Writing Advice – OLD SCRATCH PRESS

An Ode to your Code—How to write a ZipOde

Published on February 18, 2026February 17, 2026 by Beatriz F.Leave a comment

33185
Murky waters stir
Toothy snout surfaces
crocodile
These are very rare, our Everglades guide exclaims
Mostly we get gators here
Beatriz Fernandez
ZipOde 33185

The ZipOde, aka Zip Ode, is a fun, five-line poetry form invented by the O,Miami Poetry Festival in collaboration with WLRN Public Radio and Television.

The ZipOde celebrates the local life, the daily struggle, the beauty and ugliness, the minor and major frustrations and joys of living in a specific place.

Zip Odes – O, Miami

Here is how you can write an ode to your own zip code!

Write the numbers of your zip code on five separate lines.
Each number will determine how many words that line will have.
(Similar to haikus but substitute words for syllables.)
If you have a zero in your zip code, then you can either leave it blank, insert an emoji or image or consider it a wildcard line of 1-9 words!

WLRN celebrated the 10^th anniversary of the invention of the ZipOde in 2025 and as it turns out, I was the very first person to submit a ZipOde in O, Miami’s first call for submissions back in 2015. Always on the lookout for inspiration in unexpected places, I liked the idea of writing a place-centered short poem that celebrated my neighborhood.

You can read some stories about the 10^th anniversary celebration and read some ZipOdes here.

ZipOdes | WLRN

O, Miami has produced a colorful, beautifully illustrated 10^th anniversary commemorative book as well:

You can see some sample pages here:

Literally Everyone's Invited ZipOdes Book – OMiami

Cover of the book Literally everyone's invited: an Ode to South Florida 2015 to 2024. O, Miami. Poems and photos by over 450 South Floridians. Edited by Gesi Schilling and Sarah Trudgeon.

ZipOdes everywhere!

Although the ZipOde form originated in South Florida, it has been celebrated in several other cities; O, Miami and WLRN offer it as a resource to anyone who wants to try it, as long as they attribute its creation to the O, Miami Poetry Festival and WLRN.

Tips for writing a ZipOde:

Use impactful words
Work those contractions!
Limit your scope but remain expansive
Anchor it geographically

If you have a 1 in your Zip Code (as I do), use it to maximum effect by making it a memorable, impactful word. Don’t waste the limited real estate in a ZipOde by using it for a connecting word like “and,” not that there haven’t been some excellent ZipOdes that do just that!

When you’re dealing with a limited word count—make contractions your friend! Why say “we have” when “we’ve” will work?

My favorite ZipOdes by other writers are the funny, pithy ones, but for my own, my preference is to look around me and celebrate the beauty and mystery of the nature that surrounds us—the trees, the birds, the animals, the wide-open skies.

ZipOde Examples

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Panthers’ eyes gleam
deep in the
Everglades
blinking under that kite of stars, the Pleiades.
What they’ve seen, we’ve forgotten.

33185

Hidden between hurricanes,
this city’s soul
quivers
like the flight of the Miami blue butterfly
killed by the slightest frost

It’s best to focus on one image, given the brevity of the poem, but the form lends itself to much experimentation and infinite variety.

I like to try to add a word that anchors the ZipOde to a place, since that is the whole point of the form! Images work, but also consider evocative scents, tastes, colors.

If you read some examples online, you will see that other poets celebrate their families, homes, neighborhoods in every way possible. The unique qualities of South Florida life are highlighted in trenchant, wryly fond-toned odes.

ZipOdes as Memoir

You can have fun commemorating all the different places you have lived and worked by writing ZipOdes! My workplace has two 9s in its zip code—riches! But even if yours has 1s and 0s, consider it a challenge—similar to when composing a haiku—to express yourself so succinctly.

33199

Driving to campus,
coffee in cupholder
steaming,
the morning sun Stonehenged between skyscrapers in the east–
in my rearview mirror, a flock of ibises rises..

ZipOdes can be dedicated love notes to your birthplace (or your child’s) or your favorite vacation spot or the place you met your significant other. As a collection, they can tell the story of your life—in code!

Thank you for reading and please follow us here and on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OLDSCRATCHPRESS/

Beatriz F. Fernandez is a Miami area poet and University Reference librarian. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks, the most recent of which is Simultaneous States (2025) by Bainbridge Island Press. In 2025, she became a member of Old Scratch Press.

(ZipOde photo provided to the poet by WLRN.org. Numbers photo credit to Tara Winstead.)

Explore Themed Writing Calls: Get Published!

Published on February 1, 2026January 30, 2026 by Nadja MarilLeave a comment

by Nadja Maril, a founding member of Old Scratch Press Collective

You’re looking for something to read and you go online and start googling. You enter words that describe what you find entertaining.

This is what editors and publishers do when they solicit submissions by selecting a theme. They try to narrow the number and types of submissions to zero in on what they’re seeking, based on what they think their readers will enjoy.

