Articles
Helpful articles and guides for luminous writers.
Articles & Guides
How I Published In The Masters Review
By Sherine Elbanhawy I have been subscribed to The Masters Review for years, and I love the work they publish. They were my first choice for “Night Stencils.” All summer, I kept revising the story...
How I Published In Five on the Fifth
By Candace Webb “The Swimming Hole” was at least four years old when I started submitting it. It started as a flash fiction piece centred on a setting I loved, the covered bridge in Wakefield,...
How I Published In Defenestration
By Agata Antonow My story was somewhat literary and also funny, and I realized pretty quickly that was something of a niche focus. As I had been working on writing and editing “The Family Company,”...
How I Published In Riddle Fence
By Laurel Parry “The Dingle Peninsula” is a braided essay about cancer diagnosis, treatment and recovery, reminiscent of a bicycle ride around Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula. It was a story that I had...
How I published in Grain Magazine
By Traci Skuce This story’s publication journey began when I submitted it to the CBC Fiction contest. Then The Malahat Review and The Fiddlehead, then Grain. Grain has published several of my...
How I published in Understorey Magazine
by Astrid Egger In 2016, Understorey formed a partnership with the Alexa McDonough Institute for Women, Gender and Social Justice (AMI). (Sadly, Alexa McDonough passed away in January. The...
How I Published In The Fiddlehead
By Tamara Jong I first wrote the creative nonfiction piece “Lessons” in a class taught by Ayelet Tsabari in 2014. I had just started writing nonfiction. I workshopped this story in class, then had...
How I published in Barren Magazine
By Lyndall Cain This piece was meant to be about publishing, but it’s ended up being more about rejection. Because you can’t really have the one without the other, at least not in my experience. I...
How I Published in Atticus Review
By Lucy Wilde There are two main reasons I wanted to see my work in Atticus Review, the quality of the writing and the fact that they are interested in publishing hybrid, unconventional work that...
How I Published in Entropy
By Kimberly Peterson [Editor’s note: Shortly after this article was published, Entropy announced they will close at the end of 2021. They will be missed.] Entropy is unique as a publication because...
How I Published in Prairie Fire
By Linda Trinh My CNF piece “Incense and Ancestors” was published in Prairie Fire in the summer 2018 Vol.39 No.2 issue. Prairie Fire is published in Winnipeg/Treaty 1 territory, the traditional...
How I Published in X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine
By Lina Lau X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine’s vision is to publish uncomfortable, entertaining, and unforgettable prose that shines brighter than the skeleton in your body, prose that sees through the...
How I Published In JMWW
By Lacey Yong JMWW is a literary journal publishing fiction, flash, poetry, essays, interviews, and other miscellany weekly. I submitted to JMWW twice and was accepted on the second try. I first...
Four Questions to Help You Face This Season of Writing
I sit at our dining table to write, while my kids play beside me. They often talk to imaginary “good” guys and “bad” guys, and today is no exception. My four-year-old lays on the floor, scowling at...
How to Start Building Your Writing Platform (The Very First Steps!)
Write like nobody's watching...then make them watch! As luminous writers, I always encourage you to write like nobody’s watching. But, if you’re writing to be published, sooner or later you need to...
How to Build a Creative Writing Practice
With the rhythms and events that normally shape our days cancelled or viewed through a window, I’m often dazed and my perception of time is off. I spent the first month of the pandemic writing...
Finding Your Voice as a Writer
One morning as I was staying with my in-laws’ in Cairo, I woke up to the sound of what I thought were screams. I turned to my partner and found him also awake and was surprised to find his...
Anti-Racism in Our Writing Community
I often share my belief that as writers it's our calling to make the world better. We share deep, often painful and challenging truths, and that work is part of creating a more equitable and...
Find Motivation to Write by Writing Your Manifesto
As you gear up to start a new writing routine and set new goals (or recommit to a routine and goals) for your writing this year, I want to share my manifesto for staying the course with your writing...
Is My Writing Good Enough?
The biggest epiphany I had about my writing in the last year is that there is nothing special about my story. This sounds like a terrible epiphany, I realize! But it was so liberating. Let me...
Get Over Your Writer’s Block By Answering This One Question
Does Writing Need to be Hard? “To love a person is to learn the song that is in their heart and to sing it to them when they have forgotten.” Arne Garborg As writers, I think we all have times when...
How to Write Stories and Poems that Get Published
Writers cannot be measured by their observable output, yet publishing your writing is an important part of the call to be a writer. There’s no contradiction here—publishing isn’t simply about the...
Am I a Writer?
For several years after my first book came out, I didn’t write and I’d sometimes wonder in those years, Am I still a writer?My answer then was a firm no, because I believed the maxim, “Writers...
When Your Writing Keeps Getting Rejected By Editors, It‘s Time to W-R-I-T-E
If you’re getting many rejections from lit mags, it’s likely you’re missing at least one item on this list of five things editors look for in your writing. I’m a lit mag editor and the host of the...
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