“And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.”
–Rainer Maria Rilke

Dear Writer,

I hope you’re having a good start to your week. In this newsletter:

• A writing prompt to inspire your creativity.
• Reading and listening recommendations in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
• Publishing, residency, and retreat opportunities available now.
• Join our free Monday and Friday write-ins, and meet our community of writers.  

Happy writing this week!

—Elle, Curriculum Specialist & Community Manager

Writer to Writer: A Gentle Start to the New Year

A new year often has a way of making everything feel full of possibility and oddly intense. We’re tempted to create lofty resolutions, set big goals, and name our desired outcomes for the entire year before we’ve even lived a single day of it. As I mentioned last week, I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions. Instead, I want to enter 2026 a bit more quietly and gently—but also with attention, curiosity, and a renewed willingness to show up to the page without demanding expectations.

That same approach applies to this newsletter as it moves into its second year. I’ll still be here weekly, offering writing prompts, publishing opportunities, and creative inspiration, while also giving myself permission to experiment. You may notice a few new sections appearing and rotating throughout the weeks. Nothing drastic—just my way of keeping this space alive, fresh, and honest about what writers actually need from week to week.

So consider this a gentle welcome back, even though many of us never left. Whether you’re arriving with a notebook full of plans or an empty page and no idea where to begin, you’re in the right place. I’m so glad we’re on this creative journey together. We’ll take this year one week at a time. We’ll take risks, try new things, and let the words we write surprise us!

Writing Prompt: The First Small Thing

Write a scene, poem, or short essay that begins with something small, ordinary, and easily overlooked at the start of a year.

It could be something like:

• an unknown sound drifting through a window.
• an object left behind after a holiday gathering.
• fragments of a conversation overheard in a restaurant,
• a casual ritual repeated without much thought, like getting your morning coffee.
• a moment that feels insignificant at first, but turns our to be very important.

Focus on the sensory details. Let the piece linger there longer than feels necessary. Let it move in and out of the details. Allow the emotional weight of the moment to emerge gradually. Most of all, let the meaning come to you. Don’t force anything. 

A Closer Look: Great First Lines

“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.”
— Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

At first glance, this line barely seems like the beginning of a novel at all.  There’s no conflict or backstory. There’s just a woman who’s deciding to buy some flowers. Yet that’s exactly what makes it such a strong opening. Woolf starts with a choice, not an explanation of said choice. It’s an action that feels ordinary, but immediately gives us a sense of character and direction.

Pay close attention to how much work so few words are doing. “Said” creates a bit of distance, as if we’re watching this woman from just outside her own thoughts. While the word “herself” quietly signals autonomy and agency. With just one line, readers know this is a woman who wants to do things on her own, even in some small, domestic way. Readers don’t yet know who Mrs. Dalloway is, or why the flowers matter, but they can already trust that meaning will be found in the everyday decisions that might otherwise be overlooked.

As a first line, this is a reminder that you don’t have to start loud to start deep. You can begin with something simple, concrete, even seemingly mundane that is still powerful and revealing. 

Writer’s Tool of the Week: The Fabulous Fragments File

I keep something I call a Fabulous Fragments File—a living document where I collect new ideas as they arrive. It’s where I record words and sentences I’m intrigued by but can’t use (yet), images that won’t leave me alone, overheard lines, strange and beautiful words, and ideas that don’t belong to my current project, but still feel worth saving.

For me, this file is about keeping the door open to future possibilities. When I’m stuck, blocked, or unsure where to begin in a given writing session, I often return to my Fabulous Fragments File, and choose a single note to sit with, consider, and explore. Sometimes I expand it into a scene. Often, I can’t remember when or why I wrote it down in the first place, but that’s half the fun! The file is a tool that reminds me I’ve had ideas before, and that I’ll have them again.

Do you have a Fabulous Fragments File, or something similar? If not, try starting your own. You might be surprised by what you collect, and how it finds its way back into your writing.

Publishing Opportunities:

• The 2026 Colorado Prize for Poetry – Entry Deadline: January 31, 2026. The Colorado Prize for Poetry is an international poetry book manuscript contest established in 1995. Each year’s prizewinner receives a $2,500 honorarium and publication of his or her book by the Center for Literary Publishing. You do NOT have to be a resident of Colorado to enter. 
• Salt Hill Journal – Submission Deadline: January 31, 2026. Accepting salty new poetry, fiction, essay, and art submissions for their next issue. Their submission windows only open twice a year. Submit!
• Chestnut Review – Submission Deadline: March 31, 2026 for their summer issue releasing on July 15, 2026. They are currently seeking submissions of poetry, flash pieces, prose up to 5k words, and original art. All writing must be previously unpublished, and original. 

Residency & Retreat Opportunities:

• Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Residency – Application Deadline: January 15, 2026. Writers, visual artists, and composers are invited to apply for fall 2026 VCCA residencies. There are many residencies which are full-funded. Please see the VCCA website for more details. This is a wonderful opportunity to dedicate time to your craft, and meet other creatives. 

Monday and Friday: Free Group Writing Sessions

Come write with us! Community write-ins are a great way to meet other writers, and carve out space in your calendar for your writing.

Monday: Write Into the Week with Elle

Join me (Elle) for an hour of mindset support, goal setting, community, and dedicated time to write! We’ll meet on Monday at 11 AM Eastern time, at this Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83999379617

Friday: Open Write-In

Join the Writers.com staff for a 90-minute writing session each Friday from 11 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern time. We will write together for the first hour. In the last, optional half hour, we’ll share our writing with one another and connect.

To add yourself, join our newsletter using the join box above, and add yourself to the “Friday Write-Ins” list at the bottom of any email. We’ll send you a Zoom link the morning of the call.

Join us on Instagram for more writing inspiration!

We’re sharing writing tips, creative prompts, and a steady stream of encouragement—follow us @writersdotcom. Click below to check out one of our latest posts on writing creative nonfiction.

The post Write into the Week: January 4, 2026 appeared first on Writers.com.

Our Real Work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.

–Wendell Berry

Dear Writer,

I hope you’re having a good start to your week. In this newsletter:

• A writing prompt to inspire your creativity.
• Reading and listening recommendations in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
• Publishing, residency, and retreat opportunities available now.
• Join our free Monday and Friday write-ins, and meet our community of writers.

Happy writing this week!

