Discover all the magic TGLR’s Spring 2026 Issue Has to Offer
April 11, 2026
Dear Lit Mag Enthusiasts and Tulip Festival Afficionados,
Welcome to spring and the latest edition of TGLR. Yes, friends, today is the day… The big reveal of Issue #23!! Winter here in Nebraska was uncharacteristically warm and mostly void of snow, but the return of spring has brought the rain and with it, a refreshing drenching of new work by talented writers and artists we matched with via our reading platform. We love all these pieces, and think you will too!!
Of course, the issue would not be complete without artwork. The cover of the issue is a photograph by Siying (Rella) Wang, and the writing is complemented with pieces by Cynthia Yatchman, David Capps, Antonio Garcia III, Tendai Rinos Mwanaka, and Ayush Pradhan. More about each artist and their work is available on the Issue 23 Art page.
With that, we are delighted to release Issue #23 ~ Spring 2026 for your reading and viewing pleasure.
As always, thank you for supporting independent journals and believing in the arts!
Cheers to Slow Sunrises and Birdsong, ~Shyla and The Good Life Review Team
❀
Issue #23 Editorial Team: M.A. Boswell, Ashley Espinoza, Tana Buoy, Patrick O’Dell, Carina Faz, Amy Crawford, Lea Pounds, Annie Barker, Erin Challenor, Jill Veltkamp, Cid Galicia, Terry Belew, Michelle Pierce Battle, Cat Dixon, Stepha Vesper, Tacheny Perry, and Shyla Shehan
Issue #23 Readers: Jamie Wendt, Toni Allen, Zach Vesper, Julie Johanning, Brittany Turek, Miranda Jansen, Madeline Torbenson, Mitra Vajjala, Julia Sample, Ashley DeVrieze, Christine Nessler, Allison Weiler, Aida Eure-Chooran, Susan Loveland, and interns Madi Palmer and Cody Murphy.
Guidelines are available on our submission page and the form to send work is available on Submittable (be sure to select the fee-free option, unless you want to give us moneys, which is OK too).
This opportunity will end on March 31st or when we reach 75 submissions, whichever comes first.
As a reminder, we nominate for Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best New Poets, Pen America Awards, Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and… We are a paying market! ($60 per piece published in the seasonal issue, $25 per piece published in Micro Monday.
Your work will be handled with care and read by at least two (typically three or more) members of our editorial team.
Do you fall in love like you’re being sucked into a vacuum cleaner, with a woosh? Or silently, by pretending not to? TGLR wants to know…
Photo credit to Sahand Babali
February 26, 2026
When we said we wouldn’t pinky swear to post monthly, there was a reason. January was so ugh! Right??! And impossibly, it’s almost the end of February. We missed Valentine’s Day and all those feels. But being fashionably late is cool. All the hopeless romantics know that hearing “I love you” when it’s *almost* too late is so satisfying. (As evidenced by the frequent use in rom-coms in Hollywood.)
In all fairness, in our December newsletter, we also said we were gearing up to hibernate for the winter. Still, where do all the weeks go? But enough about romance and the calendar, we’ve got a LOT of exciting updates to share, starting with some BIG NEWS!…
Last week, PEN AMERICA announced the winners of the 2026 PEN/Robert J.Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers, and among them was Sara Maria Hasbun for “Tbilisi.”
The editors of the Pen/DAU Prize select 12 outstanding debut short stories published in a literary magazine, journal, or cultural website each year. The winners receive a $2,000 cash prize, and their work is published in Catapult’s annual anthology, Best Debut Short Stories: The PEN America Dau Prize. Read their full announcement here.
The anthology is a collection of the best pieces from the past two years, plus bonus new work from Matt Mason, Jake Bienvenue, Frank Gaughan, and the Nebraska Writers Collective 2025 Kate Sommer Memorial Poetry Prize winner, Rebecca Oliver.
