Submission Sunday 8.20.17

Our consultants can help you edit your drafts, prepare your submissions, and find places to submit! Contact us for customized submission assistance.

Paper Darts Second Micro Fiction Contest (Deadline September 1 – $100)

Lesley Nneka Arimah wants you to write 200 words on the theme of separation for an award of $100. Without your micro-fiction, we’re like a flightless bird, sauceless noodles, or decarbonated LaCroix. We loved the response to our last contest so much that, naturally, we’re having another one.

When you’re here, you should check your idea of reading as a status symbol at the door and enjoy yourself. We prefer art that keeps it simple while packing a punch, and we think art and culture is best enjoyed with enthusiasm that hasn’t been dipped in ten-dollar words.

Our online magazine isn’t our print mag’s subordinate—it’s a living, breathing publication that’s accessible to anyone (with internet access) at any time at no cost. And by pairing all of our writing with art, we’re not just making our website pretty—we’re making reading more approachable on the whole. 

The world’s full of misfits channeling their creativity in ways that give gatekeepers nightmares. Much as we’d like to tilt our heads toward the slush pile and default to the excuse of “we work with what we’re given,” that’s complacent, and complacency is uncool. 

Copper Nickel Call for Submissions (Deadline March 15)

Copper Nickel—the national literary journal housed at the University of Colorado Denver—was founded by poet Jake Adam York in 2002. When York died in 2012, the journal went on hiatus until its re-launch in 2014.

Work published in Copper Nickel has appeared in the Best American Poetry, Best American Short Stories, and Pushcart Prize anthologies, and has been listed as “notable” in the Best American Essays anthology. Contributors to Copper Nickel have received numerous honors for their work, including the National Book Critics Circle Award; the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; the American, California, Colorado, Minnesota, and Washington State Book Awards; the Georg Büchner Prize; the TS Eliot and Forward Poetry Prizes; the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award; the Whiting Writers Award; the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award; the Lambda Literary Award; and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts; the Guggenheim, Ingram Merrill, Witter Bynner, Soros, Rona Jaffe, Bush, and Jerome Foundations; the Bunting Institute; Cave Canem; and the American Academy in Rome. Other contributors have had their first published work appear in our pages.

Cosmonauts Avenue 2017 Fiction Prize (Deadline October 31 – $500)

We’ve got some more big news… Cosmonauts Avenue is thrilled to announce that the 2017 fiction prize is now open for submissions!

Our judge is the incredible Porochista Khakpour, author of the forthcoming memoir Sick (Harper Perennial, May 2018), and the novels The Last Illusion (Bloomsbury, 2014)—a 2014 “Best Book of the Year” according to NPR, Kirkus, Buzzfeed, Popmatters, Electric Literature, and more—and Sons and Other Flammable Objects (Grove, 2007).

 

What kinda fiction are we looking for? Whether it’s the dystopic near future, an epistolary love story, autofiction, coming of age, a tale of two puppies, a story of war on another planet or one about being human in 2017, we want work that elevates and amplifies underrepresented voices, work that is warm, thoughtful, dark, light, devastating, funny, & necessary. The winner will receive $500 and publication in Cosmonauts Avenue.

Bridge Eight Literary Magazine Call for Submissions (Theme: "Organic" – Deadline October 1)

Bridge Eight Literary Magazine is a biannual print publication. We consider every submission we receive, but look for bold, fresh fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction that serves the literary community and community-at-large by delivering a sense of lyrical urgency and authorial authenticity.

Issue 7 “Organic” – This issue, we’re looking for writing that explores the natural, organic, pure, as well as the antithesis of all of these. As one of our broadest concepts, do with it as you will—to whatever extreme. At the end of the day, we’re looking for poetry, fiction and non fiction pieces that are grounded, raw, and textured—pieces that go deep into humanity’s (and the earth’s) natural state (or challenge the notion of “organic” altogether).

Mississippi Review Prize (Deadline January 1 – $1000)

Our annual contest awards prizes of $1,000 in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Winners and finalists will make up next summer's print issue of the national literary magazine Mississippi Review. Contest is open to all writers in English except current or former students or employees of The University of Southern Mississippi. Fiction and nonfiction entries should be 1000-8000 words, poetry entries should be three to five poems totaling ten pages or less. 

Mississippi Review was founded by Gordon Weaver in 1972 at the University of Southern Mississippi. Frederick Barthelme took over the editorial reins in 1977 and along with managing editor Rie Fortenberry quickly turned MR into a literary magazine of national acclaim. The duo ran Mississippi Review for over 30 years, consistently publishing issues that combined top-tier work with an innovative and eclectic design aesthetic. In 2010 Julia Johnson became editor-in-chief, followed two years later by Andrew Malan Milward. Now, the editorial reins are back in the strong and capable Barthelme hands: as of fall 2016, Steve Barthelme, director of the USM Center for Writers, will be the new editor-in-chief.

Today, MR is one of the most respected literary journals in the country. Raymond Carver, an early contributor to the magazine, once said that Mississippi Review "is one of the most remarkable and indispensable literary journals of our time." Well-known and established writers have appeared in the pages of the magazine, including Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winners, as well as new and emerging writers who have gone on to publish books and to receive awards. MR is now in its fifth decade, and while adapting to this up-and-coming generation of writers and readers, the magazine continues to publish writing that is offbeat and ahead of the curve.