—Elle, Curriculum Specialist & Community Manager

Writer to Writer: What We Carry Forward into 2026

Ending a year can make us feel like we’re supposed to know something—what it all meant, where it led, and what comes next. Don’t beat yourself up by trying to answer those questions. Both life and writing have taught me that clarity doesn’t always arrive on schedule. Neither plot lines nor life choices wrap themselves up neatly with a bow just because it’s December 31st. Sometimes what we carry forward into the new year isn’t an answer to last year’s woes, but a question that’s lingered and grown more precise.

There are seasons when the work feels so obvious it’s almost easy, and seasons when it feels stalled, uncertain, or aggravatingly quiet. I don’t think those moments mean we’ve lost our way. Often, they mean we’re being asked to listen differently—to notice where we hesitate, where we’re lost, and where the current slows or deepens. That, too, is movement. That is progress.

As this year closes, I’m less interested in resolutions than in attention. (TBH, I don’t really believe in resolutions in life or writing.) Instead, ask yourself: What are you already in the middle of? What’s keeping you there? What questions do you still need to ponder awhile longer? What part of your writing life feels worth carrying forward into 2026, even if you don’t yet know where it will lead?

If you’re ending 2025 without a clear map, you’re not doing anything wrong. You may simply be standing at the place where the real work begins.

Writing Prompt:

In these last days of 2025, instead of setting goals or resolutions for 2026, lean into and write toward what you don’t yet know. Begin with one of these opening lines (or invent your own):

• What I’m still in the middle of is…
• The question I’m carrying with me is…
• I don’t yet know how to… but I keep returning to it.

Let your words wander and your writing meander. The goal isn’t  clarity or conclusions. Stay with the uncertainty long enough to notice what it’s asking of you. Listen, and let that inspire your creativity into the new year. 

Reading Recommendations: Best Books of 2025 Edition

Every year, I look forward to Best Books lists more than almost any other end-of-year roundup. I love seeing how many of the books I read made the cut, adding some of the ones I missed to my ever-growing TBR, and, most of all, noticing the patterns that emerge across lists. These roundups aren’t just about crowning winners; they’re a way of tracing the stories, questions, and unique voices that shaped the literary conversation within the year.

Below are a few of my favorite Best Books of 2025 lists. These aren’t meant as a report card of what you did or didn’t read this year, but more of invitation to read more deeply, more curiously, and a little outside your usual lanes.

• The New York Times – 100 Notable Books of 2025
• The Literary Hub – The Ultimate Best Books of 2025 List
• NPR – Books We Love 2025
• The Atlantic – The Books That Made Us Think the Most This Year
• The New Yorker – The Best Books of 2025 

Listening Recommendations:

• From The Writer Files Podcast: “The Writer Files Holiday Party 2025” – This festive year-end episode gathers the best of 2025: reflections on how long novels really take to write, why notebooks still matter, lessons from Kafka, Didion, and Pressfield, and a return to beginner’s mind (plus the Dunning–Kruger effect). Along the way, host Milena shares her favorite reads of the year, revisits standout interviews, and celebrates the books, ideas, and conversations that shaped the writing life this year.

Publishing Opportunities: 

I decided to hold off on publishing opportunities this week. Don’t worry, they’ll return next week! In these final days of the year, I’d much rather you focus on reading and writing things you genuinely enjoy. Rest. Take a creative break if you need one. Then return in the new year ready to continue this creative journey with renewed energy and curiosity.

Monday and Friday: Free Group Writing Sessions

Come write with us! Community write-ins are a great way to meet other writers, and carve out space in your calendar for your writing.

Monday: Write Into the Week with Elle

Join me (Elle) for an hour of mindset support, goal setting, community, and dedicated time to write! We’ll meet on Monday at 11 AM Eastern time, at this Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83999379617

Friday: Open Write-In

Join the Writers.com staff for a 90-minute writing session each Friday from 11 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern time. We will write together for the first hour. In the last, optional half hour, we’ll share our writing with one another and connect.

To add yourself, join our newsletter using the join box above, and add yourself to the “Friday Write-Ins” list at the bottom of any email. We’ll send you a Zoom link the morning of the call.

Join us on Instagram for more writing inspiration!

We’re sharing writing tips, creative prompts, and a steady stream of encouragement—follow us @writersdotcom. Click below to check out one of our latest posts on writing creative nonfiction.

The post Write into the Week: December 28, 2025 appeared first on Writers.com.

“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.”
–Willa Cather

Dear Writer,

I hope you’re having a good start to your week. In this newsletter:

• A writing prompt to inspire your creativity.
• Reading and listening recommendations in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
• Publishing, residency, and retreat opportunities available now.
• Join our free Monday and Friday write-ins, and meet our community of writers. Note: There will be no Write into the Week Zoom call on Monday, December 22nd. 

Happy writing this week!

—Elle, Curriculum Specialist & Community Manager

Writer to Writer: The Calms and Storms of December

December has a way of holding both stillness and chaos at the same time. Shorter days invite quiet and reflection, while the end of the year often brings its own storms: deadlines, emotions, family dynamics, exhaustion, the pressure to wrap up presents and any lingering bad habits before the calendar turns. Willa Cather’s line comes to mind during weeks like this, “There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.”

Writing lives in that tension, too. Some lessons arrive gently—clarity after rest, insight that comes from slowing down, understanding that only surfaces once the noise fades. Other lessons come through friction: drafts that resist us, weeks when life interrupts our plans, moments when the work feels heavy or uncertain. Neither mode is inherently better; both are teachers.

As the year closes, it’s worth asking not just what have I produced? But, also, what have I learned? What did the calm show you? What did the storms force me to see? Your writing doesn’t need to wrap up or resolve anything this week. It just needs to listen. Turn an ear to what this season, this year, and this version of you are quietly trying to say.

Writing Prompt:

Think back over the past year and identify two creative moments: one that felt calm, and one that felt like a storm.

Write a short piece that moves between these two moments. What did each teach you? What could only be heard in stillness, and what only revealed itself in chaos. Let the writing be exploratory rather than conclusive. This is not about tying things up neatly with a bow, but about noticing the gifts this year has already given you.

