Dive deep into the art of revision as I share why revising is where the real magic of writing happens and how to approach it with love and enthusiasm. The episode includes practical strategies from my Revision Love Workbook. Listen for tips and exercises to help...

I'm thrilled to share the final episode of our series on getting published in literary magazines! Over the past ten episodes, we've covered everything from finding inspiration in submission calls to handling rejections and staying organized. This journey has been...

In this episode, I delve into a crucial aspect of the writing process that's often overlooked: the importance of not rushing. Drawing from my experiences as both an editor and a writer, I share insights on why giving your work time to breathe can lead to more...

In this mini-episode, “Handle Rejections However You Want,” I dive into strategies for dealing with the inevitable rejections we face as writers. Drawing from my 14 years on Room's editorial collective and my work with luminous writers, I offer insights on turning...

In this episode, I share insights on seeking the right kind of feedback for your writing, drawing from my 14 years of experience on Room’s editorial collective. Discover how to engage with a supportive writing community, polish your work before submission, and...

In this episode of the Write, Publish, and Shine podcast, we’re diving into how genre immersion can elevate your writing for literary magazines. Get ready for practical tips on deeply engaging with your genre—everything from reading widely and analyzing what works...

Dive into the power of writing from your most profound experiences and emotions. In this episode, we explore why writing what haunts you creates more authentic, compelling work. Discover how to identify your haunting themes and embrace your unique voice with real...

In this episode, I dive into the art of crafting compelling writing from start to finish. We'll explore why it's crucial to maintain engagement throughout your piece, not just in the opening. I'll share strategies for keeping momentum in the middle of your work,...

How to Get Published: Craft a Compelling Opening Yes, your opening matters. A strong start hooks readers and editors alike. Ensure your first few lines grab attention and set the tone for what follows. I’m sharing the third lesson from my 14 years on Room’s...

In this episode of the Write, Publish, and Shine podcast, I share valuable insights from my 14-year journey at Room Magazine. I emphasize the importance of building relationships with literary magazines and choosing the right publications for your work. I discuss...

Themed submission calls can unlock buried stories, while offering a clear focus and deadlines. In this episode, I share tips for embracing themes when submitting to literary magazines and a curated list of upcoming lit mag themes and deadlines to inspire your...

In this episode, we’re diving into a topic on many writers’ minds: the choice between pursuing a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing and enrolling in online writing courses. Whether you’re just starting your writing journey or looking to take your skills...

In this episode, I delve into the importance and crafting of cover letters for literary magazine submissions. A cover letter is not as crucial as the quality of the writing itself—yet, it does play a significant role in making a solid first impression and...

Dear writers, I'm thrilled to present the 100th episode of the podcast! I have delighted in each of the conversations and episodes I've been able to share with you, and talking to writers and covering topics on how to write, publish, and shine. Thank you to the...

The Write, Publish, and Shine podcast, hosted by me, author and literary magazine editor Rachel Thompson, celebrates its 99th episode! I reflect on the podcast journey and past episodes, highlighting eleven essential writing tips from literary magazine editors who...

We are playing a summer reading bingo these next few months with 24 squares of categories of books you can read. And you are invited. Grab your card to play along with us, then choose a row, column, diagonal line, or complete the card. Why are we, a writing...

Welcome to our last instalment of this string of episodes on writing with limitations and disabilities. I’m so happy to be ending this with the wonderful Cicely Belle Blain, the final member of my writing community who kindly agreed to join us to talk about...

Welcome to our semi-final instalment of this string of episodes on writing with limitations and disabilities. In this episode, writer S.L. Shuter, a member of my Writerly Love Community, talks about embracing an identity related to her diagnosis and the push back...

Welcome to another installment of this string of episodes on writing with limitations and disabilities. In this episode, Crystal Randall Barnett, a member of my Writerly Love Community, adds to the conversations we’ve been having in this series of episodes on...