Driftwood Press Call for Submissions 

John Updike once said, "Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better." At Driftwood Press, we are actively searching for artists who care about doing it right, or better. Driftwood Press is a quarterly literary magazine founded in Tampa, FL in 2013. We strive to provide our readers with the highest quality content. This includes fiction, poetry, photography, graphic narrative, literary criticism, and interviews. We are excited to receive your submissions and will diligently work  to bring you the best in literary and artistic excellence. Our first issue was released on January 6th, 2014.

The Southampton Review Short Short Fiction Prize (Deadline October 1 – $350)

Dedicated to publishing fine fiction, nonfiction, plays, screenplays, poetry, literary cartoons, photography and art, TSR opens its pages to writers from across the globe whose work is compelling. This site provides information on the publication and its staff, an archive of past issues, information on how to submit your work to TSR, as well as information on how to subscribe. TSR Online, our online companion, contains content not available in our printed editions.

Our goal in putting The Southampton Review together is to create a literary journal that readers will keep for a very long time, that they will dip into again and again, discovering new voices and visions while savoring long-standing favorites.

Our pages are equally devoted to emerging and established writers and artists. Some of the writers and artists we have featured: Billy Collins, Meg Wolitzer, Roxana Robinson, Amy Hempel, Major Jackson, Patrcia Marx, Helen Simonson, W.S. Merwin, Frank McCourt, Matthew Klam, Kaylie Jones, Timothy Liu, Marsha Norman, Bharati Mukherjee, Elena Gorokhova, Julie Sheehan, Daniel Menaker, and David Rakoff.

Ucross Foundation Residency Program (Clearmont, Wyoming – Deadline October 1)

The mission of Ucross Foundation is to foster the creative spirit of deeply committed artists and groups by providing uninterrupted time, studio space, living accommodations, and the experience of the majestic High Plains while serving as a good steward of its historic 20,000-acre ranch.

Ucross Foundation was established by Raymond Plank in 1981 and is a 501(c)3 public non-profit organization. For more than thirty years, Ucross has been giving space and time to artists who come from many disciplines.  They are writers, composers, visual and performing artists. Our participants come from all over the world. In our complex of private studios and shared residences, visiting artists build a small, intense community hard at work in the midst of 20,000 acres of Wyoming ranchland.

Ucross Foundation's home is a working ranch set at the confluence of three creeks, and its purpose is to bring deeply committed artists into the heart of an unparalleled landscape. We believe that being a good steward of the land closely resembles being a good artist, and vice versa. Both require dedication, imagination, and the best possible use of the resources at hand.

Upcoming Deadlines

Sustainable Arts Foundation (Deadline August 31 – $5000)
The Matador Review Call for Submissions (Deadline August 31)
Fear No Lit Submerging Writer Fellowship (Deadline August 31)
Blue Mesa Review Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction Contest (Deadline August 31 – $500)
Milkweed Editions Max Ritvo Poetry Prize (Deadline August 31 – $10,000)
Black Warrior Review 2017 Contest (Deadline September 1 – $1000)
Geist 3rd Annual Erasure Poetry Contest (Deadline September 1 – $500)
Paper Darts Second Micro Fiction Contest (Deadline September 1 – $100)
Exposition Review Flash 405 Competition (Deadline September 5 – 40% of all entry fees)
Gulf Coast Barthelme Prize for Short Prose (Deadline September 8 – $1000)
Literary Death Match 250-Word Bookmark Contest (Deadline September 8 – $1000)
apt Call for Submissions (Deadline September 15)
Embark Call for Submissions (Deadline September 15)
CONSEQUENCE Magazine 2017 Women Writing War Award (Deadline September 15 – $250)
Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction / Disquiet Open Borders Book Prize / Short Story Collection Prize (Deadline September 15 – $2,500-$10,000)
Princeton Arts Fellowship / The Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University (Deadline September 19 – $80,000)
Miller Williams Poetry Prize (Deadline September 30 – $5000)
Oyez Review Call for Submissions (Deadline October 1)
The Southampton Review Short Short Fiction Prize (Deadline October 1 – $350)
Ucross Foundation Residency Program (Clearmont, Wyoming – Deadline October 1)
Bridge Eight Literary Magazine Call for Submissions (Theme: "Organic" – Deadline October 1)
The Missouri Review 27th Annual Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize (Deadline October 2 – $5000)
Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship (Deadline October 6)
Cosmonauts Avenue 2017 Fiction Prize (Deadline October 31 – $500)
Rosarium Publishing Call for Anthology Submissions (TROUBLE THE WATERS: Tales from the Deep Blue – Deadline November 1)
Teachers & Writers Magazine Bechtel Prize (Deadline December 1 – $1000)
Mississippi Review Prize (Deadline January 1 – $1000)
Copper Nickel Call for Submissions (Deadline March 15)

Submission Sunday 8.6.17

Our consultants can help you edit your drafts, prepare your submissions, and find places to submit! Contact us for customized submission assistance.

Exposition Review Flash 405 Competition (Deadline September 5 – 40% of all entry fees)

Exposition Review is an independent, multi-genre literary journal that publishes narratives by new, emerging, and established writers in the genres of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, stage & screen, experimental, art & photography, and comics.

Flash 405 is Exposition Review‘s multi-genre short form writing competition awarding cash prizes and publication. Enter our final 2017 contest with the theme “Blue,” guest-judged by Angels Flight • literary west co-founders and editors David Lott and Michele Raphael, from August 4–September 5. 

apt Call for Submissions (Deadline September 15)

apt is a literary journal featuring challenging writing that combines the cerebral and the visceral. We published twenty-four online issues between 2005-2010. In 2011, we moved to an hybrid print/online format. We publish short-form work online every week and a print issue of long-form work every winter. apt is part of Aforementioned Productions, an award-winning small press and entertainment company. 