The issue also includes “Razia, Razia” by Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar, selected for “Best Small Fictions” in 2025 by Robert Shapard and Alternating Current Press, and the poem “How to Hear God While Making Thanksgiving Dinner” by Charlene Pierce which was a “Best of the Net” finalist. All of the pieces in this stellar collection are worth spending time with. Not to mention the art! So good!
The online version was released on January 8th, and the print version should be ready in early March. Just in time for AWP!
If you’re planning a trip to Baltimore for the conference this year, we’d be thrilled if you stopped by our table at the bookfair to say hello: T716. If you’ve ever walked the bookfair, you know it’s a sea of tables with lanyard-wearing writers surging and ebbing in the aisles. For those of us shackled to a table, it can get a little boring, so a friendly face or three would be amazing!
If you stop by and say “Doug sent me,” we’ll bestow a tiny token of gratitude that you’ll have no trouble slipping into your carry-on. Teaser… It’s not a book.
Other Hot News…
🐝 The illustrious MARYA HORNBACHER has agreed to be the judge of our 6th annual HoneyBee Poetry Prize!! 🐝
This year, the combined prize payout is $1000. The winner will receive $500, publication, and a jar of honey from a Midwest apiary. 🍯 Other select finalists will also be published, with an honorarium of $60 per piece. The submission fee is $18 (for 5 poems), and the deadline is April 20th. Info about Marya and more details about the prize are available on our contest page here.
💫 We’re on the hunt for our next favorite prose piece! 💫
TGLR is currently accepting fiction and creative nonfiction—short (up to 5000 words) and flash (up to 1000 words—for our Summer Issue. We’re also open for micro prose for our bi-weekly Micro Monday feature.
100% of the work we publish is unsolicited. Every single piece is selected from what we receive in Submittable. In addition, each story and poem that lands in our queue is given serious consideration and evaluated by at least three people from genre-specific editorial teams, including at least one editor.
Details, guidelines, and the submission forms for all opportunities are available on Submittable.
💫 Our commitment to be better in 2026.💫
As we ramp up for the next reading period, we will be implementing a few changes to our reading schedule to better serve the writing community we are working to support. This includes increasing the frequency of internal deadlines for quicker turnaround times on submissions and streamlining our editorial processes. More info on all that will be in the next newsletter and most certainly in our interview with Becky Tuch, coming later this year.
In closing, we’re going to drop a fab new micro fiction piece, “House Party” by Dory Rousos Moore, originally featured on The Buzz (while we were in hibernation)…
“I start on my second coat of Red Hot, the boldest color of nail polish I could find, carefully painting each nail. Aviva and I sit on our apartment balcony, our shiny legs long on the railing, hot air balloons in primary colors floating above us as everyone starts to arrive. When her new boyfriend’s black Grand Am swerves into our complex, she jumps up, her drink spilling over the edge. The way she falls in love is with a whoosh, like she’s being sucked into a vacuum, and the way I fall in love is by pretending not to.
Moments later, Raj crosses the parking lot from his apartment to ours with long strides, grinning up at the balloons and clouds drifting toward the horizon. With graduation next weekend…” Read the Rest
Thanks for Reading, We Love You!
As always, if you have a question, quandary, conundrum, or a burning desire to share what sound you associate with falling in love, hit the “comments” button below.
Otherwise, stay safe out there and enjoy whatever weird weather situation you’re currently experiencing.
We’re open for our Spring Issue, but the window is closing soon…
(Click to access the magic portal)
We are currently reading for Issue #23. We publish poetry, short fiction (up to 5000 words), flash fiction (up to 1000 words), short cnf , and flash cnf. We nominate for Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best New Poets, Best Small Fictions, Best Micro Fictions, and Pen Short Story Award, AND pay $60 per piece published in the seasonal issue.
Guidelines are available on our submission page, and the form to submit is on Submittable. The fee is $3, and a fee-free option is available for those who need it (please email editors@thegoodlifereview). But don’t wait, the window closes in one week!
We also want you to know… 100% of the work we publish is unsolicited, and each piece that lands in our queue is handled with care, given serious consideration, and evaluated by two or more people from genre-specific editorial teams, including both editors and readers.
