Literary Brushstrokes magazine is no longer active

this magazine and this website are not active at this time.
It has reverted back to the original blogger address as a paid domain was no longer needed.

Book reviews ~ Letters to a Young Writer by Colum McCann & Vanishing Act by Thomas Perry

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Here are two book reviews for you, one fiction and one non-fiction. I highly recommend both, depending on what your interests are.

Letters to a Young Writer: Some Practical and Philosophical Advice byColum McCann – this is serious and funny at the same time and the perfect book whether you’re just interested in writing, or you’ve been writing. It’s very encouraging.

Vanishing Act (Jane Whitefield Book 1) by Thomas Perry – this is a suspense novel that does contain a lot of backstory, but the character development and suspense make it worth reading. There are many plot twists in this book that keep you glued to the page. Plus, it’s always best to read the first in a series, even if you skip around with later books.

How to submit a review for publication on this website:

If you would like to submit a book review for consideration (strictly about writing and publishing), please email us. We would love to host your review from either a written review, or a video review.

Use the contact us on the right side panel or email literarybrushstroke@gmail.com

Review: Letters to a Young Writer by Colum McCann

Letters to a Young Writer: Some Practical and Philosophical Advice by Colum McCann
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First, the title of this book may lead you to believe that this book is for young adults, not so. I believe the term "young writer" refers to a beginning writer, but this book could be read at any age and any stage in your writing journey. In fact, in one chapter he writes, "how old is the young writer? Seventeen, sixty, forty-six - who cares?" So be a brave writing soul and pick up this book, no matter what your age.

This is an excellent book that includes a lot of humor, as well as an abundance of encouragement and hints at what it takes to be a great writer. One of the funniest was the chapter titled: don't be a dick. He addresses the snooty attitude laden writer. The chapter goes deeper and funnier. I laughed out loud when I started the next chapter title: Then again don't be too nice (in your fiction anyway). I haven't written in a long time, but this book did jump start me right back again. Sometimes you need a book like this to give you a good kick in the pants (and encourage and instruct you as well).

View all my reviews

Changes at Literary Brushstrokes

Literary Brushstrokes will be morphing into a site about writing for writers, and for those who would like to write. It's possible that a printed issue of writer's works may come out in the future, but at this time publication is suspended,

Literary Brushstrokes remains on hiatus

Literary Brushstrokes magazine is on indefinite hiatus, so we are not accepting submissions at this time.

If you are an author who was published in our magazine, or are interested in the magazine, issues are still available under the past issues link.

Literary Brushstrokes is currently on hiatus, with a possible issue out in July/August. Now staffed down to one person with two full time jobs, it has become close to impossible to regularly put out issues. This journal may become a one issue per year publication, until I get some additional people in to assist.

I understand if you have submitted work that has been accepted, you may wish to withdraw it to submit to other markets. Also feel free to market it elsewhere and notify me that you wish to withdraw after it has been accepted by another journal. 

Review of submissions will begin in late June for a summer issue in July/August 2016.

Contact: literarybrushstrokes@gmail.com

Getting ready for the Winter 2015/2016 issue!

We've already received multiple submission for our next issue - they are currently under review.

Please submit your photos (remember, doorways and pathways for the cover), creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry.

Please review the submission guidelines, then send your submissions to: literarybrushstrokes@gmail.com

PUBLISHED!

A big thank you to all the creative people who submitted work to this magazine. I has now been published and is available.

Here are the authors and artists who appear in Fall 2015 issue of Literary Brushstrokes magazine (in alphabetical order):

Steven Babin, Bob Carlton. Yuan Changming, Jack Coey, Miriam Foley, A.J. Huffman, Michael C. Keith, Philip King, Mitchel Krockmalnik Grabois, Thomas Larsen, Stephen McQuiggan, Terry Sanville, Leah Van Vaerenewyck, Stephen Wechselblatt

Big round of applause to you all!

On the home stretch.....

The mock up of the final issue has been created and printed for final proof-reading. By 7pm on 10/19, the final issue will go to press.

Thank you everyone for your patience!

Update: We are back up and running

The following letter was sent to authors and artists who submitted their work and had that work accepted:

Literary Brushstrokes recently suffered some setbacks. Other editors moved on to other things, as they should, since this is a non-paying operation with no income.  Our original web hosting service tried to take us to the cleaners, but gave just enough warning before we had to pay or be shut down, so that we could copy a lot of our original content – something we are still trying to recover from and bring our website back up in full with past issues, etc. This whole endeavor has come down to one editor and one trusted reader.

Unfortunately, many of you have made submissions that still need to be read and responded to, and those who received acceptances and agreements have not been able to enjoy seeing their work in print. For that I heartily apologize.

We thought we needed to recover completely before publishing our next issue, but see that is not the case at all. We need to be responsive and respectful to those who submit work.

Publishing is all about deadlines. We have set a new deadline to have an issue in print by mid-September, if not sooner.

Those who received acceptances, please notify us if your work is still available and you would like to see it published. Also notify us if you have published elsewhere. To those who have submitted your work and haven’t received a response yet, please send a withdrawal notice if you moved on elsewhere, or send us email that you are still interested.

Again, our sincere apologies.

Delay for next issue of Literary Brushstrokes

Unfortunately, we will not be producing an issue until the end of March or the beginning of April. Run almost exclusively by one person now who is working full time and teaching college at night, along with a few technical difficulties, have made producing the next issue nearly impossible.

We have some very talented contributors who have been patiently awaiting the next issue and for that we are grateful. However, please notify Literary Brushstrokes as soon as possible if you prefer to remove your work from consideration.

Sadly, until we are fully staffed again, we will likely taper down to two issues per year - one in the summer when teaching and grading are no longer an issue, and one in the winter during college winter break.

We will, however still come out with an issue soon, a spring issue.

Thank you for your patience.

New Web Host, Same Web Site

Visitors will notice that, though our web address remains the same, our site has visibly changed! We've switched to a new web hosting site and are working diligently to update the new site.

Bigger news: we are currently working on getting a Winter 2015 issue of Literary Brushstrokes out. We hope to complete the issue by the end of the weekend.

Thank you to all of the writers who have submitted work for publication in the next issue!