Welcome to the fourth instalment of this string of episodes on the theme of writing with limitations and disabilities. Andrea Martineau is a writer, poet, bibliophile, and phytomaniac (I had to look that one up: a plant lover!) with a penchant for heritage...

Welcome to my third conversation in this run of episodes on writing with disabilities and limitations.  In this episode, I sit down with Amy Yuki Vickers, a new writer in our community and a recent alum of my Lit Mag Love course. Amy is the author of the blog and...

Welcome to the next episode in this run of episodes on writing with disabilities and limitations. In this episode, wonderful Writerly Love Community member, Olwen Wilson talks with me about following joy and writing with a chronic illness. We discuss labels and...

Welcome to the first interview in my series of episodes on writing with disabilities and limitations. I sit down with a wonderful Writerly Love membership community member, Shantell Powell, a two-spirit author, artist, and self-described swamp hag who grew up on...

In this episode, I sit down with our Community Facilitator, Meli Walker, to discuss what we do to make our online course community more accessible to writers with disabilities and limitations. This episode marks the beginning of a run of episodes focusing on...

Lina Lau, writer, mother, and owner of too many notebooks, has published short memoir in X-R-A-Y, Prairie Fire, Hippocampus (where she is now a reader as well), Carte Blanch, and Little Fiction/Big Truths. We discuss how flash memoir writing captures a moment and...

Memoirist Yolande House sits down with me for a book club conversation about Kae Tempest’s On Connection. It was a real pleasure to read this book alongside her and compare notes. And I hope those of you reading alongside us in our book club enjoy it. About On...

This is the final episode in my series of special episodes of Write, Publish, and Shine that take a deep dive into the creation of Room magazine issue 46.3, where I was lead editor of the issue. Today it’s my delight to speak to another artist whose work we...

This is the seventh, wow!, in my series of special episodes of Write, Publish, and Shine as I take you on a deep dive into the creation of Room magazine issue 46.3, where I was lead editor of the issue. In this issue, I spoke with our cover artist, Amy Friend, who...

This is the sixth in my series of special episodes of Write, Publish, and Shine as I take you on a deep dive into the creation of Room magazine issue 46.3, where I was lead editor of the issue. In this issue, I spoke with another incredible writer we published in...

This is the fifth in my series of special episodes as I take you on a deep dive into the creation of Room magazine issue 46.3, where I was lead editor of the issue. In this episode, a luminous conversation with Room’s Book Reviews editor, Micah Killjoy. We delve...

In this replay episode, Ellen Chang-Richardson and I both speak as editorial collective members at Room, and as editors of the (then) upcoming issue of Room’s Ghosts issue.   Ellen and I get a little into how things work behind the scenes at Room, and how we...

The fourth in my series of special episodes of Write, Publish, and Shine as I take you on a deep dive into the creation of Room magazine issue 46.3, where I was lead editor of the issue. In this issue, to my delight I sit down with Room’s publisher, Nara Monteiro....

Welcome to the third in my series of special episodes of Write, Publish, and Shine as I take you on a deep dive into the creation of Room magazine issue 46.3, where I was lead editor of the issue. One of my jobs as editor is to commission one established writer to...

Welcome to the second Ghost-themed special episodes of Write, Publish, and Shine as I take you on a deep dive into the creation of Room magazine issue 46.3, Ghosts, where I was lead editor of the issue. Why do lit mag editors choose the pieces they do? One answer...

Welcome to the first in a series of special episodes of Write, Publish, and Shine as I take you on a deep dive into the creation of Room magazine issue 46.3, where I was lead editor of the issue. When we made our call for submissions we invited writers and visual...

Replay note: It felt like the right time—in this season when people join writing programs and restart sending out submissions to lit mags to replay—this episode on Staying True to Yourself. Even if you already heard this episode, I suggest a re-listen because it’s...

In this episode we talk all about the Write, Publish, Shine Intensive, which brings together my three courses, Write and Light, a course to get writers generating new, more profound work, Revision Love, my course on learning to self-edit your writing, and Lit Mag...