Our journal is not called apartment. Nor is it an acronym. Please don’t call it apartment magazine. Please don’t call it ay-pee-tee. We chose the name apt for its definition: 1/appropriate or suitable in the circumstances (i.e., apropos), 2/quick to learn (i.e., astute) 3/having a tendency to do something (i.e., likely to enact change). Further, we don’t capitalize the name. We won’t stand on ceremony about it if you capitalize the name, but if you’re asking for our preference, we prefer it lowercase.

Shirley Magazine Call for Submissions 

We are prose first, plot second, but we need both. Give us a slice of the sublimely strange. We want the eerie, the weird, the beautiful. We're interested in the body and its grotesqueries, the brain and its tricks. We want stories that don't clearly belong to any one genre, stories that will get our hands dirty, stories that expose the worms crawling under the rock. A partial list of influences: Shirley Jackson, Bruno Schulz, Franz Kafka, Flannery O'Connor, Margaret Atwood, Kelly Link, Amelia Gray, etc.

Geist 3rd Annual Erasure Poetry Contest (Deadline September 1 – $500)

Erasure poetry begins with an existing piece of text. Letters, words and punctuation are removed—or erased. What is left behind is a new stand-alone poem, one that both complements and gives new meaning to the Erasure Text. The Erasure Text for the 2017 Geist Erasure Poetry Contest is an excerpt from Wacousta by John Richardson, one of the oldest Canadian novels.

Geist is the Canadian magazine of ideas and culture—every issue brings together a sumptuous mix of fact + fiction, photography and comix, poetry, essays and reviews, and the weird and wonderful from the world of words. The Geist tone is intel­li­gent, plain-talking, inclu­sive and off­beat. At the heart of our enter­prise is the imag­i­nary coun­try that some of us inhabit from time to time, and which often has some­thing to do with Canada.

Embark Call for Submissions (Deadline September 15)

Embark is a new literary journal designed for novelists and featuring exclusively novel beginnings—those crucial first pages that must engage the reader’s attention and often receive more polishing than any other part of the book. We believe that crafting the opening of a novel is an art in itself, and that reading beginnings can be both inspiring and delightful. If you prefer novels to short stories, love collecting first sentences, and enjoy reading the opening pages of any book that comes to hand, Embark is for you! And if you’re a writer working on your first or fifth or fifteenth book, Embark offers you a chance to share your latest project with fellow writers and readers. We welcome submissions from writers of every genre, but our emphasis is on high-quality prose—writing of exceptional elegance that can introduce a story with grace and power. 

Black Warrior Review 2017 Contest (Deadline September 1 – $1000)

Submit fiction or nonfiction up to 7,000 words, or a packet of up to three poems. Black Warrior Review is named for the river that borders the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Established in 1974 by graduate students in the MFA Program in Creative Writing, BWR is the oldest continuously-run literary journal produced by graduate students in the United States.

BWR publishes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and art twice a year. Contributors include Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners alongside emerging writers. Work appearing in BWR has been reprinted in the Pushcart Prize series, Best American Short Stories, Best American Poetry, New Stories from the South, and other anthologies.

[PANK] Call for Submissions 

PANK Books, PANK Magazine. We’re now publishing full length books and chapbooks alongside our print annual magazine and quarterly online offering. Send us something that screams. PANK loves you. PANK is always open for your love.

John Gosslee, Chris Campanioni, and Maya Marshall edit PANK. At the end of 2015, John Gosslee purchased PANK Magazine after the founders announced they planned to close the riskiest magazine on the literary scene. They co-edit the magazine to continue the original vision of the founding editors and the rich history that’s published so many innovative voices.

Founded in 2006 by M. Bartley Seigel and Roxane Gay, PANK Magazine is a literary magazine fostering access to emerging and innovative poetry and prose, publishing the brightest and most promising writers for the most adventurous readers. Up country, to the end of the road, to a far shore and the edge of things, to a place of amalgamation and unplumbed depths, a place inhabited by contradiction, quirk and startling anomaly, where the known is made and unmade, and where unimagined futures are born, PANK.

Sustainable Arts Foundation (Deadline August 31 – $5000)

The Sustainable Arts Foundation is a non-profit foundation supporting artists and writers with families. Our mission is to provide financial awards to parents pursuing creative work. Too often, creative impulses are set aside to meet the wonderful, but pressing, demands of raising a family. The foundation’s goal is to encourage parents to continue pursuing their creative passion, and to rekindle it in those who may have let it slide.

We offer unrestricted cash awards to artists and writers with children. This year, we have increased our funding and will make awards of $5,000 each to twenty artists and writers. Additionally, we will name ten award finalists.