They choose a word, WATER, for example, and they announce their next issue theme will be WATER. Or maybe they choose a more specific description such as CHILDHOOD MEMORIES ABOUT BASEBALL. They request that writers submit pieces specifically related to the theme. If you send something outside the theme, it will be automatically rejected

Seize the Opportunity

The call out can be very specific. For example, this month Screams and Wails Anthology( deadline 2/28/2026) Screams and Wails Anthology is looking for “Horror stories with music or music culture as a predominant theme.”

A part of you may be thinking, I love the music scene but I don’t write horror stories. Or maybe you write horror stories but you have very little inside information on music culture. Are you going to give up that easily? A call out for a specific theme narrows the competition, if you are willing to do the homework. Plus, you may learn something new and have fun.

Here’s another theme call-out. Tokyo Poetry Journal https://www.topojo.com/

is looking for submissions for Volume 18 for their “Gather ‘Round Children—a special issue celebrating oral-tradition poetry and the timeless power of stories carried by the human voice. Specifically they ask for poems that “feel as if they could be shared around a fire: lyrical, narrative, rooted in memory or myth, and crafted to live strongly on the page.”

Maybe you do not consider yourself a poet but you love to sing to your children. Perhaps this call-out might inspire you to try writing a poem that you imagine as a song.

The quarterly online journal Way Words https://www.writersworkout.net/waywords

Is looking for stories, essays and poems that associate with the theme Habits. The Editor’s tip: Habits are things you do the same way every time, usually with the hope of a positive outcome.

We all have habits. Some we do to make us healthier, for example, I take a walk each morning. What is a habit you’d enjoy writing about? As a bonus you could write about someone else’s habit that you admire and your poem or could be a special gift to them, even if it doesn’t get published.

Taking a walk each morning is a habit you might want to write about.

Dragon Soul Press https://dragonsoulpress.com/shortstorycalls

is putting together an anthology of short stories and the theme is
Splash. The word splash provides a good deal of latitude. I can think of stories related to swimming, waterfalls, and jumping into puddles as well as the use of the word as a term for making an impressive and immediate impact. If you enjoy word puzzles, the challenge of all the different ways the word Splash can be used should yield impressive results.

Instant Noodles Literary Magazine https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/instant-noodles-O0jFm

has a theme call out: Planes, Boats, Cars, Trains. The request is for poems, short essays, memoir and fiction (under 500 words). The pieces are for publication online in Issue One of Volume 6 (Deadline 3/15/2026). The ideas one could conceive of that one could submit are fairly wide ranging. So if you are a writer, how are you going to make you piece of writing stand out from the crowd?

As one of the editors on the project, I thought I’d share what attracted me to this particular theme.

Most humans live a fairly frenetic life, often on the move. In the famous ancient Greek stories surrounding Oedipus, he is asked a riddle by the sphinx in exchange for safe passage and his life, “Who walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three feet in the evening? The answer “Man” has humans crawling as babies in the morning, walking on two legs as adults and needing a cane ( the 3^rd leg) in the evening. Mankind is always on the go. If not walking, we’re in the car, on a train, plane, or boat. (Feel free to include buses, helicopters, and subways).

Many of the best stories and poems involve getting from point A to point B via a car, train, boat, or plane. Are you up to the challenge? LET’S START WRITING….

WRITING PROMPT

Planes, Boats, Cars, Trains

Looking out the window, inside at the passengers or thinking about something? What happens when you’re on the move?

Interesting things can happen when you’re on the move and in a confined space. Plenty of murder mysteries take place on a boat or a train. The number of passengers are limited and there are places to hide.

The passenger looks out a window and see images that may bring joy or dread. They may be stuck sitting next to a stranger they find fascinating or an acquaintance they’d prefer to avoid. Create a scene, write down a memory, convey your feelings about a brief journey.

Then think: What if? What happens if the protagonist has lost their ticket or the car breaks down? Maybe it happened, Maybe you’re imagining it happening.

Here’s the hard part. Make it short. Every word should count. Read what you’ve written out loud. Each phrase/ and/or sentence should provide something essential. Whatever you can eliminate, start crossing stuff out.

Read it again. Let it sit for a week. Do another revision and make certain whatever and whenever you submit to Instant Noodles Literary Magazine or any other publication, you have carefully reviewed your work and it is ready for publication. Check over carefully for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors.

Thank you for reading and please follow us here and on Facebook.https://www.facebook.com/OLDSCRATCHPRESS/

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.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/recipes-from-my-garden-nadja-maril/1145598579

Collaboration with Who?

Published on January 30, 2026January 30, 2026 by wyn001100Leave a comment

by ROBERT FLEMING, Founding member of OLD SCRATCH PRESS – a poetry/short-form collective | estd. 2023

In January, 2024 I wrote a blog on Hybrid Poetry which is an integration of two or more art forms, where one form is text.

