I'm so excited to share that my article about the volunteers and recipients of the Stone County Community Food Ministry appears in this issue.
I am so grateful to Oxford American for publishing work about food insecurity and for their editorial guidance. Can't wait for my copy to come in!
Wow, first story I’ve written in over a year. Thank you @psmokejournal.bsky.social for giving this a home and giving me some hope 🌱
suuuuuuuuuper excited to be a featured poet in the latest issue of @thedodgemag.bsky.social! Check out my new poems! thedodgemag.com/spring-2026-...
New poem from me!!!!!!! Death!! Loquaciousness!! Phone calls!! Walmarts in the afterlife!!!!
I really love this prose hybrid piece...we worked on it for YEARS! It's a hermit crab form, multi-genre, weird, witchy and very Appalachian.
flight-literary.ghost.io/ben-kline-ho...
Congratulations to our amazing Editor-in-Chief @barbaralockmd.bsky.social!
An image of page 144 of the literary magazine Ploughshares, Vol. 52, No. 1, announcing Barbara Lock as the winner of the Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction.
Many thanks to Alice Hoffman and the editors @pshares.bsky.social for seeing the beauty and peril in my story, "Keep You Safe," winner of the
Here’s my first April 30/30 prompt:
“Deconstructed Fable”
Write a poem in which every day you receive some fragment of a fable. A red cloak, the huntsman’s ax, a grandmother’s spectacles, etc. Write the poem in such a way that “solving” this fable directs you to return to your childhood home.
Photo of plum blossoms against a blue sky with Variant logo and text "flash prose and poetry"
Flash prose/micro series and poetry subs for our summer issue close tomorrow! ☀️
variantlit.submittable.com/submit
Todd Dillard “Will-o’-the-Wisps” The children are turning into deer again. I hear soft cries from their beds. Their voices trickling down long tongues. I pick them up and carry them downstairs. Their limbs lengthen, their hair drifts away like Christmas tinsel. They cry and tell me about aches cracking bones, the itch and burn of their erupting pelts. I unbutton their pajamas and they slip out of them onto all fours, their fists folding into cloven hooves, their eyes vast and still as summer camp lakes. I speak to them in the sing-song voice I use for wild animals. I tell them they will be OK, and I slide open the glass door. On stilt legs, my deer children cross the threshold and bound into the dark. The flames of their white tails winking. The night flicking its panther tail.
Writing prompt: “The children are turning into deer again.” How great is that opening line? I love it so much. Your prompt this week is to borrow this template and mad-lib your own word choices. Use the line “The ____ are turning into ____ again.” Pick your nouns, objects, animals, people, etc. See where such a decision takes you. What happens when cars turn into trees, when birds turn into serpents, when the elderly turn into stone? Like Dillard, never stray from the surreal, never let your narrator grow concerned, never over-explain. Act as if this transformation is perfectly normal. After all, looking at the first line’s masterful use of the word “again”, this isn’t the first time such a thing has happened, right?
ICYMI I have a previously unpublished poem that came out with @neonpajamas.bsky.social’s Sunday Prompt series!! Check it out!!
Our fiction and speculative categories are now closed but we're still open for flash prose/micro series and poetry subs until April 5!
variantlit.submittable.com/submit
A poem from managing editor @megjnic.bsky.social !
You can read "Sparrow's Work Song" by @mattjakubowski.bsky.social from issue 21 here!
variantlit.com/sparrows-wor...
Man you should send your prose to Variant because they’re awesome. And while you’re at it check out this one story in issue 22 in particular… variantlit.com/the-gunshine...
(Poetry and flash will be open until April 5.)
Open 2 more days! Send us your prose with layered meaning and metaphor. We're especially drawn to stories with a strong voice.
Check out issue 22 for examples of prose we love!
variantlit.com/issue-twenty...
We're open in just FIVE DAYS! Get your manuscripts ready! ✨
Closing soon! Fiction and speculative categories close March 29
Best of the Net 2026
Thrilled to share the news that Michael Agunbiade’s poem “the new testament” is a Best of the Net finalist! ✨️
Read the poem, from issue 20:
variantlit.com/the-new-test...
The 2026 Best of the Net Anthology is live! Check out all of this year's award-winning poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and art plus our full list of 2026 finalists! https://bestofthenetanthology.com/
Color flyer of a hand holding a pencil, a hand holding a microphone, and a hand holding nothing in front of a yellow background. The flyer says "WRITE FOR POETRY DAILY" and "NATIONAL POETRY MONTH." The Poetry Daily ink blot logo is in the upper right corner.
Write about your favorite poem showcased on Poetry Daily! We'll publish the most interesting responses throughout April, and send a free book to everyone whose work is featured.
Submissions to:
poetrydailyinfo@gmail.com
Subject: National Poetry Month
DEADLINE: March 30, 2026
Submissions close soon for our poetry contests! Click here for guidelines:
triohousepress.submittable.com/submit
If you're sending out work today, consider sending fiction, flash, or micro series our way! We want to read your beautiful words and in fact they're giving us a bit of light these days ✨️
variantlit.com/submit/
Meanwhile, in the queue @variantlit.bsky.social, we seek narrative long-form fiction (see past issues for our editorial sensibility), flash
prose, and micro (themed) series. Send us your beauties, the weirds, and the aches!
Don't mind me I'm over here 😭
Congratulations @benkline.bsky.social!!
Ok, library geek out moment:
My book from @variantlit.bsky.social - IT WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE - just had it's first consortia request! It's headed to a public library outside of Cleveland. The student workers just ran back to my desk to show me!
*hollers in circ stat*