October 23, 2025

Baltimore Review News: The last meeting of the current batch of BR staff meetings is tomorrow at noon. We’ve been spending most of the meeting times reviewing contest submissions, which is fairly easy to do with prose poems and flash-length fiction and creative nonfiction—although sometimes we can have some long, lively discussions about these literary forms in general as well as particular submissions. But we have to stay on track and keep up with these; we know that many will come in right around the deadline. (I’m a procrastinator myself, so I understand.) And we want to get a group of finalists to the final contest judge, Mandy Moe Pwint Tu, soon after the deadline, since the winners will be included in our winter issue.

The next nomination deadlines on my calendar are for Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and Pushcart. I also think we’ll have a nominee for the Pen Dau prize this year; that one’s for a work of debut fiction.

On a personal note: I had a conference session proposal and a course proposal accepted for 2026. One in-person and one Zoom. The emphasis for both is generating raw material to work with, nurturing the creative process in a playful way, without ignoring elements of the writing craft and publishing advice. Maybe a lot? I’ll make it work.

And I’m happy to be writing again and not obsessively staring at my Submittable submission statuses, which is about as much fun as watching water boil, only a lot slower. Maybe a little slower than my writing pace. But yes, I’m writing, bouncing between three pieces, and it feels wonderful.