Embark Literary Journal
@embarklitjournal.bsky.social
A Literary Journal for Novelists: embarkliteraryjournal.com
Founding Editor, Ursula DeYoung: ursuladeyoung.com
Founding Editor, Ursula DeYoung: ursuladeyoung.com
Pinned
Issue 23, October 2025
Editor’s Introduction When reading the openings featured in this issue of Embark, I kept thinking of the ties and tensions between parents and children. As always, each of the ten openings featured…
embarkliteraryjournal.com
We're thrilled to announce the release of our 23rd issue! Click below for the openings of ten riveting novels by some of the world's best up-and-coming writers! embarkliteraryjournal.com/issues/issue...
Embark contributor @mahmudwriter.bsky.social has had an essay called "Bari Koi?—Where Is Home?" published in Washington Square Review. Read it here! www.washingtonsquarereview.com/mahmud-rahman
Mahmud Rahman — Washington Square Review
Issue 54 Fall 2025
www.washingtonsquarereview.com
November 3, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Embark contributor @mahmudwriter.bsky.social has had an essay called "Bari Koi?—Where Is Home?" published in Washington Square Review. Read it here! www.washingtonsquarereview.com/mahmud-rahman
ALMOST AMERICAN, by Embark contributor Terri Paul, is now available on Amazon! The novel follows 14-year-old Sarah Spirer, who flees war-torn Hungary with her family in the 1920s and then struggles to grow up in Columbus, Ohio. Pick up a copy here! – www.amazon.com/Almost-Ameri...
Almost American
Amazon.com: Almost American: 9798999827906: Paul, Terri: Books
www.amazon.com
October 18, 2025 at 4:09 PM
ALMOST AMERICAN, by Embark contributor Terri Paul, is now available on Amazon! The novel follows 14-year-old Sarah Spirer, who flees war-torn Hungary with her family in the 1920s and then struggles to grow up in Columbus, Ohio. Pick up a copy here! – www.amazon.com/Almost-Ameri...
“The Measure of Our Days,” a story by Embark contributor Jo-Anne Rosen, has been published in an anthology from Wising Up Press called LIVING OUR BLESSINGS. Buy a copy here! bookshop.org/p/books/livi...
Living Our Blessings: Aging, Mortality & Gratitude: A Wising Up Anthology
Aging, Mortality & Gratitude: A Wising Up Anthology
bookshop.org
October 14, 2025 at 11:59 AM
“The Measure of Our Days,” a story by Embark contributor Jo-Anne Rosen, has been published in an anthology from Wising Up Press called LIVING OUR BLESSINGS. Buy a copy here! bookshop.org/p/books/livi...
Embark contributor Robert Garner McBrearty has won The Ghost Story's 2025 Supernatural Screw Turn Flash Fiction Contest, with his story “Starving”! Read it here: theghoststory.com/ghosts/starv...
STARVING
WINNER, Summer 2025 The Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition BY ROBERT GARNER McBREARTY We were all starving. The Old Lady in charge was only serving a thin soup, twice a day, hardly more than wate…
theghoststory.com
October 13, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Embark contributor Robert Garner McBrearty has won The Ghost Story's 2025 Supernatural Screw Turn Flash Fiction Contest, with his story “Starving”! Read it here: theghoststory.com/ghosts/starv...
Embark contributor @shielapardee.bsky.social has had a short story called "Exposure" published in the Ginosko Literary Journal! Read the issue here: ginoskoliteraryjournal.com/wp-content/u...
ginoskoliteraryjournal.com
October 13, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Embark contributor @shielapardee.bsky.social has had a short story called "Exposure" published in the Ginosko Literary Journal! Read the issue here: ginoskoliteraryjournal.com/wp-content/u...
"After the End," a short story by Embark contributor B. B. Garin that was published in @lunchticket.bsky.social, has been nominated for Best of the Net! Read it here: lunchticket.org/after-the-end/
After the End - Lunch Ticket
B. B. Garin's "After the End" is a story that uses memory to keep you in place, but also always on the precipice of a turn of events.
lunchticket.org
October 12, 2025 at 9:00 PM
"After the End," a short story by Embark contributor B. B. Garin that was published in @lunchticket.bsky.social, has been nominated for Best of the Net! Read it here: lunchticket.org/after-the-end/
Congratulations to Embark contributor Shelley Fairweather-Vega, whose translation of an Uzbek novel called WE COMPUTERS, by Hamid Ismailov, is a finalist for a 2025 National Book Award! Buy the novel here: www.amazon.com/We-Computers...
