September 18, 2025
Baltimore Review News: We closed the special micro category in Submittable on September 14. A total of 563 micro submissions in a two-week period. Wow. A lot. But every submission has been read by at least one editor. BR staff members met again on September 15 to discuss the micros. So far, we’ve accepted three, and I’ll make final selections soon. We’re sticking with our plan to have decisions (accepts and declines) on these made by September 30. I’ve also sent acceptance emails for a few works in other categories, but I still have work to do so that we publish a fall issue in mid-October.
Everything went well at the Baltimore Book Festival. We sold a good number of books, hugged some old friends, and introduced the journal to new writers and readers. Of course, I played writing games with festival goers and gave out lots of pens. The chocolate candy didn’t fare well in the warm tent. OK, the M&Ms held up.
One of the writers who passed by the BR table: Moira Egan, a BR contributor from 2012! Here’s a prompt based on her work; this is included in the “65 Writing Prompts and Tips” pdf we send to submitters when they donate $5:
When you think of Shakespearean sonnets, you probably don’t think of subjects like menopause or expect Rush Limbaugh to make an appearance. These two sonnets, “Hot Flash Sonnets” and “Sisters in Sweat Sonnet,” by Moira Egan follow the traditional abba, cdcd, efef, gg rhyme scheme of the Shakespearean sonnet. However, the first poem has the octave and sestet stanzas of the Petrarchan sonnet, and the stanzas of the second are modified to accommodate an aside to the reader in the middle. And if you’re going to write about hot flashes in this dignified form, well, why not meddle with the form? If you haven’t given the sonnet form a try lately, read some contemporary examples and go for it. Take some liberties if the poem calls for them.
On a personal note: One of my own micros was accepted by Tiny Molecules yesterday. Super pleased about that. Now I’m working on a longer flash piece (sort of an oxymoron?) using a 5-sentence structure that I learned in a One Story workshop years ago. Basically, setting up the scaffolding for a story with set-up, propelling event, escalation, climax, and resolution sentences. I always end up breaking the exercise rules—but what does it matter as long as you end up with a story, right? Prompts. Constraints. All devices to launch the imagination and give your work some structure. Whatever works.