Upcoming Deadlines

Azule Residency Program (Hot Springs, NC – Deadline August 15)
LitMag Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15 – $1000 for prose)
The Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence (Deadline August 15 – $10,000)
Sustainable Arts Foundation (Deadline August 31 – $5000)
The Matador Review Call for Submissions (Deadline August 31)
Fear No Lit Submerging Writer Fellowship (Deadline August 31)
Blue Mesa Review Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction Contest (Deadline August 31 – $500)
Milkweed Editions Max Ritvo Poetry Prize (Deadline August 31 – $10,000)
Black Warrior Review 2017 Contest (Deadline September 1 – $1000)
Geist 3rd Annual Erasure Poetry Contest (Deadline September 1 – $500)
Exposition Review Flash 405 Competition (Deadline September 5 – 40% of all entry fees)
Gulf Coast Barthelme Prize for Short Prose (Deadline September 8 – $1000)
Literary Death Match 250-Word Bookmark Contest (Deadline September 8 – $1000)
apt Call for Submissions (Deadline September 15)
Embark Call for Submissions (Deadline September 15)
CONSEQUENCE Magazine 2017 Women Writing War Award (Deadline September 15 – $250)
Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction / Disquiet Open Borders Book Prize / Short Story Collection Prize (Deadline September 15 – $2,500-$10,000)
Princeton Arts Fellowship / The Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University (Deadline September 19 – $80,000)
Miller Williams Poetry Prize (Deadline September 30 – $5000)
Oyez Review Call for Submissions (Deadline October 1)
The Missouri Review 27th Annual Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize (Deadline October 2 – $5000)
Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship (Deadline October 6)
Rosarium Publishing Call for Anthology Submissions (TROUBLE THE WATERS: Tales from the Deep Blue – Deadline November 1)
Teachers & Writers Magazine Bechtel Prize (Deadline December 1 – $1000)

Submission Sunday 7.23.17

Our consultants can help you edit your drafts, prepare your submissions, and find places to submit! Contact us for customized submission assistance.

The Missouri Review 27th Annual Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize (Deadline October 2 – $5000)

The Missouri Review sponsors the annual Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize Contest in fiction, poetry, and essay, with a winner and three finalists named in each category. Length restrictions are 25 pages for fiction and essay, 10 pages for poetry. Winners will be published in the following spring issue plus each will receive a cash prize: $5,000 each for fiction, poetry, and essay. 

Publisher of over 25 Pulitzer Prize winners, The Missouri Review is a quarterly literary magazine of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry based at the University of Missouri since its founding in 1978. Your gift will support TMR‘s mission of  discovering the best new writers first.

Azule Residency Program (Hot Springs, NC – Deadline August 15)

As an emerging community-based organization, Azule has developed a residency program for performers, writers, architects, builders, musicians, and artists of all types. Located on 35 rural acres in Western North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, our facility is the result of decades of work by local craftsmen, using predominantly locally harvested or reused materials and constructed with traditional techniques.

Residents are each provided either a private room or a dormitory bed, a separate workspace, and expansive views of our Appalachian mountains. The remainder of the structure is communal and includes a full kitchen, dining area, library, and various side rooms and open spaces that serve as work space, gathering space, and studio space as needed. We invite residents to join us to enjoy a retreat from everyday life where there is time and space to relax, dream, and create. A full week residency in a private room costs $280 per week. 

Popshot Magazine Call for Submissions ("The Light Issue" – Deadline July 25)

Popshot is an illustrated literary magazine that publishes short stories, flash fiction, and poetry from the literary new blood. The magazine is published bi-annually, releasing a new issue every April and October.

In June 2008, the idea for a poetry & illustration magazine materialised as a result of picking through the literary shelves of the now deceased Borders. There was a feeling that the world of poetry was driving itself into an elitest and fusty no-through road, and we wanted to do something about it. Combining illustration with poetry in a neat and beautifully designed format, in April 2009 the first issue of Popshot launched, thumping its chest and quoting Adrian Mitchell’s ‘Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people’. With black pages, a sans serif typeface, and filled with vibrant illustration work, the magazine didn’t look like a poetry magazine and we were thrilled with it.

Some favourable press swiftly followed with the magazine being picked up by Dazed & Confused, placed on The Observer’s Cool List and named as one of ‘the fresh breed of literary magazines’ by The Independent. Shortly afterwards, Prospect named Popshot as ‘the new face of British poetry’ after it became the first British poetry magazine to achieve major international distribution into 18 countries. With the launch of Issue 7, we started talking about the introduction of short stories and flash fiction into the magazine, as well as poetry. In October 2012, with the arrival of our eighth issue, Popshot relaunched as 'The Illustrated Magazine of New Writing' firmly positioning itself as a literary magazine that champions new writing across the globe.

Women in Film 2nd Annual Black List/Women In Film Episodic and Feature Labs for Women Writers (Deadline August 3 and September 8)

We are very pleased to announce that applications are now open for our 2nd Annual Black List/Women In Film Episodic Lab and our Inaugural Black List/Women In Film Women’s Feature Lab, both supported by Verizon go90.

The Black List and Women In Film will invite six to eight promising non-professional television writers who identify as women to the Lab. The Episodic Lab will run twice weekly for four weeks beginning on Tuesday, October 24, 2017 and will consist of script development, peer workshopping sessions and Master Classes with established writers and industry executives. Lab participants will have their final pilots read by agencies and networks. 

The Black List and Women In Film will invite six to eight promising non-professional screenwriters who identify as women to a weeklong, intensive writers workshop in Los Angeles, CA from February 18-24, 2018. All writers involved in the Feature Lab will workshop one feature screenplay through one-on-one sessions with each screenwriting mentor and in peer workshops. The weeklong program will also include attendance at several story-related events including screenings and Q&As with professional screenwriters and dinner with lit agents and managers.