We Computers: A Ghazal Novel (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)
Amazon.com: We Computers: A Ghazal Novel (The Margellos World Republic of Letters): 9780300272741: Ismailov, Hamid, Fairweather-Vega, Shelley: Books
www.amazon.com
October 12, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Congratulations to Embark contributor Shelley Fairweather-Vega, whose translation of an Uzbek novel called WE COMPUTERS, by Hamid Ismailov, is a finalist for a 2025 National Book Award! Buy the novel here: www.amazon.com/We-Computers...
Embark contributor Bill Mesce, writing under the name Aja Holland, has released a mystery called CASCO BAY with @btwnthelinespub.bsky.social. You can purchase a copy here! – bookshop.org/p/books/casc...
Casco Bay
Check out Casco Bay - <p><strong><em>Shiloh Vail's return to her childhood home to settle her father's estate unveils a web of mysteries she could never imagine.</em></strong></p><p></p><p>Set against...
bookshop.org
October 11, 2025 at 11:58 PM
Embark contributor Bill Mesce, writing under the name Aja Holland, has released a mystery called CASCO BAY with @btwnthelinespub.bsky.social. You can purchase a copy here! – bookshop.org/p/books/casc...
MANHATTAN TRIPTYCH, by Embark contributor @cbutterfield.bsky.social, is a a fictionalized memoir based on her time as an actress living in New York, telling the stories of three women bound by friendship over the course of four decades. Pick up a copy here! bookshop.org/p/books/manh...
Manhattan Triptych
Check out Manhattan Triptych - <p>Diane Daly, Nikki Barone, and Orla Nevins have been the closest of friends since they first played sisters in a summer stock production of "Fiddler on the Roof" in th...
bookshop.org
October 11, 2025 at 1:37 PM
MANHATTAN TRIPTYCH, by Embark contributor @cbutterfield.bsky.social, is a a fictionalized memoir based on her time as an actress living in New York, telling the stories of three women bound by friendship over the course of four decades. Pick up a copy here! bookshop.org/p/books/manh...
Embark contributor Grace Bialecki has had a poetry chapbook titled YOUNG THING published by the small press Rainbow Skull. Buy a copy here! www.rainbowskull.xyz/product/youn...
Young Thing
Young Thing by Grace Bialecki Note: Physical books ship 10/6/25. Please select "eBook shipping" if ordering an eBook only. Sometimes when...
www.rainbowskull.xyz
October 10, 2025 at 8:46 PM
Embark contributor Grace Bialecki has had a poetry chapbook titled YOUNG THING published by the small press Rainbow Skull. Buy a copy here! www.rainbowskull.xyz/product/youn...
Embark contributor Scott Lipanovich has released another novel in his Jeff Taylor mystery series with Encircle Publications! WEST COUNTY brings Jeff into contact with a homeless woman who is not what she seems, and who doesn't have long to live. Pick up a copy here! – bookshop.org/p/books/west...
West County
Check out West County - Dr. Jeff Taylor, now unmarried, has settled in the small city of Appleton, an hour north of San Francisco. He works at a rural community health care clinic and is romantically ...
bookshop.org
October 10, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Embark contributor Scott Lipanovich has released another novel in his Jeff Taylor mystery series with Encircle Publications! WEST COUNTY brings Jeff into contact with a homeless woman who is not what she seems, and who doesn't have long to live. Pick up a copy here! – bookshop.org/p/books/west...
HEY PICKPOCKET, a contemporary novel by Embark contributor Allison Cundiff that's set on an island near the coast of Ireland, has been published by Jackleg Press! You can purchase a copy here: bookshop.org/p/books/hey-...
Hey Pickpocket
Check out Hey Pickpocket - <p><strong>Discover the enchanting world of <em>Hey Pickpocket</em>, the debut novel by Allison Cundiff.</strong> </p><p></p><p>Frances is on a journey to leave her past beh...
bookshop.org
October 9, 2025 at 9:29 PM
HEY PICKPOCKET, a contemporary novel by Embark contributor Allison Cundiff that's set on an island near the coast of Ireland, has been published by Jackleg Press! You can purchase a copy here: bookshop.org/p/books/hey-...