Reading Recommendations: Very Short Stories by Famous Writers

• “Give it Up” by Franz Kafka – “Give It Up” distills Kafka’s unsettling worldview into something brief, sharp, and quietly devastating. In just over 100 words, it accomplishes what many longer works fail to do by proving how much unease, ambiguity, and meaning can live inside a very small space.
• “John Redding Goes to Sea” by Zora Neale Hurston – In just a few pages, Hurston turns a boy’s riverbound imagination into a tender tale on longing, limitation, and the moment we begin to understand the distance between dreams and the real world. The story reminds us how much care and beauty can be held in even the smallest journeys (and stories).
• “Sticks” by George Saunders – This well-known piece of flash fiction takes a single, oddly comic image—a metal pole decorated for every conceivable occasion—and turns it into something quietly unsettling. In fewer than 400 words, this piece showcases how flash fiction can use humor and repetition to expose what’s missing as much as what’s on display.

Listening Recommendations:

• From The New Yorker’s The Writer’s Voice podcast: “Andrew Martin Reads, ‘Risk, Discipline’” – Andrew Martin reads his story “Risk, Discipline,” from the December 22, 2025, issue of The New Yorker. Martin is the author of the novel Early Work, and the story collection Cool for America. His new novel, Down Time, from which this story was adapted, will be published in March.
• From The Book Review podcast by the NYT: “What Did 2025 Mean for Books?” – From political tell-alls to the continued triumph of romantasy novels, it’s been an eventful year in the publishing world. Host MJ Franklin talks with his Book Review colleagues Alexandra Alter, Tina Jordan and John Maher about the biggest book stories and most significant reading trends of 2025.

Publishing Opportunities:

• Uncertain Stories – Submission Deadline: January 30, 2026. Now open for short story submissions for their winter submission session. They are looking for previously unpublished short stories of 1,000-15,000 words, with a supernatural or speculative edge. Visit their website for more details!
• The 2026 Colorado Prize for Poetry – Entry Deadline: January 31, 2026. The Colorado Prize for Poetry is an international poetry book manuscript contest established in 1995. Each year’s prizewinner receives a $2,500 honorarium and publication of his or her book by the Center for Literary Publishing. You do NOT have to be a resident of Colorado to enter. 
• Salt Hill Journal – Submission Deadline: January 31, 2026. Accepting salty new poetry, fiction, essay, and art submissions for their next issue. Their submission windows only open twice a year. Submit!
• Seedlings Studio – Submission Window: Open. A unique publishing opportunity! Seedling’s is currently on the hunt for novellas, poetry collections, and more for their new series: Seedlings Pamphlets. Submissions should be 50 pages max, and explore the human relationship to the natural world. Check their Instagram or website for more details. 

Monday and Friday: Free Group Writing Sessions

Come write with us! Community write-ins are a great way to meet other writers, and carve out space in your calendar for your writing.

Monday: Write Into the Week with Elle

Note: There will be no Write into the Week Zoom session on Monday, December 22nd. Join me (Elle) for an hour of mindset support, goal setting, community, and dedicated time to write! We’ll meet on Monday at 11 AM Eastern time, at this Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83999379617

Friday: Open Write-In

Join the Writers.com staff for a 90-minute writing session each Friday from 11 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern time. We will write together for the first hour. In the last, optional half hour, we’ll share our writing with one another and connect.

To add yourself, join our newsletter using the join box above, and add yourself to the “Friday Write-Ins” list at the bottom of any email. We’ll send you a Zoom link the morning of the call.

Join us on Instagram for more writing inspiration!

We’re sharing writing tips, creative prompts, and a steady stream of encouragement—follow us @writersdotcom. Click below to check out one of our latest posts on writing creative nonfiction.

The post Write into the Week: December 21, 2025 appeared first on Writers.com.

“Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad—and see how they do it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out.”
–William Faulkner

Dear Writer,

I hope you’re having a good start to your week. In this newsletter:

• A writing prompt to inspire your creativity.
• Reading and listening recommendations in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
• Publishing, residency, and retreat opportunities available now.
• Join our free Monday and Friday write-ins, and meet our community of writers.

Happy writing this week!

—Elle, Curriculum Specialist & Community Manager

Writer to Writer: Read Everything

I find William Faulkner’s advice to be blunt yet liberating: “Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad—and see how they do it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out.” I love how little preciousness there is in that approach. No handwringing or judgement about taste, or what’s considered “literary.” Just attention, curiosity, and practice.

Reading widely—in and out of the genres in which we write—teaches us things craft books can’t. We learn what holds our interest, where we skim, when a sentence makes us pause, or when a scene loses us entirely. We learn structure by feeling it in our bodies. We learn voice by recognizing when one sounds false. Even “bad” writing is instructive, as it sometimes teaches us exactly what we don’t want to do on the page.

This week, let go of the pressure to curate your reading too carefully. Just read. Read outside your usual lanes. Allow yourself to enjoy things without the need to defend them, and abandon things not holding your interest without guilt. Then write.

Writing Prompt: Read New, Write New

Choose something to read this week that you would normally skip. It could be a genre you don’t usually touch, a publication you never pick up, a poem style you think “isn’t for you,” a news article, a piece of flash, even something you’d secretly roll your eyes at. Read it with openness and curiosity, not judgment.

Then, write something new. Borrow the energy of the piece, not the content: the pacing, the voice, the structure, etc. Let the piece you read give you permission to try something different on the page. See what happens when you write without worrying whether it’s good yet.

Reading Recommendations:

Poetry:

• “Photoshop Techniques” by Grace Mathews – Mathews uses the logic of digital editing to interrogate control and embodiment. The poem quietly destabilizes our sense of agency, asking what happens when we try to select, undo, or soften realities.

Fiction:

• “Process” by Katherine Dunn – In this quiet yet devastating story, a master color mixer spends his life circling a single blank canvas, returning to it again and again as both refuge and torment. “Process” is a precise, unsentimental portrait of devotion, solitude, and the slow, lifelong labor of making something that may never resolve.

Nonfiction:

• “The Heavy Bag” by Amber Wong – In personal essay, Wong traces a lifetime of racialized fear, belonging, and resilience—from childhood taunts to a public act of hate, from a football stadium charged with post-election anxiety to a father teaching his daughter how to strike back.

Listening Recommendations:

• From The Lit Hub podcast: “December 12, 2025” – From Lit Hub: It’s the end of the year! Which means: best-of lists, abounding. Maybe you’ve seen our Favorite Books of 2025 list, or our Best (Old) Books We Read in 2025 list, or the 100 Notable Small Press Books of 2025 list spearheaded by Miriam Gershow? Whether or not you’ve combed the lists, we’ve got some staff here to share some of their favorite reads from 2025 and then a chat with Miriam about putting together this ambitious Small Press list!
• From Adam Walker’s Close Reading Poetry YouTube channel: “The Decline of the English Department” – This video considers what English departments were like during their height and how public readership might recover the ground that English departments lost. As someone who graduated college with an English Literature degree in 2003, I found it rather interesting!

