Weird Circular #42 April

The April Weird Circular

April 02, 2020

This month's Weird Circular is live with submission ideas, prompts, and more!

Welcome to the Weird Circular

Dear Fellow Weird Writers,

It's a really hard time to be creative right now. I don't know if you need one more person telling you that it's okayif you're not writing right now, but here I am. This month I'm focusing on soft, comforting things. But I want to tell you something: Your writing will wait for you.

That's comforting in itself, knowing that the place inside you will always be there when you're ready to return to it. It's easy to feel scared that you might lose it forever. But that's not how creativity works. You just have to trust in yourself. 

Your corporeal host,

Holly 

Submission Calls

Upcoming Submission Windows: 

  • Scum, deadline April 7: Feminist-friendly poetry (max 50 lines, 3 poems) and fiction/nonfiction (under 2k words). Pays $60 AUD. 

  • Escape Pod, Flash Fiction Contest, deadline 4/16: Scifi flash (>500 words). Voting happens in the online forum. Pays $40.

  • So To Speak, deadline 4/18: Literary Fiction and Creative Nonfiction (Up to 4k words), Poetry (Up to 5 poems, max 10 pages). 

  • Paper Nautilus Chapbooks, deadline 4/20: Separate category for debuts. 16-24 page poetry chapbooks. Prize, 100 copies, 10% royalties. 

  • Haunted Waters Press Penny Fiction, deadline 4/30: Microfiction (exactly 20 words). Pays $3. 

  • The Overcast Podcast, deadline 4/30: Genre short fiction but no horror (1k-5k words). Pays $.01/word.

  • The Gray Sisters, deadline 5/1: Theme: "Tales that explain the events or enforce the behaviors of the 20th and 21st centuries in fanciful ways." Short Fiction (1k-3k words). Pays $30. 

  • Blood Bath Literary Zine, deadline 5/1: Theme: Vampires. Horror short Fiction (max 2k words), poems (4 poems, max 30 lines). Pays £30.

Need more submission ideas? Check the

newest markets,

, Duotrope's

,

, or Literary Mama's

.

YOU SHOULD BE WRITING

Prompt #1:

Write a story about something soft and delicate. It could be a character or an object. 

Bonus Round:

Bonus points if the soft thing is unexpected. Something that's usually hard but winds up being soft in some way. 

Prompt #2:

 Write about an ephemeral moment. 

Bonus Round:

Bonus points if the moment is magical or strange or in some way changes someone's life. 

Prompt #3:

 What happened to the teddy bear?

Bonus Round:

 What did the teddy bear say?

Editing tip of the month: Take your manuscript outside. Seriously, a change of location can sometimes shake things up. Try editing under a tree or on a patio or somewhere deliciously warm and breezy. Treat editing with the slowness it desires. 

Inspiration from the Ether

News From Your Corporeal Host

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