Embark contributor @k-wilfrid.bsky.social has had an essay about the 40th anniversary of "Les Misérables" published in @wbur.org's Cognoscenti! Check it out here: www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/...
‘Les Misérables’ is 40 this year — and I’ve never loved it more
Since I was a teenager, I’ve jumped at any opportunity to watch Jean Valjean break parole, Fantine dream a dream and Javert swear by the stars, Karen Wilfrid writes. She’s seen “Les Mis” 14 times, but...
www.wbur.org
October 9, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Embark contributor @k-wilfrid.bsky.social has had an essay about the 40th anniversary of "Les Misérables" published in @wbur.org's Cognoscenti! Check it out here: www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/...
RAZED, by Embark contributor Thatcher Carter, has been published by The Inlandia Institute! The novel follows two sisters in upstate New York in 1973, who take opposite sides in the battle over their father's legacy. Buy a copy here! – bookshop.org/p/books/raze...
Razed
Check out Razed - <p>Lucy Wilson and her sister Ginny don't see eye to eye on anything, including whether or not their father is a criminal. In 1973, during their father's funeral in upstate New York,...
bookshop.org
October 8, 2025 at 10:25 PM
RAZED, by Embark contributor Thatcher Carter, has been published by The Inlandia Institute! The novel follows two sisters in upstate New York in 1973, who take opposite sides in the battle over their father's legacy. Buy a copy here! – bookshop.org/p/books/raze...
Embark contributor @admetcalfeauthor.bsky.social has published the second novel in her Street series, about a gang of urban youth in gritty 1970s New York: STREET BROTHERHOOD: RISE OF THE UNDERGROUND. Pick up a copy here! bookshop.org/p/books/stre...
Street Brotherhood: Rise of the Underground
Rise of the Underground
bookshop.org
October 8, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Embark contributor @admetcalfeauthor.bsky.social has published the second novel in her Street series, about a gang of urban youth in gritty 1970s New York: STREET BROTHERHOOD: RISE OF THE UNDERGROUND. Pick up a copy here! bookshop.org/p/books/stre...
Embark contributor Jillian Schedneck has had a story called “#lasteuropeansummer” published in the @tahomareview.bsky.social! Check it out here: tahomaliteraryreview.com/selections/l...
#lasteuropeansummer - Tahoma Literary Review
The day the EU announced its impending border closure, we let the news and its implications settle among us, casting a long, dark shadow over our imagined
tahomaliteraryreview.com
October 7, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Embark contributor Jillian Schedneck has had a story called “#lasteuropeansummer” published in the @tahomareview.bsky.social! Check it out here: tahomaliteraryreview.com/selections/l...
I AM AGATHA, the debut novel of Embark contributor Nancy Foley, will be published by @avidreaderpress.bsky.social in March 2026! The novel, set in New Mexico, follows a painter whose devotion to a widow with dementia sparks a radical reckoning. Pre-order a copy here! – bookshop.org/p/books/i-am...
I Am Agatha: A Novel
A Novel
bookshop.org
October 7, 2025 at 1:03 PM
I AM AGATHA, the debut novel of Embark contributor Nancy Foley, will be published by @avidreaderpress.bsky.social in March 2026! The novel, set in New Mexico, follows a painter whose devotion to a widow with dementia sparks a radical reckoning. Pre-order a copy here! – bookshop.org/p/books/i-am...
We're thrilled to announce the release of our 23rd issue! Click below for the openings of ten riveting novels by some of the world's best up-and-coming writers! embarkliteraryjournal.com/issues/issue...
Issue 23, October 2025
Editor’s Introduction When reading the openings featured in this issue of Embark, I kept thinking of the ties and tensions between parents and children. As always, each of the ten openings featured…
embarkliteraryjournal.com
October 4, 2025 at 3:01 PM
We're thrilled to announce the release of our 23rd issue! Click below for the openings of ten riveting novels by some of the world's best up-and-coming writers! embarkliteraryjournal.com/issues/issue...
