Spare Parts was established in 2022, and since then they’ve published six issues. Each online edition contains writing from around 25 contributors. Spare Parts is published six times a year, every two months.

Spare Parts accepts submissions from the 7^th through the 21^st of every month. Poets may submit up to three poems. Authors of fiction may submit one piece, 1,500 words or fewer. Authors of plays and novel excerpts may submit up to 10 pages. Authors in all categories should submit only once per submission window (once per month).

Spare Parts also accepts artwork and photography. Visual artists may submit up to three pieces per submission window.

Spare Parts accepts submissions via email, not by post or using an online submissions manager. They accept simultaneous submissions but ask that authors withdraw work published elsewhere. They do not accept previously published writing; however, they will consider writing that was previously published in journals that are now defunct and no longer available online. They will also consider writing that has been significantly revised since publication. In both of these cases, they ask that authors email the editor to discuss before submitting.

Spare Parts only accepts 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 Spare Parts, please visit their website here.

Bio: Ella Peary is the pen name for an author, editor, creative writing mentor, and submission consultant. Over the past five years, she’s written hundreds of articles for Authors Publish, and she’s also served as a copywriter and copy editor for a wide range of organizations and individuals. She is the author of The Quick Start Guide to Flash Fiction. She occasionally teaches a course on flash fiction. You can contact her at ellapeary@gmail.com.

They have published some really established authors including Katherine Paterson, Kathleen Long Bostrom, and Barbara DiLorenzo, You can get a feel for what the publish by visiting their “Our Story” page. You can also get a feel for what they publish by spending time with their catalog. They have many great book covers.

Their distribution is through Ingram, which is usually not a good sign, as Ingram will distribute books of any kind, but they work directly with the Two Rivers division, which you can learn about here. Two Rivers only distributes work by select publishers, although not all of them are legitimate traditional publishers, most are.

If you are submitting to them, please only submit via email. Send your complete manuscript within the body of an email.  They ask that you ” do not send a file attachment, a partial manuscript, or a query without a manuscript. You may submit more than one manuscript at a time if each is sent in a separate email.”

Please read and follow their submission guidelines carefully, and only submit your work to them, if you think it is a good fit. They respond to submissions within six weeks if they are interested. Otherwise assume rejection.

This list ranges from fellowships, grants, residency to internships, scholarships and mentorship. Some deadlines are fast approaching while a few are farther out. Before you apply to these opportunities, however, please read carefully the requirements and eligibility.

Boston Review Fall Editorial Internship (full- and part-time)

Fall editorial internships at Boston Review run from September to December. They will consider candidates for remote internships, but strongly prefer candidates who can work in person in their office in Cambridge, MA. Interns at Boston Review work on a variety of editorial and promotional projects and have an opportunity to learn the fundamentals of editing, producing, and marketing a publication for serious and demanding readers.

Prior experience in publishing is less important than applicants’ knowledge of Boston Review and the level of commitment and creativity that they can bring to the magazine. Applicants from all backgrounds are welcome, especially those that are not well-represented in the publishing industry. Full-time interns receive a stipend of $2,500 for five full days of work a week; part-time interns receive a prorated stipend. Stipends are paid in three installments over the course of the internship.

To apply, please submit the following materials in a single PDF file: a cover letter of no more than one single-spaced page (specify whether you are seeking a full- or part-time position AND whether you can work in-person in their offices in Cambridge, MA); a résumé or curriculum vitae detailing your educational background, no more than two pages; the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of two references; and answers to the two questions, comprising no more than one single-spaced page.

Deadline is July 15, 2023. More details here.

Ucross Fellowship For Native American Writers – 2024

The Ucross Fellowship for Native American Writers is open to practicing writers who are currently producing work in one or more of the following genres — fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, screenwriting, playwriting, or hybrid forms. Two Ucross Fellowships for Native American Writers will be awarded each year. Those selected for the fellowship are offered a four-week residency, a stipend of $2,000, and an opportunity to present work publicly.

