SmokeLong Quarterly

In 2024 SmokeLong hosted our second SmokeLong Workshop Prize competition. Our workshop participants reported almost 300 publications to us before November 1, 2024. In 2025, we’ll be featuring one writer each week from The SmokeLong Workshop Prize long list. It’s an excellent series of interviews, each grappling with questions about workshopping, giving and receiving feedback, and the publication process. If you are a previous or current SmokeLong workshop participant and you have ultimately published something you began in a SmokeLong workshop, remember to enter The SmokeLong Workshop Prize competition. This free-to-enter competition is on our Submittable page.

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An Interview with Nora Esme Wagner — “A Sky Full of Clouds” published by New World Writing Quarterly 

What do you remember about the workshop where you wrote this story? What was the prompt that led to this story?

This story went through two workshop cycles (something I love about SmokeLong: the opportunity to revisit). I drafted it for a Helen Rye prompt, leaning into the speculative more than usual, as Helen is the queen of the bizarre. The consensus among the writers who gave me feedback was that the original ending needed to be punchier—I tend to bang out drafts of flashes in one go, so by the time I am wrapping things up, my energy stores are depleted, and I am desperately in need of a snack. Endings are usually the places that need the most sharpening for me. Three tasks later, responding to a Shasta Grant prompt, I added the final, second-person section. I think I stuck the landing much better that time, all thanks to the keen insight of my readers.

Peer-review feedback is always full of surprises. In general, what kind of feedback do you find helpful? What kind of feedback do you find less helpful?

I love feedback framed as questions. That’s pretty much a staple for all (good) creative writing workshops, but I think it helps the peer-review process feel more like a dynamic conversation rather than someone imposing their interpretation. I am frustrated by feedback that feels like the reviewer wants to take the story out of my hands and rewrite it entirely themselves. Like, thanks! Do you want me to send you the copyrights? Thankfully, I’ve never had this problem at SmokeLong. SLQ participants know how to ask incisive questions that pinpoint exactly where the story should go or what can be discarded, all while respecting the writer’s vision. I expected to be wowed by my fellow workshoppers’ craft—I was more surprised by how damn good they are at perceiving exactly what I want to convey and helping me figure out how I can do it more effectively. It’s like they have X-ray vision! SLQ participants are excellent writers and readers.

To how many places did you send this story? Can you tell us a little about its journey to publication?

Besides New World Writing Quarterly, the home of this piece, I submitted it to six other flash fiction journals—five rejected me. When I first started sending out my work, this would’ve discouraged me from continuing to try. I might’ve consigned it to my graveyard of abandoned Google Docs. But years of being pelted by rejections have toughened my skin. Some of the pieces that I think are my very best take months to be picked up; I’ve learned to think of it as a journey in finding the right fit. New World Writing Quarterly snapped this one up the day after I submitted it (they’re so speedy). This is my first time publishing with them, but I’ve been a long-time reader, supporter, and submitter. I’m very pleased that this is the piece that struck a chord with them.

What is your advice to someone considering taking part in a peer-review workshop?

I joined A SmokeLong Summer after a long hiatus from writing, where I started to doubt that I’d ever feel sparks of inspiration again, convinced that my creative battery had totally short-circuited. SmokeLong stuck me with jumper cables. My biggest piece of advice is to be consistent with sharing work and giving feedback. Juice the workshop for all it’s got! In the beginning, I considered skipping days when I felt unsatisfied with my drafts, too shy to put out something so rough and shaggy. But it makes no sense to post only the pieces that you confidently feel are done—you’re there to rework, start fresh, scrap, and begin again! The best pieces to share are often the worst ones. Once you get into the habit of trying to write at least something for each prompt, you’ll sink into a rhythm: sharing the scruffy hairballs will get easier and easier. Polishing comes later; at the start, just focus on producing.

Read “A Sky Full of Clouds” by Nora Esme Wagner published in New World Writing Quarterly

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Nora Esme Wagner is a sophomore at Wellesley College. She lives in San Francisco, California. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in JMWW, Wigleaf, Milk Candy Review, Ghost Parachute, Lost Balloon, New World Writing Quarterly, Moon City Review, 100 Word Story, Bending Genres, and elsewhere. Her work has been longlisted for Wigleaf‘s Top 50. She is an assistant fiction editor at Pithead Chapel and the Prose Editor for The Wellesley Review.