Subscriber News: October 2026
Recent Honors
Congratulations to Kathleen McNamara. Her story collection Gold in the Furnace won the EastOver Press Prize for Debut Collection and will be published in February 2027. The collection includes her story "Cryptozoology", which won first prize for fiction in our 2024 Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest. She credits this win for giving her the confidence to submit the collection.
Congratulations to Rosanne Dingli. Her latest novel, Chance and Necessity: A Novel of Narrogin and Williams (Yellow Teapot Books), was shortlisted for Fiction Book of the Year in the 2026 Western Australian Premier's Book Awards. The judges said it "evoked an excellent sense of place, locality and the rhythms of daily life."
Congratulations to Rich Agnello. His YA novel Jojay and the Joy of Anyway won first prize in the Faith-Based Novel category of the 2026 Catholic Media Association Book Awards. In this novel, a Catholic teen from a troubled background in Baltimore is mentored to become a jazz musician.
Congratulations to James K. Zimmerman. His poetry collection Portrait Miniatures was published in September by Broadstone Books. Kristine Esser Slentz says of this book: "The persona poem is his muse within this collection. Each piece seeks to examine the lessons derived from diverse lived experiences without relinquishing the fundamental elements of the human condition: humor and tragedy."
Congratulations to Noah Berlatsky. His poetry chapbook Summaries Are Positive On Some Level was recently published by sider0xylon press. He describes it as "text collaged from a bunch of debased bestsellers, including J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy."
Recent Publications
Winning Writers Editor Jendi Reiter's poems "No One Asked Why I Wanted the Gun" and "Jaw" were accepted for publication in SHINE Quarterly, #10. The Rumpus published their interview with Dom&Ink, creator of the queer comic book Queens of the Crypt, Vol. 1, on August 24.
Winning Writers contest judge Ezra Fox's poem "Before I Had the Words" was published at Queer Poem-A-Day on October 6.
Jason Prokowiew was interviewed in August at The Queer Love Project about his recently released memoir, War Boys (Trio House Press). He says, "War Boys is about my Russian dad's adoption by the Nazis who murdered his family at the start of the Nazi invasion of Belarus, and the wartime trauma my dad carried into parenting me and my dozen siblings."
Steven Riel will be among the featured readers for the launch of Issue 30 of Assaracus: A Journal of Gay and Queer Poetry on Thursday, October 22, at 7 pm at the BGSQD Bookstore, located on the 2nd floor of the LGBT Center, 208 W. 13th Street, New York City. The event will also be livestreamed and recorded on the bookstore's YouTube channel.
Sally Bellerose and Maureen Brady will be reading their fiction on Tuesday, November 17, at 6:00 pm at Forbes Library, 20 West Street, Northampton, MA. Maureen's new novel is Tessa's Landing, the story of an Irish girl who immigrates to America during the Potato Famine. Sally's novels include the forthcoming Little Man, about a developmentally challenged man whose residential institution is about the close.
Judy Juanita will read from her new book California Fever Dream (Willow Press) on Saturday, October 17, at 5:30 pm Pacific time at Peninsula Books, 441 Westlake Center, Daly City, CA; and on Tuesday, October 20, at 7:00 pm at Mrs. Dalloway's, 2904 College Avenue, Berkeley, CA, at an event entitled "Memoirs: Writing Against Silence or Erasure".
Duane L. Herrmann's book Institor Gleg: New and Collected Stories is now available on Amazon.
Chen Du and Xisheng Chen's translation of Wenting Zhou's poem "Petroleum-Sewed Land" appeared in Mantis: A Journal of Poetry, Criticism & Translation, Issue #24 (September 2026), a publication of the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages at Stanford University. "To reach a place higher and farther: An Interview with Chen Du and Xisheng Chen on Translating Rock Arrangement by Yan An" was published in Asymptote in July. Chen Du's translation of Yingqin Xiong's article "The Three Dimensions of Yan An's Poetic Art" was published in August in Chinese Literature and Thought Today.
Gail Thomas and Deb Lohmeyer will give a reading and slide show from their book This World: Poems and Photographs on Saturday, October 17, at 4:00 pm in the monthly Gallery of Readers series at Forbes Library, 20 West Street, Northampton, MA. Proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to organizations that support immigrants and the unhoused. Gail and Deb will also be bringing this presentation to the WOW Center, 105 Elm Street, Westfield, MA on Thursday, October 22, at 7:00 pm; and to First Parish Church, 349 Boston Post Road, Weston, MA on Sunday, November 1, at 11:45 am. Visit Gail's website for all of her upcoming readings and workshops.
Charles Sartorius' story "Fire Then Ice" was published at MetaStellar. His song "Follow the Heart" was included in the August edition of Wild Greens, an online mixed-media magazine that publishes art, poetry, short fiction, and music. The August issue is the magazine's annual Ekphrasis publication where artists take inspiration from past contributions to Wild Greens. Charles' song was influenced by a Melissa Lomax artwork piece entitled "Stand Strong". His horror story "Ache" was featured and narrated during the Australian radio show AntipodeanSF on August 29. The program concluded with one of Charles’ songs, "AI Lover" (played at the 27:16 mark).
CM Pickard has several poetry publications to report. "Between Stem and Chaff" was published in Cathexis Northwest Press (Sept/Oct 2026). "My Friend Claire" was published in The Road Not Taken, Vol. 20, Issue #2 (Sept 2026). "Passing Spark" and "The Wheel" were published in The Write Launch (Sept 2026).
Angela Sweet-Christian's and David Wynne-Jones' poems were mentioned in Medium columnist Andrew Careaga's favorable review of Live and Let DEI, a humor poetry anthology published by Winning Writers in 2025. Free to download, this collection features political satire poetry that uses the diversity-related terms banned by the Trump administration.
Published: October 9, 2026
