Author: Rebecca Paredes

Rebecca Paredes is the Editor-in-Chief of Glossy Planet. She is a writer from Lake Elsinore, California, where the IHOP is located next to the graveyard, and an alumna of PEN America’s Emerging Voices Workshop LA. Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in Epiphany Magazine, Barren Magazine, Hunger Mountain Review, and other publications. She holds an MA in Creative Writing from Texas Tech University and is currently working on a novel inspired by her hometown.

13 Writing Prompts to Spark Creativity

Posted on by Rebecca Paredes

Do you have a writing goal this year? While the whole “New Year, New Me” vibe is overplayed (to the point that we made January’s theme a counterpoint to it), there is something appealing about starting a new habit at the beginning of the year, when the slate is clean. If you have a goal to maintain a regular writing practice in 2026, here are two things to keep in mind:

  1. You can start to develop a creative habit—or restart one—at any time, whether it’s the beginning of the year, the very end, or somewhere in between, and
  2. Like all habits, maintaining a writing practice means doing it regularly. That might mean daily, every other day, only on weekends, or whatever works for you.

In my quest to develop a creative routine, I started using writing prompts as warm-up exercises to get my brain going, or as ways to explore my characters, settings, and scenes in unexpected ways. Here are a few prompts from the Glossy Planet team—take whatever resonates with you!

Writing prompts for when you don’t know what to write

  • Write a list of objects that are important to you, your character, or a place your character occupies. In case of fire, what are the first things your protagonist would grab?
  • Pick one to five songs in the public domain (at present, that would be anything from the year 1930 and before, in any language from around the world, as long as it’s translated to English). Use the lyrics as inspiration, or draw your own lines from those lyrics. – Erick Mancilla
  • Set a timer for 10 minutes, describe the last time you experienced a sense of awe.
  • For 10 minutes, write about the last time you collapsed into a chair, couch, or bed, too exhausted to move—but don’t use the words “exhausted” or “tired.” 
  • Spend 20 minutes writing a scene that involves an open window, a star-splattered sky, and a person who hears something they shouldn’t.

Writing prompts for structure and tone

  • On a set of index cards, write the key scenes or plot points from a well-known fairy tale, like Little Red Riding Hood or Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Shuffle the cards or deliberately place them in a new order. Then, write the story, following the new structure. How does the tone change? What narrative leaps do you have to make in order to fit the new events? – Alicia Caples
  • Write a piece that uses the phrase “the first time” somewhere in the narrative, whether it’s the opening line or falls somewhere in the middle. The piece should have a beginning, middle, and end, and it should capture a change or shift in a situation or in a relationship with another person. 

Writing prompts for character

  • Interview your protagonist with 20 personal questions. Ask them about their name (do they like it? Who gave them their nickname?), what their home looks like, what they desire, what they believe, who they’d vote for in a major election, how often they talk to their parents, what their friend group looks like…basically, everything you’d want to know about someone you know deeply. Repeat this exercise with your antagonist, side characters, or any other characters you want to understand.
  • Write a scene in which your character instructs someone else how to do something they think they know how to do well. How does your character describe the steps? Are they patient, or are they easily frustrated? Is this lesson important to your character, or are they just going through the motions?
  • Describe the view from a window, as seen by a character who has just received some very great or very bad news. Don’t mention the news in the exercise. Your goal is to give the reader a sense of the character’s internal life, solely by relying on the way they describe their view. What do they notice, and what is the tone of their descriptions?

Writing prompts for language and dialogue

  • Think of a phrase that someone important to your life and/or your story is constantly saying—a habitual line. It should be a line of dialogue that means more than it appears to mean, like “We’ll see” or “I’m doing just fine.” Then, write a piece in which this line is repeated multiple times and establishes the relationship between your character and the other person. How does the meaning of the line change over the course of the piece?
  • Find a photograph of a group of people, whether it’s from a magazine, a website, or your social media. Pick one person in the photo and describe what they see from their perspective, using language that feels particular to them. Then, pick someone else in the photo. How would they describe that same scene or moment from their perspective? What words would they use, and what would they see that someone else would not?
  • Place two characters in a scene. These characters should know each other well. Give one character a secret that they never tell the other person—but by the end of the scene, your reader should be able to intuitively understand the secret from their dialogue.

