Tag: poem

Get Published: Submit to Instant Noodles Literary Magazine 2026

Published on by Nadja MarilLeave a comment


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

Happy New Year to readers and writers around the world. May your New Year 2026 be happy, safe, and productive. If one of your New Year’s Resolutions is “get more writing done” you’ve come to the right place. In our Old Scratch Press blog we will continue to discuss different kinds of short form writing, provide instruction and prompts, and share publishing opportunities.

First up is to tell you about our own publication Instant Noodles Literary Magazine. A member of CLMP (Community of Literary Magazines and Presses), we nominate for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.

Planes, Boats, Cars, Trains is our theme for the Spring Issue 2026 of Instant Noodles Literary Magazine.  

Maybe you love to travel or maybe you like to stay at home, but when you venture out— what kind of transportation takes you on your journey? Are you invigorated by the open water, frantic following road signs, anonymous on a plane, or comforted by the train station whistle?  In the process of getting to your destination, how did the vehicle you’re traveling in affect the outcome?

We’re looking for flash prose (up to 500 words) fiction and nonfiction, as well as poetry, drama, visual art, and multi-media submissions. Deadline: March 15th.

When you send in your submission, as you should with any submission, the piece should be polished and complete with no grammar mistakes and no misspellings.

Also included should be a brief cover letter. The remainder of this blog I’m going to talk about what I think is the appropriate cover letter for a Literary Magazine. (Each magazine is slightly different so always read their guidelines).

Photo by Oscar Ruiz on Pexels.com

Editors at Literary Magazines generally use the cover letter that contains a very brief biography ( 50 to 75 words) as the same biography they use in the publication, if you are lucky enough to have your story or poem accepted. Thus, even if writing is a new found love or second career, you want to keep it “professional.” 

Rather than listing everywhere you’ve been published, pick no more than three places. (ex. They’ve been published in Dawn Magazine, Sunshine Press, Dark Days and many other publications.) If you have never been published, that’s okay. Magazines are always looking for NEW TALENT.

In your cover letter, DO NOT SUMMARIZE the work you are submitting. Editors want to read it without preconceived notions. If it needs to be “explained” this is a red flag. DO NOT excessively brag about what a wonderful writer you are or exaggerate your accomplishments.

IF you have one interesting personal fact ( ex. They’re a champion parachutist.) you’d like to include, it can enhance a cover letter, but to tell the story of your life is not recommended. Too long a cover letter can be a turn off.

Links to a book you’ve published and/or your website or blog is always a good idea. If a reader wants to read more of your work it is helpful.

Always be polite and kind in your dealings with other writers and editors. Everyone is working hard and many are volunteering their time because they love the art of writing.

Never give up, if you think you’ve written something good. Often pieces, particularly in a theme call, are rejected because they are not a good fit for a particular issue. Always work to improve unpublished work by revisiting it and revising it, when appropriate. Read and submit to multiple magazines.

HAVE A GREAT WRITING YEAR and keep perfecting your craft. LEARNING is part of the journey.

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, Invisible City Literary Review, 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://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/recipes-from-my-garden-nadja-maril/1145598579

Is Opportunity Knocking?

Published on by diannePLeave a comment

Have you ever considered a writing retreat? Most of them are (I think) outrageously expensive. How about a free one instead?
Consider applying to Yaddo.

Yaddo is one of the most respected artist residencies in the world, offering writers something increasingly rare: uninterrupted time and space to focus deeply on creative work. Founded in 1900, Yaddo was created with a singular purpose, to support artists by removing everyday distractions so they can fully engage with their craft. Located on a wooded estate in Saratoga Springs, New York, Yaddo has quietly supported generations of writers whose work has gone on to shape contemporary literature.

What makes Yaddo especially appealing to authors is its emphasis on creative freedom. There are no required workshops, classes, or public obligations. Writers are given room, board, and a private workspace, allowing them to set their own rhythm and priorities. Residencies typically range from two weeks to two months, offering enough time to make real progress on a project or to rediscover momentum that may have been lost to teaching, work, or daily responsibilities.