Publishing Opportunities:

• Seedlings Studio – Submission Window: Open. A unique publishing opportunity! Seedling’s is currently on the hunt for novellas, poetry collections, and more for their new series: Seedlings Pamphlets. Submissions should be 50 pages max, and explore the human relationship to the natural world. Check their Instagram or website for more details. 
• Hayden’s Ferry Review – Submission Deadline: December 31, 2025. HFR has extended their submission deadline! Submit now—genres welcome! See their website for more details. 
• Salt Hill Journal – Submission Deadline: January 31, 2026. Accepting salty new poetry, fiction, essay, and art submissions for their next issue. Their submission windows only open twice a year. Submit!

Monday and Friday: Free Group Writing Sessions

Come write with us! Community write-ins are a great way to meet other writers, and carve out space in your calendar for your writing.

Monday: Write Into the Week with Elle

Join me (Elle) for an hour of mindset support, goal setting, community, and dedicated time to write! We’ll meet on Monday at 11 AM Eastern time, at this Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83999379617

Friday: Open Write-In

Join the Writers.com staff for a 90-minute writing session each Friday from 11 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern time. We will write together for the first hour. In the last, optional half hour, we’ll share our writing with one another and connect.

To add yourself, join our newsletter using the join box above, and add yourself to the “Friday Write-Ins” list at the bottom of any email. We’ll send you a Zoom link the morning of the call.

Join us on Instagram for more writing inspiration!

We’re sharing writing tips, creative prompts, and a steady stream of encouragement—follow us @writersdotcom. Click below to check out one of our latest posts on writing creative nonfiction.

The post Write into the Week: December 14, 2025 appeared first on Writers.com.

“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.”
–Joan Didion

Dear Writer,

I hope you’re having a good start to your week. In this newsletter:

• A writing prompt to inspire your creativity.
• Reading and listening recommendations in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
• Publishing, residency, and retreat opportunities available now.
• Join our free Monday and Friday write-ins, and meet our community of writers.

Happy writing this week!

—Elle, Curriculum Specialist & Community Manager

Writer to Writer: The Second Presence

At some point in almost every writing session, a second presence enters the room, and takes a seat. Once it’s comfortable, it usually starts whispering in your ear. It might sound like a teacher you once had, a workshop group, an imagined reader, the publishing industry at large, or a future version of yourself after getting a book deal. Sometimes this presence is helpful. Often, it’s paralyzing.

When we think we’re writing for someone or something else—for approval, for validation, for an imagined audience who may never exist—the work can quietly shift its shape. The sentences read forced and stale. The risks shrink and shrivel, because we’re writing scared. We start performing rather than listening. We start editing before we’ve fully said what we mean.

This week, I challenge you to ask yourself: Who are you actually writing for right now? That voice in your head might not be what your story needs. Sometimes the truest work begins when we gently escort that second presence out of the room, and write instead for the part of ourselves that is curious, earnest, and courageous enough to be messy. The part that writes not to be admired, or published, but to be honest, true, authentic.

Writing Prompt:

For ten minutes, write only to find out what you’re thinking. Don’t plan or think ahead. Don’t try to shape it. You’re not writing to impress, or to share. Begin with the line:

“What I haven’t said yet is…”

Be surprised. Be honest. When you’ve finished, read it back to yourself. Consider how your writing changes when the only person you’re writing for is yourself.

Reading Recommendations:

Poetry:

• Literal Country Music by Samuel Cheney – Cheney, winner of a Pushcart Prize, paints a picture of a home left long ago, develing into the spiritual and physical landscape of a place, including snow cones, breakfast burritos, and a little country music. 

Fiction:

• The Bottlekeepers Society by Alison Schiller – Winner of NYC Midnight’s 2023 Flash Fiction Contest. A young Cajun girl with a secret crosses the swamp to seek help from a mysterious society on the eve of Hurricane Katrina.

Nonfiction:

• The Crane Wife by CJ Hauser – The essay, originally published in The Paris Review, is the foundation of Hauser’s book, a memoir-in-essays, of the same name. A broken an engagement, just days before the wedding, leads to a journey self-discovery by way of the Japanese folktale of the crane wife. 

Listening Recommendations:

• From the Always Take Notes podcast: “#226, Anthony Horowitz, novelist” – In this episode, hosts Simon and Rachel speak to the prolific novelist Anthony Horowitz. Horowitz is the author of the teen spy Alex Rider series, which has sold more than 19 million copies worldwide. 
• From the Memoir Nation podcast “Chris Baty on The Magic of a Goal and a Deadline (JanYourStory Prep)” – Through the month of December, Memoir Nation podcast is hosting a series called JanYourStory Prep to get listeners ready and excited to participate in our January writing challenge to write 500 words a day every day in January.

Publishing Opportunities:

• Electric Literature – Submission Deadline: December 14, 2025. Seeking submissions of full drafts of personal essays between 2,000 to 6,500 words. No formal subject matter restrictions, but preference to those that center narrative and consider what it means to interrogate, investigate, adventure, and introspect within the essay form.
• Hayden’s Ferry Review – Submission Deadline: December 31, 2025. HFR has extended their submission deadline! Submit now—genres welcome! See their website for more details. 
• Salt Hill Journal – Submission Deadline: January 31, 2026. Accepting salty new poetry, fiction, essay, and art submissions for their next issue. Their submission windows only open twice a year. Submit!

Monday and Friday: Free Group Writing Sessions

Come write with us! Community write-ins are a great way to meet other writers, and carve out space in your calendar for your writing.

Monday: Write Into the Week with Elle

Join me (Elle) for an hour of mindset support, goal setting, community, and dedicated time to write! We’ll meet on Monday at 11 AM Eastern time, at this Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83999379617

Friday: Open Write-In

Join the Writers.com staff for a 90-minute writing session each Friday from 11 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern time. We will write together for the first hour. In the last, optional half hour, we’ll share our writing with one another and connect.

To add yourself, join our newsletter using the join box above, and add yourself to the “Friday Write-Ins” list at the bottom of any email. We’ll send you a Zoom link the morning of the call.

Join us on Instagram for more writing inspiration!

We’re sharing writing tips, creative prompts, and a steady stream of encouragement—follow us @writersdotcom. Click below to check out one of our latest posts on writing creative nonfiction.