If you create a hybrid work, who should you collaborate with? If you choose another person you will have to coordinate with them and all their peculiarities. Such a Drag! Why not collaborate with yourself? Only have to deal with when you are in a good or bad mood.

My hybrid blog showed my first visual poem, at age 11, I integrated poetry and visual drawing with crayons.

Figure 1.

Do you have two or more skills that can be integrated? Pick them from this list.

writing poetry
writing prose
creating visual art
music: playing an instrument
singing

When you join two skills, it might have been given a name:

prose poetry = writing prose and writing poetry
visual poetry = writing poetry and creating visual art
performance poetry = (playing an instrument or singing) and writing poetry

If you have integrated two skills before:

How did it go?
Would you do it again?
Consider not just the quality of your work but did you enjoy it?

In deciding whether to collaborate with yourself:

Comparatively at what skill level (beginner, intermediate, advanced) are your two skills? Are they at the same skill level or different? My two skills of writing poetry and creating visual art are at the same level.
- If your skills levels are not at the same level (e.g. intermediate in writing poetry, beginner in playing an instrument), can you accept that your work produced is likely to be at the lower skill level?
- What will you do with your work: celebrate it and share it with others, share it with yourself, or trash it?

Mem So CA / Hole in Head Cover – seesaw 2

Cycling between genres: At the current time, what is your inspiration for creating different types of work? I cycle through different time periods where I am motivated to spend a different percent of time on each genre (25% poetry, 50% visual art, 25% visual poetry). In 2022, when I was producing my visual poetry book, White Noir, 75% of my time was in visual poetry.

What’s it going to be?

Collaborate with yourself?

No: stick to one genre
Yes: try it as an experiment

Collaborate with others? Read Robert’s upcoming blog.

Robert Fleming, a contributing editor of Old Scratch Press

OLD SCRATCH PRESS – a poetry/short-form collective | estd. 2023

who published an Amazon best seller visual poetry book: White Noir

an editor of the digital magazine Instant Noodles

About – INSTANT NOODLES

Recent Robert Fleming publications and art

visual poetry

visual art

text poetry

Follow Robert on Facebook

Thank you for reading. Please sign up to follow us on Facebook and to follow us here on WordPress to expand your knowledge about poetry and short form writing as well as to receive the latest news about publication opportunities.

Hurray for Dr. King~

Published on January 19, 2026January 19, 2026 by diannePLeave a comment

Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks, Joy Harjo, Claudia Rankine, Ocean Vuong, Elizabeth Acevedo, Terrance Hayes, Frank O’Hara, Audre Lorde, Allen Ginsburg, all poets who have enhanced the canon of American writing with their writing and their diversity. Have you read any of them? Which ones have you tried? Which diverse poet is your favorite? What poem do you like that you can share with us?

Did you know that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. believed deeply in the power of voices, especially voices that had been ignored, dismissed, or pushed aside? That belief matters just as much in literature as it does anywhere else.

The literary canon is not a fixed monument. It is a living body of work that grows stronger, more truthful, and more beautiful when it includes diverse authors and perspectives. American literature is incomplete without the poets and writers who reflect the full range of American experience. Reading these voices does not diminish the canon. It expands it, strengthens it, and makes it more honest.

It may seem as if diverse authors exist on the margins of literature, but they don’t. They are central to it. They shape language, challenge assumptions, and help us see both history and the present more clearly. I have enjoyed so many authors who are so different from me, especially when we count the wealth of male writers we read in school. They are all wonderful writers, and I am also glad school now includes more writers who look like me, as well as writers who look like my daughter and my friends.

So today, as we celebrate Dr. King, let’s also celebrate the voices that widen our understanding of who we are. Pick up a book. Read a poem. Listen closely to someone, anyone, different from you, or simply listen to someone in need. How can you share your light?

On a slightly off-topic note, I was visiting my sister this weekend, and we each chose a stand up special to watch that is a pretty new special. I chose Mohaned Elshieky’s special No Need to Address Me, and my sister chose Marcello Hernandez’s special American Boy. Both were incredibly funny. Comedy benefits from diversity too.

I am happy for this day. Hurray for Dr. King and his marvelous legacy. Hurray for all poets. And hurray for a literary world that makes room for all of us.

~Dianne

Dianne Pearce is the chief editor and bottle washer at Current Words Publishing, and the half-cocked imaginer behind Old Scratch Press and Instant Noodles. Pearce loves helping writers realize the dream of having their work published. I mean she is really crazy about doing that for some reason. To that end, to join in the fray, to look at the thing from the other side, to stand in another’s shoes, and all of those things, she is fully expecting and promising to publish her first collection of poetry, In the Cancer Cafeteria, spring of 2026. Please don’t hold your breath. For very long. Happy 2026!

“Pink Dress” from the Forthcoming ~ In the Cancer Cafeteria~

Published on January 10, 2026January 11, 2026 by diannePLeave a comment

Happy Saturday everyone.

