All of these journals focus on, or have a strong history of, publishing writing that is humorous.

Please read their submission guidelines carefully and consider fit before submitting.

Lowestoft Chronicle
Lowestoft Chronicle is an online literary magazine that publishes “flash fiction, short stories, poetry, and creative non-fiction. Preference is given to humorous submissions with an emphasis on travel.” The deadline for this reading period is November 15th.

WestWard Quarterly
This poetry only journal focuses on “presenting material that is reflective, inspiring, uplifting, encouraging and humorous”.

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency
The most established humor focused lit journal on the internet, publishes very specific types of articles. Please read a few examples and their guidelines before submitting.

The Belladonna
They bill themselves as “Comedy and satire by women and other marginalized genders, for everyone.” Submissions are restricted to women, non-binary, gender queer, and gender nonconforming authors. 

Funny Times
They only publish cartoons and funny stories, and have been for over forty years. You can get a feel for what they publish here.

Little Old Lady Comedy
They publish humerous poems, essays, short stories, comics, and cartoons.

If you’ve read craft articles on blurb and pitch writing, you’ve built the foundation you need. Add this sauce, and you’ll produce blurbs and pitches that engage and compel readers.

Begin with your reader and answer one question—What does your reader want in her (or his) heart of hearts? You may think “I already do this.” Except, chances are, you instead start with your theme, characters or plot and then frame your pitch and blurb in the most gripping words possible. This results in a good pitch or blurb, but not one seasoned with the secret sauce that immediately grabs readers’ hearts.

It’s the readers’ heart that drives her reading decisions. As gifted fiction writer Lisa Cron writes, “Our feelings… drive every choice we make. So it’s not surprising that when it comes to story, if we’re not feeling, we’re not reading,”. Two ingredients create the secret sauce that hooks readers: emotion and stakes.

Emotion

Readers want a reason to care about your characters. They want to feel the emotional jolts that result from living through your characters’ struggles.

Renee Carlino promises this in her blurb for This Used to Be Us: “There are two sides to every love story—and every breakup. Get ready for an emotional roller coaster of family, marriage, and divorce that will have you both laughing and crying….”

Says Danielle Steel’s blurb for Friends Forever, “Together, they will find strength, meet challenges, face life’s adventures, endure loss, face stark realities, and open their hearts.”

Stakes

Do you want to hook your reader? The stakes must be difficult, the danger real, the worst-case scenario devastating.

Hank Phillippi Ryan’s blurb for One Wrong Word proposes: “One wrong word can ruin your life….Arden’s life and dreams are about to crash and burn. Then, Arden is given an ultimatum. She has just two weeks to save her career and her reputation.”

Says Sarina Bowen’s blurb for Five Year Lie, “She thought it was love. Then he vanished….The truth has to be out there somewhere. To safeguard herself—and her son—she’ll have to find it before it finds her.”

Here’s how I used this reader-facing strategy in my first novel’s pitch: “Jess Cassidy is engaged to the perfect man—an adventurous, big-living pilot—but when his plane crashes in an Alaskan winter storm, so do her dreams.” What reader hasn’t lost at least one dream to tragedy?

And here’s how I added the secret sauce to the blurb for my second novel: “What lies twist your life? What price will you pay to uncover and live the truth?” These reader-facing sentences invite readers to feel into themselves, to the lies they’ve told or have had told about them.

How will you apply the secret sauce?

Bio: Alaska/Washington author Lynne Curry has published six short stories in The Sunlight Press; The Big Windows Review; After Dinner Conversations; three poems, and six books, including Navigating Conflict and Managing for Accountability. Beating the Workplace Bully and Solutions. She founded “Real-life Writing” and publishes a weekly “dear Abby of the workplace” newspaper column, a monthly “Writing from the Cabin” blog, and posts weekly on www.workplacecoachblog (2525 subscribers).

The first issue of The Nomad contains writing solicited from 19 contributors (soliciting writing is a common way to curate the first issue of a new journal). For subsequent issues they’re seeking unsolicited submissions. It is unusual that the first issue contains two poems from one of the editors, though it’s notable that one of those poems was the inspiration for starting the journal.

Now through April 30, 2025, The Nomad is seeking submissions for their second issue, on the theme of “breakthroughs.” The breakthroughs can be, “literal, spiritual, symbolic, personal, public, or something else.”