Selection is based on the strength of the work itself. There is no expectation that writers arrive with a polished or market ready manuscript, and no requirement to produce a finished piece by the end of the residency. This makes Yaddo an ideal space for experimentation, risk taking, and deep revision. Many writers find that the absence of pressure allows them to work more honestly and adventurously than they can elsewhere.

While solitude is central to the Yaddo experience, a quiet sense of community is also part of daily life. Communal meals and shared spaces offer opportunities for informal conversation with artists working across disciplines, including music, visual art, film, and theater. These interactions are optional but often enriching, providing fresh perspectives without overwhelming the creative focus.

For authors navigating a literary world that increasingly demands constant productivity and self promotion, Yaddo offers a rare and valuable gift. Time to write. Time to think. Time to reconnect with the work itself. For writers serious about their craft, applying to Yaddo is not just an opportunity. It is an investment in the long life of their creative practice.

DEADLINE:

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 Holidays!

A Poem Through the Ages

Published on by virginiawattsLeave a comment

My grandfather was a schoolteacher, a school principal, and a child psychologist. He was an advocate for the idea that children should memorize poems. I believe he thought it would improve language skills, help with understanding rhythm in speech, and show children the joy of becoming emotionally attached to words and stories. There were five grandchildren. I was the youngest. I didn’t really want to memorize a poem. I remember it was summertime, and it felt too much like schoolwork, but I did. I chose the poem “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod” published in 1889 by Eugene Field. The original title of the poem was “Dutch Lullaby.” Field was known for his humorous newspaper columns and light verse for children. When I look back over my lifetime, I think my grandfather was onto something.

 The poem is a charming, soothing rhyme about three children who go on a journey. They sail on a “river of crystal light” and “into a sea of dew.” They fish for stars and the moon sings to them, encouraging them as a friend and companion. Later, it becomes clear that the story is really about one child, his eyes are Wynken and Blynken, and his head is Nod. His mother is singing to him in his trundle bed of the, “…wonderful sights he’ll see.” 

 The poem was written at a time when people were fascinated with dreams. While it describes sleep, and falling asleep, and dreaming, it’s also about what you can do with your own imagination. It’s a lesson in fantasy. I have recited the poem in my head many times in my lifetime. I recited it to my children at bedtime. Like any good lullaby, it has comforted me and reminded me of hope, beauty, magic and that dreams can still come true. It is a piece of work that makes me feel safe. It has been my trusty companion. So perhaps it is true that all children should memorize at least one poem. I am not the only one who fell in love with “Wynken, Blynken and Nod” and stayed that way. Mankind in general has. It was made into a song in 1890 by Ethelbert Woodbridge. It was recorded as a song again in 1930 and later by the Doobie Brothers. The song was also performed on the television shows Barney & Friends and Sesame Street. In 1938, Walt Disney released an adorable cartoon on the poem featuring three pajama-wearing children. (You can watch this below.)  In 1993, Mrs. Wilson recited the poem to Dennis in the movie Dennis the Menace. The poem is in the public domain and available to read from numerous sources, but here is the text:

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe—
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.
'Where are you going, and what do you wish?'
The old moon asked the three.
'We have come to fish for the herring-fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!'
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

The old moon laughed and sang a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew.
The little stars were the herring fish
That lived in the beautiful sea–
'Now cast your nets wherever you wish—
Never afeard are we';
So cried the stars to the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam—
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home;
'Twas all so pretty a sail it seemed
As if it could not be,
And some folk thought ’twas a dream they’d dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea–
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is the wee one’s trundle-bed.
So shut your eyes while mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

May you find it soothes you to sleep too!
Sweet dreams!

Virginia Watts is the author of poetry and stories found in The MacGuffin, Epiphany, CRAFT, The Florida Review, Reed Magazine, Pithead Chapel, Eclectica Magazine among others. She has been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize. Her debut short story collection Echoes from the Hocker House was short listed for 2024 Eric Hoffer Grand Prize, selected as one of the Best Indie Books of 2023 by Kirkus Book Reviews, and won third place in the 2024 Feathered Quill Book Awards. Please visit her.

