Lightspeed
Lightspeed publishes science fiction and fantasy. They have very brief submission windows – they will be open to submissions of science fiction flash stories from all writers from 1^st to 7^th June. They also accept translations. They will open during 23^rd to 30^th June for fantasy flash fiction from BIPOC writers, and submissions for all writers in this genre will be open during 1^st to 7^th July.
Reading periods: See above
Length: Up to 1,500 words for flash fiction
Pay: $0.08/word
Details here.

Matter Press: The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts
They publish fiction and creative nonfiction, as well as fiction and creative nonfiction prose poetry, as long as it is compressed in some way.
Deadline: 15 June 2023
Length: Up to 600 words
Pay: $50
Details here and here.

Sylvia
This is a fiction, nonfiction, and poetry magazine. Their website says, “Our mission is to create a literary space that pays writers for their work and revels in the beauty of nature.” During their June reading period, they will accept submissions for Autumn, Winter, and Spring themes. Please note, “Payments will be made via PayPal or bank transfer to a UK bank account only.”
Reading period: 5-19 June 2023
Length: Up to 1,500 words for prose, up to 5 poems
Pay: £1.75 per line for poetry (not including titles or line breaks) and £0.25 per word for prose
Details here.

The Ex-Puritan
This Canadian magazine publishes fiction, nonfiction, experimental/hybrid work, interviews, reviews, and poetry. They accept a limited number of fee-free submissions every month.
Deadline: 25 June 2023, or until filled, for the next issue; reads year-round
Length: Up to 10,000 words for fiction, up to 4 poems; various for nonfiction (see guidelines)
Pay: CAD200 per essay; CAD150 for fiction; CAD100 per interview or review; CAD35 per poem (or page, capped at CAD120); CAD50+ per experimental or hybrid work, at an increasing scale depending on the nature of the piece
Details here and here.
(Also see their Submittable for a special Indigenous Storytelling issue call; the deadline for that is 10^th July 2023.)

NewMyths
They publish fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. “We like to balance each quarterly issue between science fiction and fantasy, dark and light, serious and humorous, hard and soft science fiction, and longer and shorter works.” Their pay rates have doubled in 2023. They also accept artwork. Their annual reading periods are the months of January-February and June-July.
Deadline: 31 July 2023
Length: Up to 10,000 words for fiction
Pay: $0.03/word; “minimum payment of $50 for all submissions, fiction, flash fiction, nonfiction and poetry”
Details here.

Bio: S. Kalekar is the pseudonym of a regular contributor to this magazine. She can be reached here.

So far, Book of Matches has published eight issues, each with around 90 contributors, and around 200 pages. Book of Matches is published three times a year.

Book of Matches is accepting submissions right now through August 11. Poets may submit up to three poems, six pages or fewer total. Authors of fiction and creative nonfiction may submit one story or essay, 2,100 words or fewer. Book of Matches does sometimes consider longer work if it’s exceptional. They also consider micro fiction and micro nonfiction, 100 to 500 words.

Book of Matches also accepts translations of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, provided that the English translation rights are available.

Authors may submit work in multiple genres, but should send only one submission per genre during each reading period.

Book of Matches does not pay, but they nominate authors published in the journal for the Best of the Net anthology and The Pushcart Prize.

Book of Matches accepts submissions via email, not online or by post. They accept simultaneous submissions but ask that authors withdraw work published elsewhere. They do not accept previously published work.

Submitting authors should take care to remove all identifying information from the submission, including the submission email. This means that authors should not send a bio with the submission.

Book of Matches only accepts submission 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 Book of Matches, 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.

WJK publishes “books in theology, biblical studies, preaching, worship, ethics, religion and culture, and other related fields for four main markets: scholars and students in colleges, universities, seminaries, and divinity schools; preachers, educators, and counselors working in churches; members of mainline Protestant congregations; and books specifically related to the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)”.

It’s a good idea to get a feel for what they publish by visiting their main page, or searching through the book section of the site. They are very much focused on readers rather than writers, which is always good.

They do not consider fiction, memoir, poetry, dissertations or Festschriften for publication, and do not consider kids’ books outside of their Children’s imprint, which has separate guidelines.

