Upcoming deadline:

Blanche and son George, Jr., 1946
  • Family Matters: 1st place $1,500 and publication in Issue 98. Deadline: 9/30. (The New Writer Award grace period ends 9/7.)

  • Second- and 3rd-place winners receive $500/$300, respectively, or, if accepted for publication, $700.
  • Winners and finalists will be announced in the December 1 bulletin, and contacted directly the previous week.
  • We're looking for stories about families of all configurations. Most submissions run 1,500 - 6,000 words, but stories as long as 12,000 words are welcome. Writing Guidelines
  • Note from the editors on Family Matters.

There are certain people in our lives, for instance, who can say just a few words—I love you, I hate you, I'm mad at you, you've disappointed me—that suddenly cause the chemistry in our bodies to change. It makes our heart race. Literally the words can change us at the chemical level.—Ben Marcus, interviewed by David Naimon

Essays in this bulletin:
Carmiel Banasky: This also translates to character writing: in my new book, my characters are more accessible to me, though no less complex. I find I write with more joy. (read more)
Caleb Leisure: I don't really have narratives about becoming a writer; I have narratives about almost not becoming a writer. I had been writing Seriously for some time, had passed through a blissful phase of creative naiveté, and was in a place of real discouragement and doubt. (read more)
Siamak Vossoughi: But it's a funny thing. That loneliness is the start of your own vision. It is the moment when you see that the people on the street depend on you for the recognition of their humanity. There are no shortcuts to it. (read more)

Results of the June Fiction Open

Winners and finalists have been notified, the Top 25 list is posted, and here are the Honorable Mentions. (A note about who wins.) Our thanks to all of you for letting us read your stories!

  • 1st place goes to Caleb Leisure for "Atlantic on Sunday."
  • 2nd place goes to Steven Polansky for "Obsequies."
  • 3rd place goes to Andrew Robinson for "Greater Love."

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.

Looking forward, Follow glimmertrain on Twitter

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.