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

Her prior poetry chapbooks Shot Full of Holes and The Werewolves of Elk Creek 

 are available from Moonstone Press. And her debut short story collection Echoes from the Hocker House is not to be missed!

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

Published on 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

********************************************************************************************

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

********************************************************************************************

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

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.

Writing About Food and Announcing the Latest Issue of Instant Noodles Literary Magazine!

Published on by Nadja Maril1 Comment

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

Food. We spend a substantial part each day preparing, serving, and eating. The tastes, aromas and textures bring back memories. And over the winter holidays, the sensations become magnified as we taste the turkey roasting in the oven, the creamy mashed potatoes, the fragrant puddings, the sweet and savory carrots, onion topped green beans, latkes and apple sauce, cheese blintzes, and buttery chocolate chip cookies.

This is why I enjoy writing about food. It’s easy. All I have to do is close my eyes, remember and think of words to describe memorable dishes, new tastes I discovered, and meals I’ve shared. Try it. Think of a favorite meal, why it stands out in your mind and the emotions you associate with that time. Write down you uncensored thoughts. Read over what you’ve written. Maybe cross out a few sentences and rewrite others. You’ve begun to write memoir, the start of what is called Creative Nonfiction and it wasn’t hard at all.

You can take those food thoughts and memories and turn them into fiction as well. There’s no shortage of food in fairy tales: the witch in Hansel and Gretal with the house made of gingerbread and candy, the red apple in Snow White, the porridge eaten by Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Wonderful poems have been written about food ingredients. One of the most important items I use in savory dishes is onion. Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) wrote a wonderful poem about the onion I’d like to share.

ODE TO THE ONION
by Pablo Neruda

Onion,
luminous flask,
your beauty formed
petal by petal,
crystal scales expanded you
and in the secrecy of the dark earth
your belly grew round with dew.
Under the earth
the miracle
happened
and when your clumsy
green stem appeared,
and your leaves were born
like swords
in the garden,
the earth heaped up her power
showing your naked transparency,
and as the remote sea
in lifting the breasts of Aphrodite
duplicating the magnolia,
so did the earth
make you,
onion
clear as a planet
and destined
to shine,
constant constellation,
round rose of water,
upon
the table
of the poor.

You make us cry without hurting us.
I have praised everything that exists,
but to me, onion, you are
more beautiful than a bird
of dazzling feathers,
heavenly globe, platinum goblet,
unmoving dance
of the snowy anemone

and the fragrance of the earth lives
in your crystalline nature.

If you need more inspiration, start reading the latest issue of Instant Noodles Literary Magazine .All the stories and poems are inspired by GRAVY.

One of my favorites in this issue is “Thanksgiving Leftovers” by Arielle Arbushites which begins “Gravy gravy everywhere/and not a drop to drink” Hear her read the poem by clicking this link.

Forty-two creative expressions inspired by GRAVY! Who would have thought we’d get so many fine submissions on this topic. Read them and enjoy the writer’s different takes on the subject. Maybe it is a holiday dinner that goes wrong or a humble food offering that needs a splash of pzazz but all the stories have something to do with gravy.

My creative nonfiction includes a nod to my great-grandmother’s Limoges covered gravy dish and a recipe. You can access it here or if you don’t want to read, you can listen here

Writers and Readers, don’t forget to forget to follow us on Facebook to get the latest news and learn about submission opportunities.

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.

Motorcycle Betrayal Poems

Published on by diannePLeave a comment

When I was in school studying writing, I had some just lovely, encouraging professors. One of them was Christopher Buckley.

