September 7, 2026

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Baltimore Review News:

Copies of The Baltimore Review 2026, the print compilation of all work published in the summer and fall 2025 and winter and spring 2026 issues, have been ordered for all 68 contributors. I know that some have been received. The remainder should arrive soon. I hope that the book deliveries bring a moment of joy to all these fine writers!

To honor our local roots, we’ll include a special Maryland Writers section in the fall issue. The Submittable category for that opened on September 1 and will close on September 30. Fingers crossed we’ll received some amazing short stories, creative nonfiction, and poems from the locals.

Along with our reader panel at the Baltimore Book Festival, we’ll have a table with BR books and fun stuff—and we love to chat with festival-goers. If you attend the festival, be sure to stop by and say hello.

I ordered this cool prize wheel for the festival, and I can’t wait to write on it with the dry erase marker. Guess I’m just a kid at heart.

On a personal note:

I’ve been using timed sessions to work through BR submissions, and the pressure of timed sessions really does wonders for my productivity. For my own creative process, too. Sometimes these writing bursts result in raw material worth considering, worth revising and polishing. I’ve been setting the timer for 25 minutes, but I’ll experiment with different times for different purposes. A lot of generative workshops—including the BR’s, use 5-15 minutes. I’m guessing the pressure is more of a factor than the number of minutes, at least within a certain range. And definitely a way to avoid the distraction of social media.

And I should play with some writing games I’ve created for others, and some I bought to play with festival attendees. Writing should be fun. Right?

I’ll give these a try and write about how it worked.