Tag: Instant Noodles Literary Magazine

Explore Themed Writing Calls: Get Published!

Published on by Nadja MarilLeave a comment


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

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

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 3rd 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

Calls for Submissions: Instant Noodles Literary Review 2025

Published on by Nadja Maril1 Comment

Nadja Maril, author of RECIPES FROM MY GARDEN, is one of the founders of Old Scratch Press

The Editors of Instant Noodles Literary Review, published three times a year, have announced the themes for 2025: Current, Sanctuary and Gravy.

Edited by members of the Old Scratch Short Form Collective who have volunteered their time, submissions are free. The Instant Noodles submission box which you can access through Duotrope is filling up fast.

While artists and writers selected for publication receive no financial renumeration, the publishers and editors do their utmost to promote the work in each issue. Instant Noodles nominates for industry prizes, Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. One of the magazine’s promotions is a zoom reading, giving contributors around the world a chance to meet.

Published three times a year, the magazine is posted online for everyone to read. One of the biggest reasons work gets rejected, is that writers don’t follow submission guidelines and familiarize themselves with the publication.

In addition to Visual Art and Multimedia Creations, the magazine publishes Prose & Poetry

Photo by Anni Roenkae on Pexels.com

Instant Noodles focuses on SHORT pieces. Short work 500 and 750 words in length can be powerful. If you are submitting prose, whether is it hybrid, nonfiction, or fiction, the word limit is 1000 words or less. 

All work must be original and must belong to the author. Works that have been previously published will not be considered. Stories must be complete and self-contained (i.e., do not submit chapters of a larger work). 

NOTE: Accepted works will be published as submitted without editing; as such, in addition to the originality of the work itself, we are looking for manuscripts that are clean and press ready. Be sure to review your grammar, spelling, tenses, proper punctuation, and other general rules of the written word before hitting “Send.” Work should be submitted through Duotrope as a Microsoft Word file (when it is poetry, drama, NF or fiction) as 12-point New Times Roman, double-spaced (single-spaced for poetry submissions). All other types of work have details as to their file types on the Duotrope page.

Connect to the Theme

The Editors request that submissions should have a connection to one of the themes for which they were submitted:  Current, Sanctuary and Gravy—and labelled as such.

They are looking for more submissions in the categories of creative nonfiction, drama, multimedia and visual art.

“When I’m reading poetry submissions for Instant Noodles,” Says contributing Poetry Editor Gabby Gilliam, “I’m looking for poems that concisely fit our theme and resonate. I want lines that linger in my mind long after I’m finished reading.

As a contributing editor, I suggest it is never too early to start contemplating ideas associated with our spring theme, current, as well as the subsequent themes that follow. What ideas does the word current evoke for you? Are you thinking about being hip, cool and up on “current” events or are you traveling on an air “current.”  Where does the word take you?

Try writing a story about yourself, something you observed, or something entirely imaginary. Create a video, a picture, combine two mediums.

Work should be publication ready

Do not submit until your piece is ready. Have you read your piece out loud and checked for misspellings and grammar mistakes? Does it fit the theme and are you ready to share it with the world?

The deadline for the spring issue with the theme Current is March 16th.  We look forward to reading your work!

Nadja Maril is the author of Recipes from my Garden, Old Scratch Press, September 2024.

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Update from Alan Bern

Published on by diannePLeave a comment

Hello Friends,

If you’re in the Berkely (California) area please join us at Pegasus Books Downtown on Thursday, June 27th for an evening of music, text, and storytelling with me, Alan Bern, Berkeley-based storyteller, performer, author of IN THE PACE OF THE PATH. Bern’s reading will be accompanied by music from cellist Gael Alcock. Recently released by UnCollected Press, IN THE PACE OF THE PATH is a hybrid work of poetry, prose, and photos that charts my life in my hometown of Berkeley and my career at the Berkeley Public Library.

From 6:30-7pm, browse books and enjoy Bach’s Cello Suite #4 performed by Alcock, in memory of Larry Bensky, host of KPFA’s ‘Sunday Salon’ and ‘Piano’.” Reading and conversation with me will follow, at 7pm. Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing at the reading.

Alan Bern’s IN THE PACE OF THE PATH walks the border between poetry and prose, between the surreal and the realism where surrealism spawns, between the past and future which is the pace of the moment by moment of a life. I have learned from Bern’s clarity in poetry and prose to walk the edges of my homeland and step out into the unknown, while carrying the life I have lived within me. This is such an important work to read now and reread as we move through our lives.