From the Team: What We’re Reading

Posted on by Rebecca Paredes

As we close out 2025, we wanted to share a few of our favorite books of the year, what we’re reading, and what we’re looking forward to reading in 2026. Across our readers and editors, you’ll find that our reading tastes are eclectic—which feels pretty on-brand for Glossy Planet’s editorial team! 

Ashley Huyge

Just finished reading: People Collide by Isle McElroy.

While living overseas in Bulgaria, Eli is on his way to meet his successful and ambitious wife at the school where she teaches when he discovers that he is no longer in his own body. Somehow, he is living inside her body as an unintentional tenant, learning how to move through the world as Elizabeth. Wherever his body is, Elizabeth must be its new owner, prompting Eli to search for his missing wife and body.

What really struck me about this book is how Eli experiences life from his wife’s perspective. How slowly he has to walk with her shortened gait, how much is too much to drink on a night out with friends, how to apply makeup, and just exist in the world as a woman. Reading this book is an exercise in gender, identity, empathy, and belonging.

Jamie Dean Nicholl

Currently reading: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott and In Cold Blood by Truman Capote 

Reading next: Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and House of Psychotic Women by Kier-la Janisse 

Best read of the year: Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li. This memoir finds the author dealing with an unimaginable loss. Her analysis of the grieving process and the aftermath is groundbreaking and touching, and it made me look at death very differently.

Jacob Engelsman

Currently reading: I’ve currently got two things going in my personal reading time. First, a collection of short stories called Tevye the Dairyman, selections from which were turned into the play Fiddler on the Roof. The book, which has become somewhat obscure, was written under the pen name Sholem Aleichem, which you might recognize as a Hebrew or Yiddish pun. He was often referred to as the Jewish Mark Twain (whose name is also a pun but it only makes sense if you know about riverboats), although he only lived in the U.S. for the last 10 years of his life. 

The other is an anthology called Spacefunk!, a collection of Afrofuturist science fiction and poetry edited by Milton J. Davis. I just started this, but I picked it up at the Atlanta Writers Conference, where I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Davis. I’m going to pick up his Atlanta-themed anthologies the next chance I get.

Rebecca Paredes

Currently reading: Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez. If I have any reading resolutions for 2026, it’s to read more translated works, and I’m already loving this one. 

Best read of the year: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. It’s an intricately layered epistolary novel with one of the most original takes on vampirism I’ve seen, nested in a broader investigation of colonialism, indigeneity, and the crimes that haunt us. I was fully invested from the first page with this one, and I recommended it to everyone after reading it.

“Notions of Home”: An Interview With M. Colón-Margolies

Posted on by Rebecca Paredes

“In this poem, the instrument is destroyed, but I know the people who played it, and they’re still able to sing,” shared M. Colón-Margolies, our finalist for “A House Divided.” Read her winning piece, and then enjoy this interview with the writer about her poem “Terms of Sale.”

Rebecca Paredes: You submitted this poem in response to our “A House Divided” call for submissions, which asked writers to explore the shape of shelter and what “home” means today. How did you approach crafting this piece in response to the theme?

M. Colón-Margolies: I had a story in my head. A relative of mine had to destroy a piano when they moved out of their house and into a smaller, mobility-accessible apartment, and the brutal nature of that event, of taking a sledgehammer to a 100-year-old piano, stuck with me. I mostly write fiction but was having trouble with it at the time. The tidy arrangement of characters and the artificiality of climax and denouement felt off, given the subject matter. In the end, the writing I did came out fragmented, as verse. 

