Upcoming deadline:

It's not too late to give a meaningful gift to the readers and writers in your life.

  • Fiction Open: 1st place $2,500 and publication. Deadline: 1/2. (The New Writer Award grace period ends on 12/7.)

  • NOTE: This will be the last Fiction Open until next spring. (The 2016 submission calendar will be announced in January.)
  • Open to all writers, all subjects, and all themes.
  • The 1st-place winner will be published in Issue 99 and will receive 10 copies of that issue. Second- and 3rd-places will win, respectively, $1,000 and $600 (or, if published, $700). Writing Guidelines
  • Winners and finalists will be announced in the March 1 bulletin, and contacted directly the previous week.
  • Most Fiction Open submissions run 3,000 - 8,000 words, but can be as long as 20,000.
  • Do not be afraid to tell the truth. The reader will understand the risk you've taken, and be appreciative. And you will grow as a writer and a person.—Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, interviewed by Teresa Burns Gunther
Essays in this bulletin:
S.P. MacIntyre: There are no "rules" to writing except those you set for yourself. Writers, I've learned, hone their art both through practice and by internalizing meaningful snippets of insight. We look to others, and we look in ourselves. (read more)
Melanie Bishop: She says even when you feel you're on a roll, and don't WANT a break, when that timer rings you must force yourself to stop. She says good things always come after the break. And besides, it's not good to sit stagnant in one position for hours on end. (read more)

Results of the September Family Matters Award

Winners have been contacted, as have the Top 25 and Honorable Mentions. Our thanks to all of you for letting us read your work—what an extraordinary and moving batch of stories!

  • 1st place goes to S.P. MacIntyre for "Pinch," which will appear in Issue 98.
  • 2nd place goes to Christopher Bundy for "80,000,000."
  • 3rd place goes to D.C. Lambert for "That Your Reality Is the Only Reality."
Feel free to forward this bulletin to your writer friends. As you know, the bulletin is free and meant to inform and to promote writers. (We never share your info.) People can sign up for bulletins themselves here. Missed a bulletin? They're archived here.
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Sisters and Editors
Discovering, publishing, and paying emerging writers since 1990.
  • One of the most respected short-story journals in print, Glimmer Train is represented in recent editions of the Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, New Stories from the Midwest, The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, New Stories from the South, Best American Mystery Stories, Best of the West, and Best American Short Stories
  • Every story published in Glimmer Train is unsolicited. And every year, we pay out over $50,000 to fiction writers.