Craft and Conscience by Kavita Das is the first major book for writers to more effectively engage with complex socio-political issues—a critical first step in creating social change. Kavita Das really takes us on an intentional journey with her deep knowledge of...

As I do each summer, I’m taking a break from my weekly love letters and podcast. There will be no more new episodes in June or July. Before I head out, I want to share my list of five things you can stop doing as a writer and wrap-up our series on agency. And...

Megan Beadle, an acquiring editor at Dundurn Press, ran her own literary agency for several years. So, if you’ve been listening to the last run of episodes, that word, agent, rings a bell. Ding, ding! We’re still talking about literary agency with the intention of...

This is the continuation of our agency theme on the podcast... I interview another luminous Writerly Love community member, Wendy Atwell, who is earlier in the process than our previous member guest who secured agents, Lacey Yong, and Jessica Waite. Wendy is...

Geffen Semach is my colleague at Room magazine, and the editor of the most recent issue, Ley Line. And Geffen has a real 360 degree understanding of the business side of writing and publishing. Listen to learn about all the different hats Geffen has worn in the...

The second in our series exploring the theme of agency for writers. It’s our double-entendre theme of both of intentionality for writers and really literal about finding an agent. Anchoring into the why, not only will help you keep going when times are tough and...

The first in our series on the theme of agency—a term both literal (i.e. about finding an agent) and abstract, in that we talk about pursuing your writing life with intentionality. In this episode you'll hear from Lacey Yong, learn about her YA historical fantasy,...

In this episode it is our Book Club Conversation. We talk about Voice First: A Writer’s Manifesto by Sonya Huber. It is my pleasure to introduce you to three lovely members of our Writerly Love Community and bring you in to our book club conversation. This is the...

In this episode it’s part two of our most recent six senses showcase. The writers you will hear all participated in the workshop series I offered last year on the six senses. As I mentioned in part one of this series, we had so much goodness, that we did our...

In this episode, it’s a little peak behind the scenes with my Writerly Love Community Facilitator, Meli Walker. I have some real #transparency moments around what I’m hearing back from writers in our broader community, which—in case you don't know—includes you!...

In this episode, we come to our senses again. We had another LIVE showcase of writers in the Writerly Love community. The writers you will hear all participated in the workshop series I offered last year on the six senses. This is our second showcase. A first group...

In this episode it is my pleasure to introduce you to two members of our Writerly Love Community, Jennifer Robinson and Candace Webb, and bring you into our book club conversation. We’ve been doing our close craft-book readings for a couple of years now. So, I love...

In this episode, it’s my pleasure to welcome Christina Brobby, a wonderful lyric writer and instructor, to the podcast. We start by getting into what exactly lyric writing is, if you’re wondering, so that will be cleared up right away. Christina also delves into...

This episode is the second in our mini-series of three episodes on the theme of empathy for writers and a really interesting and unique take on empathy, as my guest is a curator and writer of fiction, Lyndall Cain. So, listen to Lyndall’s exploration of curation...

This episode is the first in a mini-series of three episodes on the theme of empathy for writers. In my membership community for writers, called Writerly Love, we have monthly themes that we look at in terms of writing. Last month it was Sensitivity, i.e. being...

Welcome back to the Write, Publish, and Shine Podcast! In this episode, it is my pleasure to bring in my colleague, Meli Walker, who facilitates that aforementioned community, to talk about everything we learned by hosting a book club for writers. We talk about...

This is a special episode of the Write, Publish, and Shine Podcast where you will hear from three writers on their publishing experiences and the journey they took to stay true to themselves as they write and publish their writing in journals. Maybe you have found...

Welcome back to the Write, Publish, and Shine Podcast! How’s your September going so far? You may have noticed that this podcast has been on hiatus! It’s back now after a lengthier summer break. My September has been wildly busy, but I’m cultivating my chill as I...