—Rusty Morrison, Co-Publisher of Omnidawn—

Enjoy a video by L. Scott Jones of Wrapped in Ruins, a gallery piece and the most recent performance of PACES: dance & poetry fit to the space, a collaboration with other artists of dancer/choreographer Lucinda Weaver and me:

I will also present an art piece near the end of:

FREE LIVE EVENT: INSTANT NOODLES LAUNCH AND LIVE AUTHOR READING.

DATE: June 20, 2024
TIME: 4:30 PM PT  | 7:30 PM ET
Join us in celebrating the release of the newest issue of INSTANT NOODLES, the online literary magazine that features original poetry, art, and short fiction. Meet the authors and listen in as they perform their work live. This online event is open to the public. Click below to register.

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUlfumprTgsE93vS-zfSLwlM-Mf-Vvyy-KU#/registration

There is wonderful writing in this issue of Instant Noodles, and I hope you can attend!

Thanks so much for your interest in the work of the authors of Old Scratch Press!

—Alan

By the Time You Read This, You May Be Cooking Dinner

Published on by diannePLeave a comment
a photo of black radishes with a posterize filter from photoshop on them and a utensil crock behind them.
A photo I took, and then photoshopped a bit, of black radishes. I haven’t tried them yet. They’re as large as beets. Have you tried them?

As a human perhaps the toughest task I face is what the heck to feed me, and the spouse and child, each day for dinner. Breakfast everyone is on their own. Daughter, who has a light appetite, has a protein shake. Spouse, who has a sweet tooth, has some sort of flaky thing and coffee. I have several coffeeeeeees, and, well, I never know. Could be beans on toast. Coudl be leftover takeout. Could be tomatoes and olives in a bowl. Could be yogurt. Might be soup. Seldom is eggs.

Lunch… do people eat lunch? I don’t always. The meals seem to run into each other, and usually lunch is the loser for me, because there is not time to have breakfast, do all the morning things, then do the work things, and fit in lunch too, before it’s time for dinner. But I love lunch. I love lentils and tuna, salads of any kind, rice and tofu, possibly more yogurt. Daughter eats the same meal every day, packed in a lunch bag, Annie’s Organic Star Pasta. We put it in a thermos, and, for about four years now, she eats it…. every. single. day. Dedication. Spouse eats, most likely, more sweet and flaky things. But me, I am most apt to have more coffee, and maybe chomp on some lettuce as I am adding some to the guinea pig cage.

Dinner. Dinner ie exasperating. You know it is! There are, if your life is anything like mine, too many people (and we are only three) who like too disparate things, and have crazy schedules, and it can be downright tough to get everything ready on time for everyone’s schedule, but the toughest of all is thinking WHAT?? what to feed everyone.

Enter poetry, short memoir, short short stories, and art, to save the day, as usual!

As you may know, if you have read this blog before. I started a lit mag, Instant Noodles (gee, named after food. Obsessed? Maybe…..), and now Old Scratch Press is running it. Up until this year I was the only one choosing the pieces, and, often I was moved to choose pieces about food. And I have to say, on a side note, getting to read so many wonderful entries has been nothing but a pleasure. I love Instant Noodles, and I have really enjoyed all the pieces, and all the art too. But, yes, it may be possible to make the assumption that I am slightly food… centric? Motivated? Obsessed? And I have often been charmed by pieces that relate to food in some way, even if it is only in my mind.

And so, in this post, I want to direct you to take a look at a few of them.

The first is the memory piece by John Johnson, “Moss Soup and Manicotti,” where he remembers his grandmother’s cooking, “For love in this family was measured by the number of courses served and the temperature in the kitchen….”

“If Only,” by Bethany A. Beeler, is a wonderful painting that looks, to me, like my dearest love, a steaming mug of coffee:

My second favorite edible may be butter… True!

“…the wood cylinder moans,
the paddles slow,
the moon is full,
the butter comes.”

Writes Cynthia Gallaher in her poem “Butter Eaters.”

I have long loved, “This Is Just to Say,” by William Carlos Williams, the famous short piece about plums. I also love “Stolen Plums,” by Benjiman B. White:

“…In a lonely field

Full of future and autumn

And a windblown harvest

                        Forced by growth

To thump against gravity

And hunger….”

And, finally, if you cannot wait a second longer to eat, you can meet me and Willie Schatz in “Molly’s Magic Kitchen,”

“Shit! I forgot to buy the fucking fresh tomatoes. But we have sun-dried. I’ll work around it.”

