October 17, 2026

Baltimore Review News:

We’re working on getting the fall 2026 issue together, which I’d like to publish before the end of this month. This one will include a special Maryland Writers section. I think we’re pretty much set there, and we have a decent number of poems, but we’re still combing the submissions for fiction and creative nonfiction for well-crafted work. I can’t emphasize thorough proofreading enough; reading your work aloud is a great way to catch errors of all kinds—if you’re paying close attention to each word and listening, not just for grammatical errors and the like, but for logical errors. I’m reading sentences that simply don’t make sense. Hoping this isn’t due to writers relying on AI. Writing is more than having a cool idea. Writing means doing the hard work of learning the craft of writing, of understanding language, and being familiar with all the boring nuts and bolts of writing with clarity in order to communicate with others. To get that cool idea out of your head so that others, well, get it.

Even the best of us can get sloppy about proofreading. How many times have we noticed errors after submitting? I think we all need to slow down. Me too.

And endings: So important. For every genre. 

OK. Off my soapbox.

We opened our contest categories on October 1: prose poems, flash fiction, creative nonfiction. Those categories will close along with our non-contest categories on November 30.

Submissions received in all categories since we opened on August 1: 3,795

And upcoming events:

The Eastern Shore Writers Association Holiday Book Festival on Saturday, November 7, 12:00-4:00 p.m. at Cult Classic Brewing.

The Baltimore Writers’ Conference on Saturday, November 14, at Towson University.

We’ll have tables at both of these. I’ll be participating in the quick critiques, too.

On a personal note:

I’m still participating in the Poets & Writers generative writing sessions on Mondays, along with any other generative workshops (free and cheap) that pop up. I do need these to give me a kick in the pants.

And then there are the random poems and short-short stories that seem to come out of nowhere. The little mysteries. Gifts from the universe.

A new literary journal in Canada, Meanwhile, accepted two of my flash fictions recently, and The Dolomite Review accepted a poem. So that was encouraging. Onward!