I’m working on bringing out my poetry collection this year, and I thought I’d share one of my poems with you.
For the past year I’ve been traveling with my little sister to her cancer appointments. Luckily I do not have cancer, but I am cancer-adjacent, and that has its own challenges. When I want to say worrying things, when I read case studies, which I do, when I am by myself as she naps through a treatment and I wait, when I drive in and out of West Hollywood alone, sometimes in the threes and fours in the morning depending on treatment time, and I ruminate, I try to put it on paper, rather than on my sister. I’m also a clothes lover and a people watcher from back in junior high with my then boyfriend and bestie Joe Perna. We called ourselves the fashion police in 7th grade, like we were such good dressers. Joe and I observed details, and made guesses based on what we saw. In general the thing I am most curious about is the lives of other people. I think I am (possibly) overly empathetic, and I imagine stories for strangers all day long. I also tend to notice the small things happening around me. As I sit and wait for my sister, or drive alone, or struggle to make small talk (as I do without cancer! I have never been good at it), my brain is humming away wondering about people, and making stories to go with them, and wondering if their cancer is curable and how it will all play out. Most people I see only once, even though we go the same time and day quite often. It is my curse to want to know everything, and to never be able to know, purely because I am a nosy so-and-so. When cancer comes to town your ability to be quiet in the never-knowing is mightily tested.

I also don’t want this to be a totally maudlin book about being upset about my sister. I don’t want it to be a book about my sister. Though I love her dearly, her story is hers, and I don’t want to steal it, which would add, in my view, insult to injury. It’s important when you write about real-live people who are not famous people that you be considerate and kind. I am not able to do that when talking if a joke comes to mind. If I think of something funny about something you’ve said or how you look, etc., it’s coming out unfiltered, that second, and I’m going to laugh. Yeah. Kind of a shitty trait, but what do they say, “At least all the trauma made me hysterical.” Yup. But when I write about anyone who I will see again, it is important to me to serve my needs while not disregarding theirs. There are compromises. My sister may not want me announcing she has cancer, for example, but she has told the people in her life, and I need to be able to discuss it too, so she loses that bit of control, just another thing cancer steals, privacy. For that she has to allow me the book as a coping mechanism. Sorry sis.

Another thing to note, as I assume most people who read this blog are authors: you have to be careful where you put your work before you publish your book. I am publishing my book through OSP, so I can put this poem here, and OSP will not disallow it from the book. If another publisher was publishing my book, they might not be happy for me to stick a poem out in public on a blog. They may or may not be happy for me to publish a poem somewhere in advance, because that anthology or lit mag where the poem is published may hold rights that conflict with the publishing company then using the poem when publishing my book. So there’s that. You have to be careful. You can always post a question here, and one of us will try to answer it. In fact, I’ll run a monthly post that offers a chance for you to ask questions, and reminds you that you can do it.

This book has a theme that runs through the whole book. Some collections do have a theme, but often the theme is that all the poems are written by the same person. The theme in my book is cancer, but, more drilled down, my reactions to cancer, my observations on the cancer experience, which I am holding together in the idea of the cafeteria at the clinic. People who are going through cancer as patients or support are often in the cafeteria as a place to stop being wrapped up in the cancer events and procedures. It’s the downtime place, and, because of that, people drop their masks a bit there. I am not telling anyone’s secrets as much as I am interpreting what I see, which changes the observation from what it is, to what I see. There is much intrusion from observers, so don’t worry that I am revealing anyone’s truths besides my own.

I have trouble tapping a poem with my scepter and declaring it complete. I expect many poets are the same. Sometimes a poem comes out almost fully-formed, but most still have growing and shrinking to do.

I write longer poems. I write narrative poems. I tend to write personal poems. Sometimes my poems are true, and sometimes they are true in the sense that they are true, for me. That doesn’t mean they would qualify as legally true. If the person was a brunette, and brunette doesn’t work, guess what, red hair is what I am going to write.

This poem, “Pink Dress,” is pretty much done. I will say it is an uncorrected proof here, as I may change it a bit before it hits the book galley. But it feels good to me as it is, and I was able to read it aloud to myself without having major anxiety, so I feel like it is okay.

The OSP group has become my friends as well as my colleagues, and, based on schedules and etc., we often ask each other to look at each other’s work. That’s part of the deal with this collective. So far I have shared some of my writing for this book with Robert, Anthony, Gabby, and Ginny. I cannot express how much I have appreciated them and their taking the time to give me really helpful, kind, and actionable feedback.

Here, without further ado, is one of the poems destined to be released later this year in the collection, In the Cancer Cafeteria.

Pink Dress

Her pink dress is too tight too short
the old sneakers don’t go
hair twisted up and split
two rolls of mussed-up teddy ears.

He is all belly
under his big and tall polo
up top tangled hair needs
a brush run through
but beard is spun silk.
He is the one who gets up
moves around
paces because he’s in the cancer cafeteria and who doesn’t pace?

