Salaam friends,

Here is what I have for you this week.

📖 Writing Prompt

Topic: Images
Prompt: No Ideas, But In Things.

Write a very brief story, or a beginning of a story, told only in images- concrete, simple, visually efficient movement and details. This exercise does NOT ask you to eliminate people from your prose, just to watch what they do and what objects they crave and caress rather than what they say or think about these objects and actions. 300 words.

Source: The 3 A.M. Epiphany by Brian Kiteley 

🔎 Word of the week

Addle (vb): to throw into confusion: MUDDLE
In a sentence: Being in love must have addled your brain.

Source: The Merriam-Webster Dictionary

💎 New from me

A new Hazawi Podcast epesiode went out this week. I had the pleasure of speaking with a Saudi journalist with a very interesting back story, Jasmine Bager We spoke about imitation before developing one's voice, publishing and privacy, story structures, and more.

Jasmine Bager is a journalist from Saudi Arabia. She has an art degree, and she writes about women and the arts with a focus on the Middle East. She was one of the first Saudis to earn a degree from Columbia Journalism School. Her work has appeared in TIME, BBC, Refinery29, and Architectural Record.

Listen or watch wherever you listen to your podcast:

YouTube| Apple Podcast | Spotify

📨 Where to submit

Ploughshares is open for submission. They have multiple options, long and short form stories as well as essays.
Open Period: June 1 - January 15
Submission Fee: $3
Word limit: under 7,500 for short form and 7,500- 20,000 for long form

Good luck!

🔖  Quote to ponder

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.

— Anne Lamott

Source: Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

📸 Through My Lens