The post Write into the Week: December 7, 2025 appeared first on Writers.com.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart.”
–Rainer Maria Rilke

Dear Writer,

I hope you’re having a good start to your week. In this newsletter:

• A writing prompt to inspire your creativity.
• Reading and listening recommendations in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
• Publishing, residency, and retreat opportunities available now.
• Join our free Monday and Friday write-ins, and meet our community of writers.

Happy writing this week!

—Elle, Curriculum Specialist & Community Manager

Writer to Writer: The Productive Lull

I tend to be quite hard on myself when it comes to writing and productivity. At times—less rare than I’d like—I call myself names and say negative things about my creative efforts. It’s not usually about what I write, but my lack of writing that brings out this inner critic. Over time, though, I’ve learned that I produce more and better work when I am kinder and gentler with myself. So I try to keep Rilke’s words in mind. I try to “be patient,” gentle, and kind. Above all, I try to give my creative self grace, especially during times of writing droughts and productive lulls—those weeks when nothing seems to move forward in any obvious or meaningful way. The days when the page stays blank, or a pesky draft won’t reveal what it’s becoming.

The end of the year, with its odd mix of short, dark days and holiday festivities, is often a period of creative pause for many writers. We may be tempted to call these stretches unproductive, but I wonder if that word does them a disservice. A lull is not the same as an ending, or quitting. It’s not even the same as a creative block. If your mind goes to those places, try a reframe. Think of productive lulls as a season of possibility and accumulation. It’s a time to fill up on sentences you don’t yet know how to use, questions you aren’t ready to answer, and impressions that haven’t found their shape. Something is happening—just not on a timeline we can measure with word counts or deadlines.

If you’re in one of those spaces right now, you’re not behind. You’re inside the process, even if it doesn’t look the way you expected. Patience, here, isn’t passive. It’s an active kind of listening. The kind that trusts the work to arrive when it’s ready to be met. Just make sure you’re ready when it shows up.

Writing Prompt:

During a productive lull, start a Creative Accumulation List. Let it be a living page where you jot down anything that flickers with even the smallest hint of interest: a sentence you overhear, a strange or profound word you’d like to research later, a line you almost write but don’t yet know what to do with, an image that won’t leave you alone, or a question you don’t yet understand. Don’t shape it. Don’t analyze it. Just let it gather, gather, gather.

Return to this list over the coming days and weeks. Let it grow and blossom until one fragment begins to tug at you more than the rest. Trust that inspiration often arrives not as a rare lightning strike, but as a slow, intentional accumulation that eventually knows when it’s time to become something more.

Reading Recommendations: Substack Edition

Poetry:

• The Rabbit Room – The Rabbit Room Substack is an extension of the publishing house and podcast network of the same name. It began as an experiment in the creative community, and has flourished into a space to read and write great poems.

Fiction:

• The Caffeinated Writer by Michelle Richmond – Richmond is a NYT bestselling author of six novels and two story collections. Her Substack is a mix of writerly inspiration, craft essays, and lessons learned from both her writing and teaching careers. Recent essay topics include: Becoming a writer after the age of 50 and the benefits of a small book advance.

Nonfiction & Poetry:

• Claiming Writerhood by Jessie Petrow-Cohen – This Substack is a wealth of poetry, essays and Petrow-Cohen’s complicated journey of being a writer who is afraid to call herself a writer. I’ve recently enjoyed the essays “Quieter Voices” and “Permanence in the Place We Store Sensation.”

Listening Recommendations:

• From The Lit Hub Podcast: “November 28, 2025 – The Thanksgiving Episode” – A literary episode all about giving thanks to creativity and the arts.
• From The Writer’s Voice Podcast “Joan Silber Reads ‘Safety‘” – Joan Silber reads her story “Safety,” from the December 8, 2025, issue of The New Yorker. A winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, Silber is the author of nine books of fiction, the most recent of which are the novels Mercy and Secrets of Happiness.

Publishing Opportunities:

• Electric Literature – Submission Deadline: December 14, 2025. Seeking submissions of full drafts of personal essays between 2,000 to 6,500 words. No formal subject matter restrictions, but preference to those that center narrative and consider what it means to interrogate, investigate, adventure, and introspect within the essay form.
• Boulevard Literary Magazine’s Short Fiction Contest – Entry Deadline: December 31, 2025. This contest is for emerging writers! Boulevard is accepting submissions of short fiction (up to 8,000 words) from any writer who has not published a nationally distributed book. The winning entry will receive $1,500, and all entrants will receive a print subscription to the magazine.
• Allium, a Journal of Poetry and Prose – Submission Deadline: February 15, 2026. Accepting submissions for poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, for consider for three upcoming issues. They do accept simultaneous submissions.

Residency & Retreat Opportunities:

• The Notre Dame Kylemore Residency by the Irish Writers Centre – Application Deadline: December 10, 2025 – The Irish Writers Centre will hold their third annual partnership with Notre Dame Kylemore. Four writers will be awarded a fully catered, five-day residency opportunity from Monday, March 30 to Friday April 3, 2026 in the beautifully restored Notre Dame Kylemore on the grounds of Kylemore Abbey in Connemara, Co. Galway. Please check the website for eligibility details.

Monday and Friday: Free Group Writing Sessions

Come write with us! Community write-ins are a great way to meet other writers, and carve out space in your calendar for your writing.

Monday: Write Into the Week with Elle

Join me (Elle) for an hour of mindset support, goal setting, community, and dedicated time to write! We’ll meet on Monday at 11 AM Eastern time, at this Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83999379617

Friday: Open Write-In

Join the Writers.com staff for a 90-minute writing session each Friday from 11 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern time. We will write together for the first hour. In the last, optional half hour, we’ll share our writing with one another and connect.

To add yourself, join our newsletter using the join box above, and add yourself to the “Friday Write-Ins” list at the bottom of any email. We’ll send you a Zoom link the morning of the call.

Join us on Instagram for more writing inspiration!

We’re sharing writing tips, creative prompts, and a steady stream of encouragement—follow us @writersdotcom. Click below to check out one of our latest posts on writing creative nonfiction.

The post Write into the Week: November 30, 2025 appeared first on Writers.com.

“Memory is the sense of having been loved.”
–Marilynne Robinson

Dear Writer,

I hope you’re having a good start to your week. In this newsletter:

• A writing prompt to inspire your creativity.
• Reading and listening recommendations in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
• Publishing, residency, and retreat opportunities available now.
• Join our free Monday and Friday write-ins, and meet our community of writers.