She doesn’t.
She smiles at the screen in her hands.

Whenever he gets up
he runs his finger down her bicep.
Her chubby thighs
twitch back at him against the tight pink hem.
The dress is a mini
I can see her cotton crotch and I don’t tell her
because each time he slides his finger down her arm
her smile goes wicked at the corners
for a second
as her thighs twitch
call and response
and it’s not my song to sing.

I shut up I pretend I don’t see.

When he manages to sit
his chair is up against instead of across from
his long tangled curls try to nestle under her neck
wheedle around her earlobes.
I can’t tell for certain who is victim
who is victim support.
Some secrets are not for me to know.

He needs to move again
gets up abrupt
clumsy all the other chairs
tables reach for his legs
stepping around best he can into the hall
gazing in confusion at the baby grand
sitting there
playing “Wichita Lineman” by itself
from 1968
a year him and his girl know only as a number, and not real.

He stares at the piano
rocks on his heels in his shoes as he has rocked since he was five years old
knees bend out to the sides
a boy just learning how legs work
walking through a day’s same endless agenda
treatment, wait, consultation, wait, scan, wait.

Head nodding at Jimmy Webb’s F major D major
he tries to find his way to the tune
gives up, moves back to her
comes in for a landing
finger trails down and up
bare meaty skin.
She ripples in response.
Appearing now on all her bare places
languishing goose pimples
long only to be released
to go home
so two may unzip the tight pink dress together.

Dianne Pearce is the chief editor and bottle washer at Current Words Publishing, and the half-cocked imaginer behind Old Scratch Press and Instant Noodles. Pearce loves helping writers realize the dream of having their work published. I mean she is really crazy about doing that for some reason. To that end, to join in the fray, to look at the thing from the other side, to stand in another’s shoes, and all of those things, she is fully expecting and promising to publish her first collection of poetry, In the Cancer Cafeteria, spring of 2026. Please don’t hold your breath. For very long. Happy 2026!

YIKES! Don’t Publish That!

Published on December 10, 2025January 1, 2026 by dianneP1 Comment

One of the perks of running Old Scratch Press (OSP) and Instant Noodles Lit Mag (IN) is that I (we, OSP) get to belong the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses. They are incredibly helpful, and have so many resources we can use, including the ability to ask the other presses questions through the LISTSERV.

This week I listened to a webinar from a bit back on what you can and cannot use from others’ work in your work… spoiler alert, nope. nope, nope, you cannot use those Taylor Swift lyrics, no matter how perfect they are for your piece. Why? Because Taylor wrote them, for her piece. Cry me a small stream (see what I did there?) but you gotta write your own!

One form the webinar really did not recommend was Cento. And from the looks of my very unscientific Google search, there are a lot of them:

Well, why not?

As in the Taylor Swift example, those poets wrote those lines in their poems, to express their thoughts, and that doesn’t mean you can co-opt them, even though it is a fun writing exercise to try to knit them together. They also recommend against publishing Golden Shovels.

The webinar, for CLMP members, was helmed by Jeffrey Levine (a lawyer and Publisher of Tupelo Press) and Fred Courtright (President of The Permissions Company). And I was shocked to find out how many instances there are where authors should be getting permission, but maybe aren’t.

Copyright is, very basically, attached to intellectual property, so something we cannot touch with our fingers, even if those ideas are pressed into an LP, or printed in a book, or applied to watercolor paper. It’s the imaginings, the wordplay, the artistic or editorial or even advertising verbiage, or the design, creation, work of another artist. And we can’t use what isn’t ours without permission from its creator, or, and maybe more likely, its rights holder. Frankly, and this is where some writers disagree with me, this makes perfect sense to me if I think about someone taking my work, and using it in their own piece, and it also makes sense to me as an artist. I want so badly to use the lyrics to songs that I imbue with this meaning and emotion that only they can have, and it’s tougher to come up with my own “pretend” song, but I really need to push my writing to the next level, and do it. You don’t have to register your work with US Copyright to be protected, but we do copyright all books we publish as a matter of course.

What does copyright leave out? It does not apply to material that is not truly original, to anything already in the public domain, or to broad concepts such as ideas, systems, processes, or methods. Those belong more to patent and trademark, which overlap only in small ways that I’m not expert enough on to explain, so investigate. Copyright also does not cover names, titles, slogans, or very short phrases. In literary settings, though, it is usually safer to treat even brief lines as if they might be protected, simply to avoid trouble. How long does copyright protection remain in place? In most cases it lasts for the lifetime of the author plus an additional seventy years. For anonymous work or work created as a work for hire, the term is different. It lasts either ninety five years from the date it was first published or one hundred twenty years from the date it was created, and it ends when the earlier of those two periods runs out.