Chris was always telling me other poets I reminded him of. One of those was Charles Simic, and another was Diane Wakowski. Chris was so wonderful, in fact, that he had studied with Diane, and he helped me organize for her to come and do a reading on campus, from Michigan to West Chester, Pennsylvania. It was a little bit strange, meeting Diane, because I had imagined her to be like if Twiggy and Patti Smith were merged into a single person who wrote kick-ass poetry. In reality she was a tiny thing, and a little prickly around the edges. I was star-struck and shy. I had read (lord knows how, as we didn’t have the internet, maybe in one of her poems) that she was a huge fan of freshwater pearls, and I bought a necklace and bracelet to give to her. She didn’t open the gift in my presence, and I never heard from her to hear if she liked them. But, in my very young mind, I thought she was everything I wanted to be: full-time professor, writing poetry all the time, and just generally badass, which, I guess, included being a little prickly and unfriendly. As introverted as I am, I am also a people-pleaser, so though I don’t want to talk in situations where I don’t know everyone, I do talk, because I am worried about not being nice enough to everyone else. And then I am exhausted after. Maybe Diane had already learned the art of taking care of herself. She was born the year after my dad, so she was well into middle-age when I met her.

The book I have pictured at the start of this post is the one that made me love her: The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems. I mean, she got on motorcycles. My sister (younger than me by 8 years) once had a motorcycle boyfriend, in fact he was a sweet guy, and we’re all still friends with him, and he once let me climb on behind him so that he could drive me around Sea Isle City on his motorcycle. But, to stay on behind a rider, you have to hold on to the rider’s body, and Reuel (the boyfriend) was incredibly fit and hot, like Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise hot. I felt so afraid of falling off and dying and so wrong for gripping onto his body for dear life that I cut the ride short. Diane would not have cut the ride short even if it was with her sister’s hot boyfriend. Diane has always seemed to me like a woman who knows who she is and what she wants, and gets what she wants. She might have been the Taylor Swift of the 1970s, because to date her, and to break up with her, was to have a vicious poem written about you.

Dedication in the original The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems

At that point in my life I thought I had all possibilities ahead of me, as young optimistic people do. I thought I could become a thin woman who rode on the back of motorcycles and penned vicious poems about love. Diane also seemed… horny, which, raised by a very Methodist mother who got pregnant as a teenager, I was not allowed to be, so that seemed very flash and exciting to me too.

Honestly, you may think it silly yo say, because poetry is just poems, no big deal, but being a poet was such a monumental thing to me that I’m still trying to give myself permission to do it. Permission Diane never seemed to need, but Dianne definitely needs, to this very day.

If Diane was a sort of a hero, but not the warmest or nicest hero, why bring her up to you? Why not just let her, and her work, slide into obscurity?

I think because she is an unapologetic woman; she is who she is, lusty, strong, angry, successful (even if success did mean getting stuck in Michigan!), and felt no need to be mushy with a grad student who idolized her. No grad students have idolized me, but I expect it could be annoying as well as nice.

I told my sister last week that we’ve lost two Diane’s this year, Keaton and Ladd, both single Ns, unlike my double. Wakowski is up there, and also a single N. I don’t know if I can lose another one this year, so I hope she’s not on a motorcycle these days. And, then again, I kinda hope she is.

“She digs her teeth into the slaveries of woman, she cries them aloud with such fulminating energy that the chains begin to melt of themselves. Reaching into the hive of her angers, she plucks out images of fear and delight that are transparent yet loaded with the darknesses of life. Diane Wakoski is an important and moving poet.”–The New York Times

In 1971, Diane Wakoski published The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems to tremendous acclaim. Relevant, moving–at times shocking–it is Wakoski’s honesty and bravery as an artist that continues to astonish, delight, inspire, and liberate readers.

Wakoski responds to betrayal in a variety of ways including fantasies such as drilling bullet holes into the bodies of unfaithful lovers. But even her anger can be winking, as in the book’s sly dedication to “all those men who betrayed me at one time or another, in hopes they will fall off their motorcycles and break their necks.”

“The Bouquet”

“I Have Had to Learn to Live with My Face”

Have you heard of Diane Wakowski? What do you think of her? If you found any links to video of her, send it this way!