Happy writing this week!

—Elle, Curriculum Specialist & Community Manager

Writer to Writer: Thanksgiving Family Histories

Thanksgiving week has a way of stirring up stories we didn’t plan to tell, or possibly even remember. Whether your holiday is full of family, a friendsgiving, or a solo weekend with takeout and a good book, this time of year tends to loosen things up in our hearts and minds. Old rituals resurface, past versions of ourselves come to the table, and we might slip right back into our familiar roles without realizing it. And sometimes we notice the moment that role no longer fits.

Holidays provide such rich narrative ground because they compress time. The past and present crowd into the same room, along with your extended family and old friends. The way someone carves the turkey, the chair an aunt refuses to sit in, the joke everyone laughs at except the person it’s really about—these tiny things hold so much story. They can reveal longstanding tensions, deep-rooted love, unspoken grief, or unexpected joy. They remind us that family (biological or chosen) is one of the oldest story structures we have: full of patterns, conflicts, traditions, and inheritances.

This week, pay attention to the small details—the objects, gestures, and pauses that belong only to you and your people. Look closely at the things you’ve observed since you were young, and the ones you’re only now learning to see. There’s material everywhere, and not because it’s dramatic, but because it’s real and true.

Writing Prompt:

Write a scene or poem set during a Thanksgiving—real, remembered, or imagined—where something small shifts and tilts the room. It doesn’t have to be dramatic. Actually, let it be ordinary. Consider the way someone sets a table, a comment mumbled under the breath, a glance held a beat too long between in-laws, a tension no one will talk about, or a person missing from dinner.

Use that small change as the scene’s hinge. What does it stir? What tension does it expose? What tenderness does it reveal? Follow the ripple of emotions as they move through the room. 

Let the focus be on this quiet turning point, the moment when a family story (or a personal one) shifts. What happens next? 

Reading Recommendations: Thanksgiving Edition

Read how different writers in different genres write about the holiday and season. Some happy, some sad, lots of nostalgia, and, of course, food!

• “Thanksgiving” by Edgar Albert Guest
• “The Thanksgiving Visitor” by Truman Capote
• “Thanksgiving for Two” by Marjorie Saiser
• “My Friendsgiving isn’t a Trend. It’s a Lifeline.” by Sandy Allen
• “Yam” by Bruce Guernsey
• “How Adulthood Changed My Thanksgiving & Me With It” by Emma Chiffriller
• “The Pumpkin” by John Greenleaf Whittier
• “The Stories We Tell Ourselves Over Thanksgiving” by Sarah Chandler

Listening Recommendations:

• From Poetry Off the Shelf Podcast: “In the Middle of Dinner” – This short episode is filled with poems of food and family, tenderness and Thanksgiving.
• From the Storybound Podcast “Ruth Reichl Reads a Thanksgiving Story” – Legendary food writer Ruth Reichl shares a series of warm, funny, deeply human Thanksgiving stories. Whether your plans look familiar or entirely different this year, her voice offers comfort and good company while you chop onions. 

Publishing Opportunities:

• Variant Literature – Entry Deadline: December 4, 2025. Accepting submissions of poetry, flash prose, and fiction for their Winter 2026 edition. Less than two weeks left! 
• Boulevard Literary Magazine’s Short Fiction Contest – Entry Deadline: December 31, 2025. This contest is for emerging writers! Boulevard is accepting submissions of short fiction (up to 8,000 words) from any writer who has not published a nationally distributed book. The winning entry will receive $1,500, and all entrants will receive a print subscription to the magazine.
• Allium, a Journal of Poetry and Prose – Submission Deadline: February 15, 2026. Accepting submissions for poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, for consider for three upcoming issues. They do accept simultaneous submissions. 

Residency & Retreat Opportunities: 

• The Summer Conference at the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing (MVICW) – Submission Deadline: January 19, 2026 – Option to apply to one of two one-week long creative writing intensives. From their website: MVICW brings together writers from around the world with the central belief that we can all learn from one another. Our program offers week-long classes on the craft of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction, evening readings, panel discussions, and individualized manuscript sessions. Attendees study with award-winning Visiting Authors & Poets and celebrate writing on the beautiful island of Martha’s Vineyard. 

Monday and Friday: Free Group Writing Sessions

Come write with us! Community write-ins are a great way to meet other writers, and carve out space in your calendar for your writing.

Monday: Write Into the Week with Elle

Join me (Elle) for an hour of mindset support, goal setting, community, and dedicated time to write! We’ll meet on Monday at 11 AM Eastern time, at this Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83999379617

Friday: Open Write-In

Join the Writers.com staff for a 90-minute writing session each Friday from 11 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern time. We will write together for the first hour. In the last, optional half hour, we’ll share our writing with one another and connect.

To add yourself, join our newsletter using the join box above, and add yourself to the “Friday Write-Ins” list at the bottom of any email. We’ll send you a Zoom link the morning of the call.

Join us on Instagram for more writing inspiration!

We’re sharing writing tips, creative prompts, and a steady stream of encouragement—follow us @writersdotcom. Click below to check out one of our latest posts on writing creative nonfiction.

The post Write into the Week: November 23, 2025 appeared first on Writers.com.

“I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.”
–W. Somerset Maugham

Dear Writer,

I hope you’re having a good start to your week. In this newsletter:

• A writing prompt to inspire your creativity.
• Reading and listening recommendations in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
• Publishing, residency, and retreat opportunities available now.
• Join our free Monday and Friday write-ins, and meet our community of writers.

Happy writing this week!

—Elle, Curriculum Specialist & Community Manager

Writer to Writer: Weather Patterns of Inspiration

I adore the sly humor of “I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp,” by W. Somerset Maugham. It’s a twisted reminder that waiting for inspiration is a luxury few writers can afford. We tend to imagine writing as lightning strikes of inspiration, but, more often, it’s a slow drizzle of self-doubt. If we want writing to be more than just an occasional shock of thunder, we must create the ideal writing weather conditions ourselves: a routine climate of showing up, of sitting in the chair, at devoted times, so that when inspiration does arrive, it knows where to find us.

I understand that some days, the words will feel flat, forced and terribly shitty—but that won’t be every day, not if you show up for your creativity consistently enough. Other days, the words will surprise, delight and reward you. It’s the act of beginning and returning makes the difference. The routine isn’t the enemy of inspiration; it’s the doorway to it.

