🦉 Submissions next open from June 1 to August 31 2024
February 18, 2024

Worldbuilding 101: Story Setting, Your World’s Framework

Story setting is more than just the physical stuff. It’s the mood and culture, period and genre, and many other things all wrapped into one. But it’s worth parsing out to find the sticky spots in your work that need more detail.
February 3, 2024

There Isn’t Language for This

I had these weird few days where I thought if I could make my room beautiful it might fix me, you know? Like, sure, I still wouldn’t be able to leave the house but maybe if I opened my curtains and let some light in, that would be practically the same thing, right? And now I am bathed in green from the window clings and the sun shining through, and I don’t feel better.
February 1, 2024

The Twelve Suspects of Christmas: A Book Review

Why, it’s The Twelve Suspects of Christmas by Ana T. Drew. It’s the Die Hard of cozy Christmas mysteries - an engaging mystery full of intrigue and spies that happens to take place at Christmas rather than a Christmas book that happens to have a mystery. Well, minus all the shooting. There’s really only a couple of knives and a jar of cinnamon.
January 26, 2024

Emma’s Place, Part 2

At the front desk I asked the concierge if she had seen Amelia. The concierge furrowed her brow and narrowed her eyes. “Amelia? Amelia? I don’t recall anyone named Amelia.” The concierge must have been new, to not know Amelia, although I could have sworn she was an old hand. “What’s the full name?”
January 23, 2024

Emma’s Place, Part 1

On my way, I thought I heard them talking about me. As I neared the table they stopped talking. Zoey looked guilty. Zoey always looked guilty. When I sat down they stared at me with – oh, I don’t know – sorrow, pity: something like that. In response I opened my hands palms up, and said, “What?” as I looked from one to the other.
January 19, 2024

Mondays

Here they call them palmetto bugs but they’re just cockroaches, really. Normally, I would have murdered the tiny intruder but on this morning, on this particular day, I awoke with a newfound appreciation for life: for any and all life.
January 17, 2024

Anatomy of a Memory, Part 2

But the highlight of the event was the momentous meeting between Luna Lyngdoh and Meban Tsangpa, a Samanera or novice monk. A woke, computer-trained graduate, he had been inducted into the monastery as a trainee. He followed many of the cardinal religious precepts but had not yet attained higher ordination which would make him a Bhikkhu or a full-fledged monk. 
January 16, 2024

The Anatomy of a Memory, Part 1

Meghalaya in monsoon — the perfect time to explore and embrace the beauty of the Sacred Woods. Luna smiled to herself as she recalled this much-loved refrain from her days of childhood and youth. She walked past the moss-slickened stones, boulders flecked with the chartreuse lichen, stopping to admire the white coral mushrooms that were so famous here.