Poetry

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.
– Anton Chekhov
Dear all,
Thank you for another magical month.
Here at Lit Up, the community is all that matters. We have built a beautiful relationship between readers and writers and I personally feel I couldn’t ask for more.
I’m so very happy with the amazing writing we receive every day, with the support that the readers give them, and the amazing editorial team I work with — A Maguire and Pat Link — that does its best for each one of the submissions.
I just wanted to share those thoughts with you all and say, once more, a HUGE THANK YOU. Honestly.
Some announcements, news, and tips:

1. Our new Prompt!
   This month we have a very special prompt. What we want to focus on is a particular feeling that can never be explained with 100% accuracy. We want to dive deep into it, explore it, express it, give it the best we can.
   That feeling is no other than:
   Nostalgia.
   Send me your tales showing what nostalgia means to you, what it feels like, how would you explain the effects it brings out.
   This is going to be a single themed prompt and we will accept both poetry and prose. If you’d like to submit nonfiction, please note that it has to be in the form of storytelling or in other words, it has to be a tale — we are The Land of Little Tales!
   I have a quote I love, taken from the TV series “Mad Men”, as an extra inspiration:
   Nostalgia — it’s delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, “nostalgia” literally means “the pain from an old wound.” It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards… it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels — around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know are loved.
   Specifics:
   Prose:
   2000 words or less
   Poetry:
   No word count for poetry

Submissions open: 10 May 2018
Closing date: 25 May 2018
1 Entry for prose and 1 entry for poetry per writer max.

Please, as always, don’t forget to subtitle your drafts!
“Lit Up — May’s Prompt: Nostalgia”

1. There’s a new profile page for Lit Up,
   so I can share prompt submissions, shoutouts like this one , and something very new and super spicy that will be announced soon. Please follow that profile to receive those posts. I promise to keep them short and interesting (or so I hope? 😉)
   This is the page: Lit Up
2. Updated tabs and sections
   to facilitate your search: SHORT TALES, FLASH TALES, POETRY, NONFICTION, TALES IN PARTS, PROMPTS, AUDIOS AND EDITORS’ SPOT (where you can find a list with all our audios as well as a brief intro to our editorial team through our own tales)
   I really hope you’ll enjoy them :)
   Highlighting Submissions
   This month has been so amazing I can hardly wait to highlight some of the best tales! Unfortunately with 200+ published stories in April it’s hard to include all tales that spoke to our hearts but I hope I’ve managed a good sample of the great writing on Lit Up.
   Let’s see:
   SHORT TALES
   Alexandro Chen — Wearing the Skin of a Woman
   Stephen M. Tomic — Rising to the Surface
   Scott Stavrou — Springtime in the Piazza
   Ryan Bell — A Trick of the Light
   WTF am I doing? — Loving on the Edge
   Howard Altman — The Myth of Pathos
   James Banta — The Old Woman on the Hill
   Kaavya Ramesh — The Fountain of Youth
   William Coen — The Story-Tellers
   Terri Kue — Stuck In The Inbetween
   FLASH TALES
   A Maguire — Ladies Group
   Róisín McLiam — First Time
   Steve B Howard — The Divine Director Loses His Shit
   Elise Edmonds — Dark Shadow
   Miles White — Little Wing
   Juliette van der Molen — Her Collection
   E.D. Martin — Success
   Rachel V Knox — Red Devil
   Valerie Hilal — The Club (1985)
   Mckayla Eato