The publisher never takes copyright. The copyright remains with the author. The publisher only licenses the copyright, meaning the publisher has the right to print (or otherwise make available) or produce the work for some (limited) period of time. But if you publish a poem, for example, with a publisher, and you sign a contract, that poem may “belong” to the publisher for the duration of the contract. We’ve never held back an author from taking a work back or using it somewhere else, but I cannot speak for all publishers, so, though it should not be a problem to include in your chapbook a poem you published somewhere else, you may have to obtain permission to reprint it in another place. Do you have time to do that?

Another really interesting point the webinar brought up was that if a work is in the public domain, you do not need permission to use it. Fair use is a grey area, and so I would never recommend deciding on your own that something is fair use. I would suggest you contact Fred.

If you want to use an old poem in its original language, a piece that is long out of copyright, you can quote it freely. But if you want to use a modern translation of that same piece, the translation is probably under copyright. If you want to use something that is still in copyright, you might need permission from the copyright holder and also the holder of the copyright of the translation, and suddenly you’re in the weeds. And a lot of this costs money, to track down the copyright, and to pay for use. The webinar recommended the Watch File at the Harry Ransom Center as a good place to start. One person on the call said she often would ask bands directly, on their social media, if she could use their music or lyrics, but the presenters pointed out that while the band may (may, important distinction) hold copyright, someone else may hold the rights, and those folks could have very good “bots” looking for it on the internet, and show up with a big bill for you.

Even internet memes, tweets, etc., could belong to the person who posted them, and there could be consequences (of the financial kind is what we’re talking here) for you if you use them. And I liked that they made it clear that attribution (taken from “Friend of the Devil” by the Grateful Dead) does not give you permission: you can still find yourself on the hook for a lot of money. Yikes! And just because the author of a poem holds the copyright this doesn’t mean they’re not in a publishing deal where the publisher might own the reprint rights. You have to check it out to be sure.

The advice out there can differ greatly, and even The Poetry Foundation may have advice about fair use that the federal courts would not agree with, so the webinar strongly recommended that you either get permission, using someone like Fred, or skip it.

What do you think? Have you been playing with licensing fire? I am always encouraging authors to start an editing and publishing fund, but you may need a violation fund too! I hope not!

So friends I hope that you can sees
"fair use" doesn't grow like leaves
and poets and other fools like me
as much as you would like it free
accept that permission has a fee
and you can't pick from another's tree.

Current Words and Old Scratch Press congratulate 2025 Best of the Net and Pushcart Nominees

Published on December 8, 2025December 25, 2025 by wyn001100Leave a comment

by Robert Fleming

Best of the Net Nominees

Visual Art selections by Robert Fleming and Alan Bern

Janina Karpinska, VENUS

Jordan Veres, LASTLY DELIRIUM AND ON THE NEXT OCCASION

Edward Supranowicz, THE WALTX OF LIFE AND DEATH

Creative Non-Fiction selections by Nadja Maril

Fendy Tulodo, Time and Tide

story / flash fiction selections by Dianne Pearce

GABBY GILLIAM, AN UNEXPECTED INVITATION

JAN LEE, THE REPAIR SHOP

poetry selections by Dianne Pearce

RYAN LACANILAO, SNOW DEVIL

Robert Fleming, HAMLET AT THE DRIVE-THROUGH WINDOW

PIXIE BRUNER, THE COOKIES WE ALWAYS MAKE FROM OLD SCRATCH

PAUL HOSTOVSKY, NEW YEAR’S EVE SPAGHETTI

GEORGE SHUSTER, Mahicanituk

GABBY GILLIAM, ON THIS 823RD DAY OF JANUARY WE’VE BOTH GOT WORK TO DO

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2025 Pushcart Nominees selections by Dianne Pearce, Robert Fleming, and Nadja Maril

Benjamin Talbot, Periscope City: chapter-Poor Advice

Fendy Tulodo, Time and Tide

GEORGE SHUSTER, Mahicanituk

GABBY GILLIAM, ON THIS 823RD DAY OF JANUARY WE’VE BOTH GOT WORK TO DO

Alexander Penney, Bedroom Curtains

Pat Roe, Love me Some Gravy

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Yours Truly is:

Robert Fleming, a contributing editor of Old Scratch Press

who published an Amazon best seller visual poetry book: White Noir

an editor of the digital magazine Instant Noodles

The Art of Borrowing Characters: A Literary Debate

Published on October 1, 2025October 1, 2025 by Nadja MarilLeave a comment

by Nadja Maril, a founding member of Old Scratch Press Collective

A few months ago, I read a book purely for escapism, a cozy mystery populated by Jane Austen Characters entitled The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray. I didn’t have to think too hard as I’d already met: Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth Darcy, Marianne and Colonel Brandon, Anne and Frederick Wentworth, and Fanny and Edmund Bertram. Already familiar with the English country homes so well described in my favorite Jane Austen Novels: Emma, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, I merely had to get to know the two new characters Jonathan Darcy (son of Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth) and Juliet Tilney ( daughter of Northanger Abbey’s Catherine and Henry) who team up together to solve the murder.

Combine characters created by other authors with AI (artificial intelligence) and we stand on shaky territory.

