Spellnotes
Spellnotes is the official Spellbinder Blog, featuring articles, insights, and discussions from editors, contributors, and readers. Discover standout works, practical writing tips, and thoughtful commentary on literature and the arts.
Collaborative Notes
This column is dedicated to Spellbinder’s exchange with other individuals, groups and journals in the literary and artistic worlds.
Editor’s Picks
Editor’s Picks showcases standout works from past issues, with thoughtful commentary, quick reviews, top reading lists, in-depth critiques, and discussions of trends shaping literature and the arts.
Tips & Resources
Tips & Resources features short, practical reads for writers. Craft Tools shares clear approaches to improve your writing. Career Tools offers straightforward guidance on publishing and professional paths. Quick, useful insights to support your creative and career growth.
Tips & Resources – Spellbinder
Recent Posts
- Soil Under My Fingernails: Queer Identity in Timothy Ngome’s Where the Petals Remember My Name
It was absurd – to argue with something that photosynthesized my guilt – but the absurdity thrilled me. Maybe that’s what queerness is, I thought: the pleasure of breaking form, of wanting in directions that defy taxonomy. It was absurd – to argue with something that photosynthesized my guilt – but the absurdity thrilled me.… Continue reading Soil Under My Fingernails: Queer Identity in Timothy Ngome’s Where the Petals Remember My Name - CRAFT TOOLS: Deus Ex Cista
One of the things I love most about writing poetry is the freedom offered its author. It’s said that poets see the world differently, which is why poetry can sometimes strike those more familiar with fiction or drama as challenging, even weird. I’m not sure if I believe in an essential point-of-view shared by all… Continue reading CRAFT TOOLS: Deus Ex Cista - What We’re Reading
We the editorial staff of Spellbinder believe the writing we take in is just as important as the writing we produce. Whether focusing on texts within their own genre or taking inspiration from other parts of the literary world, many of the greatest writers we know are also great readers! Unsure what you should look… Continue reading What We’re Reading - CRAFT TOOLS: (Word) Clouds In My CoffeeIn the recent film, Come See Me In The Good Light, a documentary about the life, art, and death of beloved poet Andrea Gibson, there’s a scene where Gibson talks about putting together their first book and how their publisher, exasperated, told them, “Andrea, all these poems have the same words rearranged in a… Continue reading CRAFT TOOLS: (Word) Clouds In My Coffee
- Our Enemy, Ourselves: Anxiety Personified in Elizabeth Ingamells’ My Friend, the Hag
I admire my friend’s consistency and unwavering attention to my every unwanted feeling, nervous twitch, or anxiety riddled thought. While I’m huddled against my pillow, petrified of an open curtain, she is just outside my door, whispering. Featured in the Winter 2026 issue of Spellbinder Magazine, Elizabeth Ingamells’ My Friend, the Hag uses an evocative… Continue reading Our Enemy, Ourselves: Anxiety Personified in Elizabeth Ingamells’ My Friend, the Hag - Writing the Mind in Motion: Tips and Resources for Stream of Consciousness
Stream of consciousness is often described as the most intimate of literary techniques. It tries to capture the mind as it actually functions: layered, looping, distracted, luminous, contradictory. For writers it can feel liberating and disorienting at once. How do you capture the quicksilver movement of thought without losing the reader? How do you preserve… Continue reading Writing the Mind in Motion: Tips and Resources for Stream of Consciousness - Autumn 2025 – Drama
OTTO And we carry around your little bags. Always carrying around bags of things you don’t need. Bundles of yarn. Sweaters for kittens we don’t have. An old Bible you know nothing about. Bottles of paint and brushes. Crumpled receipts that are two years old. What do you need all that shit for? I once… Continue reading Autumn 2025 – Drama - Language-themed Prompts for Autumn
Spellbinder submissions for the Autumn 2025 Issue are open until August 14th! We’ll be sharing some prompts over the coming weeks to inspire your creativity during this submission period. For this autumn, we are proposing that you consider language as a subject for your writing. Whether you already speak multiple languages or hope to one… Continue reading Language-themed Prompts for Autumn - Writing Tips – Free Indirect Discourse
