A UK submission schedule for the rest of 2017

The second half of the year seems to have fewer competition and magazine-window opportunities for me. Here they are -

• July -
  • 1st-31st - Magma ("Europe" issue) window (poetry)
• August -
  • 1st - Into the void window opens (poetry and prose)
  • 1st-1st October - Ambit (poetry) window
  • 31st - Neon window closes (prefers darker pieces, especially those with an element of the surreal or speculative). Theme - “The Apocalypse” (poetry and prose)
  • 31st - Flash Frontier deadline for max 250 words on Trees
• September -
  • 1st - Litro deadline "After dark, after hours" (prose)
  • 1st-1st October - Ambit (prose) window
  • 25th - HU Submission deadline
  • 30th - Magma deadline (poetry)
• October -
  • 1st-31st - Interpreter's House window (poetry and prose)
  • 1st-31st - Envoi window (poetry)
  • 1st-31st - Under the Radar window(poetry and prose)
  • 13th - The Mick Imlah Poetry Prize (TLS) deadline.
  • 16th - Walter Swan Short Story Prize deadline. Max 2000 words. 1st prize £200. Entry fee £3. 20 stories will be anthologised.
  • 31st - National Poetry Competition deadline
  • 31st - Bare Fiction competition deadline (poetry, flash, stories)
  • 31st - The Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction. 1st prize £500. Theme - Cafe Stories (2,000-6000 words). Free entry.
  • 31st - Indigo Dreams pamphlet competition deadline
  • 31st - Cambridge Short Story Prize deadline 1st prize 1000. Entry fee 8. 1,500 – 3,000 words. Anthology publication for the winners and shortlisted writers.
• November -
  • 1st - Commonwealth Short Story Prize (free) deadline
  • 5th - Shooter ("New Life" issue) deadline
  • 30th - Cinnamon debut poetry collection prize deadline
  • 30th - Cafe Writers poetry competition deadline (1st prize 1000. Entry fee 4)

New Walk magazine closes

After 14 issues the UK poetry and prose magazine "New Walk" is shutting down. Instead they'll produce poetry pamphlets - see https://newwalkmagazine.com/purchase-submit.

Reading stories online

There are some easy-to-dip-into magazines online if you like reading stories that are up to 1000 words long and not too literary. The author bios are online too, so you can be selective. Here are a few to choose from

• Spelk (3 a week)
• The Story Shack (weekly)
• Everyday fiction (daily)
• SmokeLong Quarterly (weekly)
• Flash Fiction Press
• Jellyfish Review

Of course, you can send them stories too - some of them pay. And you can often leave comments about the pieces. The emergence of Flash has led some magazines to specify minimum word-lengths. The following readable sites have pieces longer than 500 words -

• Literally Stories
• Fictive Dreams

Writers and families

You can prove anything with statistics. By looking at this graph see if you can deduce when I got married, when the first child became independent, and when they both became independent.

Another UK prose magazine bites the dust

After 10 issues, "Short Fiction" is no longer going to appear in print. "Metropolitan" (another prose-only, non-genre magazine) ceased in 1998. "Panurge" closed in 1993. "Riptide journal" and "Unthology" are still going, and so is "Granta" (though that takes poetry as well now).

Simple economics works against printed story magazines. Understandably, people are more likely to subscribe to magazines that they're likely to appear in. During its decade of existence , "Short Fiction" published only 120 stories. In contrast the latest issue of "The North" published 173 poems by 84 poets.

The increasing popularity of Flash fiction has helped prose magazines survive - more authors per issue! "Flash" is still being published. And genre magazines (SF, etc) continue to live a charmed life.

Writers' and Artists' sheds

Many writers and artists like to work in their garden. The Guardian had a Best writers' sheds feature (Americans seem to prefer writing huts in the wilderness). Here are some that I've seen.
Roald Dahl's cubby hole at Great Missenden (with me sitting in it). He liked wedging himself in.

Henry Moore's summer house at Perry Green, which I visited last weekend. Nearby he had various studios and barns to work in. This shed was nearest his house.

Henry Moore's chair in his summer house. Looks like he also wedged himself in.

The studio of a friend's late husband - a geosodic dome to let in as much light as possible. At Perry Green, Henry Moore's "Plastic Studio" was like a partially built greenhouse.

GB Shaw's shed at Shaw's Corner, Ayot St Lawrence - it could be rotated so that the light was right.

In the magazines

I'm in the current issues of the paper publications "Envoi", "Acumen" (a letter), and "Unthology" and am due out in the forthcoming issues of "Interpreter's House", "Cake" and "Flash". Online I'm in the current "Firefly" and I'm due out in "Spelk" and "Ink, Sweat & Tears". 10 acceptances so far this year.

I'm not used to such exposure. I did my market research at the start of the year (A UK prose submission schedule for early 2017, etc) so I've been able to keep a minimum of 20 submissions in circulation, resending rejected pieces out quickly. And I've not wasted time sending to the growing list of magazines that I realise I've next to no chance of being in.