     Of course she will, as she did two days prior when she forgot the dough needed 24 hours to rise and recovered by scrubbing the pizza for pasta primavera or five days earlier when she left her cherished butter lettuce at the grocery and could atone for the evil deed only with a luscious chopped salad or two weeks ago when she entered her realm crowing about the terrific tuna casserole we were going to enjoy only to realize she had bought sardines and would have to settle for a salad Niçoise (that of course was not chopped liver).

So, for dinner tonight, I fell back on a childhood meal that both my mother and my father used to make from time-to-time when magic and inspiration failed them: leftover meat in gravy ladled over extra cripsy toast. I like to eat mine with hot cherry peppers, and each bite will have, if I’m lucky, meat, bread, gravy, a smidgeon of some sort of potato (I made scalloped), a little scrap of veg., and a small bit of hot cherry pepper, to cut through all that thick buttery gravy and make the moutful pop.

It’s pouring down cold buckets of icy rain where I am.

Wherever you are, may you be full of something nice and warm.

What’s for dinner at your place?

Instant Noodles with a Side of Love for Valentine’s Day

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Instant Noodles is an online lit magazine formerly curated by me, alone, and now curated by Old Scratch Press.

For Valentine’s Day, here are a few of my favorite poems about love from the magazine, pieces that I chose for publication.

FIRST MORNING AFTER MOVING ~ Greg Hill

My bureaus and dressers,
all crossed with blue tape,
a sea of cubed cardboard
spilling out into the hallway
and into all the other rooms.

Where is my bedside table?
Why does the morning smell
like fresh coats of paint, 
and why a sound
like a parade of identical cars?

My muscles still burn
from the hours of unpacking
from yesterday’s move.

Where is my toothbrush? My comb?

Then I see you,
tranquil and sleeping
and I know
I am home.

Greg’s poem, so sweet, simple about the things that are not fireworks about love, but make us exceedingly happy all the same.

MUTUAL INTERDIGITATION ~ R. Gerry Fabian

We were linked long before we met.
We have been down the same wrong path
at different times with the same rancid rogues.
When we met, I was coming out the wrong side;
you were still there floundering hopelessly.
At first, I didn’t pay you much notice at all.
The death of a dear mutual friend
brought us together at the freshly dug gravesite.
We are good, now, together, walking that tightrope
of ‘fall off the wagon at any time’ good
that depends so much on breathing love’s balance.

Gerry’s poem, about all the ways that love connects us, adds wholeness to our lives, even as we get past the frenzy of youth.

THE BARBARIANS HAD ACTED REGRETTABLY ~ Colin James

My son found the dragon’s tooth amongst
some rocks and fine white sand. He washed
it clean in a tidal pool. A Hermit crab stole it,
scraping the tip then sucking the remnant root.
The boy threw some sand and stole it back.
He climbed up on the rocks with me to sit.
We examined the hard fire, inner blackened.
Easily sold to tourists later, paying us much more
to guarantee their safe return passage .

Colin’s poem I always took to be about parental love: how our children absolutely make us filled and absorbed and imaginative and plain old grateful to be in their magical world.

UNDER KEEL ON LITTLE DOE LAKE ~ Robert Fleming

moon over wooden hull
us under birch wood
left hand forward 4 ur bow
thwarted by ur stern pry stroke
back stroke 2 ur gunnel
seeking ur back sweep stroke
u j-stroke away
non-swimming clothes on
prefer clothes off
cross draw stroke 2 ur dock
u eskimo roll out
ur knee on deck
solo under skin
draw stroke my wood

Robert, a member of Old Scratch Press, may correct me, but I always took this to be a poem at the beginning, heady stage of love, and so much about the abandonment that I always feel in the time of transition from spring to early summer.

WISTFUL DREAM ~ Bethany A. Beeler

Betahany’s poem always seemed like lust to me, which is beefy and delicious, in my view, like biting into a huge strawberry covered in dark, dark chocolate, and certainly an important part of romantic love.

Lastly, on this hopefully gentle day that comes to you with a hug, or, perhaps a kiss, another from Greg Hill, possibly my favorite poem submitted to Instant Noodles to date. Happy Valentine’s Day. May you find love, or love find you!

SATURDAY ~ Greg Hill

the day
starts in bed 

we make

coffee and 
something from milk

flour eggs
water

in the shower
warming us together

after breakfast

you brush 
a dollop of shampoo

on my nose
as I rinse my hair

even the nothing
you do

is something
to me

Telling Halloween Stories with Scary Poems

Published on by Nadja MarilLeave a comment

by Nadja Maril

Halloween. The weather turns cool. Leaves on the trees change colors, fall to the ground, and orange pumpkins are set out on porches. As a child it was a big deal to decide, what sort of costume I’d find and wear, for Trick or Treating and parties. But first, it was important to get into the mood and one poem, in my favorite book of poems would always do the trick. In the original spelling, the author wrote orphant not orphan. So I knew the poem as Little Orphan Annie. The illustration showed a young woman in front of a kitchen hearth with small children gathered around her. I loved reading this poem, Little Orphan Annie, which was both fun and scary.