Our characters always seem so lively in our heads, don’t they? As writers, we’re privy to their every thought, every reaction, every heartbeat. The problem is, how can we bring that level of intimacy to a reader so that our characters are just as real to them as they are to us? One of the… Continue reading Writing Tips – Free Indirect Discourse - Writing Tips – Show, Don’t Tell
“Don’t say it was delightful; make us say delightful when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers Please will you do the job for me.” – C. S. Lewis I’m sure every writer has heard the phrase ‘show, don’t tell’ at some… Continue reading Writing Tips – Show, Don’t Tell - Researching and Writing Greek Mythology
My strongest memory from my time as a Classics student is of writing an essay on the various representations of a minor goddess in Ancient Greek vase paintings. I poured over all sorts of resources, studied images, essays, and even read an entire (albeit, rather short) book on the goddess herself. All for one five-page… Continue reading Researching and Writing Greek Mythology - Winter 2025 – DramaHIM Aren’t you going to ask why I’m here? HER No. But unless you hurry things up, you’re going to be more of a murder victim than a suicide. HIM Are you threatening me? HER Yes. HIM You can’t make me jump. HER No, but I can make you fall. I doubt oblivion will quibble… Continue reading Winter 2025 – Drama
- Winter 2024 – FictionIt’s rainy season in Jakarta with 78 percent humidity, according to the weather forecasts, but you always wake up dehydrated. Bunda says it’s because you eat too much MSG. Or, more precisely, you keep ordering food from restaurants that clearly use MSG and other artificial flavoring. She tries to teach you how to cook tempe… Continue reading Winter 2024 – Fiction
- Winter 2024 – DramaANNA Well. I mean … “friends” is a strong word. REFLECTION A temporary truce? ANNA Maybe. They smile at each other. REFLECTION Go get ‘em, Anna. ANNA Right back at ya! Being an actor is a funny thing. Dressing up, playing make believe, small rituals, doing warmups and exercises that may look strange to outsiders.… Continue reading Winter 2024 – Drama
- Winter 2024 – Art‘To The Island’ – Christopher Woods ‘To The Island’ reveals a melancholy, black and white snapshot of passengers traveling to an island by watercraft. The first word that appeared in my mind’s eye, when I saw this photograph, was loneliness. Also, when we think of island, many connect the word to isolation. In this interpretation,… Continue reading Winter 2024 – Art
- Winter 2024 – NonfictionIn Crash Test Dummy, Rose Mason delivers the universal anxiety of driving and thrusts with a tone so frank and forthright that the emotional dreamscape of subconsciousness and the clinical morbidity of facts merge together, inviting the reader along the inner-most routes of the narrators mind only to confront them with critical questions about male-oriented road safety that leaves the female driver and passenger inherently in danger.
- Winter 2024 – PoetryThe Aldgate Horses – LJ Ireton Now cool in the fountain – A memory of earth water; Squelching feet in fields With cleaner conscience, Louder heartbeats. The speaker conveys admiration for one of the bronze horse statues in London. A memory of earth water, under stone readings of oxygen. These are highlights of some of… Continue reading Winter 2024 – Poetry
- Winter 2024 – FictionIt’s rainy season in Jakarta with 78 percent humidity, according to the weather forecasts, but you always wake up dehydrated. Bunda says it’s because you eat too much MSG. Or, more precisely, you keep ordering food from restaurants that clearly use MSG and other artificial flavoring. She tries to teach you how to cook tempe… Continue reading Winter 2024 – Fiction
- Writing Tips – How to get unstuck from the writing process
*sighs* If only we could just transfer all the vibes and bits of ideas in our heads into our Word doc and magically have it arrange all the planning so all we have to do is write. And in correlation to what a friend of mine had said about how it is we don’t have… Continue reading Writing Tips – How to get unstuck from the writing process - Spring 2023 – Drama
‘The Nightmare Began When I Woke Up’ EVELYN: I guess we should start?EDITH: I guess so.EVELYN: My name is Princess Evelyn, and I was recently awoken from a sleepingcurse.EDITH: My name is Princess Edith, and I was recently awoken from a sleeping curse. By Kaylon Willoughby A fairytale retelling in a princess support group.Snow White… Continue reading Spring 2023 – Drama