Literary Death Match 250-Word Bookmark Contest (Deadline September 8 – $1000)

We’re thrilled to announce the second-ever Literary Death Match 250-Word Bookmark Contest judged by the thrillingly brilliant Roxane Gay (LDM Chicago, Ep. 7 champion). The winner will receive $1,000. The two runners-up (runner-ups?) will receive $100. (It's runners-up, by the way.) All finalists will be invited to read at LDM events near where they live. 

The rules are simple: write a story that is no longer than 250 words. You're thinking: but my story is 263 words long! That's okay, right? Nope. It won't fit on the bookmark. 250, please! (Though if your story is perfect and it's 255, we'll see what we can do with the kerning.)

Teachers & Writers Magazine Bechtel Prize (Deadline December 1 – $1000)

Teachers & Writers Collaborative (T&W) seeks submissions for essays that explore creative writing and arts education, the theme of the imagination, and/or creative writing. Submissions for the Bechtel Prize may include:

• Explorations of critical issues in creative writing and arts education.
• Literacy narratives, first-hand accounts about the process of writing or teaching writing.
• Memoirs about how and why the author became a writer or early experiences with literature and the imagination.
• Reflections on the writer’s life and how poets and writers stay connected to their imaginations.
• Portraits of key teachers and mentors in the author’s life.

Tayari Jones will choose the winner of the 2018 Bechtel Prize. The essay selected to receive the Bechtel Prize will appear in Teachers & Writers Magazine and the author will receive a $1,000 honorarium. Honoraria totaling $500 are shared by the authors of entries selected as finalists for the prize, which may also be published in Teachers & Writers Magazine.

Selection criteria for the Bechtel Prize include the essay’s relevance and appropriateness for readers of Teachers & Writers Magazine, most of whom teach writing at the elementary, secondary, or postsecondary level. T&W welcomes submissions written in a poetic, lyric style; as well as personal narrative, reportage, and essays.

Stoneboat Literary Journal Call for Submissions (Deadline August 1)

Stoneboat is an independent biannual journal of literature and arts that is dedicated to publishing quality fiction, nonfiction, memoir, poetry, artwork, and graphic literature. We strive to showcase outstanding and diverse work from both emerging and established artists. Ours is a larger format publication compared to traditional journals since we believe in giving contributors’ work room to breathe. 

Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship (Deadline October 6)

The Fulbright-National Geographic Storytelling Fellowship was launched in 2013 as a new component of the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. It sends U.S. citizens abroad to engage in an academic year of digital storytelling projects in up to three countries on globally significant themes. This Fellowship is made possible through a partnership between the U.S. Department of State and the National Geographic Society.

The wide variety of new digital media tools and platforms has created an unprecedented opportunity for people from all disciplines and backgrounds to share observations and personal narratives with global audiences online. These storytelling tools are powerful resources as we seek to expand our knowledge of pressing issues and build lasting connections between Americans and citizens of other countries.

The Fulbright-National Geographic Storytelling Fellowship accepts proposals to undertake an in-depth examination of a globally relevant issue or issues in one country, or in multiple countries, by comparing and contrasting how that issue is experienced from one country to another. Utilizing a variety of digital storytelling tools, including text, photography, video, audio, graphic illustrations, and/or social media, Fellows will tell their stories, or the stories of those they meet, publishing their work on a dedicated blog hosted on the National Geographic website. Stories deemed by National Geographic to be of interest or merit may be considered for publication on other National Geographic platforms. In addition to receiving Fulbright benefits (for travel, stipend, health, etc.), Fellows will receive instruction in digital storytelling techniques applicable to Fellows’ projects, including effective blog writing, video production, photography, and other relevant training from National Geographic staff prior to their departure. Fellows will be paired with one or more National Geographic editors for continued editorial direction and mentoring throughout their Fulbright award period. 

Upcoming Deadlines

Popshot Magazine Call for Submissions ("The Light Issue" – Deadline July 25)
The Profane Prizes (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
The Gravity of the Thing Call for Submissions (Deadline July 31)
The POP Montreal/Matrix Magazine Lit POP Awards (Deadline July 31)
The Masters Review Summer Short Story Award for New Writers (Deadline July 31 – $3000)
The Journal of Experimental Fiction 2018 Kenneth Patchen Award (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship (Deadline August 1)
Stoneboat Literary Journal Call for Submissions (Deadline August 1)
Women in Film 2nd Annual Black List/Women In Film Episodic and Feature Labs for Women Writers (Deadline August 3 and September 8)
Azule Residency Program (Hot Springs, NC – Deadline August 15)
LitMag Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15 – $1000 for prose)
The Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence (Deadline August 15 – $10,000)
The Matador Review Call for Submissions (Deadline August 31)
Fear No Lit Submerging Writer Fellowship (Deadline August 31)
Blue Mesa Review Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction Contest (Deadline August 31 – $500)
Milkweed Editions Max Ritvo Poetry Prize (Deadline August 31 – $10,000)
Gulf Coast Barthelme Prize for Short Prose (Deadline September 8 – $1000)
Literary Death Match 250-Word Bookmark Contest (Deadline September 8 – $1000)
CONSEQUENCE Magazine 2017 Women Writing War Award (Deadline September 15 – $250)
Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction / Disquiet Open Borders Book Prize / Short Story Collection Prize (Deadline September 15 – $2,500-$10,000)
Princeton Arts Fellowship / The Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University (Deadline September 19 – $80,000)
Miller Williams Poetry Prize (Deadline September 30 – $5000)
Oyez Review Call for Submissions (Deadline October 1)
The Missouri Review 27th Annual Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize (Deadline October 2 – $5000)
Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship (Deadline October 6)
Rosarium Publishing Call for Anthology Submissions (TROUBLE THE WATERS: Tales from the Deep Blue – Deadline November 1)
Teachers & Writers Magazine Bechtel Prize (Deadline December 1 – $1000)

Submission Sunday 7.9.17

Our consultants can help you edit your drafts, prepare your submissions, and find places to submit! Contact us for customized submission assistance.