Welcome to Winter and the Best of our Best: A Stunning Collection of Poetry, Prose, and Artwork
January 8, 2026
“Impressions of Waking Cranes” by Kim McNealy Sosin
Dear Lit Mag Enthusiasts,
We’re excited to announce the release of Issue #22 ~Winter 2026. This issue is a “Best Of” Edition that features some of our prize-worthy pieces from the past two years, plus bonus new work from Matt Mason (Nebraska State Poet 2019-2024), Jake Bienvenue, Frank Gaughan, and the Nebraska Writers Collective 2025 Kate Sommer Memorial Poetry Prize winner, Rebecca Oliver! We’re honored to share and celebrate this bountiful collection of amazing work!!
Dear Lit Mag Enthusiasts and Sweater Weather Lovers,
Welcome to fall and the latest edition of TGLR. Yes, friends, today is the day… The big reveal of Issue #21!! It’s always a delight to introduce the authors and artists we meet through the publication process, but it’s especially wonderful when people are as kind as this bunch. We’re honored to promote them and this bountiful collection of amazing work!
And because it is getting harder and harder to turn excellent work away, we could not resist accepting the six fiction pieces that are included in the virtual pages of this issue – flash by Charlie Rogers and Sarah Schiff, and short fiction by Simon Ashton, Ben Seabolt, David Hutto, and Mikaela Conley. All are worth taking time time to read and enjoy!
Of course, the issue would not be complete without a full complement of artwork. We’re pleased to showcase “Early Rising” by Amuri Morris on the cover and pieces by J.C. Henderson, Crystal Angeles, Fabio Sassi, and Harry Bauld accompanying the writing in the issue. More about each artist and their work is available on the Issue 21 Art page.
With that, we are delighted to release Issue #21 ~ Autumn 2025 into the wild!
As always, thank you for visiting, reading, supporting independent journals, and believing in the arts!
Cheers to Leaf Peeping and Stormy Mornings, ~Shyla, Tacheny, and The Good Life Review Team
❀
Issue #21 Editorial Team: M.A. Boswell, Ashley Espinoza, Tacheny Perry, Tana Buoy, Patrick O’Dell, Carina Faz, Amy Crawford, Annie Barker, Debra Rose Brillati, Erin Challenor, Cid Galicia, Terry Belew, Michelle Pierce Battle, Cat Dixon, Stepha Vesper, and Shyla Shehan
Issue #21 Readers: Jamie Wendt, Toni Allen, Zach Vesper, Jill Veltkamp, Julie Johanning, Brittany Turek, Miranda Jansen, Madeline Torbenson, Mitra Vajjala, Julia Sample, Ashley DeVrieze, and Christine Nessler
Introducing Issue #20 ~ Summer 2025, The Honeybee Prize Edition
July 15, 2025
Dear Friends and Readers,
Welcome to the sweltering heart of summer. If this is your first visit to The Good Life Review, the 20th, or the 100th, we thank you. If you’re here to read a single poem that was written by someone you know or intend to read this latest release “cover to cover,” we thank you. And if you are just here for a taste of what we have to offer because you are considering sending us some writing or art, we thank you. No matter the reason, we are grateful and excited to share what we feel is one of our most glorious collections to date!
This issue includes the winners of our annual Honeybee prize, along with other select finalists that were favorites of our editorial team. This is the 5th year we’ve run a contest, and we received a larger volume of poems, stories, and essays than ever before. It makes narrowing down to a short list of finalists (available here) extremely difficult, and also means that all of the pieces selected are truly the best of the best.
Before we get down to business with the official rundown of what’s included in this issue, we want to express gratitude to the judges of this year’s contest – Julia Kolchinsky (Poetry), Brenna Womer (Short CNF), Kristine Langley Mahler (Flash CNF), Michael Czyzniejewski (Short Fiction), and Tom Paine (Flash Fiction). All were wonderful to work with, generous with their time, and thoughtful in their endorsements. Those endorsements, incidentally, are included with the winning piece in each genre…
Congratulations, again, to all these fine folks for creating such wonderful pieces.
