Weekly Writing It Real Newsletter
October 2, 2025
New Post for October, 2025
It is October, and our article for this month is a Zoom recording of an interview I did recently with author Melissa Fraterrigo. We discussed her new book, The Perils of Girlhood: A Memoir in Essays, published last month by the University of Nebraska Press. You can find some of the essays online, one in The Offing.
Melissa Fraterrigo is also the author of the novel, Glory Days, and the short fiction collection, The Longest Pregnancy. You can visit her at melissafraterrigo.com to learn more about her awards, essays, books, teaching, and writing life activities that include running a small writing studio.
Lake Garda, Italy, September 2026
I am sure I will be mentioning this frequently as the months fly by. I am teaching again for Il Chiostro next fall in September, this time with author Brenda Miller, in Lake Garda, Italy.
Here’s how the website describes our workshop:
“If you’ve wanted to travel to Italy with a group of like-minded writing enthusiasts (all levels of experience and publications welcome!), our writer’s workshop in Lake Garda is a wonderful opportunity. During seven days in Italy, you’ll enjoy morning writing workshops and readings, afternoon excursions with time to wander and write, and one-on-one writing consults with instructors Sheila Bender and Brenda Miller.
“Writing in the company of others alongside the sparkling waters of Lake Garda, you’ll generate lots of new material through a collaborative teaching approach. Sheila and Brenda will lead classes every morning, so you’ll learn from both of them daily. Some sessions may be team-taught to showcase various aspects of craft or the cross-pollination that can happen when we experiment across forms. As they get to know you and your work, they will adapt their teaching to address your particular interests and creative goals, whether that’s poetry, memoir, lyric essay, nature writing, fiction, or something entirely new.
“You’ll also have a one-on-one consultation with either Sheila or Brenda to dig deeper into your individual projects and aspirations. You’ll leave with an expanded toolkit, a vision for your writing life, new writing buddies, and pages of work inspired by Italy’s landscapes and spirit.
“Bring your laptop, tablet, or just pen and paper, along with curiosity about sub-genres new to you and an appetite for Italian vistas. You are guaranteed to come away enchanted, unblocked on writing that has been troubling you, and loaded with new work.”
And now:
Since I was in the habit since 2002 of offering a weekly letter every Thursday night or Friday morning announcing a new article and writing news for WritingItReal.com (still an archive of years of articles on writing and the writing life), my plan is to get letters out on Substack weekly as I can, sometimes earlier and sometimes later, sending out what Substack calls “notes” as well.
As a subscriber, you should receive notifications whenever I send a quick note about writing and writers if you go to your Substack settings and select “get notifications” (in addition to posts) from me. They will go to what Substack calls your notification bell at the top right over your profile photo. Please let me know if you have not seen the notes I’ve already sent over the last few weeks or if you have questions.
A Continuing Writing Opportunity
I am posting essays by those subscribers who have written to answer questions like: What sparked your writing life? When did writing surface as an avocation or vocation in your life? I am sure your stories are good ones. Write them and send them to me. I have two more from WIR Substack subscribers in the hopper to post here on the Substack. As you read them, please leave comments for the authors. Carol Blatter’s essay, “I Know I Am a Writer,” garnered comments and likes this week much to my pleasure (and hers, I am sure). I hope more of you will write on this topic! Coming soon are essays by Pat Detmer and Nancy Simler Levinson.
Classes
Il Chiostro is offering my four-session (meets every other week) online class on WRITING FLASH STORIES AND PROSE POEMS. It starts a little later than we thought, now on October 8. See their website for details.
Check out Women on Writing for my six-week class WRITING SHORT, WRITING DEEP: Prose Poetry, Short Memoir, Epistolary, Flash Non-fiction, Flash Fiction, and more beginning November 3. This one is all online via postings in Google Groups.
Tutorials: If you would like to take a writing class from me as a tutorial via email, there are two I am offering in that format--WRITING HEALTHY STARTS and WRITING THE SHORT LYRIC ESSAY. Email me for enrollment and payment information.
Individual Conferences on Your Work
I am available for phone or Zoom consult appointments for one-on-one help. Email me for information and payment options. You are guaranteed to move along in your writing project or to start writing if you are feeling stuck.
This Week’s Resource Links for Writers
Writing Yourself Into Existence: On loving worlds where we don’t belong
Jonathan Lethem on Revising Old Short Stories While Writing New Ones
40 of the Best Places to Submit Poetry Online
Blanket Gravity Magazine is a journal for fiction, creative nonfiction, and visual art. They look for writing and art that explores mental health or emotional life. To see their complete submission guidelines, go here. They close to submissions on January 10th.