So this week, don’t wait for the muse to call. Instead, put your phone and life on mute. Pick your hour, sit down, and make it easy for creativity to find you.

Writing Prompt:

Pick a specific time today—or sometime this week—and treat it as your inspiration appointment. Sit down for ten minutes and write whatever comes up, even if it feels dull, messy or reluctant at first. Don’t show up with preconceived notions of what you’ll write. Let the act of showing up be the point, and the words that follow be the gift. 

If you enjoy the experience, set up 2-3 inspiration appointments with yourself for next week. Keep adding to help gently build a creative routine. 

Reading Recommendations:

On Craft:

• “Jen Percy on the Subversive Possibilities of Structure” by Jen Percy. In this craft essay, Percy explores how structure can become an act of resistance. It’s a powerful reminder that form doesn’t just shape a story; sometimes it is the story.

On Reading:

• “The Joy of Reading Slowly” by Laura Spence-Ash. In this gorgeous personal essay, Spence-Ash explores how learning to read slowly revived her love of books, deepened her craft, and helped her reclaim a joy in details she’d lost in the distracting chaos of modern life.

On The Nature of Creativity:

• “Against the Cartesian Myth of Work/Life Balance: André Gregory’s Extraordinary Letter to Richard Avedon about the Nature of Creativity” by Maria Popova. This beautiful Marginalian piece traces André Gregory’s extraordinary letter to Richard Avedon. The letter is a moving exploration of how creativity blurs the line between life and work. It’s am oft needed reminder that the art we make is inseparable from the lives we live.

Listening Recommendations:

• From Always Take Notes Podcast: “#225: Susan Choi, novelist” – Hosts Rachel and Simon speak to American novelist Susan Choi. Susan is the author of six novels, including American Woman, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and Trust Exercise, which won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2019. Her latest novel, Flashlight was shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize.
• From The New Yorker The Writer’s Voice Podcast “Paul Yoon Reads ‘The New Coast’” – Paul Yoon reads his story “The New Coast.” Yoon is the author of five books of fiction, including the novel Run Me to Earth, and the story collection The Hive and the Honey.

Publishing Opportunities:

• Allium, a Journal of Poetry and Prose– Submission Deadline: February 15, 2026. Accepting submissions for poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, for consider for three upcoming issues. They do accept simultaneous submissions. 
• Boulevard Literary Magazine’s Short Fiction Contest – Entry Deadline: December 31, 2025. This contest is for emerging writers! Boulevard is accepting submissions of short fiction (up to 8,000 words) from any writer who has not published a nationally distributed book. The winning entry will receive $1,500, and all entrants will receive a print subscription to the magazine. 

Monday and Friday: Free Group Writing Sessions

Come write with us! Community write-ins are a great way to meet other writers, and carve out space in your calendar for your writing.

Monday: Write Into the Week with Elle

Join me (Elle) for an hour of mindset support, goal setting, community, and dedicated time to write! We’ll meet on Monday at 11 AM Eastern time, at this Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83999379617

Friday: Open Write-In

Join the Writers.com staff for a 90-minute writing session each Friday from 11 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern time. We will write together for the first hour. In the last, optional half hour, we’ll share our writing with one another and connect.

To add yourself, join our newsletter using the join box above, and add yourself to the “Friday Write-Ins” list at the bottom of any email. We’ll send you a Zoom link the morning of the call.

Join us on Instagram for more writing inspiration!

We’re sharing writing tips, creative prompts, and a steady stream of encouragement—follow us @writersdotcom. Click below to check out one of our latest posts on writing creative nonfiction.

The post Write into the Week: November 16, 2025 appeared first on Writers.com.

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

Dear Writer,

I hope you’re having a good start to your week. In this newsletter:

• A writing prompt to inspire your creativity.
• Reading and listening recommendations in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
• Publishing, residency, and retreat opportunities available now.
• Join our free Monday and Friday write-ins, and meet our community of writers.
• Note: There will be no Monday writing sessions on October 27 or November 3. We will resume our meetings on Monday, November 10th. 

Happy writing this week!

—Elle, Curriculum Specialist & Community Manager

Writer to Writer: Be Astonished

Mary Oliver’s line is almost a craft manifesto: Observation → Emotion → Expression.

That’s the movement of a scene. The arc of a poem. The shape of a story. What do I mean? Consider: first, something catches our attention. Then, we feel the spark of connection. Only after that can we put it into words.

If the writing feels flat, maybe the attention or astonishment got skipped. Go back. Look again. 

I like how Mary Oliver makes writing sound both easy and daring. On the one hand, she pushes you to notice the mundane, like the way your coffee steams like a tiny weather system. On the other, she tells you to be astonished—which requires being open enough to actually feel something.

Then comes the brave part: telling about it. (Notice how she doesn’t say: write something brilliant, impress the critics, or worry about whether it’s been done before. Just saying!)

This week, try collecting astonishments, both big and small. A single sentence in your notebook counts. Let astonishment be the start of something.

Writing Prompt:

Write about a small moment that made you feel something. Maybe it’s good, bad, happy or sad. It could spark curiosity, delight, longing, ache—even if you’re not sure why. Stay close to the sensory details. Let the emotion reveal itself slowly, if at all.

Reading Recommendations:

Fiction:

• “Audition” by Kate Kitamura. Recently short-listed for The Booker Prize, and a recent favorite read of mine. Audition is an experiment of the novel form. It’s told in two gripping, interwoven narratives that will have you questioning what’s really going on. 

Poetry:

• “Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World” by Pádraig Ó Tuama. This thoughtful anthology brings together fifty striking poems alongside Pádraig Ó Tuama’s generous and conversational reflections. He guides readers through each poem’s craft, and invites us to consider how its meaning might shift something in our own lives.

Nonfiction:

• “The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions” by Jonathan Rosen. In this heartbreaking and brilliant memoir, Rosen traces the rise and fall of his childhood friend, whose descent into psychosis becomes a searing inquiry into genius and mental illness.

Listening Recommendations:

• From Poetry Off the Shelf Podcast: “We Dream of Each Other” – Poet Kay Gabriel speaks on embarrassment, labor organizing, and the discipline of hope. 
• From The Moth Podcast “Fatherhood: The Moth Radio Hour” – In this hour, stories about fathers and how they show up for their kids. As support systems and sounding boards, buddies and bear huggers. This episode is hosted by Roy Wood Jr.