I was also thinking at the time of the Julio Cortazar story, “Casa Tomada” or “House Taken Over.” It’s a short story about a hostile occupation of a home. Slowly, a house is taken, room by room, by a mysterious force. Each new “taking” seals a part of the house and imbues the reader with a feeling of dread. The story hints that there is an essential corruption that brings about this takeover. That there has always been some evil in the home that now grows wild. The poem I wrote is gentler, but perhaps there was something in my mind about the desperate circumstances many people are facing right now, the feeling many have of being pulled under, bit by bit—and also the knowledge that the forces squeezing us have always existed. 

RP: “Terms of Sale” has so many layers—it begins with the realities of aging, and then shifts into an exploration of the ways that packing up a home is not a neutral process in our current political climate. This stanza is such an impactful turn, tonally: “Only later, a few days before the sale, / the day the government changes / the buyers also change their minds. / Tell her parents to get rid of it.” Everything was moving along, and then the parents were left scrambling. Can you talk to me about your thought process at this moment in the poem? 

MCM: The events described in the poem happened this past winter, after the new administration took power. The situation was no one’s fault—my relatives couldn’t manage their house physically anymore and had no room for the piano in their new place. The buyers ended up not wanting the piano, which is understandable and their right. But no one else wanted the piano either, and that image of the violence of physically destroying a cherished musical instrument that brought togetherness and joy was something I couldn’t shake, especially because I was also thinking at the time about everything that was happening in the country—from masked immigration officers snatching people off the street to arts programs being slashed and dismantled. 

RP: The final three lines of this poem stuck with me—they’re simultaneously tragic and resolved. Did you discover this ending in the process of crafting the poem, or was this where it was always headed?

MCM: The ending came to me as I wrote. 

The friend who helped my relative destroy the piano lived through a military dictatorship in his home country. Maybe this had nothing to do with his ability to do the difficult thing, but it felt pertinent to me. The last lines of the poem belong to him and have to do with remembering, which seems to me to be more important than ever when so much is being ripped away. 

The notion of home often has more to do with emotions and memory than with something physically tangible. As I wrote the poem, I thought that music is that way, too. A few years ago, an uncle I loved very much had a stroke. He couldn’t walk or speak, but somehow, he could sing. And not just sing, but sing songs in Spanish, which wasn’t his first language. He learned folk songs while working for the Peace Corps in the 1960s in Chile. I guess the songs he learned there embedded in some deeper folds of his mind so that when motricity and language broke down, music remained. In this poem, the instrument is destroyed, but I know the people who played it, and they’re still able to sing. 

RP: Is there anything else you’d like to share about this poem or what you’re working on now?

MCM: I’m writing a novel about a young woman who disappears in the Atacama Desert in Chile. She is researching lithium mining there, lithium that will be used to power electric cars and cell phone batteries, but that is draining the fragile ecosystem of water. I have been to this desert several times, and when I was there this past year, someone told me that the solar radiation is similar to that on Venus. It’s a very beautiful and sometimes alien place, the driest desert in the world. It’s also the site of contemporary debates about how to mitigate climate change, water scarcity and the race to mine rare minerals, among others.

Anyway, the novel came to me through the prism of this setting, and is inspired, in part, by Graham Greene’s The Quiet American. I love the hallucinatory quality of that novel, and that it is also somehow written in clean, clear prose. It’s a novel about ethical conflicts but also about love, which my book is about, too. That, and betrayals for a supposedly greater good. 

Letter from the Editor: Our Year in Review

Posted on by Rebecca Paredes

We made it to 2026, and we did it with fire in our words and an eye on the headlines. When Glossy Planet launched late last year, I was deeply curious to see how people would react to a lit mag that responds to the present—and, wow, y’all showed up.

The winners from our first challenge, Monsters We Made, showcased the realities of toxic masculinity in the digital age, the damaging effects of desensitization to violence, and the insidiousness of people in power. The winners from our November challenge, A House Divided, will be published next week, and I’m excited to give you a sneak preview of what these incredible pieces cover:

The fracturing of family histories

The slow realities of erasure

And what happens when we turn the other cheek.

