Call for Submissions

The 11th Annual Metastatic Breast Cancer issue:

LOVE & INTIMACY

October / November 2026 | Vol 11, Issue No. 5

Submission Deadline Extended: August 30, 2026

Guest Editor: Wren Morrobel, Creator & Producer of Living Our Breast Lives

Intimacy is not just physical or romantic—though it can be that too. It is closeness. Presence. The experience of being fully known by someone or something: a partner, a friend, a child, your family, your own body.

Living with metastatic breast cancer (MBC) complicates every one of those relationships, not just the sexual one. It changes the way we inhabit ourselves, the way we let people close, the way we want and allow ourselves to be wanted. It can make intimacy feel dangerous, or lost, or out of reach.

This year’s annual MBC issue is an invitation to write toward living life in the glare of what you’re grieving, what you’re shifting, and what you’re still fostering when it comes to love and intimacy in your life. (Got a sexy story? We’ll take that, too!)

Meet Our Guest Editor Wren Morrobel

A woman with long brown hair smiling and pointing to a ribbon pin on her dark green shirt. She has a pink scrunchie, multiple bracelets, a ring, and a smartwatch. The background is purple.

I am a thirty-seven year old mTNBC thriver living in Charlotte, NC.

Married to my college sweetheart, dog mom, and soon to be “boy mom” with our miracle baby on the way via surrogacy! 

Diagnosed early stage TNBC at 29 years old with the recurrence happening less than a year later, the disease had come back with a vengeance; this time with lung metastasis, a localized breast recurrence, and skin metastasis to the outside of my breast.

I have been living with triple negative metastatic disease for seven years, 6.5 of those years with scans showing No Evidence of Disease on a lifesaving immunotherapy! 

I am still here, and for as long as I am given, I will continue to advocate and show up for the metastatic breast cancer community. I am thrilled to be this year’s MBC issue guest editor for Wildfire Journal!

Producer of the Living Our Breast Lives Podcast/Platform.

Virtual MBC Support Group Facilitator, Mentor/Mentee Program Director, Two time SABCS patient advocate participant, Trained LBBC (Living Beyond Breast Cancer) Young Advocate, NC State Ambassador for LightUpMBC Live, Speaker/Patient Advocate for (YSC) Young Survival Coalition, TNBC Foundation Ambassador/Virtual Support Group Facilitator, and upcoming NYC Fashion Week Runway Model sponsored by Cancer Culture.

Close-up of two people holding hands, with one person's hand overlapping the other's, against a blurred background.

Each October, we devote an entire issue of Wildfire to those diagnosed with Stage IV / metastatic breast cancer. In a month saturated with pink ribbons and breast cancer awareness, we believe it is important to shine a spotlight on the ones living day in and day out with breast cancer.

Submit Your Love & Intimacy Story for This Year’s Metastatic Breast Cancer Issue

We accept:

  • Essays: 650-1200 words

  • Poems: 50 line maximum

  • Artwork: high-resolution along with a written Artist Statement

Submission Deadline: August 25, 2026

SUBMIT NOW

Need some inspiration to write your story in the Wildfire Journal way? We’ve got you.

Notebook and pen

✏️Use writing prompts to unlock your story:

  • The biggest challenge I’ve overcome / am facing when it comes to intimacy is…

  • The last time I felt truly present in my own skin was…

  • What my body is still asking for…

  • The person who knows how to be close to me without fixing me is…

  • I am still a human being who wants…

  • A love letter to the life I’m building now + What I’ve learned to stop apologizing for

  • Two truths I hold at once…

  • Love is... What does love look like now in this version of your life, your body, your relationships? What counts as intimacy now?

  • What changed between us... Write about what changed between you and a partner, you and your body, you and yourself...

  • My body (and my spirit) feel safest when...

  • You may have inherited ideas about intimacy from culture, parents, medicine, your pre-cancer self. Now it's time to write a new definition.  

  • Love has 3 components; choose one component and write the story of it in your life with MBC:

    Intimacy: the emotional aspect of a relationship

    Passion: the body-to-body connection

    Commitment: the intellectual aspect of a relationship

Tip: Wildfire is focused on memoir, and memoir is about writing your transformation. As you write to these prompts, try ending your piece with a silent "... and nothing was ever the same again," to see if that rings true for you. Keep digging for how your life is has changed since your diagnosis. 

Remember, we are looking for cancer-related stories, so no matter where your story begins, don’t forget to include how your experience of cancer has affected you, and the lessons you’ve learned along the way. Read more writing tips here.

Read Past Issues of Wildfire

Click the cover to flip through the magazine.

Close-up of two people holding hands, one with dark skin and the other with light skin, with a background of jeans and a beige backdrop. Overlaid text reads 'WILDFIRE Love & Intimacy April / May 2023 The magazine for young fighters and survivors of breast cancer, all stages.'
Cover of Wildfire magazine's October/November 2025 issue, featuring two women standing back-to-back outdoors in a field, smiling with closed eyes on a sunny day.
A mother and daughter holding hands and smiling in front of a government building with stairs, wearing white dresses, with the text "Wildfire" and "Mothers & Daughters" on the cover of a magazine for young fighters and survivors of breast cancer.

Find more of our favorite Wildfire stories to inspire your writing here.