Welcome to our latest newsletter. We have submission stuffs, Trash Family publications, Quick Reads and a fontastic writing prompt.
Submission Stuffs
We are very close to the end of our three-month sub window for Trash Cat Lit’s first print anthology. Subs close on the 30th June at 8pm (BST). All the details are HERE if you are hanging on until that last moment.
We are looking for new and reprint short fiction between 300 and 2500 words on the theme of Treasure in Unexpected Places.
While we work on putting our Summer General Issue together – our biggest issue to date – we are also looking forward to the return of our Autumn Pop-Up.
During the month of August, participants will blind-choose a set of prompts – using the Trashcan Generator – have two weeks to write a 500 word flash and then submit during the three-day window. Selected stories will be published on the 1st September. It’s a quick one!
All the details on how it works are HERE
Be sure to check out last year’s selected bunch – Prompted Stories 2024 and be inspired.
Get a set of prompts; Setting/Situation, Character, Object/Occurrence and write 500 words – genre free.
This year we have more prompts thanks to new Trashies, rat and seagull
Here are some other submission opportunities in fellow lit mags if you have treasures to send out into the world.
- Ghost Parachute want flash fiction up to 1000 words. They publish “writing that is unapologetically bold”, “fresh and vibrant imagery”, “a story unlike any other story we’ve read before.” Get the info HERE
- Suburban Witchcraft magazine are always open for short fiction with no real word limit. Submit up to 5 pieces of short stuff. They describe themselves as “a fusion of words, aching to represent the sentiment of the magic of strangeness, otherness and the ever-blooming urge to create, despite circumstances, the expectations and poured-over concrete.” Details HERE
- A magazine with an interesting concept, The Mixtape Review publish prose (and poetry) inspired by music and ask that you send a song of your choice to accompany your work. Prose up to 2000 words. Get all the info HERE
As with all literary publications, including Trash Cat Lit, you should always read a number of the published works before submitting yourself. Get to know what they like and decide if it’s the right home for your treasured words.
Trash Family
We love to celebrate our contributors beyond Trash Cat Lit, here are some cool stuffs our Trash Family members have going on:
Bronwen Griffiths
(READ The Motorway Forest)
and
Cole Beauchamp
(READ Catfishing)
Bronwen and Cole both have beautiful flash fiction in the inaugural “Roots” issue of new magazine, Temple in the City. Click the images to read.
“You dried my eyes with your fingers and then you leapt off the bench and went running through the scattered blossoms and you were lovely in your white dress but my heart was breaking again like it had broken all those years ago in the season of the falling cherry blossom. “
Bronwen Griffiths, Ice Cream Like Cherry-Blossom
Bronwen also answered some questions for TiaC – here is the conversation
” Marissa needs the loo. Then she’s thirsty. Then she’s going to be sick. Finally, the shoes are on. Finally, you reach the school grounds.
If only you could whisk through the playground, unseen. You don’t want sympathy; you want an invisibility cloak. “
Cole Beauchamp, If Only
Catherine O’Brien
(READ Teddy Bear)
We mentioned Ghost Parachute in our Submissions section – and Catherine has a stunning flash published there this month. It is filled with luscious imagery and poetic prose. Click the image to read.
“It’s hard to make shards of all the memories though, to sift through the rubble is to decide to keep some of it, some of him. The way his fingers used to splay to give a slanted view of the surprise he had prepared for her.”
Catherine O’Brien, Not every man but her man
NATIONAL FLASH FICTION DAY – FLASH FLOODERS
There were several Trash Family with fictions published on the day of the Flood – you can read them all HERE.
We’ve shared two below to get you started; short and sharp and just fabulous.
Alan Miller
(READ One Loch Wonder and Baboon)
and
Timothy C. Goodwin
(READ I Stole a Piece of Lava Rock From Craters of the Moon National Park)
Martha’s New Boyfriend
Allan Miller
“Edith said she wasn’t being robotist, she just didn’t want to see her daughter getting hurt. Martha assured her the slaughter droid wouldn’t hurt a fly. Not unless it was a giant mecha-fly…”
Hero Complex
Timothy C.. Goodwin
“…but you’ve also got me, who cleans your dogs’ shit in the kitchen when you’re too stoned to walk them, who drained the back yard of dead brush and sun-bleached garbage…”
A Trash Trio of Quick Reads
Whether you’re on your lunch break, the train, the couch while the kids are out, or in bed with that sublime hour to devote to reading – here are three stories from the Trash Cat bin archive for you to savour.
Click on the images to read three fantastic stories that immerse you in setting and landscape.
From our Winter 2024 Monstrous Issue – Martha Lane
From our Spring 2025 Reprints Issue – Sarah Royston and June Gemmell (you can also listen to audio versions of these two)
When We Walked Out at Sowing Time
The Last to Leave
The Eel-Catcher’s Daughter
Writing Prompt
We’ll end this newsletter with a prompt to help you get writing.
Our Trash Cat loves a good font and often goes hunting for new ones on a website called DaFont which is a treasure trove of free to use fontage.
While browsing fonts the other day, Trash Cat realised there were prompt opportunities in some of quirky font names and styles – which lend themselves to different genres.
So, with that in mind, here are a selection of fonts from the website to use for inspiration and story idea generation.
Use the font name but also look at the style – does it speak to horror or humour or romance or sci-fi? Do you want to play into that – or rail against it? Can you craft a story from just one prompt or do you want the challenge of several?
Feel free to head over to the DaFont website and immerse yourself in hundreds more ideas.
Thank you for reading our newsletter.
We hope we have inspired you with the amazing writing and readings.
We’ll see you next month.
Happy writing and reading, and above all…
TRASH CAT LIT 