What is it that makes human writing truly unique ?

The novel started me thinking about where writers find inspiration, because certainly this particular set-up would theoretically be the perfect candidate for an AI (artificial intelligence) generated book. A good portion of the plot of The Murder of Mr. Wickham relies on tropes and scenes frequently present in other Jane Austen books.

As to be anticipated, in this cross between an Agatha Christie whodonit and a Jane Austen novel, we have a series of misunderstandings between couples, friends and romantic prospects as well as a grand ball, a visit by the gentry to the village where they are shunned, a church scene with more snubbing, and conflicts that center on income and social class. While I was curious to find out the identity of the murderer, with so many characters possessing motive, I found myself more interested in the potential for a romance to develop between Jonathan and Juliet.

Is picking up ready-made characters cheating? Certainly, the use of characters who have already proven themselves to be favorites among readers, give a writer an advantage when looking to find a publisher. What is the difference from taking a character or storyline from the Bible or a popular fairytale vs. taking a fictional character such as Sherlock Holmes or Sir Lancelot casting them in the starring role of your next short story or novel.

Folktales and Myths provide plenty of ideas for new versions of old stories. Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels.com

One thing I’ve noticed is the different ways a popular character can be used. Minor characters in a well-known fairy tale, perhaps one of the step-sisters in Cinderella may have a very different take on why Cinderella was not allowed to go to the ball. The Genie locked inside a bottle could probably tell a series of funny stories about badly chosen wishes. In the Broadway hit musical “Wicked,” partially adapted from the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Glinda is not the spotless white witch she purports herself to be when one hears the tale from Elphaba’s prospective.

Anything that spurs new ideas is fair game, as long as borrowing a character or a plot is not plagiarism. The plot or the characters must have evolved and changed. The characters themselves must be unique (not duplicates of another author) and not protected by copyright rules.

As a general rule, for works created after January 1, 1978, copyright protection lasts for the life of the author plus an additional 70 years.

Thus, favorite characters such as the Harry Potter gang, are relegated to fan fiction only, meaning the work is “unauthorized” and cannot be used for monetary return.

Taking inspiration from classics can be a creative endeavor if not taken up by computers. It can make a great writing prompt.

You can use this prompt to write short stories and poetry, material that would be appropriate for a chapbook as well as specialized literary magazines.

**Maybe Goldilocks** **brings three bowls of Creme Brulee to the bears as a peace offering.** Photo by Gerardo Manzano on Pexels.com

WRITING PROMPT

Think of a favorite folk/fairy tale such as The Three Bears. What if Goldilocks had the opportunity to apologize for her rude intrusion into the Bear’s Cottage. Imagine and write down what might happen. If the men who pretended to sell invisible cloth to the emperor were to tell the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes, would they tell it differently than the traditional fairy tale? Try different approaches. Have fun.

Thank you for reading. Please sign up to follow Old Scratch Press here on WordPress 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 of flash memoir and poetry below.

https://rb.gy/olqjwe.

The Writer’s Brain: Creativity and Neurodivergence

Published on September 27, 2025 by Ellis ElliottLeave a comment

There’s a certain stereotype about writers: distracted, dreamy, maybe a little moody, often lost in their own heads. Then there are those of us whose third-grade teacher writes on her report card, “Ellis is very sensitive. She says she doesn’t feel good when she doesn’t want to participate and sometimes puts her hands over her ears.”

What we don’t always name is that many of us identify with something more specific—ADHD, anxiety, depression, OCD, autism, bipolar disorder. In other words, neurodivergence.

Far from being a barrier, these brain patterns often come hand-in-hand with creativity. Our ability to notice connections others overlook, to hyper-focus on a project for hours, or to sense language at a heightened level can all be part of what makes us writers. (Doesn’t everyone have a list of words they hate simply because the way the word feels in their mouth?)

The Double-Edged Sword

Of course, the same brain that gifts us with creative leaps can also work against us. ADHD can make finishing projects feel like climbing Everest. Anxiety can whisper that nothing we write is ever good enough. Depression can steal the life-force necessary to even begin. The very sensitivity that makes us attuned to metaphor and meaning can leave us overwhelmed by the noise of the world.

Reframing the Narrative

Instead of treating neurodivergence as something to battle, what if we reframed it as part of the writer’s toolkit?

Hyperfocus can become a superpower for deep revision. Or help you finish the book!
Restless energy can fuel bursts of freewriting that break past creative blocks. That, and dance breaks.
Heightened sensitivity can deepen character work, dialogue, and description. As long as you remember to take breaks.

The key is learning how to manage the edges—finding rest, support, and strategies so that the gift doesn’t become a burden.