Residencies are open to Native American writers who must be an enrolled member of a state-recognized or federally-recognized Tribe, Pueblo, Nation, Native Community, Political Entity, or Alaskan Native Village and a practicing contemporary writer who is currently producing works in one or more of the following genres: fiction, poetry, nonfiction, drama, screenwriting, playwriting, and hybrid forms.

Deadline is July 15, 2023. More details here and here. Submission here.

PEN/Bare Life Review Grants

The PEN/Bare Life Review Grants recognize literary works by immigrant and refugee writers. For the 2024 grant cycle, they will confer two PEN/Bare Life Review Grants with cash prizes of $5,000 each.

The submitted project must be the work of a single individual, written in or translated into English. In the case of translated works, the grant will be conferred to the original author.

The project must be an unpublished work-in-progress that will not be published prior to April 1, 2025, as the grants are intended to support the completion of a manuscript. The project must be a work of a literary nature: fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry. This grant is available to foreign-born writers based in the U.S., and to writers living abroad who hold refugee/asylum seeker status. Writers may only submit one project per year.

Documents to submit include: a 1-2 page description of the work answering, Why is this project important, and why did this author choose to undertake this project?; 1-2 page statement answering, How will this grant aid in the completion of the project?; a CV for the author of the project, which should include information on previous or forthcoming publications; an outline that includes the work completed thus far and the work remaining; a writing sample of up to 40 pages for poetry, and 75 pages for other genres.

Deadline is July 21, 2023. More details here and here. Submission here.

BreakBread Literary Apprentice Program 

They offer internships in publishing to promising writers of high-school age who lack access to the traditional literary world. They want to change the face of publishing by cultivating, training, and mentoring young creatives in editorial practice so that they are well-prepared for college writing programs, jobs, and internships in publishing. All people age 14-19 in grades 9-12, or taking a gap year before college, are invited to apply. There is no experience required.

Literary Apprentices’ roles include: read and select work for publication in BreakBread Literary Magazine; upvote submissions to Assistant Genre Editor; attend genre meetings and participate in consensus-model discussion; attend all staff meetings; compose personalized rejection letters that provide feedback on submissions; and identify new talent and recruit submissions.

To qualify, applicants should be a bookworm, avid reader; aspiring editor/writer; open-minded, willingness to learn; love of all people; interest in amplifying youth voices; commitment to diversity in publishing and BreakBread vision of inclusion and social justice; age 14-19 (participants under age 18 must have parent permission); and time commitment.

Deadline is July 31, 2023. More details here and here. Submission here.

2023 Words of Resistance and Restoration

Words of Resistance and Restoration is a 12-week writing intensive where RWW’s faculty of acclaimed BIPOC literary artists teach justice-involved and impacted individuals interested in the literary arts (“Storytellers”) the art of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and speculative fiction. Words of Resistance attempts to cultivate healing, resilience, and community for storytellers. The beneficiaries are Black, Latina/e/x, Indigenous, Asian, Southeast Asian, and all People of Color (BIPOC)-identified storytellers who are formerly arrested, incarcerated, and/or under state control, as well as those who have been impacted by the incarceration of a loved one.

Words of Resistance and Restoration culminates with a virtual public performance where storytellers perform writing they generated during the writing intensive. Storytellers are also published in a professional print anthology containing the pieces they pen. No prior publication experience is required. Up to 5 fellows will be selected to participate in each genre cohort. Fellows will receive an honorarium of $300.00 for the culminating performance and for their work to be published in an RWW anthology.

Deadline is July 31, 2023. More details here. Submission here.

#AWP24 HBCU Fellowship Program

This is from the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) for writers from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU). The #AWP24 HBCU Fellowships will be offered to 2 faculty and 4 students. The fellowships include a $,4000 honorarium for faculty; a $250 honorarium for students; paid travel expenses and lodging for the duration of the conference; meeting and discussion with Rion Amilcar Scott; and article publication in The Writer’s Chronicle regarding their #AWP24 experience.

Applicants must be an active HBCU faculty (part or full-time) or a current HBCU student (undergraduate or graduate); be available to travel to Kansas City, Missouri February 7-10; and if faculty, must be available to serve as a mentor to 2 student fellowship recipients each for the duration of the conference.