The Lit Mag Love course is open for registration right now and this episode is slightly different in that you will get to peek behind the curtain of the Lit Mag Love course. Each session, we host editor Q&A calls where writers in the course community come live...

“You’re participating in a conversation, so you should know what has already been said so that you can push the conversation forward.” Lilly Dancyger In this episode, Rachel Thompson talks with Lilly Dancyger of Narratively, about the responsibility of editors to...

“Write rhymes with fight for a reason. We’re not all meant to be at the frontline...I’m way more comfortable sitting down and trying to figure out how to write back against something that I really dislike.” Eufemia Fantetti In this episode, Rachel Thompson talks to...

Moving into the copy editing stage is actually my favourite, when you get to work with the authors directly. —Lue Palmer   In this episode, Rachel Thompson talks to her colleague Lue Palmer about Room magazine. Lue Palmer is a writer of literary fiction,...

“When I'm not writing enough, I lose track of what I believe, who I am, and who I truly want to be.”—Rachel Thompson Dear listeners! As I’m getting back into the swing of setting up interviews with guests for the podcast, I’m finding so many people are burned out...

This idea of supporting and holding each other up and putting each other ahead is something I learned early on. I do feel strongly that there's room for all of us to succeed.—Tamara Jong In this episode, I talk to Tamara Jong about celebrating writers’ publication...

“We’re looking for work that has an artfulness to it. I understand how, with everything going on in the world today we want to scream sometimes and it comes through our writing. Sometimes that kind of writing can come off as finger-wagging.” —Dorothy Bendel Hi,...

“I think there is too much pushing forward in a way that is not motivated by pleasure that is motivated by shaped ambition or greed or some sense that people have as to what they should want. Zooming over everything else. And to me that is not literature. That is...

Had I not had a community of writers around me to support me, I would not have been successful, because there are people who were pushing me. —Angela Wright You probably already know, or have heard, that rejection is a *big* part of writing to be read and...

Four actively publishing writers on writing what you're meant to be writing and publishing in your own time and your own way. Ellen Chang-Richardson is a poet, writer and editor of Taiwanese and Cambodian Chinese (or Chinese Cambodian) descent, whose writing has...

“Really, the thing that keeps me writing is knowing that at some point I will have some kind of shared connection with readers.” —Meli Walker In this episode, I talk to Meli Walker about writing about grief and finding connection. We talk about our new...

“What would happen if you consider the specific, personal details you're crafting in writing as a part of a whole pattern in the world?” I explore going from the intimate to the broad, the personal to the political, and how to reach out to the world with your...

“I think anything that’s written about well can be interesting.”—Shashi Bhat, EVENT This is a special replay episode—my very first podcast episode. I'm re-releasing this conversation with Shashi Bhat who was when we spoke and is still now Editor at EVENT magazine....

“Trust that the reader came with you, trust that you did a good job and that you brought us there.” —Emily Wojcik This episode is a replay of a conversation I had in 2019 with Emily Wojcik, the managing editor of the Massachusetts Review. This was during the year...

“Poems, no matter what they are about or how they approach the world, have to need to happen.” —Rebecca Salazar, Plenitude This is a replay of a conversation I had with Rebecca Salazar of Plenitude back in 2018. One of the reasons I'm returning to this conversation...

“We both really like having, essentially, the guts to look at not just issues in their full complexity, but also not to try to gloss over the ugliness.” —Amy Mitchell, The /tƐmz/ Review Amy Mitchell and Aaron Schneider speak with host Rachel Thompson about the...

50th Episode! Rachel answers listener questions about publishing in lit mags. This special episode is all about you, the listeners. Rachel answers your questions, mostly about submitting and publishing in lit mags. Questions cover writing contests, the questions of...

“Don’t give up and recognize that the writing is a thing in and of itself as well. You need to be able to love doing the writing and just love being in this world that you create with your characters, over and above wanting your name on a book.” —Amanda Leduc The...

