Oyster River Pages publishes fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and visual art. We search for and champion underrepresented voices. To find out more about ORP please go to: https://www.oysterriverpages.com/
See below for guidelines and deadlines for any active opportunities, course registrations, and special issues. Submissions for our annual issue will re-open January of 2027.
*If you have not heard back from us regarding your submission, we may be considering your piece for publication. Please do not send duplicate submissions. If you receive a decline or are waiting to hear back, please wait until the next submission cycle before submitting again. Thank you!*
The places we call home need our stories.
In this two-part online course, National Geographic Explorer and Penguin Random House author Thammika Songkaeo interrogates the mental barriers we face when shaping stories about ‘the environment’ from our own homes.
Challenging the notion that environmental writing must follow a set template, this course asks: How have we been conditioned to view nature through a pre-packaged lens? What inherited assumptions are we unknowingly recycling, and how can we become engaged environmental writers from anywhere in the world? By challenging biased perspectives, we can learn to write genuinely about our environment as it undergoes a radical transformation—reflecting our true relationship with our ecosystem, no matter where we live.
Course participants will learn how to:
- Identify environmental stories in our everyday surroundings, whether in a city, small town, or any other community.
- Rethink traditional ideas about environmental writing.
- Develop a more personal approach to writing about place.
- Experiment with new ways of connecting identity, place, and environmental change.
This course is open to emerging and experienced writers alike. You do not need a background in environmental writing—just bring your curiosity, close attention, and a willingness to engage with new ideas.
The online course will meet on Sunday, September 13 and Sunday, September 20 from 8:30am-10:00am EDT.
Tuition is $200, with limited spaces available.
A few partial scholarships are available for this course to support writers who need financial assistance. Please email us at schools@oysterriverpages.com if you would like to be considered for a scholarship before submitting this form. Scholarships are limited and awarded on a first-come, first-served basis.
Course registration closes September 1, 2026.
If you would like to learn more about this course, please visit our course page at this link. (Please note that you can register for this course through this Submittable form or through the form found on our website.)
About Thammika Songkaeo, National Geographic Explorer and Penguin Random House author
Thammika Songkaeo is a transnationalist novelist, nonfiction writer, and film producer of Thai origin whose lived experiences in India, Uganda, Rwanda, the United States, and Singapore informed the creation of Stamford Hospital, her debut novel. The novel was named a must-read for International Women's Day 2025 alongside The Handmaid's Tale and The Second Sex.
When not writing, Thammika works on social and environmental issues through her company, Two Glasses LLP, designing experiences that transform how people think and feel about identity and planetary mayhem. She is the producer of Changing Room, a dance film that asks, "What does criticizing our bodies have to do with climate change?" as well as its global experiential screenings, which incorporate somatic practices and guided journaling. Her social science work has been referenced by the Brookings Institution and The Journal of Southeast Asian Human Rights.
Thammika attended the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference on a Katharine Bakeless Nason Scholarship. She also received a fellowship to the Comparative Literature PhD program at The University of Texas at Austin, which she left after completing the MA to pursue an M.S.Ed. in Higher Education at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as a grant from the Smithsonian Freer|Sackler Galleries. She graduated with Highest Honors in French Literature from Williams College and earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the Vermont College of Fine Arts before becoming a Storytelling grantee of the National Geographic Society in 2022 (also known as a "National Geographic Explorer"). She continues to bring a transnational perspective to stories exploring the relationship between womanhood and society. Her writing, including a feature of monologues, has appeared in Ninth Letter, World Literature Today (online), and publications for the Singapore National Library Board.
Volunteer Web Designer Oyster River Pages
About Us Oyster River Pages is an online literary magazine publishing poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and visual art, alongside interviews and reflections on creative work. We look for voices that speak to what it means to be alive in this world–provocatively; evocatively–as well as voices that bring balance and diversity to historical institutions of power. We publish biannual issues, run educational programs, mentor interns, and provide community through launch parties and active promotion of our contributors.
The Project We're looking for a volunteer to help us grow our reach and better showcase the writers we publish through building out a series of dedicated author pages on our site. These pages will give each contributor a permanent, discoverable home on our site, improving our SEO and making it easier for readers to find and follow the writers we feature. This is a significant, ongoing project. While the volunteer doesn’t need to have a background in web design, they should be committed to seeing the project through.
What You'll Do
- Follow an existing template to create author pages with bios, photos, and links within Squarespace
- Apply basic SEO best practices (page titles, metadata, internal linking) to improve discoverability
- Collaborate with our editorial team on structure, style, and rollout
What We're Looking For
- No prior Squarespace experience required — we're happy to work with someone willing to learn
- Attention to detail and consistency across pages
- Ability to commit approximately 5 hours per week for the duration of the project
- A collaborative, self-directed working style — this is a volunteer role
To Apply Please submit a cover letter and resume
ORP is accepting submissions for reviews, interviews, profiles, commentary, or other innovative forms (including multimedia) that seek to highlight or critically engage with issues or works of literary, artistic, or cultural significance. The most compelling Soundings submissions will align with ORP's mission to amplify stories that speak to what it means to be alive in this world, works that move of out of ourselves and into other spaces, and voices who bring balance and diversity to historical institutions of power. For these reasons, we prioritize works that are published or produced independently, without the clout of corporate promotion. We are especially eager to publish pieces that engage with the work of marginalized and decentered people—Black and Brown creators, LGBTQ+ creators, and creators of all levels of dis/ability.
Reviews need not be uncritically positive, but predominantly negative reviews will be evaluated for necessity and/or urgency. If you aim to eviscerate the subject of your review, please ask yourself whom your critique serves. ORP is not in the business of strafing the creative community.
There is no predetermined length requirement, but successful Soundings will exercise brevity and a sense of proportion to the content they engage with.