Our list of contributors does not end there, though. This issue also includes some incredible artwork by several talented artists: Mary Amato ( “Zephyr” featured on the cover), Roger Camp, Britnie Walston, Nataliia Burmaka, Ferris Jones, Milena Makani, Maud Bocquillod, Joe Hernandez, and Sebastian Mark. These pieces were selected because of their style, use of color, and texture, and also because of how their work visually complements the writing in the issue. More about these artists is available on the Issue #20 Artwork page.
With that, we invite you to dive into Issue #20 ~ Summer 2025 and celebrate with us! We hope that you enjoy these pieces as much as we do. Thank you again for visiting, reading, supporting independent journals, and believing in the arts.
Cheers to Shade Trees and Honeybees, ~Shyla, Tacheny, and All of The Good Life Review Team
❀
Issue #20 Editorial Team: M.A. Boswell, Erin Challenor, Debra Rose Brillati, Annie Barker, Patrick O’Dell, Tana Buoy, Tacheny Perry, Carina Faz, Dave Mainelli, Cid Galicia, Michelle Pierce Battle, Cat Dixon, Terry Belew, Stepha Vesper, and Shyla Shehan
Issue #20 Readers: Amy Crawford, Julia Sample, Madeline Torbenson, Jamie Wendt, Jill Veltkamp, Toni Allen, Julie Johanning, Zach Vesper, Ashley DeVrieze, Arianna Ashby, and Miranda Jansen.
Hello friends. June has come and gone and just like snap, we’re barreling straight for the sweltering heart of summer here in the heartland.
For landlocked Nebraska that means hot days, muggy nights, loads of weeding and watering the gardens, and, for us at TGLR, it means celebrating results of our annual contest, the Honeybee Prize.
Friends, this is the 5th year we’ve run the contest and for those who don’t know, 100% of the funds received from submission fees are used to pay contributing writers and artists, which is central to our vision, so we owe a debt of gratitude to all who participated!!
And though we are a few weeks behind schedule, we’re delighted to officially announce the winners selected by this year’s judges and other finalists selected by our team to receive editor’s choice accolades. ↓↓↓
Winner selected by Julia Kolchinsky: Autobiography of a Violinby Cassie Burkhardt
Editor’s Choice: Red and Yellow Light over the Top of Houses by Dolapo Demuren The Year I Carried You by Sara Shea Arouse Yourself by Yin Cheng True Apothecary by Ellie Gold Laabs The Widower Writes from the Shipwreck by Ellie Gold Laabs
Winner selected by Tom Paine: While Making Out the Lineup for Tomorrow’s 12U Softball Championship Game by Jim Parisi
Editor’s Choice: The Summer He Left by Alison Sanders Solitary Creatures by Charlie Rogers & Jaime Gill
Winner selected by Kristine Langley Mahler: I Conjure My Great-Grandmother and Ask for Her Life Story. She Visits My Dreams and Gives Me a Lesson on Revision by Alayna Powell
Editor’s Choice: The Leftovers by Michelle La Vone
Winner selected by Michael Czyzniejewski: When Mr. Boppo Joined the Cohort by Sharon Lee Snow
Editor’s Choice: Take Me Through the Finish by Tom Ziemer
Winner selected by Brenna Womer : The Laundry Hangs at Noon by Ginger Tolman
Editor’s Choice: 36 Hours in Lecce by Anne Schuchman
Our congratulations goes out to these fine folks for their amazing writing and to the winners for snagging those beautiful jars of honey!
We’re not done yet, though!! The best is yet to come as most of these award winning pieces will appear in Issue #20 ~ Summer 2025, the Honeybee Prize Edition. It’s gonna be so, so good… we can’t wait to share it with you (very soon).