These pieces represent Glossy Planet’s mission: to write in response to the world, not hide from it. It’s an absolute honor to give writers a space to create this type of work. I’ve read in cover letters that our challenges have helped writers break out of a creative slump, and I’ve been told that writing groups are using our challenge copy as writing prompts—all of which makes me feel like we’re doing something right here. Even if you don’t submit your work to us, the very act of creating is worth celebrating, particularly in a time when it would feel so easy to not write and to let the world consume us.

I’m so excited to see what 2026 brings. Our first challenge of the year will launch on January 1 (you can add it to your calendar here), and without giving too much away, it’ll be a direct response to what you hear at the start of a new year. For this challenge, and all the others we release this year, I hope you’ll lean into the deepest part of your writing self and unleash it on the page. 

This isn’t the time to shy away from your truth or obscure what you really want to say with your words—this is the time to let things loose. We will give you a place that will catch those words and read them with care.

Let’s be loud this year. Happy writing.

“A House Divided” Finalists

Posted on by Rebecca Paredes

Our final challenge of the year, “A House Divided,” asked for writing that explored home, displacement, and what the shape of shelter looks like today. We’re excited to announce our finalists, whose works reveal the pain of fractured family histories, the nature of erasure, and detachment from danger until it arrives on one’s doorstep. Please join us in congratulating our winners! We are eager to publish their pieces at the end of December. 

First place

“Terms of Sale” by M. Colón-Margolies

Second place

“Relocation” by Cate McGowan

Third place

“Somebody Should Do Something” by David Brinson

Prepare for landing—these winning pieces will publish at the end of December. Can’t wait? Read the winners from last month’s challenge here.

“A House Divided” Shortlist

Posted on by Rebecca Paredes

We’re pleased to announce the shortlist from our final challenge of the year. This list recognizes the poems, stories, and essays that stopped us and made us reflect on shelter, resistance, resilience, and hope. Join us in celebrating these writers, and stay tuned for the finalists next week! 

“The Statue in the Chapel” by Sunny Chung

“Holy Nights” by Jomil Ebro

“The Shovel Shirt” by Aishatu Ado

“Mother, I” by Nikola Marshal

“Clean Hands” by Michelle Oxford

“Where I Have a Home” by Jonathan Ukah

“The Gift” by Erin Winseman

“Day-to-Day Monsters”: An Interview with Rhys L’Hermite

Posted on by Rebecca Paredes

For our inaugural challenge, we asked writers to explore the monsters of our own making. Read the winning piece here, and then enjoy this interview with first-place winner Rhys L’Hermite, in which he talks about the process of crafting his poem, “Garry Learnt how to Be a Man Off the Internet.” 

Rebecca Paredes: You wrote this in response to our “Monsters We Made” challenge, which asked writers to examine the “monsters” of our contemporary lives and how they haunt us today. How did you approach crafting this piece in response to the theme—for example, was it written in one sitting, or multiple?

Rhys L’Hermite: The main thing I wanted with this poem was for it to feel like a long, continuous stream of thought—so I did end up writing it all in one sitting. The process was mostly me writing the first things that jumped into my head at each corner, letting the piece form itself in an unfiltered way which I later edited down. I think that automatic process really lent to that feeling of sudden or jarring leaps in ideas that the piece displays. 

I also wanted this poem to be uncomfortably real, where that monster of “Garry” (and, by extension, anyone similar) evokes a feeling of terrible, human familiarity—since I think that’s what really connects to the theme of monsters our society has made. I tackled that by basing the rambling dialogue off a lot of real things I’d seen or heard perpetuated. “Garry” is an amalgamation of all those real comments (and, unfortunately, real people), and I think that worked to reinforce that feeling of him being a tangible, human monster, which this wave of toxic masculinity has created.

RP: One of the many things I appreciate about this poem is that it captures both sides of the equation: the man who is influenced by this endless barrage of toxic perspectives and the woman who receives these messages. How do you feel this piece responds to what it’s like to “be a man” today?

