Stuff We Like
It can be hard to know which magazines are the right place for your work, so we hope this will better put you at ease. The Terrific Editors of earworms magazine have combed through the vast sea of Wonderful Things to bring you Stuff We Like, a (mostly) comprehensive list of other works we adore. You do not have to aspire to them, and in fact, we encourage you to only use them as a very loose template for kind of, sort of guessing at what we will be accepting.
Fiction
“Pianissimo” by Chelsea Hanna Cohen: While classified as a flash fiction piece, this 989 word story is the perfect length for our fiction section! It’s a wonderful construction built on the back of language pertaining to technical discussion of music as opposed to a particular song or artist, but really showcases the kind of creativity we’re looking for here at earworms magazine!
"Tooth" by Conor Christofferson
Flash
“The Deleted Scenes of America” by Barry Charman: All three of the pieces submitted are amazing reads, but this first one really stuck out for me. I think it’s how disjointed the writing gets, how poetic Charman chose to make it. It’s undeniably creepy, but done nearly entirely in the abstract. A gorgeous example of how to make poetic prose work for you in experimental, flash pieces.
Experimental
“Egg" by Catie Wiley
Creative Nonfiction
“On Summer Crushing” by Hanif Abdurraqib: Go read They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us while you’re at it. That book has a bunch of essays on music through the lens of Abdurraqib’s life as a Black, Muslim kid growing up in the Ohio music scene and then all the years after. This piece is more of an analysis, but it’s certainly lyrical. He discusses himself as much as he dissects Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know.” You can be upfront with the music you choose, or you can make it more subtle, and this is certainly one way to wave the song in your reader’s face while still staying creative.
“Under Water” by Amy Walker
Poetry
“Top Chef S13 E8: On Microgreens” by Zach Semel: The second section of this poem is really what got me good. “Morning affirmation: men don’t see / you and notice every flaw / as often as you think” had me wide-eyed, staring at my screen. I think this one in particular is a good look at how you can be lengthier with your poems, but that there are creative ways to make breaks so as not to bore the reader. It’s also a reminder that you can find inspiration in unlikely places.
“They Don’t Love You Like I Love You” by Natalie Diaz: A poem inspired by music! I love Natalie Diaz (highly recommend looking for her work in the poetry anthology Like a Hammer: Poets on Mass Incarceration), and this is a wonderful piece that weaves lyrics from Beyoncé and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs into a cutting perspective on Diaz’s identity as a Mojave woman.
"The Cilantroem (or, A Fresh Bunch of Love)" by T.K. Williams
Photography
There is something dark and triumphant about this composition that Skowrońska’s photograph captures so, so well. Normally, I don’t listen much to classical music, but it’s hard not to appreciate this nearly half-an-hour long piece. I highly recommend it as background noise for when you study or work.
There is something dark and triumphant about this composition that Skowrońska’s photograph captures so, so well. Normally, I don’t listen much to classical music, but it’s hard not to appreciate this nearly half-an-hour long piece. I highly recommend it as background noise for when you study or work.