This is a good read that offers some useful insights into the submission process for short stories, especially in terms of how to approach cover letters and opening lines.
The conversation in the comments section is worth checking out too.
open.substack.com/pub/devonhal...
Wow! I didn’t realize Aldi’s had stores without alcohol. Thank you for the heads up about this though! I’ll keep an eye out for it now :-)
3 days and counting... send us your stories by 15 April.
1. A lot of people are focused on the apparent contradiction/absurdity of Trump blockading the Strait if he wants to open it. And yes, that is a real issue. But the even more immediate concern is what the U.S. Navy must do to actually put this plan into effect.
That moment when you are at the sign-in table for your college’s symposium, casually ask someone for their name… and it’s the invited keynote speaker whose photo is on the front of all the publicity materials… 😬 🤦♂️
“All authors are using AI now”
Not true! A lot of us use ADHD and anxiety!!
Today, finding a good place to advertise is HARD. Readers are no longer reading large newspapers for reviews. Book tours are expensive and rare. Being booked on a show is near impossible. But, no advertising usually means low sales. Where do you advertise?
#writingcommunity #booksky #marketing
So long as he stays healthy, he should do really well.
Oof. This one hits close to home: on the challenges of teaching college English in the post-COVID world.
Love the conversational and light tone of this piece though… as it describes our culture slumping toward oblivion…. This is one you will want to read.
open.substack.com/pub/therepub...
*looking at my enormous oeuvre with pride and satisfaction*
My story "Dybbuk-Draw" was in @kaleidotrope.bsky.social last summer, and I'm extraordinarily proud of it, if you're looking for short fiction to consider
kaleidotrope.net/summer-2025/...
When you stumble across an article that is clearly meant for a much different audience in a far higher tax bracket…
What do you mean, contribute $5,000 per child, beyond the normal $100,000 into other savings accounts for a family with two children?… 😬 👀 🤦♂️ 🤔 🤦♂️
www.wsj.com/articles/the...
Please repost. Thank you.
Alphabet Box's #CallForSubmissions is open. Here's the more direct link to submit via #Duotrope #Duosoma...
duotrope.com/duosuma/subm...
#AnaisNin #poetry #essays #prose #nonfiction #fiction #cnf #flashfiction #essay #amwriting #vss #shortstory @duosuma.com @duotrope.com
Are there any Sabres sickos on this site who want to be part of our content that celebrates this incredible season? We’re recording fan stories—let me know if you or the Warpather in your life should be part of this! #BlueAndGoldsky
Can’t recommend this magazine enough, especially if you are a Florida writer or just generally a fan of community-driven bookstores (and who isn’t?). The bookstore gift card compensation is a nice perk too 📚 😀
"The moon is a white bowl
the God of Children Finally Asleep
has given me to dry."
man, I love @toddedillard.bsky.social's poetry
@bulbregion.bsky.social
If there are nominators out there who follow me, it would be a lifetime-level honor to have this nominated for a Hugo:
www.simonandschuster.com/books/Press-...
The class is Comp 1, and we offer more sections of it than almost anything else at the school. The course itself is widely disseminated to a range of teachers, and the broad usage historically made the virtual learning environment feel too impersonal for students. Sorry for the confusion here!
…and shortening my text for the initial post in BlueSky created a bit of confusion, I think. I applied this approach when making a universal course shell that is shared at a large scale at my college—but each class is capped at 25 students.
In that context, using videos can actually be a timesaver. They are small tweaks and moments, but students respond well to personalized interactions.
When it came to making the videos (for the class or as individual comments in semester), I tried to keep them short and to one take—embracing the idea that gaffes were a positive that humanized the videos. Not having to get “the perfect video” for that content made the lift much easier.
You can embed Kaltura videos as comments easily in our Canvas interface. They auto-caption, and a quick glance is usually all they need there. It is equivalent to writing a note at the end of an assignment.
The benefit of having these videos is that it also let people teaching the course have more time for other things, so if they wanted to offer video feedback to students on their work (which I think is more your question), they could do so with no issue.
Thanks for kind words, Brady! Here, my videos were personalized in the sense that they showed my face and tried to create connection between students & the online class, which can often feel too generic or distant. They were less formal than & separate from course content, like lecture videos.
If you have some research brewing on effective pedagogy in first-year writing courses, I can't recommend this journal enough. The editors were so welcoming and helpful.
Front page of article: A Little Goes a Long Way: Using Short, Informal Videos to Personalize and Build Classroom Community in Virtual Teaching Environments by Scott Ortolano Florida SouthWestern State College Publication Details OLOR Series: OLOR Effective Practices Author(s): Scott Ortolano Original Publication Date: 20 February, 2026 Abstract This resource explores how brief, personalized 1-2 minute videos—recorded in a single take and featuring the instructor’s face—can humanize online writing courses by recreating more informal modes of resource sharing that are often excluded from virtual environments. Perhaps most importantly, when faculty and instructional designers use this strategy to build universal course shells, it empowers teachers to either seamlessly personalize the class by replacing the provided videos with their own or to treat the featured instructor videos as an embedded co-teacher. At its core, this model advances key OLI principles by promoting accessible, student-centered design, preserving instructor agency within shared course models, and supporting the collaborative development of high-quality online writing instruction.
Thrilled to have a piece out in @gsole.bsky.social's Effective Practices series!
This article explores how personalized videos can humanize students' exp in first-year writing courses, esp when built into the design of universal course shells for large-enrollment classes
gsole.org/olor/ep/2026...
Pretty crazy how important the blockade of a trade route is right now