There are only a few more days left before our next submission deadline, September 1st! Novelists, polish up the openings of your unpublished manuscripts and WIPs and send them in! We welcome subs in any genre. For more info, check out our guidelines here: embarkliteraryjournal.com/submissions
Submission Guidelines
A submission to Embark should consist of two parts, the opening of your novel and an Author’s Statement.
embarkliteraryjournal.com
August 25, 2025 at 12:59 PM
There are only a few more days left before our next submission deadline, September 1st! Novelists, polish up the openings of your unpublished manuscripts and WIPs and send them in! We welcome subs in any genre. For more info, check out our guidelines here: embarkliteraryjournal.com/submissions
Calling all novelists! There are only a few more weeks until our next submission deadline: September 1st, 2025! We're seeking the openings of unpublished novels in all genres. For more info, please see our Submission Guidelines: embarkliteraryjournal.com/submissions
Submission Guidelines
A submission to Embark should consist of two parts, the opening of your novel and an Author’s Statement.
embarkliteraryjournal.com
July 31, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Calling all novelists! There are only a few more weeks until our next submission deadline: September 1st, 2025! We're seeking the openings of unpublished novels in all genres. For more info, please see our Submission Guidelines: embarkliteraryjournal.com/submissions
THE GOLEM PROJECT, a sci-fi thriller by Embark contributor Bill Mesce (using the pen-name Elijah Bone), will be released by Between the Lines Publishing on June 3rd! Pre-order a copy here: www.amazon.com/Golem-Projec...
The Golem Project
Amazon.com: The Golem Project eBook : Bone, Elijah: Tienda Kindle
www.amazon.com
May 21, 2025 at 1:51 PM
THE GOLEM PROJECT, a sci-fi thriller by Embark contributor Bill Mesce (using the pen-name Elijah Bone), will be released by Between the Lines Publishing on June 3rd! Pre-order a copy here: www.amazon.com/Golem-Projec...
108, an eco-thriller by Embark contributor Dheepa Maturi, will be released in June! The novel follows a San Francisco reporter with a mysterious connection to an Indian forest, who must save the world from a corrupt agrochemical corporation. Pre-order a copy here: bookshop.org/p/books/108-...
108: An Eco-Thriller
An Eco-Thriller
bookshop.org
April 28, 2025 at 2:48 PM
108, an eco-thriller by Embark contributor Dheepa Maturi, will be released in June! The novel follows a San Francisco reporter with a mysterious connection to an Indian forest, who must save the world from a corrupt agrochemical corporation. Pre-order a copy here: bookshop.org/p/books/108-...
VOICES OF THE ELYSIAN FIELDS, a gripping thriller set in New Orleans by Embark contributor Michael Rigg, has been published by Level Best Books! Pick up a copy here: bookshop.org/p/books/voic...
Voices of the Elysian Fields: A Jonathan Gray, M.D. Mystery
A Jonathan Gray, M.D. Mystery
bookshop.org
April 23, 2025 at 3:15 PM
VOICES OF THE ELYSIAN FIELDS, a gripping thriller set in New Orleans by Embark contributor Michael Rigg, has been published by Level Best Books! Pick up a copy here: bookshop.org/p/books/voic...
Embark contributor Karen Wilfrid has had an essay published in Cognoscenti, the ideas and opinions section of @wbur.org, Boston’s NPR station! Read it here: www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/...
An unexpected life lesson from Garfield the cat
I wasn’t aware that anyone had been asking about Garfield’s feline parentage, writes Karen Wilfrid. But when—in the opening flashback—the dad leaves kitten Garfield alone in an alley, his innocent car...
www.wbur.org
April 22, 2025 at 2:42 PM
Embark contributor Karen Wilfrid has had an essay published in Cognoscenti, the ideas and opinions section of @wbur.org, Boston’s NPR station! Read it here: www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/...
NORTH OF THE SUNLIT RIVER, a novel of grief, hope, and the Alaskan wilderness by Embark contributor @jessklagmann.bsky.social, will be released by Lake Union Publishing in September! Pre-order a copy here: bookshop.org/p/books/nort...
North of the Sunlit River
Check out North of the Sunlit River - <p><b>From the author of <i>This Impossible Brightness</i> comes a heartrending trek through grief, hope, and the Alaskan wilderness as a young woman seeks the tr...
bookshop.org
April 14, 2025 at 12:47 PM
NORTH OF THE SUNLIT RIVER, a novel of grief, hope, and the Alaskan wilderness by Embark contributor @jessklagmann.bsky.social, will be released by Lake Union Publishing in September! Pre-order a copy here: bookshop.org/p/books/nort...