Here’s the original version written by James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916) an American poet who hailed from Indiana, who was also a  journalist. Folksinger Anne Hill has done a lovely job in the country bluegrass style, setting this poem to music and you can listen to her sing it here.

Little Orphant Annie

by James Whitcomb Riley

Little Orphant Annie’s come to our house to stay,
An’ wash the cups an’ saucers up, an’ brush the crumbs away,
An’ shoo the chickens off the porch, an’ dust the hearth, an’ sweep,
An’ make the fire, an’ bake the bread, an’ earn her board-an’-keep;
An’ all us other childern, when the supper things is done,
We set around the kitchen fire an’ has the mostest fun
A-list’nin’ to the witch-tales ‘at Annie tells about,
An’ the Gobble-uns ‘at gits you
             Ef you
                Don’t
                   Watch
                      Out!

Onc’t they was a little boy wouldn’t say his prayers,—
So when he went to bed at night, away up stairs,
His Mammy heerd him holler, an’ his Daddy heerd him bawl,
An’ when they turn’t the kivvers down, he wasn’t there at all!
An’ they seeked him in the rafter-room, an’ cubby-hole, an’ press,
An’ seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an’ ever’wheres, I guess;
But all they ever found was thist his pants an’ roundabout–
An’ the Gobble-uns’ll git you
             Ef you
                Don’t
                   Watch
                      Out!

An’ one time a little girl ‘ud allus laugh an’ grin,
An’ make fun of ever’one, an’ all her blood an’ kin;
An’ onc’t, when they was “company,” an’ ole folks was there,
She mocked ‘em an’ shocked ‘em, an’ said she didn’t care!
An’ thist as she kicked her heels, an’ turn’t to run an’ hide,
They was two great big Black Things a-standin’ by her side,
An’ they snatched her through the ceilin’ ‘fore she knowed what she’s about!
An’ the Gobble-uns’ll git you
             Ef you
                Don’t
                   Watch
                      Out!

An’ little Orphant Annie says when the blaze is blue,
An’ the lamp-wick sputters, an’ the wind goes woo-oo!
An’ you hear the crickets quit, an’ the moon is gray,
An’ the lightnin’-bugs in dew is all squenched away,–
You better mind yer parents, an’ yer teachers fond an’ dear,
An’ churish them ‘at loves you, an’ dry the orphant’s tear,
An’ he’p the pore an’ needy ones ‘at clusters all about,
Er the Gobble-uns’ll git you
             Ef you
                Don’t
                   Watch
                      Out!

Photo by James Wheeler on Pexels.com

American poet Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) takes a different approach with this beautiful poem that captures the magic of nature while igniting the element of the unknown.

Theme in Yellow

by Carl Sandburg

I spot the hills

With yellow balls in autumn.

I light the prairie cornfields

Orange and tawny gold clusters

And I am called pumpkins.

On the last of October

When dusk is fallen

Children join hands

And circle round me

Singing ghost songs

And love to the harvest moon;

I am a jack-o’-lantern

With terrible teeth

And the children know

I am fooling.

Fun and intimate, is how I’d characterize this third poem by American poet Sarah Teasdale (1884-1933).  Which leads to the question of what kind of poem you’d write, if tasked with writing a “Halloween Poem.”

Dusk in Autumn

By Sarah Teasdale

The moon is like a scimitar,

A little silver scimitar,

A-drifting down the sky.

And near beside it is a star,

A timid twinkling golden star,

That watches likes an eye.

And thro’ the nursery window-pane

The witches have a fire again,

Just like the ones we make,—

And now I know they’re having tea,

I wish they’d give a cup to me,

With witches’ currant cake.

Decorate the outside of your house with scary poems. Instead of fortune cookies give out treats with poetry inside. Halloween is a time for bonfires and storytelling. What a great time to recite poetry. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and follow this blog. Today is October 9th which means there’s less than one week left to submit your Cooold Turkey themed Holiday/End of the Year start of a New Year Winter Poems (2), or very short fiction or fact to Instant Noodles Literary Magazine. Members of the Old Scratch Press Collective are guest editors for this upcoming issue. Submission Link here