🌹 "Dear Diary" (Dark Sky Week edition)
by Switch-Lit
Dear Writers,
The new moon occurs this week (April 17) and coincides with International Dark Sky Week — one of the best times of the year to view deep-space objects that are usually washed out by moonlight.
It also coincides with the launch of our Subrosa round “Dear Diary” hosted by Open Closely, a creative community project that aligns journal writing with the lunar cycle.
Sign up for this monthly Subrosa round ends Thursday, April 16th.
About this round
When you sit down to write in your journal, what story do you tell yourself? Or if you found someone else’s journal, what story might it tell you?
In this Subrosa round hosted by Open Closely, writers craft an intimate narrative inspired by an imagined or real-life diary. Whether written in the form of a first-person diary entry or simply featuring a found diary as an enchanted object, ask yourself: What sensory secrets does the diary hold? What confessional truths emerge? And to whom – one’s self, a friend, an enemy, or someone imagined?
Inside every journal is the gripping ink with the power to release a new reality. What will yours reveal?
About writer pairings
All writers will be paired based on their given astrological signs and writing preferences.
⚠️🌹 If you signed up for this round and cannot commit to it anymore please contact us (editors@switch-lit.com) out of respect for your partner and Switch-Lit.
Look down at your journal.
Look up at the sky.
Back and forth, in darkness and awe,
What will catch your eye?
🌚
— S••L
Did you know?
Mid-April 2026 is a rare period where these celestial events come together with the precision of a poet and imagination of a scientist:
“Planet Parade” (April 16-23, before sunrise)
Starting on the eve (April 16) of the new moon, the planets Mercury, Mars, Saturn, and Neptune will begin to cluster within a 10-degree sliver of the sky and form a perfectly straight line by April 20th.
“Fireball Peak” (April 21-22, after midnight)
The Lyrid meteor shower begins its peak after the new moon (April 21–22) while still a thin crescent and dark enough to see the Lyrids’ famed fireballs – bright meteors that leave trails of glowing stardust.
“Double Comet” (April 27th, pre-dawn)
Two different comets will be uncommonly active together – Comet C/2025 R3 and Comet C/2026 A1 – and visible to the naked eye in the pre-dawn sky near constellations Pegasus and Pisces.
Currently, the outback of southeastern Oregon in the United States is the largest International Dark Sky Sanctuary. 🔎 Search this map to locate a dark sky sanctuary by you.
From the Field
There are currently 112 writers around the world who have joined the upcoming “Dear Diary” Subrosa round.
Hold on!
[Voice 1]
I'm lying on the moon
My dear, I'll be there soon
It's a quiet and starry place
Times we're swallowed up
In space, we're here a million miles away
[Voice 2]
There's things I wish I knew
There's nothing I'd keep from you
It's a dark and shiny place
But with you my dear
I'm safe and we're a million miles away[Duet]
We're lying on the moon
It's a perfect afternoon
Your shadow follows me all day
Making sure that I'm
Okay and we're a million miles away”— “The Moon Song” by Karen O, featured in the sci-fi romance film Her (2013) by Spike Jonze
Switch-Lit is on a mission to manifest the collective imagination of diverse writing communities through the connective power of collaborative fiction, poetry, and prose.
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