A Line at a Time (#alaat) #19

It's simple: Look at the picture below and send me the first line that comes to your mind (softwhisperssubmissions@gmail.com). ALL lines will be published on the site and in our monthly issue! (Be sure to include your name and link to Twitter, site, etc.)

Fill the life, the glass, the lies...

A Line at a Time (#alaat) #18

It's simple: Look at the picture below and send me the first line that comes to your mind (softwhisperssubmissions@gmail.com). ALL lines will be published on the site and in our monthly issue! (Be sure to include your name and link to Twitter, site, etc.)

Thick scribes of time and name etched forever

Seventeen Syllables - NEW ANTHOLOGY!

ANOTHER ONE???? Yup. Another one. . . and again, thanks to Jenna Luckenbach for making this logo!

SEVENTEEN SYLLABLES anthology! Submissions open February 19, 2010 and close April 16, 2010 at 5pm EST. Anthology will be available April 26, 2010. This anthology is simple: we want Haiku’s. (Hence the name seventeen!) The subject of the Haiku’s are open – sad, happy, scary, whatever! Now, here’s the sweet part. . . the submissions are UNLIMITED! Got 1 Haiku? SEND IT. Got 100? SEND THEM!

This is how the Haiku should look:

Please make sure you read All the guidelines before you Send something in, k?

I know that was cheesy, but oh well. The formatting is 5-7-5 and there will be NO exceptions to this. I’m sure there are different styles of Haiku’s with different rules, but we want it to be 17 syllables broken into the first line having 5, second line having 7, and third line having 5 again. Formatting NEEDS to be 12 pt Times New Roman font.

When submitting, attach your work to email sent to SOFTWHISPERSSUBMISSIONS@gmail.com. In the subject line: HAIKU ANTHO. Without that, the filters won’t pick it up and it will be gone forever. Bummer.

In the body of the email, write a bio – a bio you’d want to be published if accepted. You retain ALL rights to your work. If it’s already published, COOL! We’ll take it as long as you own the rights.

There is NO money involved here – sorry – but with our anthologies, we try to have a prize. We’re going to pick the best two authors and send them something. What is that something? Not sure yet. We haven’t gotten that far. The reason why is because right now it’s cold, snowy, and winter. This anthology is going to come out just as Spring is in full swing and we want a “nice weather” prize to send!

Any questions? Send an email to Jim at SOFTWHISPERSSUBMISSIONS@gmail.com.

UN-Luck of the Irish - NEW ANTHOLOGY!

YES, another anthology! Once again a big thank you to Jenna Luckenbach for making this logo for us!

The UNLuck of the Irish anthology! Submissions open February 19, 2010 and close March 12, 2010 at 5pm EST. Anthology will be available on St. Patty’s Day – March 17,2010. We are looking for your scariest OR funniest St. Patty’s Day stories and/or poetry! When writing, please remember the title of the anthology – it’s the UNLUCK of the Irish. We’re talking evil leprechaun’s, four leaf clovers that bring bad luck. . . whatever! Make it fun, make it scary, make it green! There is NO word count limit for this anthology. However, please bear in mind this will be available only online.

For fiction: Again, no word count. Only 1 story per person please. For the formatting (and this is the BIG rule) – 12 pt Times New Roman font. SINGLE spaced with indented paragraphs and NO spaces between paragraphs. When ready to send, email submissions to SOFTWHISPERSSUBMISSIONS@GMAIL.COM with UNLUCK – FICTION in the subject. If you don’t do this, the filters won’t grab it and it will be lost forever. Bummer. ATTACH the story to the email. In the body of the email, write a bio about yourself. Go crazy with it! There is no word count for the bio’s either. This is your chance to brag and boast so enjoy it! For Poetry: No word count and any style you want it to be. Only 1 poem per person please. For formatting – 12 pt Times New Roman font. Spacing and where the words are placed are up to you but however you send it is how it will be published. When ready to send, email submissions to SOFTWHISPERSSUBMISSIONS@GMAIL.COM with UNLUCK – POETRY in the subject. If you don’t do this, the filters won’t grab it and it will be lost forever. Bummer. ATTACH the story to the email. In the body of the email, write a bio about yourself. Go crazy with it! There is no word count for the bio’s either. This is your chance to brag and boast so enjoy it! Now, the nitty-gritty: You CAN submit a story and a poem, no problem. You CAN submit work that has been previously published as long as you have the rights to do so.

If selected for publication, you retain all rights and you can send your story/poem out anywhere anytime. We are not here to steal your rights or even borrow them – we want to share stories and poetry, that’s it.

If you send something to us and out elsewhere and the elsewhere picks it up and doesn’t want to share, just shoot us an email and we will get rid of your story or poem UNLESS the anthology is out.

There is NO money involved here but there is a super special prize. And no it’s not just getting published. The authors of the best two pieces in the anthology will receive a keychain – it will be some kind of St. Patty’s Day/Irish keychain. Yes, I know that’s silly, but come on, it’s something! Any further questions, please email Jim at SOFTWHISPERSSUBMISSIONS@gmail.com.

A Line at a Time (#alaat) #13

Look at the picture below and send me the first line you think of! (Check out the Submissions page for more details!)

Dry away - rust away - the swing now moves silent

A Line at a Time #12 (#alaat)

Look at the picture below and send me the first line you think of! (Check out the Submissions page for more details!)

There's a lady in a field, her silhouette dances with the single rose. . . waiting. . .

