As writers. we should always be on the lookout for interesting and helpful resources online as well as places to publish our own work. I share a lot of resources on Writing It Real’s facebook page and on Pinterest at The Writing Life. But there are many, and I would like to share my current favorites with you this week. For reading short fiction, essays and poetry, and writers’ words on the craft of writing, as well as thinking about submitting my own work, some of my go-to sites are these:

Narrative magazine — This quality online literary magazine, known especially for its fiction but also includes essays and poetry, has just announced a new section called Writer’s Resources. The section on writing advice contains good titles, many of which you may not have heard about yet.

Narratively is a rich site that asks for submissions in several media and genres. Here’s a direct link to memoir.

True Stories Well Told includes work of interest to those writing personal essays. Recent publications, as you have noted in the weekly Writing It Real newsletter, include several by Writing It Real members.

101words.com is another venue where Writing It Real members have had good success publishing short flash pieces (of 101 words, of course). Each of the members who have had their work accepted has spoke highly of the helpful editing advice and support received from the site’s editor.

Brevitymag.com is one of the most well-regarded sites for reading flash nonfiction (short personal essays) and excellent craft essays by many of the writers they publish. It is not easy to get published in the magazine, but reading the work they publish will help you enter your own work more easily and deeply.

Some who have studied with me have had good luck publishing in this online journal: Persimmon Tree. The current issue, Winter 2018, has a short piece under their category “Sketches” by one of my favorite creative nonfiction writers, Mimi Schwartz.

A fun magazine to consider sending to and reading is Reminisce. Most of us have vignettes to write about lives before the internet and cell phones, even before CDs and DVDs and, of course, before streaming TV and movies.

Thrive Global has also published a Writing It Real member. It accepts articles on a range of topics centered on living a balanced and self-actualizing life.

Subprimal Poetry Art’s website says, “Subprimal Poetry Art looks for poetry and flash fiction that is crafted, urgent, lyrical, compelling, mythical, concerned with spiritual revelation, uses rhythmic sensual, vivid imagery and deals with fundamental truths. We’re looking for work that enables the reader/listener to experience something that they might not otherwise in their regular life and causes them to think.” I’ve had an essay published in the journal about writing a memoir. The editor was a joy to work with.

The Grief Diaries publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction and photography. Many of have written about loss and mourning and hope to find a place that focuses their venue on the topic.

I love the letter form and very much enjoy and am inspired by the letter essays I read at Open Letters to People Or Entities Who Unlikely to Respond. The published open letters cover a wide variety of situations and always hit a nerve while being funny or darkly entertaining.

Beyond Your Blog has a good list of venues to help you consider for extending your literary creative nonfiction publications and audience.

The Review Review offers this list of places to publish flash writing (fiction can not be nonfiction but nonfiction can be made into fiction) as well as this one.

Whenever I am asked for advice on publishing short works, I provide links to these sites:

Submittable, an online submissions management site used by many independent magazines, is free to writers, though the magazines may charge the submitting writer a small fee of $3 or $5 dollars. Your free submittable account will keep records of where you have sent your work and which venues have responded and accepted or rejected the work. It will also archive the files with the work you submitted. It is a very helpful site for keeping your submission process organized.

Duotrope has a nonsubscriber and subscribe levels. It is a site well worth joining if you are making submissions regularly as it lists quality places to submit.

New Pages is another online site that describes journals and magazines looking for submissions.

CWROPPS, which stands for Creative Writing Opportunities, is a Yahoo group you can sign up for to receive daily announcements of venues looking for writing in many genres.

Of course, I enjoy reading books by writers about writing. Two I am reading now are:

Lee Gutkind’s You Can’t Make This Stuff Up: The Complete Guide to Writing Creative Nonfiction — from Memoir to Literary Journalism and Everything in Between. It may sound intimidating, but it isn’t an exceptionally long book and it is filled with information about the history of creative nonfiction, how authors deal with truth-telling, and craft discussions.

Robert Hass’ A Little Book on Form: An Exploration into the Formal Imagination of Poetry. Hass has intriguing and masterful discussions of the work of one line, two line, three line and four line poems and stanzas. The work of each is different and learning from Hass always deepens my understanding of poetry and how to write it well.

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I hope you explore some of these websites and that reading the work and submission guidelines helps you widen your knowledge of quality resources. Please use the comment section below this article to let us know your thoughts about these sites and your favorites, whether they are on this list or on your own current list.