The Masters Review Summer Short Story Award for New Writers (Deadline July 31 – $3000)

It’s back! Our Short Story Award For New Writers, our biggest submission period of the year. The winning story will be awarded $3000 and publication online. Second and third place stories will be awarded publication and $200 and $100 respectively. All winners and honorable mentions will receive agency review by: Nat Sobel from Sobel Weber, Victoria Cappello from The Bent Agency, Andrea Morrison from Writers House, and Mark Gottlieb from Trident Media. We want you to succeed, and we want your writing to be read. It’s been our mission to support emerging writers since day one.

The Masters Review is an online and in print publication celebrating new and emerging writers. We are on the lookout for the best new talent with hopes of publishing stories from writers who will continue to produce great work. We offer critical essays, book reviews by debut authors, contest deadlines and submissions info, and interviews with established authors, all with the hopes of bridging the gap between new and established writers.

The Profane Prizes (Deadline July 31 – $1000)

The 2017 Profane Nonfiction Prize will be judged by Elena Passarello. The 2017 Profane Fiction Prize will be judged by Devin Murphy. We're accepting submissions through July 31st. The prize is $1,000, publication in our Winter 2017 issue, and a blurb from the contest judge. Finalists will be announced and considered for publication. 

Profane is a print journal that features an eclectic mix of poetry, essays, and stories. We publish annually in the winter. Our aim is simple: to publish good writing. To us, good writing is the sort that you find yourself turning over and over again in your head, hours and days and weeks after you’ve read it. Good writing is the writing that worms itself into your brain and won’t leave.

Beyond that, as our name suggests, we’re open to writing that’s “profane” in one sense or another. We’re the kind of people who’ve always had a fascination with the things you’re not allowed to say. That doesn’t mean all the writing we publish is necessarily profane. Some of it is just flat out good writing. But the boundaries of progress and understanding have always been pushed forward by the profane idea, and as such, we feel obligated to offer the profane a home. Finally, we agree with Kurt Vonnegut when he said that “literature should not disappear up its own asshole, so to speak.” We do try here not to disappear up our own assholes. We hope we succeed (or at least mostly succeed).

The POP Montreal/Matrix Magazine Lit POP Awards (Deadline July 31)

The POP Montreal International Music Festival and Matrix Magazine have teamed up for the tenth consecutive year to bring you the most innovative and exciting literary competition on Earth. We are celebrating our tenth anniversary by opening up submissions to Europe and featuring one of fiction's rising stars and an iconic poetry legend as our judges. We are looking for your best stories and poems. Winners will have their work published in Matrix, and receive free travel to POP Montreal for a night in their honour. Our 2017 judges are Saleema Nawaz (Fiction) and Eileen Myles (Poetry).

Miller Williams Poetry Prize (Deadline September 30 – $5000)

Every year, the University of Arkansas Press accepts submissions for the Miller Williams Poetry Series and from the books selected awards the $5,000 Miller Williams Poetry Prize in the following summer. For almost a quarter century the press has made this series the cornerstone of its work as a publisher of some of the country’s best new poetry. The series and prize are named for and operated to honor the cofounder and longtime director of the press, Miller Williams. The series is edited by Billy Collins.

The driving values of the series and the prize are consonant with Williams’s sense of what constitutes good poetry. In his practice as a poet and his work as an editor, Williams favored poetry that showed an awareness of its reader, poetry that was plain spoken but also dealt with the most essential experiences of being human. He also preferred poems that were interested in making the reader feel something rather than poems that were just expressing the plight of the poet. And a bit of humor never hurt, especially if it issued forth from a sensibility that couldn’t help viewing the world from an ironic angle.

Blue Mesa Review Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction Contest (Deadline August 31 – $500)

Each year Blue Mesa Review holds a writing contest in Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction. The 2017 judges are: Safiya Sinclair for Poetry, Rigoberto González for Nonfiction, and for the first time, co-judges for Fiction, Lori Ostlund and Anne Raeff. We encourage you to submit your very best work online through our submissions manager. First place winners receive a cash prize and publication in Blue Mesa Review and second place will also receive publication. We look forward to reading your work!

The Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence (Deadline August 15 – $10,000)

The Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence honors Louisiana’s revered storyteller, Ernest J. Gaines, and serves to inspire and recognize rising African-American fiction writers of excellence at a national level. The book award, initiated by donors of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation, is now in its ninth year and has become nationally recognized in its role of enhancing visibility of emerging black fiction writers while also expanding the audience for this literature. The annual award of a $10,000 cash prize is to support the writer and help enable her/him to focus on her/his art of writing.

The 2017 panel of judges are themselves renowned contributors to the literary world. They are Anthony Grooms, Edward P. Jones, Elizabeth Nunez, Francine Prose and Patricia Towers. The Baton Rouge Area Foundation sponsors the winner’s travel to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to receive the prize at a ceremony attended by Ernest Gaines where the author reads an excerpt from the selected work of fiction. A reception follows. The evening is free, open to the public and attracts a diverse audience.