Pic 1 k (February 2010)

Below is this month's Pic 1 k. Submissions close 2/20/10 at 5PM EST. Please check out our Submissions page for more details. . . but here's the gist - remember the saying "A picture is worth a thousand words?" My challenge is to prove it! You have 1,000 words to write about the picture below. . . Ready. Set. Go!

A Line at a Time - #11

Through the eyes, the life waits - the time changes, the love becomes real

SUBMISSIONS CLOSE AT 11:59PM EST JANUARY 29, 2010

#alaat 10

RULES:

ALAAT - A Line at a Time. This is easy AND fun. Every other Monday on the Soft Whispers blog, there will be a picture posted. Your job is to think of one line about that picture and send it to Jim. This program has been running for a couple months now and has been really fun! To privately contact Jim, you can email him at Jim@JimWisneski.com, DM on Twitter at Wisneski, contact him via Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/), or send him a text message at 610-573-3720. When you send your line, also include your name, web site, Twitter name, etc. This is important so you can get credit for your line when it’s published!

NEW ANTHOLOGY OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS!

The title (as of now): DEADLY LOVE, BE MINE The concept is all Laura Eno’s fault! With a simple question on Twitter, this idea was born and now moving forward. . . Laura asked me if I thought about doing a Valentine’s Day concept like the 12 Days of Christmas one that will be in paperback very soon (www.12days2009.wordpress.com). So, with that said and in mind. . . here we bring you the “Deadly Love, Be Mine” flash fiction / poetry anthology. It’s going to be like a box of chocolates minus the chocolate and lots of horror! GUIDELINES: 1 story OR poem per person. No exceptions. Stories MUST be 1,000 words or less. I repeat: 1,000 WORDS OR LESS. The reason is that this will be published ONLY on the blog. (It may end up in print eventually but I’m not promising a thing because of the cost of putting something in print! If I cover my costs for the 12 Days book and have extra, then we’ll talk about printing this!) The theme is Valentine’s Day horror. . . it doesn’t have to be on Valentine’s Day or about it, but we want love and horror, love and death, love and monsters, love and zombies (cue Jodi MacArthur!), love and. . . whatever the hell scares me!!! :) Submissions are open the second you read this and close on February 10, 2010 BUT please, PRETTY PLEASE with sugar and cherries on top submit your story as soon as you can so we can start posting them! I’m not sure how I’m going to post them – how many per day, etc. because I don’t know how many I’m getting! I’m leaving that part of this project open to you writers. . . just submit, submit, submit! If you have a story that has been published elsewhere, tell me. Make sure you have the rights to have it published somewhere else. If you have a story on your blog, tell me. When you submit, attach – I repeat – ATTACH the story or poem in a Word document using 12 point Times New Roman font (a hard lesson I learned from the 12 Days antho – people like weird fonts!). In the body of the email, put a short bio about yourself, your sites, your work, whatever! Send the story or poem to softwhisperssubmissions@gmail.com with VDAY in the subject line. What that said. . . if you have a question, DM me on Twitter @wisneski or email me. Oh, and the winners of this little project. . . yes, there will be winners. . . get a box of chocolates! The top two stories and top poem authors will get a box of chocolates sent to them! Happy Valentine’s Day. . . so get writing. . .

(and a HUGE thanks to Jenna at Fortunate Creations for creating the logo/coverart for this project already!)

Submissions!

NEW submissions (updated 8/13/2010): Soft Whispers is looking for poetry, short stories, pictures, and art. There really isn’t much we won’t take a look at, so try us! We are looking for people who have enough material to do what we’re going to call “feature weeks”. These will done bi-weekly and the person will have five days and five pieces of work published. Could be just poetry OR mix it up a little… some poetry, some art, etc. AND we aren’t stopping there. We WANT to see collaborations. It would be really neat to see two people have a feature – maybe one poet and one artist? Maybe two poets writing about the same material? Please send all inquiries about feature weeks to SoftWhispersStuff@gmail.com with FEATURE in the subject line. Now, before we had accepted general poetry… but no longer. We want feature weeks. So, if you have a poem to submit, why not dig up (or write) four more and then submit? As you can see, these submissions are a bit shorter than the book they were before! Now, before anyone cringes or yells… YES, A Line at a Time & Pic 1 k will still be valid writing programs on Soft Whispers… but they too are coming with changes. Before, it was a pain with all the little rules and constantly changing the pictures, etc. that it drove people away from the programs and made it very hard on us to keep track of it. So we are throwing the rule book out the window and starting from scratch…
Pic 1 k – We’re keeping the name but changing everything about it. There will be a picture posted on the first of the month. It will stay put for two full months. Your job is to write WHATEVER YOU WANT about the picture. Write a story. Write a poem. Write a one liner… whatever. There are no word limitations and you can submit as much as you want. What we’re going to do is gather all the entries and the ones we accept, we will post on the off weeks that aren’t being used as feature weeks. (See how nice everything comes together!) Email your stories/poems to SoftWhispersStuff@gmail.com with PIC 1 K in the subject line.
A Line at a Time – A minor change here. The picture for ALAAT will be posted on the first of each month. Your job is to write one line about it and email it to us privately. Then we will gather the lines together and it will make a poem that we will post. Email you one lines to SoftWhispersStuff@gmail.com with A LINE AT A TIME in the subject line.
FOR ALL SUBMISSIONS: Include all the information you want shared. Name, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Your site… a short bio. Whatever. We want to make sure if your material is published, people will be able to find you!
GUESS WHAT? That’s it. It’s as simple as that. If anyone has any questions, email Jim at SoftWhispersStuff@gmail.com and put JIM in the subject line.