Spreading The News--Scintilla Press & Publishing Syndicate

This week, I have two great markets for you to check out. The first one up, is:

Scintilla Press

The word, scintilla, means, "spark of inspiration," and the first issue of this liteary magazine is quite inspiring. See it here: Report from the End of the Twentieth Century

Scintilla Press is an independent publisher, and as of this time, they are a non-paying market. Their magazine will be digitally published twice a year, in the summer and winter, with a bound volume printed yearly. They are hoping to expand into books.

They are currently accepting fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and visual work.

Check out their guidelines under Submissions and be sure to follow them on Twitter and on Facebook

The second market I have for you this week, is:

Publishing Syndicate

Publishing Syndicate needs non-fiction stories for their two newest anthology series, "Not Your Mother's Book...On Being a Woman," and "Not Your Mother's Book...on Girls' Night Out." They also have 26 more titles waiting for stories, and that's only for the "Not Your Mother's Book..." series. And guess what else? They offer royalties for accepted stories!

"My Story is Out" and "OMG! My Reality!" are two other series currently looking for stories.

Publishing Syndicate also offers a free WoW Principles e-newsletter that offers tips, markets, and more to help us become better writers.

You can also follow them on Twitter and Facebook.



Writing Short

If you're anything like me, you may like to dabble in different forms. While I'm currently enrolled in a course offered by The Institute of Children's Literature, I also experiment with poetry and adult fiction.

I recently came across an interesting market. Blink|Ink, a quarterly fiction magazine, showcases short fiction of about 50 words.

"A blink of words, just a handful, is how we share our lives and thoughts, with one another."

Blink|Ink also features special issues, downloads, art, multimedia projects, photography, and more.  Their website says:

...Nobody in our organization receives compensation for this, and we cannot pay our contributors at this time. What we can do, in sharing our love of writing, is offer free copies and support to our contributors. Blink|Ink, as part of Full Of Crow, is made up editors who understand community and the need to support our own. If we can be of help to our contributors, please contact us. If you have a concern, please share those as well because we are committed not only to demonstrating appreciation for our readers and writers but to standing by them.

Why not visit their website? At this time, Blink|Ink is looking for dark fiction submissions until June 15, 2011t)

http://www.blink-ink.com/

Advice

People who ask our advice almost never take it. Yet we should never refuse to give it, upon request, for it often helps us to see our own way more clearly.
Author, Unknown

I've found another paying market to share. For those of you who would like to be a part of an anthology, Dream of Things is looking for your creative non-fiction story.

I submitted to the Advice You'd Like to Pass On To Others topic and since the submission deadline stays open until they have enough to publish, the purpose of this post is twofold.

But if advice isn't your forte, the "Workshop" tab at the top of the page will bring you to a list of 14 different topics. There's sure to be one that will spark your creative writing muse.

While you're on the site be sure to sign up for John Rember's MFA in a Box newsletter. His free newsletter is both witty and informative and has some great tips about creative writing.

Call For Submissions--The First Line

I know, NaNoWriMo has just begun and here I am updating my blog.  Well, as a matter of fact, I already have 1244 words under my belt and while that is still a bit short of the recommended 1667 words, I'm happy with it for right now. 

Some of you may know that I don't only concentrate on writing for children, I also dabble in essays and adult fiction and poetry.  I figure I should diversify and try a little bit of everything until I find my passion genre.

Although I have a large box filled with story ideas, I really enjoy prompts.  I usually jump at the chance to try my hand at writing a short story from an idea, a sentence, or even a word supplied by a market.

One of the markets I've submitted to in the past is The First Line.  A publication of Blue Cubicle Press, LLC, The First Line is published quarterly.  Their mission is to jump start an author's imagination.  Each issue contains short stories that all start with a common first line.  The First Line is an exercise in creativity and shows readers how even though we are all starting from the same place, writers can branch out in many different directions.

Every story MUST start with the given sentence.  No variations are allowed.

Every November, the prompts for the following year are chosen.  Please feel free to visit the website and expand your horizons. 

www.thefirstline.com

Have fun!