They are only interested in considering proposals and have detailed information about writing academic book proposals, professional book proposals, and general reader book proposals on their website. Please read them carefully before submitting a proposal that follows the guidelines they have established.

To see their full guidelines, go here.

Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2022 Guide to Manuscript Publishers.

She regularly teaches three acclaimed courses on writing and publishing at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish. You can follow her on Facebook here.

One of the most helpful things I’ve done for my writing is setting concrete goals.

Writers struggle to establish a daily writing habit because, well, building habits is difficult, and we have other responsibilities that need our attention–jobs, families, health. In all that mess and uncertainty and lack of time, a concrete writing goal keeps one focused.

What do I mean by a concrete goal, exactly? When I was young and wanted to be A Writer^TM, I made several attempts to establish a regular writing habit but failed because my goals were easy to cheat my way out of.

For example, I’d set a goal to write 2 pages every day. I was an analog writer back then—many of my favourite authors preferred the tangibility of pen and paper, so I chose the same tools.

But the problem with such a goal, regardless of whether those 2 pages are analog or digital, is that it’s very easy to fill pages but make no progress. You can use big letters, leave a line after every paragraph, write the words far apart, take up a significant portion of the paper just to write the heading, and so on.

Naturally, I didn’t write anything good and gave up very quickly.

Several months later, when I resolved again to write regularly, I gave myself a goal I knew I couldn’t cheat my way out of: writing 500 words every day.

It was irrelevant if I wrote those words on paper or on a computer or even on my phone. It was irrelevant if it took a burst of inspiration to get them down in just 15 minutes or an hour before bed to crank out something. The goal was to write 500 words and write them every day.

(One thing I’ve understood since is to be kind to oneself when life gets in the way, and then resume the next day if you do miss a day. But not more than one. I’ve found it very important to get back to my routine as soon as possible.)

500 words was a good word count for me because I was getting started, so it was not too ambitious. I was also a high school student and had to spend a lot of time studying for my exams so I couldn’t spend hours on writing. In summers, when I had more time, I increased my word count goal to 750 words per day. During exam season, I reduced it to 250 words.

Despite this, there were days when I was pressed for time because I’d gone out or I’d forgotten to write or I had no inspiration. On those days, I used my writing habit to clear my head. I wrote about my day. I broke rules. I let myself write long sentences, ignore grammar, change form, change topic, freewrite. As long as I got 500 words out of my head every day, it didn’t matter that once in a while those 500 words were absolutely useless. Because on the good days, I started with an idea and ended up finding a story. Or I had a nice little post that I could put on my personal blog. Or a little essay about a book that moved me recently.

I was not seeking publication all the time because I was in school. My aim was to practise as much as I could (with the occasional acceptance from magazines). For my purposes, this goal worked.

Now I’m a freelance writer. I write short stories, personal essays and articles like this. I have more time because writing is my career now, so my goals have been adjusted accordingly: start and finish a piece of writing every day. Or when I’m in the editing mode, to start and finish editing a piece of writing every day.

The finish part is important, because if I leave a piece half done—during writing, not editing—I lose all my excitement for it and never finish it. I have too many good—but incomplete—stories languishing in my folders. I’ve accepted that I’ll never finish them. But I’ve also tried to not repeat my mistake. So I’ve adjusted my goal: it’s not about how many words I write, but that I finish projects.

So if you’re looking to establish a daily/regular writing habit (I take an off on Sundays), don’t aim to “write every day” (or every weekday). Instead, set a concrete goal:

• Write 500 words (or a bigger/smaller word count that suits your routine and needs) every day.
• Finish the first draft of a short story/essay/blog post every day.
• Write one chapter every day—or if you deal with longer chapters, one scene every day.

Don’t aim to write for 15 minutes or an hour either. Because you can either write 250 words in a quarter of an hour like Anthony Trollope did on a regular basis, or you can sit there at your computer, paralysed with fear, overthinking the first line, and the hour will be over before you know it. There is no deliverable when your goal is time-based.

Set concrete goals. Your progress may be slow, but it will be progress nonetheless. And that’s what matters.

Bio: Ratika Deshpande is a freelance psychology and culture writer from New Delhi, India. She has previously written for Tor.com and Submittable’s blog, Discover. Find her on her website.