The literary award winner also participates in educational activities at selected area schools and after-school programs in keeping with the Gaines Award's interest in emphasizing the role of literature and arts in education. Through small creative writing workshops with the winning author, students are encouraged to pursue reading, delve into their own creativity, and to consider becoming an author.

Gulf Coast Barthelme Prize for Short Prose (Deadline September 8 – $1000)

Founded by Philip Lopate and Donald Barthelme in 1986, Gulf Coast is a journal of literature, art, and critical art writing, publishing contributors who represent a flow of international cultures, voices, and aesthetics. Through programs and publications, and in collaboration with the University of Houston, Gulf Coast brings consequential art and writing to an engaged audience.

The Barthelme Prize for Short Prose is open to pieces of prose poetry, flash fiction, and micro-essays of 500 words or fewer. Established in 2008, the contest awards its winner $1,000 and publication in the journal. Two honorable mentions will receive $250, and all entries will be considered for paid publication on our website as Online Exclusives. Judged by Roxane Gay.

The Journal of Experimental Fiction 2018 Kenneth Patchen Award (Deadline July 31 – $1000)

After a hiatus, The Kenneth Patchen Award was revived in 2012. In the 1990s, The Kenneth Patchen Prize for Literature was a much-coveted prize administered by Pig Iron Press of Youngstown, Ohio, in honor of famous experimental fiction author, proletarian poet, and Ohio native Kenneth Patchen. Beginning in 2012, the Award was reinstituted as the Kenneth Patchen Award for the Innovative Novel, and it honors the most innovative novel submitted during the previous calendar year. Kenneth Patchen is celebrated for being among the greatest innovators of American fiction, incorporating strategies of concretism, asemic writing, digression, and verbal juxtaposition into his writing long before such strategies were popularized during the height of American postmodernist experimentation in the 1970s. His three great innovative novels, Sleepers Awake, The Memoirs of a Shy Pornographer and The Journal of Albion Moonlight, have long been benchmarks for beats, postmodernists and innovators of all ilks, inspiring younger writers to greater significance and innovation in their own work. A prize of $1,000 and publication by Journal of Experimental Fiction is given annually for an innovative novel. Submit a manuscript of any length with a $25 entry fee by July 31.

Upcoming Deadlines

Wasafiri New Writing Prize (Deadline July 14 – £300)
Rattle Poetry Prize (Deadline July 15 – $10,000)
Barrelhouse Call for Nonfiction Submissions (Deadline July 15)
PRISM International Creative Nonfiction Prize (Deadline July 15 – $1500)
Writers Omi at Ledig House – Omi International Arts Center (Deadline July 15)
Santa Fe Writers Project Awards Program (Deadline July 20 – $1500)
The Profane Prizes (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
The Gravity of the Thing Call for Submissions (Deadline July 31)
The POP Montreal/Matrix Magazine Lit POP Awards (Deadline July 31)
The Masters Review Summer Short Story Award for New Writers (Deadline July 31 – $3000)
The Journal of Experimental Fiction 2018 Kenneth Patchen Award (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship (Deadline August 1)
LitMag Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15 – $1000 for prose)
The Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence (Deadline August 15 – $10,000)
The Matador Review Call for Submissions (Deadline August 31)
Fear No Lit Submerging Writer Fellowship (Deadline August 31)
Blue Mesa Review Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction Contest (Deadline August 31 – $500)
Milkweed Editions Max Ritvo Poetry Prize (Deadline August 31 – $10,000)
Gulf Coast Barthelme Prize for Short Prose (Deadline September 8 – $1000)
CONSEQUENCE Magazine 2017 Women Writing War Award (Deadline September 15 – $250)
Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction / Disquiet Open Borders Book Prize / Short Story Collection Prize (Deadline September 15 – $2,500-$10,000)
Princeton Arts Fellowship / The Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University (Deadline September 19 – $80,000)
Miller Williams Poetry Prize (Deadline September 30 – $5000)
Oyez Review Call for Submissions (Deadline October 1)
Rosarium Publishing Call for Anthology Submissions (TROUBLE THE WATERS: Tales from the Deep Blue – Deadline November 1)

Submission Sunday 6.25.17

Our consultants can help you edit your drafts, prepare your submissions, and find places to submit! Contact us for customized submission assistance.

Writers Omi at Ledig House – Omi International Arts Center (Deadline July 15)

Since its founding in 1992, Writers Omi at Ledig House has hosted hundreds of authors and translators, representing more than fifty countries. We welcome published writers and translators of every type of literature. International, cultural and creative exchange is a foundation of our mission, and a wide distribution of national background is an important part of our selection process.

Guests may select a residency of one week to two months; about ten at a time gather to live and work in a rural setting overlooking the Catskill Mountains. Ledig House provides all meals, and each night a local chef prepares dinner. Daytime is reserved for writing and quiet activities, while evenings are more communal. A program of weekly visits bring guests from the New York publishing community. Noted editors, agents and book scouts are invited to share dinner and conversation on both creative and practical subjects, offering insight into the workings of the publishing industry, and introductions to some of its key professionals. Click here for a list of former guest speakers.

German publisher, Heinrich Maria Ledig-Rowohlt, for whom the program is named, was noted for his passionate commitment to quality in literature. His list of authors included Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner, Yukio Mishima, Jean-Paul Sartre, Vladimir Nabokov, John Updike, Toni Morrison and Thomas Pynchon. Writers Omi has hosted hundreds of writers and translators from roughly 50 countries around the world. The colony's strong international emphasis reflects the spirit of cultural exchange that is part of Ledig's enduring legacy.