Words with Dual Meanings: A Writer’s Playground

Published on by Nadja MarilLeave a comment

by Nadja Maril

Words. They fascinate me, the way some words like dust can have two very different meanings. You dust the house, removing small particles of dirt and cobwebs. You dust the cake with confectioner’s sugar making it sweet.

The word weather has two opposite meanings as a verb. The new wood shingles on the house will look better when they weather and turn a soft natural gray. Or used differently you could write, When the next hurricane arrives, I’m not sure if we can weather the storm. As a noun, the meaning of weather is constant. The noun describes meteorological conditions.  Nice fall weather we’re having.

Applying Word Meanings to Getting Published

Every Monday when I read the updated lists of publishing opportunities in literary magazines, I read theme call-outs that generally consist of one word. Write to the theme, they ask, but sometimes that word can be open to wide interpretation.  However, that’s the job of a creative writer; to put our own perspective into our poems and stories.

Photo by Gaurav Ranjitkar on Pexels.com

I read the word dirt and I might picture a pile of soil or imagine filth within a house or think instead of scandalous information about a crooked politician. Playing in the dirt making mudpies can be a joyful experience for a child whereas cleaning away mounds of accumulated filth a tedious chore. The diverse interpretations of how we interpret words can be what makes a collection of writing interesting.

The diverse interpretations of how we interpret words can be what makes a collection of writing interesting.

So, I was surprised when a friend told me their spouse had purchased my new book (Recipes From My Garden; herb and memoir short prose and poetry) and with the cold weather coming, they were planning on trying out some of my recipes.

i’d written a book of prose poems and memoir and my friend thought I’d just published a cookbook!

How Word Choice for Your Title Affects Marketing

Recipes. Yes, the word can mean instructions on food preparation, ie try my recipe for chicken soup, but it can also mean a way or approach to doing things. You might say I’ve got the recipe for a successful children’s birthday party, one adult for every child. Or on the opposite end of the spectrum, you might hear about a class trip to the amusement park with no parent chaperones and say, That’s a recipe for disaster.

I thought I was being clever when I chose the title to my little chapbook. I imagined that readers seeing the words memoir, prose, and poetry would understand the book’s double meaning. It does contain a few actual recipes and many references to food and kitchen gardens, but primarily I was thinking of the word recipe as a way or approach of doing things. As memoir, the usage becomes personal. As a poet, I’m sharing how I see the world, starting specifically with what is accessible to me: the sunflowers, tomatoes, a walk on the beach.

The good news for me is  if there is any doubt, the silver lining is people do talk about what they read and like. But if you are new to thie site and you are just reading about my chapbook for the very first time, I also have a book trailer. My talented publishers were able to use some of the video my husband took of our giant sunflowers along with old family photographs and more recent ones to create a wonderful book trailer. You can watch by clicking on the link: https://youtu.be/HxmwOx3-_QY

And going with the theme of the multiple meanings of words, here is a word WRITING PROMPT

To get you started I have chosen a few ambiguous words: long, cleave, bar, and duck. Select a word, choose a meaning, and start writing a scene. Take the word and use it with an alternate meaning. How many different ways can you use the same word and shade the meaning in different ways? Try using the word in a poem and play with the multiple meanings.  Have fun.

Thank You for reading! To read more of my work sign up for FREE to follow me on WordPress, Substack or Medium and visit my website at www.Nadjamaril.com.

Don’r forget to follow Old Scratch Press on Facebook and on WordPress.

Published by Nadja Maril

Nadja Maril’s prose and poetry has been published in literary magazines that include Change Seven, Lunch Ticket, Thin Air, and The Compressed Journal of Creative Arts. She is the author of Recipes From My Garden, a chapbook published by Old Scratch Press that includes both poetry and creative nonfiction prose. Author of two children’s books illustrated with paintings by her father Herman Maril, as well as Who IS Santa? for which she did her own illustrations, Nadja is also the author of two reference books on antique American Lighting, published by Schiffer. A former journalist and magazine editor, Nadja has an MFA in Creative Writing from the Stonecoast Program at the University of Southern Maine. To read more of her work and follow her weekly blog posts, visit Nadjamaril.com https://nadjamaril.com/ View more posts

LAST CHANCE!