“Nothing has to happen in the story. There doesn't need to be explosions or big shocking twists. It's just enough to have well-developed characters and a beautiful world.” —Terese Mason Pierre, Augur Terese Mason Pierre is co-Editor-in-Chief of Augur, a Canadian...

Katelyn Keating is the editor-in-chief of CRAFT and a freelance production manager for independent publishers. She is on staff at the Los Angeles Review of Books Publishing Workshop. Her essays appear in Tahoma Literary Review, Crab Orchard Review, Flyway, and...

“I’m interested in asking different questions and in the vulnerability of language that allows for an honest attempt at expression and a way to investigate complex questions.” —Janice Lee This is a replay of my interview with Janice Lee from way back in 2017....

“You’re kinda playing with fire when you delve into trauma writing. It’s possible to push yourself past your own limits and touch on things that are more tender than you thought.” —Josh Brandon of Black Warrior Review Host Rachel Thompson speaks with Josh Brandon,...

"Food in itself is its own language and it as a language, whether it's a love language or a complicated language, can speak across barriers...even if our relationship with food is different, complicated, emotional, whatever it might be, it tends to evoke meaning,...

“We like to read the odd, the off-kilter, and the just plain weird. We like things that are funny, things that are sad, and things that are both funny and sad at the same time. We especially love to read the experimental, the surreal, and the genre-bending.” Rachel...

“I think that when a writer doesn’t have a good understanding of who they are and what their beliefs are…they are going to necessarily lack the conviction in their writing to go daring places, and ask daring questions.” —Alicia Elliott Alicia Elliott is a Tuscarora...

In this episode, Ploi Pirapokin and Rachel Thompson start deep, jumping right into discussing estrangement for writers. Ploi shares about writing through immigration statuses and her Genius Visa. There is A LOT of laughter in this episode. (Rachel edited the big...

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. This episode covers how the impact of our writing comes from the meaning we make...

In this episode, I have the pleasure to talk to Rowan McCandless about finding your writing community. Rowan is someone who is a part of my writing community and it's the better for it. She is someone deeply committed to the craft of writing and who lifts up other...

In this first solo episode after the Write, Publish, and Shine podcast reboot, I talk about the five things editors want in your writing submissions to journals. This is all based on my experience reading submissions, publishing work in a lit mag, and talking to...

“The Unpublishables is a platform for all kinds of rice eaters everywhere to get together and make shit happen through our words, music, and artwork.” Read the complete episode transcript. Writing may be the only pursuit that M. Paramita Lin hasn't accidentally...

“Editing is a position of power that I take seriously. I’m a writer, author, creative in different ways and I experienced the negativity of being a victim of systems of oppression,” Julián Esteban Torres López. Julián Esteban Torres López is a Colombian-born...

The Swamp publishes work that evokes a sense of place, which, for The Swamp, is broadly defined. “We look forward to reading work that we can inhabit, no matter its geography. We do give preference to the southern gothic, to poems and stories wrapped in a heavy...

Literary Mama believes that all mothers have a story worth sharing and honors the many faces of motherhood by publishing work that celebrates the journey as well as the job. They celebrate the physical, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual processes of...

Ecotone’s mission is to publish and promote the best place-based work being written today. Founded at the University of North Carolina Wilmington in 2005, the award-winning magazine features writing and art that reimagine place, and our authors interpret this...

About Blanket Sea Arts & Literary MagazineBlanket Sea features work created by people living with chronic illness, mental illness, and disability. “There aren’t many places where writers and artists with illness and disabilities can express themselves in a...

About Whiskey Island Founded in 1977, Whiskey Island is a nonprofit literary journal published by Cleveland State University. They accept submissions of original poetry, fiction, and creative essays during two reading periods: August 15th through November 15th, and...

“Our impulse is to trust writers and follow their lights. In cases where we’re editing and working closely with them, it’s to help them get to that place that they’re wanting to get to, but might want some structure or help getting there...I wish there was a...