RL: I think, as you touched on, a lot of this poem connects to that seemingly inescapable influence of toxic ideals and how overbearing they become. Speaking from the side of men, I feel it especially responds to the rigidity and hostility of ideas regarding what it is to “be a man” or what a “real” man is—and then how those rigid talking points start to almost contradict and collapse in on themselves. 

The poem tries to point out the fragility of those toxic influences: how easily that self-construction of masculinity crumbles if something challenges it (like a woman displaying strength or independence), becoming almost a comical parody of itself. I feel it also tries to respond to the fact that toxic masculinity is such a scorched-earth path that harms both ends of the equation, but I especially wanted to highlight the perspective or experience of people on the receiving end of that rhetoric. 

It was important to me that this poem wasn’t just about what it is to “be a man,” but also what it’s like to be around those men as the side that gets harmed by those ideals most of all. Lastly, I think the poem really speaks to how much louder all the toxic voices can feel—and how much easier it is to hear them (on both sides)—highlighting just how much more overwhelming they become.

RP: The experience of reading this poem is like scrolling through a social media feed, from the way one line bleeds into another to the way the statements become caricatures of the stereotypes of masculinity (I loved “I wash with only the manliest soap it smells like wood splinters I can’t feel ’em”). How do you want your reader to feel by the end of this piece?

RL: Overwhelmed and exhausted are the first things that come to mind—as if there isn’t even a chance to get a word or breath in against “Garry.” Before you’ve even had a chance to process one thing, the next comment has already started. I wanted the whole experience to feel like a nonsensical rant, where the only person who really gets a chance to talk is “Garry,” who ends up basically just having a conversation with himself in a big wall of text.

I also wanted to try and evoke a sense of frustration following that—the general sort of irritation and annoyance (or downright anger) that comes when dealing with these types of people. I want there to be an overall sense of disgust felt over his comments, but I hope that sparks a type of defiance in the reader! That thought and feeling of resistance—a desire to fight back, get Garry to shut up, and put him in his place! 

Then, more specifically when it comes to men reading this poem, I really wanted to make sure that “Garry” comes out of it looking like a complete idiot, so other men read this and have it pointed out plainly to them that following in similar footsteps would make them look like an idiot too. That—contrary to what the internet might be telling us—those “alpha,” “hyper-masculine” ideals just make you look pretty stupid. Those types of monsters aren’t ones you should be looking up to, and I hope that the experience of reading the poem helps highlight that. 

RP: Is there anything else you’d like to share?

RL: I’d love to take this opportunity to say: don’t stop speaking out against those day-to-day monsters, whoever or whatever they might be. Write angry poems! Spit out a frustrated essay! Scratch stories of rebellion onto a page and make all the monsters out there uncomfortable and unsettled. Don’t let the loudest voices drown out or silence the sensible ones. Writing is a wonderful storm of defiance, and I think in these times it’s a craft needed as much as ever.

I also wanted to just say to any young men who might be at formative moments in their lives right now—just because some voices might be the loudest, or even seemingly the most common around you, doesn’t mean those are the ones to listen to. If something doesn’t feel or sound right, don’t follow it. Be careful about who you’re listening to and be aware of what fuels the words they say. Toxic masculinity can feel suffocating, especially in moments you might try to push against it—but remember that empathy isn’t hideous. Having feelings won’t suddenly “make you gay.” You aren’t “less of a man” if you cry when you’re sad and you approach others with kindness.

The only qualifier for being a man is identifying as a man yourself, so don’t let others try and define who you are with their own rigid beliefs. Above anything, just be kind. Be gentle. Be human.  

“Monsters We Made” Finalists

Posted on by Rebecca Paredes

For our very first challenge, “Monsters We Made,” we asked writers to send us work that responds to what we doomscroll through. These pieces made us pause and consider the forces shaping us, reexamine how we engage with technology and culture, and reflect on how we are both victims of the monsters within our global society and participants in perpetuating them. Congratulations to our inaugural finalists, and keep your eyes peeled for their published pieces at the end of November!