Cheers, ~The Good Life Review Team
PS. We’re open for our Autumn issue including our first-ever call for spoken-word pieces, for which submissions are free. The window closes on July 20th. ⭐ We’re also on the hunt for artwork for our autumn issue. ⭐
As a reminder, we nominate for Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best New Poets, Best Small Fictions and… YES we are a paying market! ($60 per piece published in the seasonal issue, $25 per piece published in Micro Monday, $50 for cover art).
Your work will be handled with care and read by at least two (typically three or more) members of our editorial team.
Announcing the Short List of Finalists for the 2025 HoneyBee Prize
May 27, 2025
Huzzah, we’ve finally done it! At long last the team is finished reading and deliberating submissions for the 2025 Honeybee Prize. This included hundreds of stories and essays and over a thousand poems! We’re pleased to report that finalists have been sent to the judges in each of the 5 genres.
And we’re equally as excited to heave a hearty congratulations in the direction of those that made it onto this year’s short list. ↓↓↓
The cure to all the maladies by Jonathan Greenhause Red and Yellow Light over the Top of Houses by Dolapo Demuren Every Room is a Sonnet by Dolapo Demuren Drowned Crawdads by Sara Shea The Year I Carried You by Sara Shea Wedged Together We Are Flying by Reva Johnson Silence bears no fruit by Erwin Arroyo Pérez English Is My Second Language by Erwin Arroyo Pérez Yes, she did by Ashlie Hyer Autobiography of a Violin by Cassie Burkhardt Arouse Yourself by Yin Cheng Surely Every Man is Mere Breath by Yin Cheng The Weight of His Chair by Sam Aureli True Apothecary by Ellie Gold Laabs The Widower Writes from the Shipwreck by Ellie Gold Laabs
Before the Everything After by Jaime Gill & Charlie Rogers Solitary Creatures by Jaime Gill & Charlie Rogers Do You by Alison Sanders While Making Out the Lineup for Tomorrow’s 12U Softball Championship Game by Jim Parisi The Summer He left by Alison Sanders Hands by Pam Anderson
The Leftovers by Michelle La Vone Attack by Ginger Tolman Protocols and Such by Camara Garrett I Conjure My Great-Grandmother and Ask for Her Life Story. She Visits My Dreams and Gives Me a Lesson on Revision by Alayna Powell
Theatre of Solace by Nicole Bazemore Peabody by Joe Cappello Mr. Jensen by Madeline Rosales Take Me Through the Finish by Tom Ziemer When Mr. Boppo Joined the Cohort by Sharon Lee Snow
On the Telephone with Mom by Dean Gessie 36 Hours in Lecce by Anne Schuchman The Laundry Hangs at Noon by Ginger Tolman
Stay tuned to learn the results of the contest and who the judges selected as the winners.
If you missed sending work for the prize this year (or even if you didn’t), there’s always another chance just around the next bend. And, we’re always open. Click here to give us a go. ↓↓↓
As a reminder, we nominate for Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best New Poets, Best Small Fictions and… YES we are a paying market! ($60 per piece published in the seasonal issue, $25 per piece published in Micro Monday, $50 for cover art).
Your work will be handled with care and read by at least two (typically three or more) members of our editorial team.
We are offering free subs today and through the end of May…
(Click to access the magic portal)
Why? Because we love spring and we love summer, and we love reading poems and essays and strange stories by wonderful writers, even ones with spiders.
Because we are done reading for this year’s HoneyBee Prize and are anxiously awaiting results from the five judges. And because we don’t want that pesky $3 fee to cause people to hold any grudges.
Too much? OK. Maybe we’re doing it because we can.
Guidelines are available on our submission page and the form to send work is available on Submittable (be sure to select the fee-free option, unless you want to give us moneys, which is OK too).
As a reminder, we nominate for Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best New Poets, Best Small Fictions and… YES we are a paying market! ($60 per piece published in the seasonal issue, $25 per piece published in Micro Monday, $50 for cover art).
Your work will be handled with care and read by at least two (typically three or more) members of our editorial team.
