Writer
We could be reading you in the next issue of Crab Creek Review! Submissions are open for themed fiction on displacement/immigration. I’m honored to serve as guest fiction editor for this issue, and we’ve got a wonderful team waiting to read your subs.
Writers, please submit fiction (up to 3,500 words) or get the word out to others. Submissions are open until April 1. Check out the guidelines!
I recently returned from the Sundress Academy for the Arts writing residency in Knoxville, where I completed 14 new pages of my novel. I also read Karl Ove Knausgaard’s novel Spring while there—borrowed from their library—and its slow observations about family dynamics were a perfect complement to the work I am doing. The residency was located at Firefly Farms, and the writer-in-residence and I cooked meals, read poetry to each other, and hiked to the nearby spring. Restorative, peaceful time. Huge thanks to Erin Elizabeth Smith for this opportunity and to poet Joey Gould for welcoming me and showing me around with such care!
SAND Journal has published my flash fiction piece “Notes on Medical History,” inspired by a visit to the famous wall of skulls in the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia. The piece is a surreal departure for me, and I’m grateful it found such a wonderful home. 
The full issue is available for purchase on the SAND website. Thanks to the editors!
I’m delighted to have my personal essay—filled with childhood memories from Bosnia—in the November issue of World Literature Today. It’s an honor to be included in this beautiful, thoughtful magazine for the second time this year.
The piece mentions a traditional Bosnian stew, and I include my dad’s recipe at the end. 
When it was accepted, I also bought a butterfly mug to celebrate, which you’ll appreciate if you read the piece.
I’m grateful my poem “Bare Necessities” is included in A Flame Called Indiana, a new multi-genre anthology from Indiana University Press, alongside the work of a number of phenomenal writers who are also friends. I’m also thrilled to know that the book will be used as a course text for two Indiana University creative writing workshops this fall. The volume contains short fiction, essays, and poetry from writers who, at some point in their lives, had a strong connection to Indiana, and it is available for purchase anywhere books are sold.
I’m thrilled to have my short story “Those Who Point Like Arrows” on Terrain.org this month. The piece takes place in northern Spain, and I grew so attached to this protagonist that I started a novel draft about her life after completing it. Huge thanks to Simmons Buntin and the other editors—they were so wonderful, thorough, and thoughtful to work with! ❤❤
I’m honored to have my short story, “Silencing,” in the May issue of World Literature Today. The piece takes place in Ávila, Spain—where I spent part of my childhood after leaving Bosnia—and it follows an older woman who, while spying on her neighbors out the window, gets herself caught in a complicated misunderstanding. Huge thanks to editor Michelle Johnson and her team for all their care. I’m thrilled to be included in this dream magazine, and in such wonderful company.
I had a daydream that I wrote into a poem, and the lovely folks at The Louisville Review were kind enough to publish it. I just received my contributor’s copies. Big thanks to Amy Foos Kapoor and guest poetry editors Debra Kang Dean and Wanda Fries. ❤️ Can’t wait to explore the rest of the issue!
I watched an interview with George Saunders the other day, about his recent book on writing, and drove out to a local Morgenstern Books to pick up a copy.
And it’s been such a pleasure to watch him break down the complexities of several Russian short stories with his characteristic humility and care.
Here’s a lovely passage from the opening: “The resistance in the stories is quiet, at a slant, and comes from perhaps the most radical idea of all: that every human being is worthy of attention and that the origins of every good and evil capability of the universe may be found by observing a single, even very humble, person and the turnings of his or her mind.”
I highly recommend this thoughtful, inquisitive, funny book to both writers and readers! ❤️
Huge thanks to the editors of Barnstorm Journal for publishing my personal essay in their December issue! I wrote the piece years ago, after a memorable trip to Sedona. I’m thrilled it found such a beautiful home, and—as always—I’m grateful for our writing community and all the writers and editors out there who look over one another’s work with care. ❤️ You can read the piece on their site, as well as hear a recording of me reading an excerpt. Hope you enjoy it!
Lana Spendl 