“It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?” ~ Vita Sackville-West

Interview w/ memoirist Helen Fremont who says <memoir stems from the need to claim one’s own voice & one’s own truth...Family secrets manipulate & mess with one’s sense of self, which is why they are so potent.> south85journal.com/2025/10/interv…

Congratulations to poetry faculty member Suzanne Cleary on her Pushcart Prize for her wonderful poem, "It Is Said," which first appeared in The Southern Review.

Stop by & say hey to poetry grad Dustin Brookshire!

Read moe about Converse MFA visitor Gary Jackson's new poetry collection!

Converse fiction/CNF faculty member Leslie Pietrzyk will be reading from her story "Suzanne Is in Pottery Class," finalist for the Doris Betts prize & published in North Carolina Literary Review~~at Scuppernong Books in Greensboro, NC. scuppernongbooks.com/event/2025-10-…

Ready to be bowled over? Our MFA students/grads put together 2 issues of South 85 lit journal annually, under the direction of faculty member Leslie Pietrzyk. Here's our newest issue!!

This one’s GOOD. Visit south85journal.com/fall-winter-20… to read!

Congrats to Converse University MFA’s core faculty Tyree Daye & Ashley M. Jones!!

I’m open to queries! I love crime, mystery, thriller, and suspense adult fiction! Here’s my query link: QueryTracker.net/query/TDRL

Will you get an agent? Who knows. Will you sound important at parties? Absolutely. No database exists for agents’ reading habits, so we did this the hard way—by asking every agent, editor, and writing-adjacent human we could. Submit here: chillsubs.com/lists/15_ficti…

The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master. Then practice losing

Ever heard of Complete Sentence, the online magazine of single-sentence prose? Submissions are free and open year round! Link below.

Each week, we unlocked from our archive stories, poems, and interviews for our readers. Sign up for the Redux newsletter to receive these pieces—by writers like Toni Morrison, Joan Didion, and Kazuo Ishiguro—to your inbox every Sunday morning. buff.ly/fdWG73I

Congrats to poetry grad Dustin Brookshire on the publication of this contoured villanelle!

Congratulations to fiction student Rian Moneypenny on the publication of his poem! (Do we sense a poetry workshop in the future?!? Converse low-res MFA students have the option to take a second genre!)

We're reading. You're writing. A perfect match! Send poems. Link in profile.

Excited to announce our Long List for the Editor's Choice Award! Winner announced in November. In the mean time, enjoy these pieces (and ALL the excellent writing!) in our deluge | drought issue!! south85journal.com/fall-winter-20…

Have you submitted?

Our annual holiday break will be here before you know it. We're currently reading for the Dec issue. Once it's filled, we'll close subs until 2026. Free sub option. We pay $30/piece. Consider sending us something. trampset.org/submissions-6e…