If you are a faculty member and a graduate student, you will be required to apply under one category only. This is to ensure that every applicant has a fair chance. If you submit an application for both categories, it will not be considered.

Deadline is July 31, 2023. More details here. Submission here (please be sure to submit in the correct category).

Manuscript Consultations – Scholarship Application

Black Lawrence Press now offers scholarships for their consultation program. Although they keep the costs of their consults as low as possible, many writers are not able to afford these services.

They plan to award a total of $1,000 in scholarships per month. They will award the scholarships in the first week of August. If your manuscript is not selected for the scholarship, please feel free to apply again in the future.

Scholarship recipients will be chosen by senior Black Lawrence Press editors and will be selected based on the merit of the submitted work. Any writer who is looking for feedback on their work and would not otherwise be able to pay for a manuscript consultation is eligible. Applicants may be at any stage in their writing careers and they welcome new writers.

Deadline is July 31, 2023. More details here.
(Also see the Immigrant Writing Series on their Submittable page.)

Delaware Division of Arts’ Individual Arts Fellowship

Individual Artist Fellowships are awarded for artistic quality to Delaware creative artists working in the visual, performing, media, folk, and literary arts. Fellowships are designed to enable recipients to purchase equipment and materials, allocate working time, or fulfill other needs that will allow them to advance their careers (excluding foreign travel and lobbying). Fellowship recipients are required to present examples of their work to the public during their Fellowship year.

Applicants select between Emerging or Established categories. The Masters Fellowship is available in select disciplines on a three-year rotating basis to artists who meet specific criteria (for fiscal year 2024, the Masters is for Dance, Jazz, and Music; for 2025, it is for Literary and Media Arts). Awards are $5,000 for Emerging; $8,000 for Established; and $12,000 for Masters.

Deadline is August 1, 2023. More details here.

Oregon Literary Fellowship 

For 2024, Oregon Literary Fellowships will award 8 fellowships in the amount of $3,500 to writers. One of these fellowships is specifically for a writer of color.

Literary Arts will award two fellowships in the amount of $10,000, for writers of exceptional talent, to assist in the further development of their career. One of these fellowships is specifically for a writer of color. Literary Arts will award two publishers fellowships in the amount of $3,500 to support Oregon’s independent publishers and small presses that demonstrate a commitment to literary publishing.

Deadline is August 4, 2023. More details here and here.. Submission here.

Mentorship Award: Moving Narratives

Mentorship Award: Moving Narratives is a multidisciplinary programme that re-examines legacies of the past, defies euro-centric social and historical discourses, centres the perspectives of marginalised communities, and forges connections between contemporary emancipatory movements and their historical roots.

The Mentorship Award: Moving Narratives will be carried out with three main goals in mind: firstly, to foster conversation, collaboration, and exchange within the cohort; secondly, to support each artist in their own individual practice; and, thirdly, to facilitate interchanges between the cohort and relevant external practitioners.

Applications are invited from individual, experienced artists and cultural practitioners who:

live and work in their eligible countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe; are artists, cultural practitioners, or creatives whose practice highlights marginalised histories that challenge dominant worldviews; have ±7-15 years of relevant professional experience. Applicants need to be able to communicate in English.

Also, they will facilitate workshops, reading groups, guest talks, and peer-to-peer review sessions. Most activities will be online, but the cohort will come together twice in person for the Labs. Within the framework of the programme, the cohort will collectively create a joint project in the form of a printed publication and an online platform.  Each participant will also receive an award of €10.000 to work on the project or body of work outlined in their application.

Deadline is August 10, 2023. More details here, here, and here. FAQs here. Submission here. (You’ll be required to sign up free on the Prince Claus Fund platform before you can apply).

Bio: NmaHassan Muhammad is a Nigerian writer. In May 2023, and to mark the posthumous birthday of his son, he launched two programs for Nigerian writers: Abdullateef Hamood Memorial Mini Grants and Abdullateef Hamood Memorial Mentorship Series. He’ll mentor eight members of the Northern Writers Forum for the inaugural Mentorship Series (short fiction).

