Welcome to our latest newsletter. We have submission stuffs, Trash Family publications, Print Anthology News, Quick Reads and a musical writing prompt.
Submission Stuffs
The Prompted Stories submission call is almost upon us! After its popularity last year, we are doing this challenge again in the month of August.
It all kicks off on the 1st with prompt selection until the 8th. Are you up for the challenge of working with blind-chosen prompts? The Trashies are ready…
After prompts have been generated and delivered, you’ll have until the 26th to write and submit up to two 500 word flash written to your sets of prompts. Selected stories will be published on the 1st September. It’s a quick one!
All the details on how the challenge works are HERE
Be sure to check out last year’s selected bunch – Prompted Stories 2024 and be inspired.
OUR WINTER GENERAL SUBS OPEN 1st DECEMBER AND WE WANT IT TO BE…WELL… WINTRY!
Click on image for our winter mood board
Here are some other submission opportunities in fellow lit mags if you have treasures to send out into the world.
- New lit mag Claudine is looking for microfic up to 400 words for their inaugural issue and going forward. They say: “Bittersweet is our favorite emotion. We enjoy myths, fairy tales, fabulism, slipstream. More than any genre, we love prose that makes us ache and images that linger. (Sea creatures always a plus.)” They have a feline editor and we are ON BOARD with that. Get the info HERE
- The fabulous Bulb Culture Collective, who publish only reprints, are open for their themed BLAZING issue. They say: “Fire, light, summer, sunshine. Searing, burning, incandescent heat. Figuratively or literally, we’re asking for previously published writing that blazes!” Details HERE
- Something a bit different from lovely Hooghly Review. They give you a backstory and character sketch for Atlas A and you do the rest between 800 and 3500 words. They say: “Your story must be literary but can be in any genre such as crime/noir, speculative, romantic, social, humour, realist, postmodernist, and so on, or a mix of genres.” 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:
This month, we thought we’d share some news from Trash Family whose work will be in our upcoming print anthology. Get to know them before you snatch a copy…
Dreama Weaver
Story upcoming: Passed Down Like Folk Songs
Dreama has a wonderful piece of non-fiction in Silly Goose Press called Gray Feelings. Click on the image below to check it out.
“Let me be clear. My family are not good people. I can remember a time when my grandmother warned me not to date an African American boy because of the way he looked. I understood that she was racist in that very moment.”
Joyce Bingham
Story upcoming: Objects of Sentimental Value
Joyce’s gorgeous story placed second in the WestWord Prize 2025. The piece began on one of Matt Kendrick’s excellent courses. Click on the picture below to read Joyce’s flash He Casts His Line
“Everyone he knows is so far away now. Years away. So far. Voices from earth reach him with star-sized gaps of time, and he sees them age fast, the images freezing and thawing with the signal. He cannot see the Earth now without using the computer to pinpoint its faint light. “
Kate Horsley
Story upcoming: What Ephesians Said
Kate published a cracking hermit piece in Ink Sweat and Tears with the awesome title: Field Observations Made During an Alien Abduction. Click on the image below to read this clever story.
“I’m having sex with an alien. He arrived around 2 am, stringing his hands around my neck to
slip me deeper into coma, like in the movies when the woman is screaming inside but sleep
paralysis freezes her, or in the X-Files when the bruises and the blackouts are from aliens
and Fox Mulder is the only one who believes.”
About That Print Anthology…
We worked overtime trying to make selections from the amazing work submitted for our first ever print anthology – which will raise funds for The Wildlife Trusts.
In the end, after much ice-cream and weeping, Trash Cat settled on TWENTY-SEVEN pieces about treasure in unexpected places. You can see all the contributors below.
We chose stories from 12 existing Trash Family and welcomed 15 new members. There are 7 reprint stories and 20 brand new ones. We think it’s a fantastically eclectic mix of takes on the prompt and will reveal a title and cover in the next couple of months with a September launch being worked towards.
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 have feline elements, kinda.
From our Spring Pop-Up – Bobby Crace
From our Inaugural Issue – Cole Beauchamp
From our Spring reprints issue – Nicole Brogdon
Vampiriority Complex
Catfishing
Tiger Sleeps Over
Writing Prompt
We’ll end this newsletter with a prompt to help you get writing.
Sometimes, when you’re looking for a quick help-me prompt, looking to song titles can be kinda fun. You can also listen to the song, look at the lyrics, and see if they inspire you too.
NOTE: take care using song lyrics in a piece of writing as there can be copyright infringement issues – read up on artists rights if you want to use song lyrics verbatim.
We suggest using the title as the main inspiration, or maybe a few titles in a flash with subheadings. Or maybe try to work a whole raft of titles into a quirky piece. We’ve taken some of the artists Trash Cat likes to listen to and here are some of the titles you might use to kick off a flash that sings.
Taylor Swift
- Look What You Made Me Do
- Beautiful Ghosts
- Highway Don’t Care
- Snow on the Beach
Eagles
- Witchy Woman
- Hole in the World
- One of These Nights
- Lyin’ Eyes
Various Country
- The Devil Went Down to Georgia – Charlie Daniels
- Angel of the Morning – Juice Newton
- Take Me Home, Country Roads – John Denver
- I Fall to Pieces – Patsy Cline
Olivia Rodrigo
- Bad Idea Right?
- Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl
- Favourite Crime
- Pretty Isn’t Pretty
Eighties Bangers
- Careless Whisper – George Michael
- We Didn’t Start the Fire – Billy Joel
- Hungry Like the Wolf – Duran Duran
- Running Up That Hill – Kate Bush
If none of these get your writing brain humming, try a favourite artist of yours and look at the titles with story in mind or try asking t’internet for a playlist for a certain mood/ event – breakups, the end of the world, to bring joy, to garden to, rebellious, haunting, rage.
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 