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Spilled Ink Issue #6 - May 6th
Hello dear reader,
 
Welcome back to Issue Six of Spilled Ink Newsletter, presented by ScratchThat Magazine!

We wanted to start off by thanking everyone who attended our Issue 8 launch party last Friday. It was wonderful to see so much support for an issue the entire ScratchThat team is extremely proud of!

You can read Issue 8 of ScratchThat here!

In this week's Spilled Ink, we have another weekly roundup of local events and submissions in the literary community. And keep scrolling to our Feature Content section to have a read of the beautiful poem The Stages of Decomposition by Shelby Lee, for a taste of what Issue 8 has to offer. Later, Jasmine offers advice on how reading can benefit your writing, and Téa introduces this week's flash fiction prompt Rain with her piece, It Was Raining. And as always, the team has provided a few of our favourite things for the week, and Jasmine is still talking about Bridgerton!!!

That's all from me, happy reading!

- Willow, Jasmine, Grace, and Téa.
Submit HERE!
Local Events
 
Brisbane Writers Festival 
When: 3rd to 8th of May 
Brisbane Writers Festival champions curiosity and creativity in Queensland. We connect and grow Queensland’s reading and writing communities through transformative cultural experiences that elevate the vitality of the literary arts and contribute to dynamic public conversation. The Brisbane Writers Festival, presented each May, welcomes thousands of readers, writers and thought-leaders to ignite imaginations, ask big questions, showcase literature, and celebrate stories in all forms. 

Ruckus Brisbane; Wham! Bam! Cabaret Slam!
When: 10th of May, 6pm @The Bearded Lady
Break out the sequins kids, Ruckus are about to heat West End up! From the kick-ass women behind RUCKUS BRISBANE . It's gonna get loud, it's gonna get weird, it's gonna get glitter in everything. All the fun of a slam with less poetry. SO what is a cabaret slam? It is an pre-selected open stage competition like you have never seen. Each month, Ruckus invites up to 8 artists to spend a max of 10 minutes on the stage, doing dance, circus, poetry, music, or whatever the hell they want, then you, the crowd will judge their winners.

 
Open Submissions
 
Glass Issue 14 CRUMBLE
Closes: 5th of June
Magazine submissions have a hard word limit of 1500 words. If your piece is longer and you would like it to be included, please email us and we can discuss further if it can fit or if the piece could go online. For image submissions, please ensure they’re at a printable DPI quality. If you have trouble uploading your submission files for any reason, you may also submit your work through email to media@qutguild.com.

QUT Literary Salon May LEGACY
Closes: May 15th 
The QUT Literary Salon is a monthly salon run by students for students. Submissions for their May Salon LEGACY are now open! Legacy is what we leave behind, our carvings in trees, our songs on the breeze, our stories retold over and over again. Whether you wish to honour a treasured writer from the past; your writing future; or a legacy lost to time. This month we are exploring not what it means to die; we are capturing what it means to be remembered. 

Cordite Poetry Review Issue 106 OPEN
Closes: July 3rd
For OPEN, we’re interested in doublings, triplicates etcetera, and/or play and suggestion; we’d love to read poems that open meanings, spaces, possibilities and forms, that take open as their verb and move with it, into and beyond synonyms … poems that bud, unfold, extend, splay, drape, burst; poems that take up space and poems as lacunae: absence made palpable and present. Fundamentally, we’re keen on crafted poems and crafty poems: writing conscious of its own making, unmaking, and making it new, of its contexts and antecedents, but we are obviously – and axiomatically – open to all kinds of apertures.
From Issue 8

The Stages of Decomposition
by Shelby Lee


 

For a week, we side-step that dead warbler, rotting

belly-up on the footpath. I assumed they’d, for dignity,

dispose of it, or at least clear the way. Instead, I’m left blessing

ants, who do what we refuse...

Continue Reading HERE
WRITING TIP #6

To Be A Good Writer, You Have To Be A Good Reader

If you're anything like me, you get mentally exhausted and spend your limited free time watching trash TV instead of reading, I'M TALKING TO YOU!

Recently I have been trying to change my habits because I'm noticing my lack of reading is affecting my writing, or more so, my lack of writing. It's been said many, many times, that in order to be a writer, you first have to be a reader. I think Stephen King said it best when he said “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” Because it's true. 

Reading is such an integral part of being a writer, and if you aren't reading, you're going to struggle to write. Reading helps to stimulate your brain and get you in the mindset of writing. It helps to improve your language and writing skills as a whole and teaches you what to look for in your own writing. Quite possibly the most important thing it gives you, is the inspiration to write your own work. I'm not telling you to copy other author's ideas and works, but I am telling you to appreciate your fellow author's writing. 

