Get Posted/Get Published: Jagged July 2025
The life-work balance for mothers is often jagged during the summer vacation, especially in July. The logistics of juggling work, your children’s relationships with their siblings, family activities and vacations, and the general change that tends to come about in a household once its inhabitants are not busy each day with school
I love the description that “Life is like a jigsaw puzzle, you have to see the whole picture, then put it together piece by piece!” ― Terry McMillan, and I would wager that many of the best puzzle pieces contributing to said “life” come from what happens in the month of July.
I’m also sharing the link to an article in The Guardian which is bound to be of interest to many of us, since it speaks of the rise of literary Substacks, “Where authors gossip, geek out and let off steam.” Sam Leith points us towards some of the best but also promotes the platform and its individual artists. None of the authors listed have a motherly literary stance, so please comment and link to your own Substack below if you do include references to motherhood and would like to share your space.
Here are writing opportunities and places to submit your writing this month:
GrubStreet Center for Creative Writing is offering a six-week online workshop in the Fall 2025 focusing on writing about the mothering relationship. The title of the program is: Writing Motherhood and the instructor will be Samantha Shanley.
Narrative Magazine have a Spring Short Story Contest, open to fiction and non-fiction writers with a deadline of July 31st 2025. They are looking for short shorts, short stories, essays, memoirs, photo essays, graphic stories, all forms of literary nonfiction, and excerpts from longer works of both fiction and nonfiction. Entries must be previously unpublished, no longer than 15,000 words, and must not have been previously chosen as a winner, finalist, or honorable mention in another contest.
The Los Angeles Review also has a deadline of July 31st 2025 for this year’s award. Submissions are open to all and are not limited to residents of Los Angeles.
Chicken Soup for the Soul website has a July 15th deadline and a topic of Grandmothers, which may be of interest to some of our literary mamas. “A Chicken Soup for the Soul story is an inspirational, true story about ordinary people having extraordinary experiences.” They publish true stories and poetry and the submission is up to 1,200 words only.
The Mom Egg Review (MER) also has a July 15th deadline, accepting poetry, fiction, creative prose/nonfiction, and hybrid works (up to 1000 words) related to mothering or motherhood for their annual print issue with the theme “Mother and Family”.
We are hopeful that you have managed to stay productive in July.