The First Line

21/07/2025

Happy Monday!

With temps in the high 90s right outside the home office, it’s hard to start thinking about fall, but you have less than two weeks to send in your submissions for the fall issue. The first line is:

Her truck took the sharp turns of the mountain road with ease.

Write on! (And then submit.)

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20/06/2025

Hi, everybody - The summer issue of The First Line is now avalable . . .

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03/06/2025

Hi, everybody - Want a free PDF of the Spring 2025 issue of The First Line? Check out our new post on Patreon:

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22/05/2025

We had a blast at the Dallas Is Lit! and Oak Cliff book and author fairs last weekend. Both took place at the Oak Cliff Assembly, a cool, historic church/artists venue. I’ll write more about the festivals soon, but I wanted to mention a poster I recently found while cleaning out our book festival folders.

We’ve been tabling at book festivals for almost twenty years. They are a fun way to spread the word about the press, and they give us a chance to get out of town and meet other literary-minded people. Our first was the 2006 Texas Book Festival, and we did surprisingly well, especially for being relatively unknown.

It’s hard to stand out in a tent—or fairgrounds or church—filled with other presses and authors vying for the attention of half-interested crowds. So, for our second year at the Texas Book Festival, we created a poster that made a bold claim:

The Most Important (*) Literary Journal in Texas

Below the poster, we had a stack of business cards. On the front was just a large red asterisk to match the one on the poster, and when you turned the card over, it read:

eight-year-old, Plano-based, 70-page, perfect bound, 8¼” x 5¼”, $3.00 a copy, quarterly, unaffiliated, unfunded, unassuming, and far from uninspiring

Well, we thought it was clever. I can’t remember how well it went over, but our records show we printed 100 business cards and came home with less than ten. I don’t think it increased our sales.

I’m not sure we’ll ever return to the Texas Book Festival (it’s one of the more expensive festivals for exhibitors to attend), but if we do, we would have to make some changes to our business cards since that first claim 18 years ago. Or we could just drop the red asterisk from the poster and not worry about the business cards at all. ;-)

If you want to read about the 2008 Texas Book Festival (and other literary events and bookstores we visited that year), check out the first inning of our zine Bookstores and Baseball in the Patreon store. (Patrons at the Cyan and higher tiers receive it for free.)

17/05/2025

We’ll be tabling at some exciting literary events in Dallas this weekend. On Saturday, we’ll be at the Oak Cliff Assembly for the Dallas Is Lit! book fair, and on Sunday, we’ll be at the same location for the Oak Cliff Book Fair. For more information . . .

The community book & author fair is back and bigger than ever! Happening this year at the Oak Cliff Assembly and co-presented by Apprentice Creative Space, the book & author fair will bring together dozens of local literary and literary-adjacent businesses and organizations, from writing clubs to cr...

14/05/2025

Hi, everybody - WW! Tales from the Cleaners is now available. You can pick up a copy here:

26/04/2025

Happy Independent Bookstore Day, everybody!

There’s less than a week left to send in your submissions for the summer issue. If you’ve already submitted, sit back and enjoy a new episode of TFL on Tape. David reads David Daniel's story, "The Sprouting." David's story appeared in the Summer 2023 issue and begins with the first line: All the lawns on Mentone Avenue are mowed on Wednesdays.

(And if you are still working on your submission, stop and give a listen anyway. It’s only eight minutes, and you deserve a break. You’ve been working really hard lately, and we appreciate that.)

Give a listen here:

21/03/2025

The spring issue of The First Line is now available. You can get a copy by joining one of our Patreon tiers or head over to our Patreon shop (www.patreon.com/c/bluecubiclepress/shop) to purchase a PDF. It's also available on Kindle (www.amazon.com/dp/B0F233WRG1). If you would like a print copy, visit www.thefirstline.com

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29/01/2025

Hi, everybody - Just a friendly reminder that you have four days left to send in your spring submissions.
David

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17/01/2025

I made a joke about Texas winters a few weeks ago. Then the snow came, and the newly printed winter issues of The First Line got lost somewhere between Pennsylvania and Forth Worth.

We received the issues yesterday and have been working hard to get them back in the mail before the next storm barrels through.

We apologize for the wait (the theme for this month's replay of TFL on Tape over at Patreon), and we want to remind you that you have a little over two weeks to get your submissions in for the spring issue.

Write on!
David

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27/12/2024

Hi, everybody - We've just released the winter issues of The First Line and The Last Line. You can purchase both PDFs for one low price or order the print versions from our website.

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04/12/2024

Hi, everybody -

Our friends at Groundwork Poetry Anthology Project have extended their deadline to December 15 for accepting poems for their anthology Groundwork: Poems on Working Life in the Climate Crisis.

They are looking for poems about what it’s like to do your job (paid or unpaid) in our age of climate change and uncertainty.

There’s no fee to submit, and they offer a $60 honorarium if your poem is selected. You can send up to three poems.

Note: The October 31 submission deadline has passed, but we will continue accepting submissions at [email protected] until December 15. How is the changing climate affecting your work? Has your workplace or schedule been altered by environmental change? Do events like extreme heat, floo...