JANUARY, 2018—BULLETIN #132

Upcoming deadline:

New Writer Award: 1st place $2,500 and publication. Deadline: 2/28/18. (The grace period for the Family Matters and Very Short contests has been expanded to January 12.)

The Trees of Ardley, 1998

Open only to emerging writers whose fiction has not appeared in any print publication with a circulation over 5,000. (Previous online publication is fine.)

Our 2018 submission calendar

The 1st-place winner of the New Writer Award will be published in Glimmer Train and will receive $2,500 and 10 copies of that issue. Second- and 3rd-place win $500/$300, respectively, or, if accepted for publication, $700. Winners and finalists will be announced in the May bulletin, and contacted directly the previous week.

Most submissions run 1,000 - 4,000 words, but stories as long as 12,000 words are fine.
Writing Guidelines

Most of my stories start with a character doing something. Sometimes that image will mark the beginning of a story and sometimes it will mark the end, so the question for the narrative becomes, either "How did he get in this situation?" or, "Where can she go from here?"—Bret Anthony Johnston, interviewed by Margo Williams

Essays in this bulletin:

Maxime Kawawa-Beaudan: There's nothing wrong with being young and serious. Young and single-minded, even. There's nothing wrong with frivolity either—nights are long; these things aren't mutually exclusive. But know what you care about and draw hard lines. If something matters to you, don't treat it lightly… (more)

Amina Gautier: Revising encourages and liberates the writer to "make mistakes." It rewards mistakes; each "mistake" teaches one something about the story one is writing and gets one that much closer to the story one is meant to write. Revision reconciles the competing versions of the story… (more)

Matthew Lansburgh: A part of my mind kept monkeying toward story, even when it was avoiding the story I actually was trying to write. When I let these distractions happen, and didn't fight them, they often led me back… (more)

Colin Fleming: I write so much in my head while I walk that I am typing from something that is already there, that is given somewhat new form—and entirely new components can arise—as I sit at the desk… (more)

Results of the the September/October Short Story Award for New Writers

Winners have been contacted, as have the Top 25 and Honorable Mentions.

• 1st place goes to Maxime Kawawa-Beaudan for "Waiting for Fireworks." This will be his first major publication.
• 2nd place goes to Kristen Hamelin Tracey for "A New World." This will also be her first major publication.
• 3rd place goes to Oliver Kammeyer for "They'll Fix That in Turkey."

Our thanks to all of you for letting us read your work!

Feel free to forward this bulletin to your writer friends. As you know, the bulletin is free and meant to inform and to promote writers. (We never share your info.) People can sign up for bulletins themselves here. Missed a bulletin? They're archived here.

Best regards,

Discovering, publishing, and paying emerging writers since 1990.

One of the most respected short-story journals in print, Glimmer Train continues to actively champion emerging writers. The magazine is represented in recent editions of the Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, New Stories from the Midwest, the O. Henry Prize Stories, New Stories from the South, Best of the West, New Stories from the Southwest, Best American Short Stories, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading.