JUNE, 2017—BULLETIN #125

Upcoming deadline:

We're at the mid-point of the Short Story Award for New Writers, 1st place $2,500 and publication in Glimmer Train. Deadline: 6/30.

Anna Catharina Elisabeth Theodora Giffey in Hamburg, 1915 (more)

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

The 1st-place winner will be published in Glimmer Train and will receive 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 September 1 bulletin, and contacted directly the previous week.

Most submissions run 1,000 - 5,000 words, but stories as long as 12,000 words are fine. Writing Guidelines

I've always felt that one of the roles of fiction in our lives is to give shape to the chaos of the human experience. That we tell stories in order to shape a world that resists shape.—David Lynn

The slush pile? When you submit your stories to Glimmer Train… (more)

Essays in this bulletin:

Weike Wang: I took on the biostatistics degree because I wasn't confident enough in my abilities as a writer. I envied others who were, but years ago I could not see myself becoming a writer. I just felt that that wasn't in the cards for me. (more)

Bipin Aurora: The only change in the opening sentences was the and to the but. But what a world of difference this one change made. The rest was the courage to believe that it could work and that I could make it work. (more)

Stefanie Freele: He or she will take care of it all. However, your stand-in doesn't know your idiosyncrasies, your quirks, your foibles. You need to fill the substitute in on the peculiar details: Since you're going to be me tomorrow, you'll need to know the following…" (more)

Andrew Porter: There are any number of reasons for why stories get orphaned and forgotten, why they get sent to the darkest corners of our hard drives. Sometimes they may belong there, but other times… (more)

Peter Ho Davies: Maybe it'll come out in research, but we just don't know. And yet, as human beings, we want to know! So I suppose there's a desire—and I think it's a responsible desire—to understand the world, to posit possibilities and hypotheses. (more)

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.