I started writing because I couldn’t sleep. I’d lie awake at night thinking of a story (mine was about getting lost in Montana) and my mind would conjure and ponder and wonder what if, what if, on and on, until I realized I had to write the damn thing in order to sleep.

I finished the story then found myself writing more, including a crime noir novel, book of poems, and award-winning collection of short stories.

Along the way I’ve learned a great deal – from workshops, speakers, books on writing by acclaimed authors, and my own experience.

Following are tips, quotes, and thoughts that continue to bubble up and resonate for me. Maybe they will for you.

Tips and thoughts

When starting a book, tell just a few close friends. No one else. If you tell too many, the pressure will be immense and you could crack. But you must tell a few or you could crack from keeping the secret.

Work on it every day, either in words or thoughts. Become selfish with your time.

Tell yourself it’s good, over and over and over. Lie to yourself if need be. You can fix the problems later.

Make it interesting. Make it fun.

Be patient, repeat, be patient. Don’t rush, rush, rush.

Take your time in revealing information. Don’t cram it all in up front. Give the story and characters time to breathe.

Tell enough but not too much. Let the reader make the connections and fill in the gaps.

Forget to care what others may think of your work. Other opinions are as useless as galoshes for a goose.

Most stories can be boiled down to a single question. Find yours. Be interested in it. Drill into it. Wait for the answer, it will come. If not, ask another question.

Curiosity is the portal to intelligence and answers. The writer’s job is to be curious and show up.

Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.

If the writing pops for you, it will pop for the reader. Your excitement will translate.

Genre fiction focuses on what happened. Literary fiction focuses on why.

In nonfiction, go for the head. In fiction, go for the heart.

Pay attention to how you feel. Pay attention to what attracts you.

Think of writing as hanging out with a good friend. Enjoy it. Want it.

Do more with less – choose key, specific details, just a few to show character, place, feeling.

Get into the story late, get out early. Compress the timeline.

Escalate tension as you go.

Voice and style are simply your personality. The more you write, the more they come out.

Read your writing out loud. Notice stumbles, smooth it out.

Sentence fragments are fine, but don’t overdo it. Mix in long and short.

Fit sentence length to the mood and tone of the scene. Short, simple words for tension and action. Longer sentences for description and insight.

Watch out for repetitions, words, phrases used often. We all have them. They’re spinach in our teeth. For me, it’s the word “ponder”, which I tend to overuse.

If trying to be funny, make the end of a sentence or paragraph the funniest or weirdest part. Juxtaposition works, so does surprise.

The funniest letters in the alphabet are k and hard g. Which is why “gobsmacked” always gets a laugh.

Print your piece for final edit and proofing. It’s better than reading it on screen and you’ll get a sense for pacing.

Take a short break after your first draft and a longer break after you’re done editing. Go for a hike, go to a gallery, go to a bar. Reopen your mind. Then, look around and think about what to write next.

What others have said –

Mary Oliver:  Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell me about it.

Margaret Atwood:  It is not unusual that writers tell stories. It’s unusual that other people stop.

Maxwell Perkins:  Generalizations are no use – give one specific thing and let action say it. Dialogue is action. Don’t explain too much. You can’t know a book until you reach the end of it, then go back and modify to fit it. Learn what people do, how they talk. See plenty, hear plenty, that is much more important even than reading.

John Steinbeck:  Just write one page a day if you have trouble starting. Then you’ll be surprised at the end. Throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or edit until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material. No two people have the same methods. However, these mostly work for me.

In Conclusion

I try to follow all these tips but it’s an ongoing struggle. I do sleep better now.

Writing a book is like building a canoe in your garage. You take it out on water and it leaks and you sink, so you patch it or build a better one, and finally it floats. And if it still doesn’t, you build a birdhouse.

Bio: Tom Vandel is author of a crime noir novel, a collection of poems, and a book of short stories (2022 High Plains Book Awards finalist). He has also collaborated on two art books – on the pandemic and Uber driving. He lives in Montana and Oregon and posts his writing at tomvandel.substack.com.