MANDIRA PATTNAIK

May 06, 2025

Hey friends! Welcome back! Starting this month, this blog is set to become more regular and you’ll receive a monthly newsletter on the first week that is truly a newsletter–meaning it’ll have updates from the literary world we all ‘submit’ to (pardon the double meaning–we’re quite literally here!), news of open windows (though open and fee-free submission windows are becoming more and more rare, more and more expensive!), a few personal updates (nothing much to bore you!), some tips (I promise those will be helpful) and a round-up of a 2-3 stories I truly recommend.

First up. We have the Best Small Fictions List 2025 guest edited by Robert Shapard coming up very soon, maybe later this month. I know we all celebrate the nominations so much, so being listed is a huge boost. I had the delightful honor and blessing to serve as one of the Assistant Editors for the Anthology this year. Believe me, it is a lot of hard work. Everyone on the team worked together and I can’t wait to see the list published–there’ll be some surprises, for sure!

In other good news, The Bombay Literary Magazine opened to submissions again. They’ve started to pay for work accepted. I had the pleasure of being published there back in 2020 alongside eventual Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize 2020 winner Kritika Pandey. It came close this year for me–Poor me finally got longlisted in CW SS Prize for the year 2025!

Other fee-free places that are open right now are Out of Print Magazine (no social media), Griffith Review (theme: Best dressed; pays), Kitaab (non-simultaneous submissions), Suspect Poetry Prize (pays generously), Leon Literary Review, and Speculative Writers Foundation Award (for writers over 50, pays USD 500).

Btw, Kitaab’s editor Namrata wrote a guest post for me in February: Through an Editor’s Eyes: The Joys and Realities of Running a Literary Magazine. The post received a shoutout in Becky Tuch’s highly popular newsletter LitMagNews. Guest post slots remain open. If you want to write an article for publication on this blog, comment below.

More submission opportunity: Micro Madness, run by NFFD NZ is open now. It is a fun competition I’ve been selected in a few times. If you submit something and get shortlisted, they’ll run a video of you reading your piece–one on each day in the run-up to the National Flash Fiction Day in June.

If you are fancying writing a script for a short film, Script Lab has a great open opportunity. Details here.

In strange/disturbing update, both LitHub and Electric Lit announced stepping away from TwitterX. Both these venues are highly respected, and MY VIEW was echoed in a comment under the announcement: What we need more of is communication between all people. With more and more magazines as well as writers staying away or completely opting out, I can feel that TwitterX is hardly what it used to be when I joined it. Tbh, I owe a LOT to the community I found on TwitterX.

Becky Tuch ran a Twitter poll, which gathered 92 votes. Only 13% said financial compensation was a top concern when submitting to writing magazines, but at least two comments below the poll said that compensation was essential/very important. MY VIEW is that it depends on where/which part of the world you are based (costs versus remuneration) and what stage of your writing career you are in.

What is your view?

Among stories I think you should absolutely read, especially if you are Asian, are two by the same writer: Lucy Zhang. The first one was in Isele Magazine on life, death, time, and all the things that pass. The second one was a cute scifi story in Flash Point SF. The third story I recommend was published a while back, but I only discovered it now. I want you to read it for the innovative structure it uses, especially if you are a flash fiction writer. Read Six Dreams About The Train.

PRO-TIP: Always see if you have other instruments to tell your story. Redraft if necessary. Structure is always the king when it comes to flash fiction.

In personal publication news, I have a horror micro published by Mythic Picnic today. Publication of a horror story is a rare event for me–made me trace back to my only pro sale so far–in a horror market several years back! Might prove that I, a consistent literary writer, can write horror! btw, I highly recommend switching genres!

Do you experiment with other genres and categories? Tell me in the comments!

Other two stories also scheduled this week–will be in Grub Street Literary Magazine (Towson University) and Milk Candy Review (in a dramatic series worthy of documentation, this acceptance came after many many rejections. I used to submit to Milk Candy Review regularly when I started out, then a period of not submitting to the venue for years together, and then this submission that received a yes rightaway!).

Finally, some fun news: Arthur Klepchukov has created The Rejection Whisperer. Here you can type a recent rejection letter into the program and find out what it means. It wasn’t funny for me–funnily. I pasted in a rejection I had recently received with the hope that it will say that it was a tiered or personalized one, BUT the program said no such thing–alas! I do have Rejection Wiki to fall back on, of course!

Also curious–do you follow writing blogs? If so, let me know which blogs more people should follow.

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