"I think intersectional community asks us to be open and mindful of difference. It asks us to have a posture of listening that requires a lot of effort, it requires a lot of heart, it requires a lot of humility in many ways. Because we are being asked to really...

In this episode of Lit Mag Love: A podcast for creative writers who want to publish, host Rachel Thompson interviews Jónína Kirton from Room's Turtle Island Responds. Room Magazine’s Turtle Island Responds, is creating an online library of lived experience, offered...

In this episode of Lit Mag Love: A podcast for creative writers who want to publish, host Rachel Thompson interviews Doyali Islam from Arc magazine.Their conversation covers offering an emotional truth and creating some kind of intimacy with the readers. They...

In this episode of the Lit Mag Love Podcast, host Rachel Thompson talks with Alexandria Petrassi from So to Speak journal. Their discussion covers how the “canonical” writer has changed. “When I started reading poetry, I didn’t read anybody living,” says...

In this episode of the Lit Mag Love Podcast, host Rachel Thompson talks with Sakina Fakhri and Diana McClure, founders of Azure magazine. Azure accepts literary fiction, creative non-fiction, excerpts, screenplays, stageplays, fragments, meanderings,...

In this episode, Rachel Thompson talks with Marianne Chan and Kaitlyn Andrews-Rice, the respective poetry editor and flash fiction editor with Split Lip magazine. These are two editors who both collaborate in this interview, and also who approach their editorial...

In this episode, Rachel Thompson talks with Robin Richardson, founder of the Minola Review. She discusses how she overcame early critiques of her writing by men—critiques she internalized. And they talk about getting men to listen. Minola Review is named after the...

In this episode, Rachel talks with Maya Marshall, a self-described demanding and productive writer and editor with [PANK] magazine—yes, the magazine founded by Roxane Gay. Among much glorious and affirming advice she shares for writers, she is clearly someone who...

“I’ve just become better at noticing those little mechanical things,” says the guest for this episode, Donna Talarico, the founder and publisher of Hippocampus Magazine. Hippocampus makes memorable creative nonfiction. It is an online journal, a...

“To me, a very intimate piece of memoir that could in no way be fact checked was just as valid as a piece of investigative journalism.” Sierra Skye Gemma Sierra Skye Gemma is Room's contest coordinator. What she says above about memoir came when she looked up the...

As always this episode truly takes you behind the scenes of a literary journal—in this case, it’s a University-based journal in the centre of controversy. (Below, we link to articles that will provide some background, though you don’t need to know all the minutiae...

Rachel interviews Carleigh Baker, an editor with Joyland, who talks about the difference between her first and future books, “You can only gaze at your navel for so long. If that’s what you needed to heal, great, but I’m really looking forward to turning my gaze...

The Sun is an independent, ad-free magazine that for more than forty years has used words and photographs to evoke the splendour and heartache of being human. Each monthly issue features personal essays, short stories, interviews, poetry, and photographs that...

The New Quarterly—TNQ, for short—is a Canadian literary journal known for wit, warmth, and literary innovation. Our style is celebratory, and we’re well known for finding, as well as nurturing, distinctive voices, and for continuing to support writers throughout...

Room is Canada’s oldest feminist literary journal, and has published fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, art, interviews, and book reviews for forty years. Published quarterly by the West Coast Feminist Literary Magazine Society, also known as the Growing...

About Maisonneuve Maisonneuve literally means "new house" and suggests the spirit of collective enterprise the magazine gathers under one roof. The magazine takes its name from Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve, the man who founded Montreal in 1642. A teenage...

An online independent literary magazine dedicated to the publication of new and innovative writing, The Gravity of theThing has been named one of thirty best online magazines in 2016 (Bookfox) and one of fifteen best literary journals of 2015 (Authors Publish...

The Forge Literary Magazine was founded by volunteers from the Fiction Forge, an international online writers’ forum, which counts amongst its members and alumni winners of numerous literary awards, including the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, the Bridport Prize,...