By Nadja Maril

Whenever I’ve written something I feel really conveys what I was striving for, I want to share it. But often, it sits on the computer for a while. Until published, the words are out there but they are not being read. Enter the world of literary magazines, a wonderful opportunity to share not just your own work but to be part of a larger community.

In 2020, publishers Dianne Pearce and David Yurkovich launched Instant Noodles Literary Magazine. Six years later it is still going strong. As their business and projects have expanded, so has the Instant Noodles Literary Magazine team. While Dianne makes the final decisions, she has some help. Members of The Old Scratch Press short form and poetry collective serve on a rotational basis as Contributing Editors.  We have a voice in choosing the themes and selecting work.

As a writer and poet who frequently expresses herself through the medium of (CNF) Creative Non Fiction, these are the submissions I’m most often reading. I read each piece submitted to Instant Noodles several times. I’m interested to discover how the writing responds to our theme. Most of the fiction and poetry I write is inspired by true life events. I am awed by writers who successfully blend reality, imagery and memorable characters into story. Not every submission sits squarely within one genre. Some straddle the line between reality and fantasy, between poetry and prose. We can’t offer payment, but we can bestow praise.

This issue, I’d like to gush about a certain piece I really liked. A piece I’d like the world to read and think about. It was submitted as CNF. In many ways it comes across to me as poetry. As with any short piece of work, every word counts. As a reader, that’s what I’m reading for, power in each word.

The 2026 issue May theme just released, is titled Planes Boats Cars Trains. When I suggested the theme, I envisioned all the ways transportation impacts our lives and how many exciting stories take place when a character is moving from one place to another. I wasn’t thinking about animals or freedom, but that is the beauty of words. We all perceive our world in different ways. A good artist can share their vision.

The piece is called, “From Cage to Street” and is written by Tamara-Lee Brereton-Karabetsos. It begins in the first sentence to take the reader to the Serengeti plains of East Africa where a line of trucks are transporting wild animals. You’ll have to use your imagination to decide whether these animals are zebras, tigers, gazelle or something else. What you do know is they have fur and ears that twitch.

“Engines hum. Metal shakes. Paperwork counts weight, not panic.

Inside, bodies shift where they can, small movements, breaths caught between bars.”

She contrasts the business of checking locks and papers with the vibrations of the shaking vehicle. The writer contrasts herself with the animals. She is walking free and unencumbered, Each selected image— a swing, running dog, a kite— echoes the contrast.

“The wind brushes my face, a dog darts past, a child’s kite catches the sun.

Each step is choice. Each breath is mine. Each glance is unbound.”

Her poem/essay shifts back to the unloading of the crates and in her telling she slows down time for me as she expresses the melancholy of the caged versus the free.

“Animals shift from one container to another. The journey continues, but choice is absent.

Instinct carries memory of plains, but the body moves through something imposed, not chosen.”

This piece creates a sense of place and communicates the author’s appreciation of the physical agency of walking and choosing your own destination. I am pleased we were able to publish it and I urge you to take the time to read it along with many of the other fine pieces in this issue.

Thank you Tamara and thank you writers for making ours such a strong community. The next theme currently being read is Al Dente. Think pasta cooked just so, not too soft and not too stiff. Do you have a piece of writing that meets that criteria? What does Al Dente mean to you?

Remember that Instant Noodles Literary Magazine believes in helping fellow writers by nominating their work for prizes. Please send us your best work.

Thank you for reading and please follow us here and on Facebook.

Nadja Maril is an award winning writer and poet who has been published in dozens of online and print literary journals and anthologies including: Lunch Ticket, Spry Literary Journal, Invisible City Literary Review, Instant Noodles and The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. She is the author of Recipes From My Garden, published by Old Scratch Press (September 2024), a Midwest Review California Book Watch Reviewer’s Choice. An Anne Arundel County Arts Council Literary Arts Award winner, her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Net. She has an MFA in creative writing from Stonecoast at USM.

Check out Nadja’s chapbook below and here.