Welcome to February’s second fortnightly round-up. Here’s what’s been on a packed ShortStops blog over the past few weeks…
Tania x

Lit Mags

Octavius magazine has relaunched – and is now open to submissions. The Casket of Fictional Delights invites you to try out its Tubeflash Quizzes! Alt-Hist issue 7 is published and there’s a new issue of Jotters United, ‘Gotta Move on Out Now’. Bunbury Magazine gives us an update on the Things We ‘Ave Been Doing! Submissions are now open for Brain Of Forgetting’s 2nd issue, on the theme of ‘Poppies’.

February is ‘Otherworldly Originals Month’ over at Short Story Sunday! Shooter Literary Magazine is  calling for submissions for Issue #2, on the theme of ‘Union.’ . Neon Magazine has opened submissions for Battery Pack II, its second anthology of tiny stories.  Other mags still want your stories too: The Manchester Review has is calling for your submissions.

Competitions & Festivals
Holland Park Press is running a short story competition, I Is Another, deadline 31 August. Mslexia’s 2015 short story competition is accepting entries (women only), deadline March 16th. The Short FICTION short story prize is open for entries, deadline March 31st, as are the Felixtstowe Book Festival’s 2015 short story competition, deadline May 16th and The Moth’s International Short Story Prize, deadline June 30th.

Workshops and Courses
Paul McVeigh is running two workshops in March – on Social Media For Writers (London) and That Killer First Page – Submitting to Competitions & Journals (Belfast). Write Around Town, who are behind Writing Maps, are holding a series of writing workshops in London in April. Alison Clayborn is running a Flash Fiction workshop  on Feb 18th at the Brunel Museum in London.

Tips & Advice
Writing Short Fiction introduces some new February Faces on the site.

Live Lit

White Rabbit is having a Curioser and Curioser storytelling tea party on Feb 20th in London. Stand-Up Tragedy’s next event, Tragic Winter, is in London on Feb 28th and they are calling for submissions for the SUT blog. Words and Women are holding an event in Norwich to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8thand to launch their new collection of short prose.

Last Minutes and Gentle Reminders
You have until Feb 28th to submit your short stories for an anthology inspired by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, to be published by Freight Books.

Coming Up
Keep an eye on the blog tomorrow (Tuesday) for details of lit mag Trafika Europe’s radio campaign!

If you are eager for even more short-story-related news, do follow ShortStops on Twitter where, when we should be writing, we spend (far too) much time passing on news from lit mags, live lit events, short story workshops and festivals! If you’d like to review an event or a publication, drop me a line.

Happy reading, writing, listening and performing!
Tania x