Last Week’s Resource Links for Writers
“How to Write a Children’s Picture Book”
“Poem of September 24” by Samira Negrouche
“The Funeral” From Small Scale Sinners by Mahreen Sohail (from LitHub)
“The Art of the Impersonal Essay” by Zadie Smith
Successes - Writing It Real Members Publish
Note: Do you often see the same author names here--I keep the announcements up for a while because it is a lot to click over to read the links that help the rest of us learn about venues that publish work like we are doing. I am always pleased to learn your writing has achieved publication. Seeing names frequently inspires others to enter the game.
Sheila Bender’s flash piece “Harrycoos” appears now on True Stories Well Told (after years of Writing It Real members publishing with Sarah White, the editor, I finally sent something!)
Barbara Simmons’ poem “Plating” appears in The Zest of the Lemon, Volume 3
Michael Shurgot’s third novel, Seotse: A Visionary Tale, won the Wyoming Historical Society 2025 Book Award.
Nancy Smiler Levinson’s poem, “My True Love Gave to Me,” appears in the Fall/Winter 2025 issue of Rat’s Ass Review.
Mona Anderson’s poem, “For All the Boys I Kissed,” also appears in the Fall/Winter 2025 issue of Rat’s Ass Review.
The second part of Marlene Samuels’ “Home Economics Fiasco” is up on True Stories Well Told.
Marlene Samuels’ part one of her story, “Home Economics Fiasco,” is up now on True Stories Well Told as well.
Penne Wilson-Gailer’s book of poems, On Island Time, is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Target.
Mary Ellen Gambutti’s debut magical realism novella, The Garden Between Worlds: A Tale of Magic and Identity, out now and available from multiple venues.
Janice Strohmeier’s article about her book and writing life titled J to K: Bailey’s. Cigarettes, and a Sorority of Two, appears in Tyler Today “Author’s Among Us” section.
Carol Blatter has another new essay published this week: “Pain You are the Master of Misery“ appears in True Stories Well Told.
Carol Blatter’s essay, “Isn’t Carol Married Yet?”, is published this week by The Jewish Writing Project. Her essay “A Second Chance“ appears in Her Stories.
Marlene Samuels’s short essay, “A Snippet of Many: Not so Easy,” appears in True Stories Well Told.
Mona Anderson’s poem “Of Butterflies and Herons” appears in Touchstone, Vol. 67.1.
Three poems by Barbara Simmons, “How Curupira Came to Be”, “Why He Left His Shoes Behind”, and “Plating” appear this month in All Your Poems (available as print or digital formats),
Another of her poems, “Saved by a Shuffle Ball Change,” has been accepted by SweetSmell Journal, with a theme of “Sing, Dance, Clap” and will appear in issue IV later this summer.
Marlene Samuels has published her essay, “How We Come to Believe What We Believe,” in The Memoirist.
Nancy Smiler Levinson’s poem “Hurry Up Please, It’s Time” was a runner-up in the October Project’s poetry contest.
Sheila Wilensky’s article “Language is Home” appears in Desert Leaf.
The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want by Writing It Real contributor Emily M. Bender and Writing It Real member Alex Hannah is available now in the US and UK.
Mona Anderson’s poem, “You Want to Be Kind,” is now out in Smoky Quartz, Spring 2025 issue.” Her poem, “Where I Travel,” appears in Voices Unbound: International Poetry Anthology by Fresh Words: An International Literary Magazine. “Ant Hills on a Dirt Road” has been accepted for publication in the Northern New England Review, Volume 45, 2025. Her poem “I’ll Put the Kettle On” is now published by Earth’s Daughters in their latest issue #99, Take Turns. “Smitten” is posted on the Gyroscope Review’s website as part of their Poem Renaissance, a publishing of previously published poems, for National Poetry Month. This poem was published both in Soul Lit in Spring 2023 and in the Writing It Real Anthology, Pleasures Taken.
Use the contact form to announce your publishing success! It’s not bragging. It is called building an audience, and it helps us all learn about publications to which we might consider submitting our work. Remember to send a link so people can find the publication.
Notable Author Quote
“All stories have to at least try to explain some small portion of the meaning of life. You can do that in 20 minutes, and 15 inches. I still remember a piece that the great Barry Bearak did in TheMiami Herald some 30 years ago. It was a nothing story, really: Some high school kid was leading a campaign to ban books he found offensive from the school library. Bearak didn’t even have an interview with the kid, who was ducking him. The story was short, mostly about the issue. But Bearak had a fact that he withheld until the kicker. The fact put the whole story, subtly, in complete perspective. The kicker noted the true, wonderful fact that the kid was not in school that day because ‘his ulcer was acting up.’” Meaning of life, 15 inches.”
—Gene Weingarten