Published on by dianneP1 Comment

Last Chance to get published this year!
SUBMISSIONS FOR 2025 ARE OPEN THROUGH 11.02.25.

The Old Scratch Press team asks that all fiction/non-fiction pieces adhere to a word count of 500 words or less.

Topics/themes for 2025

GRAVY is our 2025 winter holiday theme. Give us your best holiday gravy fails, mishaps, ridiculous gravy encounters (any December holiday, from Hanukkah, to Solstice, to NYE, etc.) or your best funny work about gravy, in general. The point of the end-of-year issue is to be light-hearted to downright silly.

Submissions close NOVEMBER 2, 2025; the issue will publish DECEMBER 1, 2025.

SUBMIT!

You know you want to!

When the Veil Thins, Tune In: The Lost Art of Intuition

Published on by Ellis ElliottLeave a comment

In a world overflowing with information, it can feel almost impossible to hear the quiet murmur of our own inner voice. From the moment we wake, we are bombarded: endless news updates, social media scrolls, texts, and the constant hum of opinions vying for our attention. All of it fills the space where intuition—the whispering language of the subconscious—once thrived.

Yet, as writers, intuition is one of our greatest tools. It’s what allows us to leap into a story we don’t fully understand yet, to follow a surprising character down an unplanned path, or to trust an image or phrase that arrives out of nowhere. Without it, we risk writing only what we already know, instead of what wants to reveal itself.

Fall: The Season of Listening

October, with its crisp air and longer nights, brings a natural invitation to slow down and listen. Folklore tells us that in autumn, as the veil thins between the seen and unseen, intuition becomes easier to access. Shadows stretch differently, the wind carries voices, and we sense the tug of what lies just beyond.

This is the perfect time of year to tune in. The season itself seems to whisper: pay attention, the unseen is speaking.

Why We Lose Touch with Intuition

Intuition is quiet, subtle, and often inconvenient. It rarely announces itself in bold type. Instead, it flickers in images, hunches, gut feelings, or sudden questions that surface in stillness. When we drown our senses in constant input, we crowd out those fleeting signals. It’s like trying to hear an owl’s call on a windy night—you know it’s there, but the noise drowns it out.

Our culture rewards speed, productivity, and certainty. Intuition asks for slowness, stillness, and trust. It feels risky to follow because it rarely comes with a guarantee, but instead with a nudge: “this way, try this, pay attention.”

Reclaiming the Lost Art

The good news is intuition can be reawakened. Like any art, it thrives with practice:

  • Silence the noise. Even a few minutes of quiet each day—no phone, no media, just breath—can make space for inner knowing to rise.
  • Notice the body. Intuition often lives in the gut, the chest, the skin prickling on your arms. Writing down where and how you feel things can help you recognize its signals.
  • Follow the odd image. When a strange metaphor or unexpected detail shows up in your writing, resist the urge to explain it away. Let it lead you.
  • Trust the detours. If you sit down to write one thing but another insists on being written, follow that tug. Intuition often works sideways.

One of my favorite ways to access this hidden reservoir is through freewriting. When we put pen to paper without censoring, judging, or editing, we bypass the noisy critic in our head. Freewriting allows the subconscious to slip through, offering images, insights, and connections that often surprise us. It is a way of honoring the intuition that we so often ignore. In the flow of words that tumble out, we begin to recognize patterns, truths, and directions that were there all along, waiting to be heard.

Tuning in to our intuition is not about achieving perfection or following rules. It is about reclaiming an ancient art: the art of listening inwardly. As the veil thins, perhaps it is time to sit with the page, quiet the outside world, and let your own inner compass

Intuition as a Writer’s Compass

The deepest writing often doesn’t come from logic or planning alone—it comes from the subterranean river of memory, dream, and imagination. Intuition is the compass that guides us into that underground place. When we let it lead, we discover connections we couldn’t have forced, truths we didn’t know we were carrying, and stories that surprise even us.

