Write into the Week: March 15, 2026

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
–Mahatma Gandhi

Dear Writer,

I hope you’re having a good start to your week. In this newsletter:

• A writing prompt to inspire your creativity.
• Reading and listening recommendations in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
• Publishing, residency, and retreat opportunities available now.
• Join our free Monday and Friday write-ins, and meet our community of writers.

Happy writing this week!

—Elle, Curriculum Specialist & Community Manager

Writer to Writer: On Distractions 

Writers talk a lot about distraction, most often, and quite obviously, as something to be avoided. Cell phones, the news, the endless scrolling of other people’s lives on social media—these are the kinds of distractions that quietly steal the time we meant to spend writing. They pull our attention outward, fragment our focus, and leave us feeling like we’ve somehow worked all day without actually creating anything. (Seriously, have you ever noticed how quickly time passes, and how tired you feel, after mindlessly staring at your phone for two hours? We think it’s mindless; our brains find it exhausting.)

But not all distractions are the enemy.

Some of the most interesting writing begins when we allow ourselves to follow a small curiosity that appears at the edge of our work. It could be: a line of dialogue you overhear in a café, a memory that surfaces while you’re trying to write something else, or (one of my favorites) finding a strange, new word you must look up, then suddenly want to explore. These are the productive distractions. Lean into them—the ones that tug gently on your brain and say, there’s something here worth noticing.

The difference is often simple: some distractions pull you away from writing, while others pull you deeper into creativity. If you find yourself wandering—mentally or physically—pause for a moment and ask which kind of distraction you’re following. Is it carrying you further from the page, or closer to an idea that might become something new? This isn’t a trick on how to eliminate distraction altogether. I’m encouraging you to learn which distractions are invitations, and which ones are exits.

Writing Prompt: Where Are You? 

Write a piece—poem, essay, flash, fiction, nonfiction—where the location is the foundation of and inspiration for the piece. The place could be something familiar to most or only familiar to you. Consider: 

• A doctor’s office
• The Department of Motor Vehicles 
• Your parents’ living room
• A best friend’s car

Put yourself or a character in that place, and tell the story of what happens. 

Reading Recommendations:

Poetry:

• “The Infastructure of an Unmapped Sequence” by Jasmine Melchor. Melchor’s poem moves like a dream through shifting landscapes—towers, labyrinths, fountains, and hidden passages—where logic gives way to intuition and discovery. Read it, and see what you find. 

Fiction:

• “The Garden” by Lavie Tidhar. This short story begins with a simple, almost impossible sight: a flash of green in a city of endless buildings. What follows is a quiet, haunting search through crowded streets and anonymous spaces, as one man tries to rediscover something beautiful he glimpsed only once, only briefly. 

Nonfiction:

• “The Wada Test” by Linda Button. We start inside a neurologist’s office, where a mother studies the fragile landscape of her daughter’s brain—memories, language, and emotion mapped in delicate shapes on a screen. The essay explores what it means to preserve the parts of ourselves that make us who we are.

A Writer to Know: Ross Gay

Ross Gay is the author of The Book of Delights, a collection of short daily essays written over the course of a year. But likely, not the kind of year you’d expect based on the name of the book. Gay wrote the collection in one of the toughest years of his life. In the essays, Gay pays close attention to the small moments that make up an ordinary day: a stranger’s kindness, a ripe tomato, a flower pushing up through pavement. He pushes himself to find delights in the things and happenings most people overlook. 

What makes his work so refreshing is its sense of curiosity and presence. His essays often begin with something simple and observational, then slowly open outward into reflection about joy, grief, community, and being alive in the world.

For writers, Gay offers a quiet but powerful reminder that good writing doesn’t always begin with big ideas. Often, it begins with noticing, observing, letting the good kinds of distractions takeover, and following where they lead. 

Publishing Opportunities:

• The Colorado Review – Submission Deadline: March 31, 2026 – The Colorado Review posted to the Instragram account this week that they are low on CNF submission. This could be a great opportunity to have your work considered for publication! They are also currently open for fiction and poetry submissions. Check their website for genre and submission guidelines. 
• Oxford American – Submission Deadline: April 3, 2026. From their website: The Oxford American is now accepting pitches for their special Summer/Fall 2026 double issue dedicated to Home. It’s an idea as gloriously complicated as the South itself, and they’re interested in works across genres that tackle it from all angles. Home can be our sanctuary, but also our cage. It can represent our connection to a community, and can be troubled by violence, displacement, and loss within that community. It’s deeply personal, but always political.
• Deep Vellum Publishing – Submission Window: April 1-30, 2026. Open call for poetry collection submissions. There are no reading fees, but submissions are capped at 500. A Submittable link for submissions will be available on their website on April 1st. Get your manuscripts prepped! 

Residency, Retreat, & Fellowship Opportunities:

• Hedgebrook Writers in Residence – Application Deadline: April 18, 2026. Hedgebrook’s Writer-in-Residence Program supports women-identified writers from all over the world for residencies of two to three weeks. The cottage, all meals, and the entire residency experience at Hedgebrook is free to selected writers. They accept applications for writers working in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, screenwriting, and playwriting.
• The Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize 2026 – Submission Deadline: May 1, 2026. Awarded for the best piece of writing on the theme of JOY. Submissions can be fiction, non-fiction, or non-academic essays up to a maximum of 1,250 words. The top three submissions win a monetary reward. Please see the website for more details.

Monday and Friday: Free Group Writing Sessions

Come write with us! Community write-ins are a great way to meet other writers, and carve out space in your calendar for your writing.

Monday: Write Into the Week with Elle

Join me (Elle) for an hour of mindset support, goal setting, community, and dedicated time to write! We’ll meet on Monday at 11 AM Eastern time, at this Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83999379617

Friday: Open Write-In

Join the Writers.com staff for a 90-minute writing session each Friday from 11 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern time. We will write together for the first hour. In the last, optional half hour, we’ll share our writing with one another and connect.

To add yourself, join our newsletter using the join box above, and add yourself to the “Friday Write-Ins” list at the bottom of any email. We’ll send you a Zoom link the morning of the call.

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