First place

“Garry Learnt How to Be a Man Off the Internet” by Rhys L’Hermite

Second place

“Feed” by Celeste Amidon

Third place

“Aswangs Wear Barong Tagalog” by Tresia Traqueña

Letter from the Editor: Closing Thoughts on “Monsters We Made”

Posted on by Rebecca Paredes

Our first writing challenge is in the books, and I’m sitting at my desk feeling grateful, inspired, and excited. We asked for work along the theme of “Monsters We Made”—that is, the monsters of our own making and how they haunt us today. It was a pleasure to see how writers explored these themes across different genres and forms; flash fiction, poetry, and microessays were all represented, from writers who answered the call to lean into the headlines, not away from them. 

This project is very personal to me. When I joined Glossy Planet, I wanted to create a space where writers could feel compelled to turn their doomscrolling fixations into art—something that grounded me back in 2020 when the world stopped, and again this year, as every “Breaking News” headline feels like another step closer into chaos. It was validating to see just how many writers across the globe stepped up to the challenge with gusto. Submitting your work is a radical act. It’s a choice to share something carved from a piece of yourself, to put your voice into the world and trust that someone is listening. I can’t thank our submitters enough for trusting us with their writing.

Several writers noted in their cover letters that they came out of a hiatus to write and submit their work, which, wow—what an absolute honor. As someone who was once in a seven-year writing hiatus, coming out of that space and putting pen back to paper is difficult as hell, and I’m deeply moved to know that our little lit mag’s writing challenge helped ignite that spark.

Here are some quick notes:

  • We received submissions from every continent with the exception of Antarctica.
  • Some of the recurring themes included smartphone addiction, racism, overconsumption, fascism, and hubris.
  • Our reading period continues through Oct. 25, and we’ll begin sending notifications soon after. 
  • We will publish a shortlist to recognize the titles of pieces that lingered with us.
  • Our third, second, and first place winners will be announced the final week of November and published on our website.

I also wanted to share some comments from our stellar reading team: 

“The quality of writing and complexity of ideas in the submissions was astonishing. It made decisions difficult but in the best possible way. My tip to future submitters would be ‘read the guidelines carefully and consider how your piece answers the prompt,’ because you don’t want to disqualify yourself by sending work that’s off-topic.” – K Roberts

“We had a lot of really creative, passionate, and sometimes shocking submissions! Some of the most impactful pieces stayed with me because of their in-depth specificity. If you want to write about something big, go small. Big themes, like racism, climate change, and mental illness management, become more relevant when we focus on intimate details and their impact. The stories where something specific happened to the characters, or poems that highlighted a singular theme and its influence, made me look at my own feelings as they relate to these issues. Those are the pieces that moved me!” – Ashley Huyge

“Given the state of our world, created by the monsters we have made, I was expecting to read many bleak pieces. I was pleasantly surprised, however, to see how many people used dark humor to tackle some of the serious issues that plague our society. During dark times, it can be cathartic to find humor in our situation and remind ourselves to laugh, especially when that becomes increasingly difficult. It was fun to witness how writers were able to tackle important issues in a playful way.” – Teagan Summers

“I am so impressed and excited by the submissions I have read. In such a strange time, it’s so comforting to find community in writing about the monsters that we’ve made. I can’t wait for next month’s writing challenge.” – Ashley Anderson

“My number one tip for writers would be to really identify what makes their vision, and by extension their writing, unique. I read multiple submissions about social media/scrolling and many of them used surprisingly similar metaphors, details, and/or format. Lean in to what is weird or different about how you experience or interpret or think about a subject. It’s noticeable when you do! Also, if the piece isn’t on theme, we will notice. We are generous with interpretation but theme matters. Don’t forget that.” – Melissa Witcher

“This month’s submissions were diverse, personal, profound, and unapologetic in their reflection of the context and chaos we’re currently living through. I found the most exciting pieces to be those that embodied the messiness of humanity and the multiplicity of the modern world—writers that found poetry in everyday darkness and challenged oppressive powers through humour, experimentation, and lyricism. The submissions I passed on tended to lack specificity, they either spoke to an experience in a way that felt overly familiar or tried to speak to too much without digging into any topic deeply enough for me to connect with.” – Hayley Clin

Our next challenge opens November 1, and you can add it to your calendar now. 