This October, let the season itself be your reminder. As the veil thins and the shadows lengthen, practice listening for what arises in the quiet. Intuition is not a luxury—it is the thread that ties us to the mystery of creativity itself. To follow it is to reclaim a lost art, both in writing and in life.

(And if you are interested in learning about intuitively understanding your surroundings check out the books by writer Tristan Gooley, like The Nature Instinct or The Natural Navigator.)

Thank you for reading this post and visiting the Old Scratch Press Blog. Next Saturday October 25th at 5:00 p.m., three members of the Old Scratch Press Team are participating in a special online reading from their newly published books. FREE. Read more about it here. And follow us on Facebook.

Ellis Elliott, Founding Member, Old Scratch Press Collective, Author: Break in the Field and A Witch Awakens: A Fire Circle Mystery available on Amazon. Bewilderness Writing : http://bewildernesswriting.com/

Welcome Beatriz Fernandez: Newest Member of Old Scratch Press

Published on by Nadja Maril2 Comments

Old Scratch Press Short Form and Poetry Collective is pleased to announce that Beatriz Fernandez has recently become our newest member.  “I am thrilled and honored, “she says, “to join an online community of fellow writers from around the globe who support each other’s work, provide feedback and share our various skills and strengths.”

Although she didn’t try to get published until she was in her late forties, Beatriz has been writing all her life. 

“I write in both form and free verse, both mainstream and genre, and have recently begun to write flash and short fiction. In poetry, I favor historical persona poems written in the voices of women, whether historical, mythological, or fictional figures. I also write speculative poetry and short fiction. I try to include my love of robots, androids, or time travel in most of my stories.” 

Over the past ten years, Beatriz Fernandez’s work has been nominated for the Pushcart prize four times, and has been published in anthologies and journals as various as Label Me Latina/o, Prime Number Magazine, Strange Horizons, and Whale Road Review.  She’s authored three poetry chapbooks: the most recent, Simultaneous States, (Bainbridge Island Press, 2025) included some poetry set in Puerto Rico and some speculative poems.  Her eco-science fiction flash fiction piece, “Flow Time” was published this summer in a special Florida themed anthology by Gaslamp Pulp, a division of Nat 1 Publishing.  That publisher also just accepted her Puerto Rican Frog Prince adaptation titled “The Coquí Captain” for a children’s anthology of reimagined fairy tales.

Beatriz grew up in Philadelphia, Spain, and mostly Puerto Rico and then came to Florida to attend college.  During her junior year she established her Florida residency, met her husband, and began working in libraries.  “I fell in love with all three,” she says, “and subsequently found no reason to leave any of them!”

Describing herself as a late bloomer in both her library and writing careers; she became a professional librarian in her mid 30s.  On the way, she obtained an M.A. in English literature but found herself to be too much of a generalist to focus on a dissertation topic. 

“During this time,” she says, “I seemed to be under the impression I was a budding novelist while the reality was that I was writing more poetry than anything else.  My lightbulb moment came when I won a Writer’s Digest poetry contest that I entered on the very last day.  That stroke of luck seemed to finally put me on the right road and actively seeking to improve my poetry style.  I embarked on a long-distance phone tutorial with poet Andrea Hollander, who is a brilliant teacher and mentor, for several years; she helped me find my true voice. “

“Many writing classes, confabs and workshops later,” she says, “I’ve published almost every poem I’ve ever written! Now I feel I have come full circle—after starting out my writing career with long-distance tutorials, I’ve joined an online community of fellow writers.”

To learn more about Beatriz and to hear her radio interview on “Here and Now,” you can visit her website here

Thank you for reading this post and visiting the Old Scratch Press Blog. Next Saturday October 25th at 5:00 p.m., three members of the Old Scratch Press Team are participating in a special online reading from their newly published books. FREE. Read more about it here. And follow us on Facebook.