More than 15 years ago, SmokeLong began supporting emerging writers. Then, The Kathy Fish Fellowship awarded one writer each year guaranteed publication of four stories. This worked well only on occasion. While we have continuously offered a fellowship for emerging writers since then, we’ve made changes. Around 10 years ago we changed the name to The SmokeLong Fellowship for Emerging Writers, and now instead of supporting one writer per year, we support up to four. Instead of guaranteeing publication (with payment), we pay our senior editors to work with the fellows so that they get published elsewhere. And they do.
Our SmokeLong Fellowship for Emerging Writers now supports up to four writers each year with a combination of peer-review workshopping (SmokeLong Fitness), specific senior editor feedback, and the opportunity to read hundreds of submissions alongside our submissions editors for six months. We hope we’re providing a boost to these talented writers’ lives.
Our next application period opens on September 1st through Submittable. Applicants must be emerging writers, which means they must not have published—or have signed a contract to publish—a book-length work of fiction, non-fiction, or narrative poetry. This includes chapbooks.
Thank you so much to our 2025 fellows. We wish you all the very best and much success with your writing!
What the fellows had to say about their time with SmokeLong…
Belinda Rowe — Never in my life have I read or written so much! This in itself has been an incredible opportunity and journey. As a SmokeLong Emerging Writer Fellow, reading the submissions queue has been a whirlwind of reading and thinking about a lot of submissions in terms of why they work, or how they might be improved. The great benefit here is that I’m learning to apply this knowledge and awareness to my own writing. Moreover, having senior editors read and give feedback on my work, to articulate what’s working and what’s not working, has been invaluable and I’ve gleaned so much about crafting flash. Lastly, I can’t begin to tell you how much I’ve learned from all the super inspiring writing tasks that Christopher and senior editors create daily for SmokeLong Fitness, The March Micro Marathon and A SmokeLong Summer! Being involved in peer-review workshops is undeniably one of the best experiences I’ve had. On top of this, I’ve learnt so much from having access to the many webinars run by incredibly talented writers that SmokeLong offers which is real bonus. And thanks to the SmokeLong Community who are the best. I’ve benefited so much from their knowledge, generosity and capacity to give honest and helpful feedback. Finally, thank you to SmokeLong Quarterly for choosing me as a SmokeLong Emerging Writer Fellow 2025. It’s been an honour and a privilege.
Ani King — It’s hard to choose which element of the fellowship is most impactful, because the combination of the workshop itself, feedback from senior editors, reading the submission queue, and connecting with the other fellows is so powerful as a whole. I think being able to read the queue and think in terms of either “what makes this story work” or “what would make this story more impactful” has helped with identifying ways to polish and finish a draft—especially when paired with that deeper level feedback from the senior editor team. But the truth is, every element is so important, they all come together to make for such an incredible experience.
Katherine Plumhoff — I have a long list of ideas that clunk against each other in my head as I walk around, do my day job, have a social life, fall into spirals about the state of the world, recover and refocus from those spirals, etc. But actually finding and protecting time to explore those ideas — and experiencing the relief of having given them space to unfurl — has always been hard. The structure of SmokeLong Fitness (one draft, once a week) made me get to the page, despite the various demands of being alive, and write 1,000 (or so) words a week. Then I got to buff those stories up with the alchemy of peer workshop and then I got to send the strongest to some of the sharpest editors out there — hi Christopher, Erin, Sherrie, Shasta, Jan, Helen, love you — who showed me where their weak parts were and how to fix them. I can’t overstate how meaningful this accountability has been.
But it’s not just that the work got done. I also got to be part of such a rich, generous community doing the work, too. Writing is done alone but the creative process, when expanded to include talking giddily about what you’re reading, getting feedback on what’s working or isn’t in a given draft, and reading a finished piece out loud and seeing it land, is inherently a group activity. Living in Spain, I’d been hungry for more English-language writing community. Reading the queue with the other submissions editors and learning from their insightful comments (I will never again send out something I wrote that week!), having craft chats with all of SmokeLong in the comments of assignments from senior editors, and building deep and enduring friendship with two of the brightest, best writers out there — my fellow Fellows Ani King and Belinda Rowe — has been a true highlight of the last six months.
Big thanks to Christopher and the whole SmokeLong team for choosing me as a 2025 Fellow. It’s been magic.
Thank you, Ani, Belinda, and Katherine! You made the magic!
Christopher and the SmokeLong Team
The core workshop of SmokeLong Fitness is all in writing, so you can take part from anywhere at anytime. We are excited about creating a supportive, consistent and structured environment for flash writers to work on their craft in a community. We are thrilled and proud to say that our workshop participants have won, placed, or been listed in every major flash competition. Community works.