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TW's Winter 2013 Issue: "Got Fame?"
Launch Date: January 14, 2013
TW writers dish about celebrity authors and the quest for literary success. The stakes are higher than ever, but vaulting into the public eye can be...complicated. Highlights:
- Celebrity Gossip: Stephen King, Ann Beattie, Elizabeth Bishop, Neil Gaiman
- The Writer's Life: The unexpected pleasures of marketing yourself
- Prose Poetry Spotlight: Work by nine poets from Ottawa to the Napa Valley
- Author Note: Is the Iowa Writers' Workshop all it's cracked up to be?
Don't Miss These Nov/Dec 2012 Features
- Theme Essay: Why Horror Movies Disappoint Readers
- Image Essay: The Collaged Brain: Poetry, Art, Music
- Why I Write: A Cacophony of Nudgy Voices
- Talking Art: Porcelain Bones
Donate $10 a Month—and Get the New TW Mug
At Talking Writing, we appreciate every donation. To show our thanks as we start a new year, we’ll send you a TW mug when you make a contribution of $120 or more.
That’s only $10 a month, if you choose TW’s monthly donation plan. This offer is good through January 31, 2013.
In our new design, pictured here, the talk bubble says, “I’m Talking Writing—Are You?”
To help TW—and become the proud owner of a TW mug—visit our Donate page.
Submissions Update: New Themes + Fiction
Talking Writing publishes five issues a year with a hiatus in July and August. We're now soliciting theme essays for our fall and winter 2013 issues.
Sept/Oct 2013: Distraction
How do you stay focused on your writing?
Modern life is a wonderfully seductive curse. For our fall issue, TW seeks essays about the many ways writers get distracted. Sample topic: social media addiction. Feel free to query us first.
Submission Deadline: June 24, 2013
Nov/Dec 2013: Writing and Faith
How do you tackle life’s Big Questions?
During the holiday season, TW will examine why writing is such a powerful tool for soul searching, creating meaning, and defining one’s spiritual beliefs. Feel free to query us first.
Submission Deadline: September 9, 2013
For a full 2013 schedule, see our Issue Themes page.
Open Call: Short Stories and Flash Fiction
Talking Writing is also looking for terrific, character-driven fiction. We’re currently filling TW’s spring and fall 2013 fiction slots.
“In general, we shy away from genre stories, but, hey, never say never,” notes TW Fiction Editor David Cameron. As he puts it:
If your piece about alien abductions or mutant teenage succubi brings us deep into the desires and inner conflicts of your main character and provides the reader a rich experience of the human condition, then bring it on. We ask the same from your stories about over-educated emotionally stunted gin-swilling Manhattan couples.
Here's our commitment: If we fall in literary love with your piece, we will promote it up the wazoo, tooting all our social media horns and sending it to selected contests and notable 'best of' anthologies.
Submit all fiction, essays, and queries at talkingwriting.submittable.com.
Name That Author?
In honor of our "Got Fame?" issue, we've featured a number of famous writers in this edition of Talking E-News. Did you identify them all? Here's the key:
- Virginia Woolf: “Portrait of Virginia Woolf” by Roger Fry, circa 1917; public domain ("Distraction").
- Flannery O'Connor: detail from “Robie Macauley with Flannery O'Connor at the University of Iowa in 1947” by Cmacauley; Creative Commons license ("Writing and Faith").
- Ralph Ellison: “Ralph Ellison, Noted Author and Professor, ” 1961, by U.S. Information Agency staff photographer; courtesy Library of Congress ("Call for Fiction").
- Vladimir Nabokov: altered image @ Donald Langosy; used by permission ("Name That Author?").
Follow TW on Twitter—and Name More Authors!
Throughout January, our home page will display other famous authors with TW mugs. Guess them all! We’ll tweet the arrival of each image—and reveal the name of the featured writer later.
We’ve already got a lively conversation going on Twitter, so be sure to check the tweet stream that appears on most TW pages. We also retweet literary news, including book events, publications, and contest deadlines.
Follow @talkingwriting on Twitter and tweet us your “name that author” guesses. And please keep us informed about upcoming literary events that will interest TW readers, whether in New England, across the country, or outside the U.S.
