Hello October! To start off, let’s celebrate some of the recent successes achieved by our subscriber family–woohoooo!
Susan L. Leary unveiled the cover of SENTENCE, out with Nine Syllables Press on December 1st!
Mileva Anastasiadou published in Plague Circus in September.
Andrew Careaga published in Press Roi‘s 100th Issue, also in September.
Five Minutes Lit edited by our subscriber Susanna Baird continues to be ever popular. Congratulations are in order for hosting a great Micro Marathon. Writers can submit year-round.
Sudeepa Nair, author of multiple books, announced her first short-story acceptance.
Gargi Mehra published Game of Anger and Speech in Open Secrets Magazine in September.
Shrutidhora P Mohor published A Toy Train Ride in Micromance Magazine.
good news stories
There are scores of venues that ONLY publish young writers. Posted on September 09, New Pages has a helpful guide . Young includes elementary, early teen and undergradutes. For example, Blue Marble Review is an online quarterly of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, photography, and art. Submissions accepted on a rolling basis from writers ages 13-22 years old.
Adina-Talve Goodman Fellowship applications are open until October 13. It is a yearlong fellowship providing a $2,000 cash prize, access to online classes through One Story, and admission to their weeklong summer writers’ conference. There is no entry fee.
Hooper Prize is now accepting entries for $4,500 and $1,000 artist grants from a total pool of $13,000. Two artists will each receive $4,500 and four artists will each receive $1,000. This is an international open call, and all visual media is eligible.
what are writers talking about?
The slow progress in processing submissions by a handful of magazines. Writers highlighted cases where submissions have been pending a response for over a year. Now, this has been a major worry on both ends throughout 2026. Venues have received many times their expected inflow thanks to AI (in some cases) and other reasons like waiving-off of fee. On the other hand, writers have complained that magazines haven’t opened on due dates because of backlog.
“Hallucinating” AI Says Writer Quit Writing to Become a Gardener
The biggest English newspaper brand in India, The Times of India, seemed to have majorly erred when editorial control and checks did not work. The daily published an AI-written article about writer Sarah Kendzior. Sarah Kendzior discovered the article in September and denied it had any truth, saying: “Hallucinating AI robots wrote an article in one of the largest English papers in the world saying I quit writing to become a gardener. I did not! Instead I wrote about them.”
selected Submission opportunities
NIMROD is open to fee-free submissions Oct 1-31
Speculative market Strange Horizons opened October 1, 2026, and closes when they reach capacity.
Flash Fiction Online pays USD 100 and is open to unthemed flash stories. Open until caps are reached.
QWERTY pays USD 15 and is open until October 12 for fee-free submissions.
And, of course, there are hundreds more at For Writers: 10 Easily Usable and FREE Sites to Find Submission Calls in 2026
Closed! And mixed feelings.
Online literary community shared opinions over the news that Longleaf Review and A Velvet Giant appeared to have gone on a long hiatus. Although news of magazines remaining inactive for long is nothing new, but the fact that they go into hiding without a murmur on their site or social media platforms is disappointing to many.
Do you think a simple announcement should not be too difficult? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Print Magazine sold on the news stand in Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, indie bookstores and in airports nationwide from 2022-2025 Closes Down After 11 years
After launching Issue 40, Door is a Jar Literary Magazine announced: “This will be the final issue of Door Is A Jar Literary Magazine. Thank you for eleven years of creativity.”
The announcement was met with heartfelt messages from writers who expressed gratitude for eleven years of publishing. I too was a contributor to their Winter 2020 Issue and it was one of my first print publications.
The magazine did not offer any reason for the closure. Maxwell Bauman was the owner and Editor-in-Chief. Bauman’s site does not offer any reason for ceasing publication either.
recommended reading
CSSP shortlisted story “The God Under the Bed” published in September by Adda Stories, might be a good read for writers who love short stories with an unusual bent.
In flash fiction, check out S. C. Pires’s “When You’re Fourteen”, winner of the 2026 CRAFT Award for Excellence in Flash Fiction.
Writing advice in “Sleep When the Baby Sleeps and Other Nonsensical Writing Advice” (Mom Egg Review) by Pichchenda Bao, appears in the September issue.
publications!
The Rome Review published Eudaimonia on August 31/September 1.
In my interview series for trampset, “Macro Minds, Micro Talks”, I interviewed writer Emily Rinkema in September. READ HERE.
Pro-tip
Is it advisable to switch from literary to speculative genre? The answer is YES (provided you’re willing to take the risk). For one, speculative pays well. Pro rates are at 8 cents per word or above. Semi-pro rates are 4-5 cents per word and anything below is token pay. But even token pay is good at some places, ranging from 20 to 30 USD per piece. Overall, it makes sense to write and submit in the speculative genre while keeping literary genre as the primary one.
thank you!
Thanks a lot for staying with me, and being so supportive! “A Room With a View of One’s Own” has grown, and with it, the website. Stats show that September has been the best month in 2026 in terms of visitors and views.
If you have any suggestions on posts you’d like to see, or anything that’d help me improve, please feel free to get in touch.
REMINDER: Looking for guest post articles to be published in November/December. If you have drafts relating to writing life/writing practice, pitch me (in ~100 words) and your words of wisdom could reach 6 continents and 90+ nations! At the moment, publication only, no pay.
HAPPY WRITING & ALL GOOD THINGS!
This blog is a monthly newsletter published in the first week that is truly a newsletter–updates from the literary world, open windows, a few personal updates, some tips, opinions and conversations, and a round-up of recent work I truly recommend. If you enjoyed this, please share with your friends. Consider subscribing, commenting and/or liking this post. Thanks!
I’m looking forward to hearing from you!