Publishing Opportunities:

• The Baltimore Review – Submission Deadline: November 30, 2025. Open call for poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction submissions. As most of their submissions come in at the last minute, they ask that you submit early, if possible!
• The Florida Review’s Jeanne Leiby Chapbook Award – Submission Deadline: January 7, 2026. A unique publication opportunity! Each year, The Florida Review honors former editor Jeanne Leiby with the publication of a prose or graphic narrative chapbook. (Note: This is not open to poetry chapbooks.) More details on their site. 

Residency & Retreat Opportunities: 

• The Philip Roth Residence in Creative Writing – Application Deadline: February 1, 2026. Currently accepting applications for residencies in fall 2026 and spring 2027. A unique offering! This residence offers up to four months of unfettered writing time for a writer working on a first or second book in ANY literary genre (poetry, nonfiction, fiction, hybrid works, graphic fiction, etc.) Accepted residents are provided lodging and a stipend of $5,000.

Monday and Friday: Free Group Writing Sessions

Come write with us! Community write-ins are a great way to meet other writers, and carve out space in your calendar for your writing.

Monday: Write Into the Week with Elle

Note: There will be no Monday writing sessions on October 27 or November 3. We will resume our meetings on Monday, November 10th.

Join me (Elle) for an hour of mindset support, goal setting, community, and dedicated time to write! We’ll meet on Monday at 11 AM Eastern time, at this Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83999379617

Friday: Open Write-In

Join the Writers.com staff for a 90-minute writing session each Friday from 11 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern time. We will write together for the first hour. In the last, optional half hour, we’ll share our writing with one another and connect.

To add yourself, join our newsletter using the join box above, and add yourself to the “Friday Write-Ins” list at the bottom of any email. We’ll send you a Zoom link the morning of the call.

Join us on Instagram for more writing inspiration!

We’re sharing writing tips, creative prompts, and a steady stream of encouragement—follow us @writersdotcom. Click below to check out one of our latest posts on writing creative nonfiction.

The post Write into the Week: November 2, 2025 appeared first on Writers.com.

“The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions hidden by the answers.”
–James Baldwin

Dear Writer,

I hope you’re having a good start to your week. In this newsletter:

• A writing prompt to inspire your creativity.
• Reading and listening recommendations in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
• Publishing, residency, and retreat opportunities available now.
• Join our free Monday and Friday write-ins, and meet our community of writers.
• There will be no Monday writing sessions on October 27 or November 3. We will resume our meetings on Monday, November 10th. 

Happy writing this week!

—Elle, Curriculum Specialist & Community Manager

Writer to Writer: No Answers Required

The opening quote by James Baldwin, “The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions hidden by the answers,” hits me deep in my creative feels.

Because what if that’s the work, right there—not solving anything, but peeling back what we’ve been told is already figured out? A story that refuses resolution. A character who doesn’t know why they do what they do. A narrator who keeps circling the same question because it won’t stop tugging at them.

What if the unfinished thought is the point? What if the uncertainty is the truth?

Sometimes I catch myself trying to tie my writing into a bow before it ever gets messy. I try to fix the chaos before it actually becomes chaotic. I hold back. Baldwin’s quote is a reminder to all of us that the mess is where the real honesty lives. This week, let the questions stay loud. Answers are not required.

Writing Prompt:

Write a scene, poem or short piece powered by longing—but not a longing that can be easily named. Maybe, your character or narrator aches for something they can’t quite define. A place that doesn’t exist. A version of themselves they’ve never met. A connection they’ve only ever imagined.

Let that unnamed desire shape every gesture, word, or moment of silence. Don’t explain it; let the longing speak for itself.

Reading Recommendations:

Get to Know James Baldwin:

• From The Poetry Foundation “James Baldwin” Learn more about this week’s inspiration, James Baldwin. He was an American novelist, essayist, and social critic whose works, including Go Tell It on the Mountain and The Fire Next Time, illuminated the intersections of race, sexuality, and identity with profound clarity and moral courage.

Baldwin on The Creative Process:

• “The Creative Process” by James Baldwin. In this powerful essay, Baldwin argues that the artist must brave solitude, and blaze trails through inner wilderness so that society’s truths, which are usually hidden, may be revealed to us all.

Baldwin on Shakespeare:

• “Why I Stopped Hating Shakespeare” by James Baldwin. Baldwin writes about the evolution of his feelings toward William Shakespeare. Like many, Baldwin didn’t understand the point of reading Shakespeare, and grew to hate the experience. Then, it all changed. (Scroll down a bit on the page to get to the essay!)

Listening Recommendations:

• From The New Yorker Fiction Podcast: “Edwidge Danticat Reads Zadie Smith” – Edwidge Danticat joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Two Men Arrive in a Village,” by Zadie Smith, which was published in The New Yorker in 2016. Danticat, a MacArthur Fellow and a winner of the Vilcek Prize in Literature, has published six books of fiction.
• From Freelance Writing Direct Podcast: “#161 From Nonfiction to Paranormal Women’s Fiction: Genre-Switching and the Freedom of Self-Publishing with Olga Mecking” – Can nonfiction writers reinvent themselves as novelists? Niksen author Olga Mecking proves it’s possible—with a new series that blends Dutch folklore, female power, and the freedom of self-publishing.

Publishing Opportunities:

• The Denver Quarterly – Submission Deadline: November 5, 2025. Currently open for poetry and prose submissions. Visit their website for more details. 
• Oxford American – Submission Deadline: November 15, 2025. Currently seeking pitches for their upcoming Spring 2026 food issue. They’re “looking for stories that explore how food preserves a legacy, crosses borders, and creates connection.”

Friday: Free Group Writing Session

Come write with us! Community write-ins are a great way to meet other writers, and carve out space in your calendar for your writing.

Note: There will be no Monday writing sessions on October 27 or November 3. We will resume our meetings on Monday, November 10th. 

Friday: Open Write-In

Join the Writers.com staff for a 90-minute writing session each Friday from 11 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern time. We will write together for the first hour. In the last, optional half hour, we’ll share our writing with one another and connect.

To add yourself, join our newsletter using the join box above, and add yourself to the “Friday Write-Ins” list at the bottom of any email. We’ll send you a Zoom link the morning of the call.

Join us on Instagram for more writing inspiration!

We’re sharing writing tips, creative prompts, and a steady stream of encouragement—follow us @writersdotcom. Click below to check out one of our latest posts on writing creative nonfiction.

The post Write into the Week: October 26, 2025 appeared first on Writers.com.