In my own recent writing, since starting to read more, I have seen an improvement in what I write, and especially how much I write, be it in one setting, how often I sit down to write, and how many words I get down on the page. 

So please, I beg you, don't be like me. Read, read as much and as often as you can! It will help you in so many ways. 

- Jasmine
Willow

Reading: I just finished Gallant by V.E. Schwab, but reading had been pretty slow for me in light of assessments. Usually the only thing I'm reading each week is my tarot cards.

Listening: Taylor Swift always, with a few intermissions for Hadestown.

Viewing: I am still rewatching Gilmore Girls because it's the only show I can sit through. 
Jasmine

Reading: Still working through the Bridgertons! Slowly but surely, getting there. 

Listening: A strange mix of Harry Styles, Jack Harlow, and Taylor Swift, all together in one playlist that I made, which is interesting, but incredible. 

Viewing: I watched a short film called "7 Days in Hell" which is hilarious and I highly recommend it if you're looking for a funny 40-minute movie. 
Téa

Reading: I read my favourite Shakespeare play Othello again for one of my classes this week. It's not as enjoyable when its for an assignment, unfortunately.

Listening: Along with her Hozier agenda, Willow has also recently brought Taylor Swift back into my life. Specifically, her song Daylight.

Viewing: I'm rewatching Shadow and Bone now because I'm going through withdrawals waiting for the next season. Also, because Ben Barnes. 
Grace

Reading: I'm currently testing the waters of Kindle Unlimited...let's just say trashy romance novels will be the reason I hit my Goodreads goal this year and I'm not ashamed

Listening: I'm still obsessing over my current novel project playlist so I'll share a few more favourites; Not Quite Heaven by Suzi Bloom, No Fate Awaits Me by Son Lux, and Wasteland Baby! by Hozier

Viewing: I'm currently swinging between Drive to Survive S4 on Netflix and Critical Role: Campaign Two on Youtube
This issue's flash fiction prompt is... 

Rain

The following piece of flash fiction has mature themes. Read with caution.
It Was Raining (240 words)
It was raining. That’s the last thing I remember.
            I can’t remember slipping, or the fall down the rocky slope to where I can see myself lying, bleeding from the head. I can’t remember why I can suddenly see myself from outside of my body, yet I can only think that I am. 
            I had reached the end of the trail, grateful when it started to rain for it cooled my skin and washed off the sweat. I was content to walk back down the mountain fully drenched. Now, although I can still see the rain, I can’t feel the slide of it down my skin, or dripping from my hair. I can’t smell the petrichor that I had always loved. I don’t feel anything, not even the pull of air into my lungs.
            “Purgatory.” A voice, unrecognisable to my ears inform me. I turn, seeing the figure behind me. No more than sliver of moonlight, a wisp of shadow, made out of the mist of the rain. Intangible – but there. 
            “Pardon?”
            “Dead,” the voice as cold and smooth as the stone says, “you’re dead.”
            “I can’t be.”
            “And yet you are.”
            My eyes stray back to my body, laying as still as if I am as dead as the stranger suggests. “What now?” I ask. Only, when I turn, I find emptiness in the place they stood.
            Purgatory
            I’ve read enough books to know what this means. Unfinished business
— Téa

Guidelines

Our submission guidelines are as follows:
Word limit between 100-250 for prose (and poetry) We ask for submissions to be in a Word Doc, Times New Roman, 12pt and 1.5 spaced.
Please make sure your name and the prompt you are responding to is in the submission file document title.

Submissions for ALL prompts close May 23rd.

 
Submit Here!

Episode Two of ScratchThat's horror-comedy podcast Going Up out now!  
 

At Life Solutions LLC we endeavoured to summon the most efficient welfare treatment for our valued customers. This is not a pyramid scheme! However, due to unforeseen complications, we were run out of our old office. So, we are presenting the once in a lifetime opportunity to bring this piece of Life Solutions history back into service, to two prized employees, Daryl and Leslie. They agreed on the dotted line to climb the floors, surveying the damage, and not ask too many questions. 

In the second episode of Going Up, Daryl and Leslie find themselves in what feels like a cubicle labyrinth of sorts. The second floor presents more questions than answers and by forces unknown to them, they are split up and left to find answers to the building on their own.

It’s time to find out what lies on top of the so-called corporate ladder. 
 

Listen HERE
That's it for this week!
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