditionally underserved by literary programming and underrepresented in contemporary literature. We recognize that the exclusion of so many voices from literary programming limits our understanding of the world in which we live and deprives us all." They are seeking workshop proposals to bring the project to more communities in the US, with a special interest in the Inland Empire and San Joaquin Valley areas of California.

Jane Friedman's Self-Publishing Links
Digital publishing expert Jane Friedman compiled this extensive list of resources about how to publish an e-book, find the right e-publishing services, and stay on top of changes in the industry.

Kind of a Hurricane Press
This small press publishes several poetry anthologies a year on various themes, in POD print and e-book formats. Recent themes have included "Barbie in a Blender" and "Poised in Flight". The press also sponsors online journals for different types of poetry.

Levellers Press
This small press based in Western Massachusetts publishes literary novels and short story collections through its Thornapple Books imprint, and poetry collections through Hedgerow Books. The press has also published nonfiction books relating to local history and progressive social thought. Poets in their catalog include Annie Boutelle, Patricia Lee Lewis, and Anne Love Woodhull. See website for submission guidelines.

Marine Corps Heritage Foundation (The)
The Marine Corps Heritage Foundation sponsors several free awards for books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction by veterans and/or about Marine Corps history and life.

Meat for Tea
Founded in 2006, this quarterly literary journal based in Western Massachusetts accepts poetry, fiction, essays, and artwork from writers around the world. Each issue has a meat- or tea-themed subtitle such as "Tartare" or "Pomegranate". They accept only online submissions; see website for formatting guidelines. A 2013 profile in the Daily Hampshire Gazette newspaper described their aesthetic as "generally slightly off-beat, with dark humor and art that leans to the surrealistic side."

Military Experience and the Arts
This organization's mission is to bridge the gap between military and civilian cultures through creative expression and scholarship. The site includes resources to help veterans write their personal stories. MEA publishes three magazines: The Blue Falcon, a journal of military fiction; Blue Streak, a journal of military poetry; and the Journal of Military Experience, an interdisciplinary scholarly periodical. See website for their calls for submissions.

New York Dreaming
This webzine publishes poetry, fiction, essays, and artwork by people living, working, studying, or traveling in the New York metropolitan area (including New York City and surrounding states). The work can be either related to New York or not, and new as well as established writers are welcome. The site also features announcements of NYC readings and events, lifestyle and dining, and news stories.

Open the Door: How to Excite Young People About Poetry
This e-book is free to download from the Poetry Foundation website. Edited by Dorothea Lasky, Dominic Luxford, and Jesse Nathan, and co-published by McSweeneys Books, this selection of essays, interviews, and lesson plans gathers the best thinking about how we can impart the value and joy of poetry to kids.

Persimmon Tree
Persimmon Tree is an online magazine of literature and art by women over 60. The magazine is published quarterly, in association with Mills College. See their submission guidelines page for themed issues and regional contests.

Philosophy After Dark
This literary weblog features weekly poems with philosophical themes, and short essays about history and culture.

People of Color in European Art History
An enlightening research source for writers of historical fiction, this Tumblr site showcases artwork that depicts the true ethnic diversity of medieval and early modern Europe. The site seeks to reverse the "retroactive whitewashing" of European art history, and counteract writers' common assumption that stories set in this time period must feature an all-white cast to be historically accurate.

S.J. Crown: Blending Fiction and Sports Together
The website of fiction writer Stanley Joel Crown features short stories, many with sports themes, and information on his novel The Victors Club, about a professional woman golfer battling sexism on her rise to the top. Also see his list of favorite sports movies and literature.

Sport Literate
This literary journal publishes creative nonfiction and poetry that explores sports and leisure pastimes. Personal essays, travelogues, first-person journalism, interviews, and humor are welcome. No fiction. See website for their annual contest.

Tanka Teachers Guide 1st Edition
Tanka Teachers Guide, a public service of the MET Press in cooperation with the Tanka Society of America, contains primary materials and resources about tanka poetry which educators and students may copy without seeking permission.

The Metric
This innovative international digital journal of poetry and short prose "aims to promote literary interestingness on the web at a grassroots level". For greater artistic freedom, submissions are published anonymously at first, with authors' names revealed in the next issue.

The Smart Approach to Contest Submissions
In this essay from May/June 2013, the staff of Poets & Writers Magazine gives seven simple steps to make your contest submission choices more efficient and well-targeted.

What Editors Want: A Must-Read for Writers Submitting to Literary Magazines
This article by Lynne Barrett in The Review Review gives comprehensive, essential advice about researching your markets, crafting the best possible submission, and responding to editors' comments. Favorite tip: share a few journal subscriptions with your writer friends and discuss the work published there, as an enhancement of your usual workshopping.

Writer's Drawer (The)
The Writer's Drawer is a free online literary community that welcomes writers of all experience levels, with a special interest in international and non-native English-speakers. Site administrator Beryl Belsky offers free critiques of submissions. The site also includes book reviews and recommendations, and a free book promotion service for authors and editors. Their website design and writing quality are above-average for an online forum.

WTPoem App
WTPoem is a poem-of-the-day iPhone app from literary publisher WordTech Communications. Authors in their extensive catalog include Rachel Hadas, Allison Joseph, Annie Finch, Barbara Crooker, Walter Bargen, Norbert Krapf, Rane Arroyo, Melissa Morphew, and Winning Writers editor Jendi Reiter.

Zoetrope Virtual Studio
In 1998, acclaimed film director Francis Coppola launched a website where writers could submit their short stories to his magazine, Zoetrope: All-Story. A community of writers quickly formed around the website. It became so popular so quickly that a few months later he created sites for novellas and screenplays. The Virtual Studio, which launched in June 2000, brings together the original sites as departments, and includes new departments for other creative endeavors. Members can workshop a wide-range of film arts, including music, graphics, design, and film & video, as well as access some of the best e-collaboration tools.


See our complete directory of resources at http://www.winningwriters.com/resources/ur_web.php. This is also the gateway to our recommended books, magazines, service providers, advice for writers (with manuscript tips) and poetry critiques.