Practical Ways to Support Your Creative Brain

Chunk your writing time. Short, timed sessions (15–25 minutes) can harness focus without overwhelming you.
Write rituals, not rules. A small ritual (lighting a candle, stretching, a playlist) helps train your brain to enter writing mode.
Name the inner critic. Literally give it a name or persona so it loses power over you.
Seek community. Writing groups, workshops, or even online spaces help balance the solitary nature of the work.
Honor rest. Brains that run hot need recovery time. Pushing the pause-button isn’t failing—it’s part of the process.

Why It Matters

When we share openly about the link between writing and neurodivergence, we create permission for others. Permission to stop beating themselves up for struggling with deadlines. Permission to see their “quirks” as part of their artistry. Permission to make choices others might not understand. Permission to write anyway.

Do you identify as a neurodivergent writer? How does it show up in your creative process—both the gifts and the challenges?

Ellis Elliott

Founding member Old Scratch Press Poetry Collective

Author of Break in the Field poetry collection and A Witch Awakens: A Fire Circle Mystery.

https://a.co/d/eMSe9up

https://a.co/d/7J1ra9x

http://bewildernesswriting.com

Submitters Beware

Published on July 18, 2025August 4, 2025 by virginiawatts1 Comment

There has been much in the news within literary circles lately about literary journals with questionable practices, mostly focused upon submission fees and how these fees are used. No one should question the idea that it is expensive to run a literary magazine with such costs as editing and overhead, and most importantly, not everything about submission fees should be seen as negative. It is possible that when writers must pay a nominal fee to submit their work to literary magazines, they may be inspired to submit a more edited and stronger piece. However, it’s one thing to pay $3.00 to one journal to submit but let’s face it, most writers must submit the same piece to many magazines if they want to increase their chance of having it published. This is why submission fees can really add up. There is also the idea that if submission fees are charged, less submissions will come in and this will lead to faster publication decisions by editors. Like it or not, it does seem that submission fees are here to stay. If we accept that fact, then we must understand some realities about submission fees.

I am not going to name names here, but some well know literary journals have been engaging in practices that are shameful. It’s hard enough and expensive enough to be a writer trying to get work published in literary journals without these bad actors but, unfortunately, they do exist. One well known journal accepted submissions and charged for over a year but had already stopped reading and publishing new word. They later folded and changed their name. I have personally submitted to journals several times only to realize they had gone defunct. I was never able to get my submission fees back. Recently, several well-known journals held contests, charged the high submission fees customary in literary contests, and never announced any winners. Suffice it to say that just because something calls itself a literary journal doesn’t mean it should.

So, what is a writer to do? How can we protect ourselves from unethical practices and scam journals? Here are some practical ideas to consider.

Is the journal listed on reputable databases such as Poets and Writers, Submittable, NewPages.com, Clifford Gastang Literary Magazine Rankings, MLA International Bibliography, JSTOR
Is the journal’s website polished, free of grammatical and spelling errors. Is it easy to navigate? Does is look professional? A poor website design might be a cause for concern.
Do their publication terms comply with normal industry standards. Publication guidelines should always be clear and concise and include all requirements such as formatting parameters.
Be very concerned if a journal is asking for all rights to your work. They should be asking only for first serial rights.
RED FLAG: Is their submission fee unreasonably high? Are they charging $15.00 as an example when most journals are at $3.00. This should worry you.
Do they explain why they are charging a submission fee of any amount?
If they do charge submissions fees, do they also have yearly contests where they offer a monetary prize?
It should never be difficult to find contact information on the journal’s website, and there should be some explanation of who the editors are and what their editorial process is. A journal should have a physical address and an email address.
Look at their publication history. Have they been publishing consistently? Can you purchase copies of the journal on their website? Look at the most recent issue. Look at the quality.
If the journal has a blog on their website, is it being maintained?
Does the journal submit work to contests such as Pushcart Prize or/and O. Henry Awards?
Do they have a social media presence such as Facebook where they regularly promote the work they publish?
Be aware of any unrealistic or boastful claims about readership.
If you are submitting to a contest, look to see if the list of winners from last year’s contest is listed on the journal’s website. It should be.
Be aware if a journal repeatedly pushes back contest deadlines.

I have been submitting to literary journals for many years and have been lucky to have some level of success. Be aware of where you are sending your writing, but don’t let a few bad apples dissuade you from submitting to literary journals!!! The overwhelming majority are ethical to a fault and the writing world would be lost without literary journals. They are an invaluable part of our art form. I read literary journals, subscribe to them, admire them immensely and thank them for all the wonderful writing they bring to the world. So, happy submitting to my fellow writers and the best of luck to you all!

~Ginny

Virginia Watts has been fortunate to have published nearly 100 pieces in literary magazines including CRAFT, The Florida Review, Reed Magazine, Pithead Chapel, Permafrost Magazine, Broadkill Review, Two Thirds North, Hawaii Pacific Review, Sky Island Journal, Eastern Iowa Review, Evening Star Review and Streetlight Magazine. Nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize and four times for Best of the Net, in 2019, Watts won The Florida Review Meek Award in nonfiction.

Virginia’s new book is now available from Old Scratch Press: