Submission Call for Issue #2, Pushcart Prize Noms, Team Updates and What We Published Last Month
Write or Die Magazine Updates: November 2024
Each month, you will receive this special newsletter with a recap of what our magazine published the month prior and what our editors have been up to. Keep scrolling! <3
A Note from the EIC
Hey writers,
This issue is a little different. I gave our editors the month off from recommendations and craft tips because, as I’m sure you understand, we are all very tired. Lol. So you will just get me today, so settle in because I have a lot to say! :)
First, let’s take a moment to congratulate our senior editor, Shelby Hinte, on the recent announcement of her book deal and cover reveal! You can preorder HOWLING WOMEN here, and I sincerely hope you do! Shelby has been working so hard on this project, and I’m thrilled that 2025 will be the year we all get to read it. Yay, Shelby!!
This month, we welcomed Jessica Bao to the team as our first reader for nonfiction! Here is a little bit about her: Jessica Bao is a writer based in New York City. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2022 with a BA in English, where she received the Phi Kappa Sigma Fiction Prize, the Nancy Rafetto Leach Sweeten Essay Prize, and the Lilian and Benjamin Levy Award for Reviewing. Her work has been published in The F-Word, 34th Street Magazine, and various anthologies. She is from Shanghai, China and Rochester, Michigan. She has a cat who loves to sit on paper and books. AND she’s super excited to read your work so submit to us plz!
More team news: Tamar and I are hosting an extra special version of our Write Together Retreat in January! We are calling it the Tell All because we are going to do just that. In addition to craved out time to write together over Zoom, we are hosting a craft chat where we will talk about developing a writing routine, how we actually wrote the draft of our novels, how we approached revision, what it was like working as a partnership, querying our novels and more! We hope to see you there.
I guess while we are talking about writing (okay, when are we not), I just recently posted a novel revision update on In the Weeds where I discuss how exactly I went about revising my novel (AGAIN!), but this time for my agent. You can read that here if you are a process nerd like me.
And finally, we have a lot of spectacular workshops coming up in 2025 (we are blessed!). Like for example, Haley Swanson is giving us a Query Letter Bootcamp so you can learn the nitty-gritty of how to best query an agent and make your letter stand out! Corinne Lestch is teaching us how to craft compelling commentary so we can get some op-ed pieces published. We also have workshops on writing poetry when you are in a rut, how to be a writer when you have a creative job (this one is free), how to be your own best editor, how to really tap into your creative potential, and that’s just January! Check out all of our 2025 offerings here and we hope to see you in class :)
Now, on to what Write or Die Magazine published this month.
<3
Kailey, EIC
Issue #2 Open Call: Elliptical Love
We are very excited to be accepting submissions for our second issue, slated to release in February! Subs open Wednesday, December 11 — Friday, January 17, 2025.
We are looking for four creative nonfiction pieces that delve into love that you can’t quite grasp— the heaviness of unspoken words, the contradiction of intimacy, and the intricate nature of a connection that remains tantalizingly out of reach.
Our special guest editor is Ashleah Gonzales! <3
Here is what she is looking for:
I’m interested in exploring a relationship where two people love each other, but not in the way they think they do. Their connection is shaped by misinterpretations, half-truths, and carefully curated omissions—love that remains elusive, never fully understood by either person, despite its depth. Perhaps the tension lies in how each sees the other through their own lens of assumptions, fears, or desires, making the truth of their love always distorted and just out of reach.
I’d love to explore the weight of assumptions, the paradox of closeness, and the complexity of a love that is deeply felt but never fully realized. The unspoken distance between them, the gaps that define their connection, and the emotions they leave unnamed.
Other Categories We Are Currently Open For…
Fiction
Send us your short stories! We also have an expedited submission option where you can hear back within two weeks! Bonus: all fees go directly to pay our editors, who volunteer their time generously to make this magazine what it is <3
Creative Nonfiction
We are interested in essays that focus on the writing life and especially love work where the personal intersects with the critical.
Author Interviews
We accept pitches from interviewers interested in covering authors with a forthcoming or recently published book. We are especially interested in featuring books by debut authors and/or books published by indie presses.
↓ Click the button below for additional details about what we are looking for and how to submit it! ↓
2024 Pushcart Prize Nominations
Please join us in congratulating these outstanding writers!
The Pushcart Prize is an award in the lit world honoring outstanding works from a variety of publications - spotlighting the poetry, short fiction, and essays often missed by mainstream publishing.
Editors nominate up to six pieces annually, choosing their favorite works from the year & winners are featured in the Pushcart Prize anthology.
NONFICTION
“Excuse Me, May I Seduce You, Please?” by
“Fiction is the Most Segregated Place in America” by
“Tribute to a Lost Star” by Rashaan Alexis Meneses
FICTION
“Safe Distance” by Cerissa DiValentino
“Lohmelle” by Charlotte Guest
Fiction
Safe Distance by Cerissa DiValentino
It’s the end of July, and this place is something like the beach. A glacial lake owned by the state with enough sand to convince Marina that this is salt water and there are fish waiting at the bottom. She surveys the area hoping to find it beautiful but instead she finds conflict. Two girls fight over a pair of sunglasses. A child sprints and falls into a sand crater. A group of boys pile onto a float that sinks under their weight.
A month before, she moved in with Carter and his older sister, Grace. They’ve mostly kept to the house or gone on less crowded day trips. But now the heat is at its peak, and this is the first time Marina has been to this lake and spent a summer anywhere else but back home with her mother. She wishes she could go back to the house—not the one in Ohio, but to Grace’s, which is a thirty-minute drive north. It’s quiet there except for the children who sometimes throw toys and tantrums. She never used to be this sensitive to pain. Any conflict now, no matter how small, reminds her of what she’s left behind.
Author Interviews
Features
2024 Indie Press Literary Gift Guide by Shelby Hinte
The holiday season is fully upon us and that means it’s time for our annual Small Press Literary Gift Guide. This list features fun book merch, discounted book bundles, writing classes, and more. Shop small, support indie, and spread the literary love to all the bookish friends in your life!
Balancing Breaking News, Toddler Chaos, and Late-Night Writing —Writer Diary by Holly Baxter
Holly Baxter is a journalist, author and purveyor of clicks on both sides of the Atlantic. She has worked as an editor and staff writer on the politics, opinion and features teams for newspapers since 2012. Her first book — a non-fiction feminist satire called THE VAGENDA — came out in the UK a decade ago, when she was living in her friend and co-author's closet. These days, she lives in a real apartment in Brooklyn, with her husband and her baby son. CLICKBAIT is her debut novel.
This diary represents a week in Holly’s life—from the controlled chaos of motherhood to the endless scroll of the newsroom and the thrill (and nerves) of her book’s release.