Submitting authors should send two pieces, one published and one unpublished, along with a brief explanation about how the writing relates to the theme. Authors may submit poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.

The Nomad plans to publish two online editions and one print edition each year. They also hope to nominate authors published in the Nomad for anthologies and awards such as the Pushcart Prize.

The Nomad accepts submissions via email, not online or by post. They only accept submissions that follow the guidelines they’ve posted online. Please read these guidelines in full before submitting.

If you would like to learn more or submit to The Nomad, please visit their website here. 

Every year now on September 30th, Canada honors National Truth and Reconciliation Day, as a federal holiday. The day honors the lost children and survivors of residential schools, their families, and communities.

For those who do not know, Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families, and sent to residential schools, where they were not allowed to speak their native languages, among many other abuses. These schools had the explicit goal of erasing Indigenous cultures. This happened in both Canada and the U.S. The last residential school in Canada was closed in 1996.

September 30th is also known as Orange Shirt Day. Orange Shirt Day was created by Phyllis (Jack) Webstad, a residential school survivor, and you can learn more about Orange Shirt Day here.

Not all of the provinces have decided to support this decision by the federal government, including the province we are currently based in, Ontario.

This is far from ideal, but reconciliation is not just about the government, but the people who live and work on these territories. People, like me, the editor of Authors Publish, who grew up in Toronto, or Tkaronto, which was this region’s traditional name.

Toronto is covered by Treaty 13 and the Williams Treaties, and is the traditional home and unceded land of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee-ga (Haudenosaunee), the Anishinabewaki ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ,  Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, Mississauga and the Wendake-Nionwentsïo. This information was gathered from the very helpful website native-land.ca.

I have a mixed relationship with land acknowledgements, which is to say that I think it is very important to acknowledge whose land we are living and working on, and that this acknowledgement can be a potential source of disruption, but I also feel like it can come off as rote, as something said without intention or meaning, or follow up.

Hayden King, an Anishinaabe writer, and the executive director of the Yellowhead Institute, has written about regretting writing a territorial acknowledgement here, in a meaningful and honest way.

But I think it’s important to have these conversations and to actively work towards learning the truth of what happened, and continues to happen in Canada, and across Turtle Island, not just in terms of the residential school system, but in the ongoing harm the government of Canada is causing, as well as the actions and inactions of citizens of this country.

There is also so much to learn about and appreciate in terms of Indigenous culture.

I’m going to add a few resources and recommendations that I personally found helpful. If you have any questions, corrections, recommendations, or feedback of any kind, I am open and listening and can be reached at caitlinelizabethjans@gmail.com.

Many of the links talk directly about genocide and abuse, as well as other hard to read topics.

Resources about Truth and Reconciliation and Residential Schools

5 Things You Need to Know About Truth And Reconciliation

21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Bob Joseph

How To Talk To Kids About The National Day For Truth And Reconciliation

Talking to Kids about Residential Schools

Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls for Action

Beyond 94 (a website that monitors progress on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action)

The Gatherings: Reimagining Indigenous-Settler Relations by Shirley N. Hager and Mawopiyane 

Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese

Shi-shi-etko by Nicola I. Campbell (this is the picture book that impacted my children the most).

Places to Contribute

I really encourage to look into local Indigenous led groups to support, but Canada wide the Indian Residential School Survivors Society is a good starting place, as is Native Women’s Association of Canada, and Indspire.

In Toronto the Anishnawbe Health Foundation is doing important work, as is Toronto Indigenous Harm Reduction. 

Additional Resources

The Power of Story by Harold R. Johnson (I read this for the first time this year and it is incredible)

Northern Light by Kazim Ali 

Telling Our Twisted Histories

Unreserved

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Heart Berries: A Memoir by Terese Marie Mailhot

Be a Good Ancestor by Leona Prince, Gabrielle Prince, Illustrated By Carla Joseph

Indigenous Toronto: Stories That Carry This Place edited by Denise Bolduc, Mnawaate Gordon-corbiere, Rebeka Tabobondung

The Gift is in the Making: Anishinaabeg Stories by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

A History of My Brief Body by Billy-Rae Belcourt

What Is Land Back?

What is Land Back? A Settler FAQ

An Irritable Métis – Chris La Tray’s Substack newsletter (His Memoir just came out, and is a must read too: Becoming Little Shell.)