Until then, happy writing!

Rebecca Paredes
Editor, Glossy Planet

Letter from the Editor: Welcome to Glossy Planet

Posted on by Rebecca Paredes

Hello. Hi there. Hola. 

My name is Rebecca Paredes, and I’m here to welcome you to the launch of Glossy Planet, a literary magazine that publishes words as alive and unruly as the moment we live in. 

Like many of you, I occasionally* (*often) spend time doomscrolling and lamenting the state of the world—the persistent strife, the steady descent into disorder, the ever-looming threat of the world burning—and, as a creative person, this mindset is not super conducive to, you know, creating. Whether you are a poet, a writer, and/or a hybrid creative, you, too, may have experienced the following crushing and existential thought:

Why create anything when it feels like it won’t matter in the grand scheme of everything?

Reader, I get it. 

Maybe you create because you want to share something about how you feel. You create because it allows you to better understand yourself and the human condition—but creating feels harder when we think about the looming AI singularity, and microplastics intake, and what happens if we don’t pay attention to the check engine light because, honestly, we’re this close to crashing out. 

And yet, you feel that persistent pull to make something. You look at your notebooks and your Notes app full of jotted lines and snippets of conversation and think, “The seed is there, but I have yet to meaningfully water it, because I feel as though I live in a persistent drought.”

We know that people are writing and creating beautiful work. We know this because books are still being published, literary communities are still alive, and indie bookstores and libraries will save us all—but why do we write? How do we consider our work in the context of the endless barrage of tensions that exist today? What is the point in the face of all of those headlines?

The headlines, I would argue, are the point. 

We write, and we read, and we share what we write because art gives us ways to navigate emotions that sometimes feel too big to keep in our heads—and finding a community that responds to art is one way we retain our tether to what it means to be human. Empathetic, imperfect, creative humans.

I have this quote from the great Mary Oliver near my desk:

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.” 

And that brings us to Glossy Planet. 

Glossy Planet exists to publish writing that responds to the world in real time: short, sharp, and urgent pieces that value impact over perfection. This is a space for writers to express their creative power by turning toward the world, not retreating from it. 

I often think about conversations I have with writers who want to respond to what’s happening in the world right now, but aren’t sure how. Writing prompts have always been an important part of my writing practice for exactly this reason: constraints give you a starting point, but also room to explore and respond. On the first of every month, we’ll have a new challenge for you to respond to. Challenges close on the 15th, and we’ll publish winners during the final week of the following month. First place wins $1,000, second place wins $200, and third place wins $100. 

For prose, send us up to 1,000 words. For everything else, send up to two pages. Our monthly challenges encourage writers to write and respond in two weeks—long enough to craft something that resonates with what we face today, in a short enough window that you won’t quite have time to agonize over every single word. That’s the point. We want the writing that feels like it sprung out of you, something that feels like you had to write this right now, in this moment, in whatever form works for your piece.

Big emphasis on that last part—“whatever form works for your piece.” If you’re a poet but feel called to write in flash prose, go for it. If you’re strictly a fiction writer but find that an epistolary essay is the only way that feels right to respond to a prompt, send it. If you’ve never published anything before, great. We want to read it.

We welcome all forms: fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, hybrid, or something even genre goblins can’t categorize. If it’s urgent, sharp, and just a little weird, we want to read it. We’re looking for ​​anything under 1,000 words of prose or up to two pages of poetry that makes us stop and feel something. Keep an eye on our homepage for the release of our first challenge on Oct. 1, and add upcoming challenges to your calendar here.

Most importantly: Write like it matters. Because it does. 

Thanks for joining us on this ride.

Rebecca Paredes
Editor, Glossy Planet

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