Milkweed Editions Max Ritvo Poetry Prize (Deadline August 31 – $10,000)

Designed to honor the legacy of one of the most original and accomplished poets to emerge in recent years—and to reward outstanding poets for years to come—the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize awards $10,000 and publication by Milkweed Editions to the author of a debut collection of poems. Selected by an independent judge, the prizewinning poet will receive a standard royalty contract, simultaneous publication of the collection in cloth and audiobook editions, national distribution, and a comprehensive marketing and publicity campaign.

The Sun Magazine "Readers Write" Call for Submissions (Topic: In the Middle – Deadline July 1)

Readers Write asks readers to address subjects on which they’re the only authorities. Topics are intentionally broad in order to give room for expression. Writing style isn’t as important as thoughtfulness and sincerity.

Because of space limitations, we’re unable to print all the submissions we receive. There is no word limit for Readers Write, but we encourage you to familiarize yourself with the section before you submit. We edit pieces, often quite heavily, but contributors have the opportunity to approve or disapprove of editorial changes prior to publication. (If you don’t want to be contacted regarding the editing of your work, please let us know.)

We publish only nonfiction in Readers Write. Feel free to submit your writing under “Name Withheld” if it allows you to be more honest, but be sure to include your mailing address so we can give you a complimentary one-year subscription if we use your work, as a way of saying thanks. Occasionally we will choose not to publish an author’s name or will use only a first name and last initial. While we don’t question the truthfulness of the writing, we must be sensitive to considerations of libel or invasion of privacy. If you’ve already changed the names of the people involved, please say so.

Autumn House Press Contests (Deadline June 30 – $2,500 + $1,500 travel/publicity)

The annual Autumn House Press Contests award publication of full-length manuscripts in Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction. Each winner also receives $2,500 ($1,000 advance against royalties and a $1,500 travel/publicity grant to promote the book). The submission period opens January 1, 2017 and the postmark deadline for entries is June 30, 2017. To submit online, please visit our online submission manager. Please note that, at this time, Autumn House accepts unsolicited manuscripts only through these contests.

Though we are open to all styles of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, we suggest you familiarize yourself with previous Autumn House publications before submitting. We are committed not just to publishing the prominent voices of our age, but also to publishing first books and lesser-known authors who will become the important writers of their generation. Many of our past winners have been first-book authors. We encourage writers from all backgrounds to submit; it is our goal at Autumn House to develop a rich and varied literary tradition.

West Texas Literary Review Call for Submissions 

West Texas Literary Review is a national online literary journal founded in Lubbock, Texas. Its goal is simple: to provide a forum for artists who have something to say. We are looking for poems, flash fiction, essays, and photographs that are thoughtful, deliberate, and authentic. Beyond that, there are no strict requirements. As editors, we carefully curate the content of the Review and hope that you will return from time to time to see what our writers have to offer. We also encourage you to submit your own work; all of our content comes from submissions and we would be thrilled to publish first-time writers as well as established voices.

West Texas Literary Review seeks poems, essays, flash fiction, and photographs that bring value to the page. We want work that is thoughtful, deliberate, and authentic. We want work that is concrete and direct, and can justify its own existence. Think of poets like William Carlos Williams, Anne Sexton, and Nikki Giovanni. Think of essayists like George Orwell. Think of short story writers like Donald Barthelme, Octavio Paz, and Jorge Luis Borges. We want your best work and, if you send us your best work, we will treat it with respect and care.

Rosarium Publishing Call for Anthology Submissions (TROUBLE THE WATERS: Tales from the Deep Blue – Deadline November 1)

TROUBLE THE WATERS: Tales from the Deep Blue will be a new anthology of water-themed speculative short stories that explore all kinds of water lore and deities, ancient and new as well as unimagined tales. We want stories with memorable, engaging characters, great and small, epic tales and quieter stories of personal and communal growth. Science fiction, fantasy, horror, interstitial, and unclassifiable works are welcome. We are seeking original stories in English (2500 – 7000 words; pays 6 cents per word) from writers of all walks of life from this beautiful planet and will accept some select reprints (pays 2 cents per word). 

Rosarium Publishing is a fledgling publisher specializing in speculative fiction, comics, and a touch of crime fiction—all with a multicultural flair. We simply believe that talent does not inherently have a race, religion, or region; there is no talent solely found in X or Y chromosome; talent is everywhere, and we will comb the four corners of this globe to find it. We like to be crazy, wild, provocative. We also like to chill, and there's never a moment where you won't find us laughing. If you try to paint us in a corner, we'll go all TAKI 183 on you and cover it with graffiti. We say that we're here to “introduce the world to itself,” so you never know where you'll find us. We might turn up at a con or a festival near you.

PRISM International Creative Nonfiction Prize (Deadline July 15 – $1500)

PRISM international is a quarterly magazine out of Vancouver, British Columbia, whose mandate is to publish the best in contemporary writing and translation from Canada and around the world. Writing from PRISM has been featured in Best American Stories, Best American Essays and The Journey Prize Stories, amongst other noted publications.

The mandate of the magazine’s website is to provide a supplement to the print edition that connects readers with the literary community through author interviews, book reviews, news about Canadian writing and publishing events, and other information of interest to our readers, many of whom are writers themselves. Though best known for its fiction and poetry, PRISM does not neglect the other literary arts. Creative non-fiction, drama and translation are regular features.

NPR and the John Alexander Project Above the Fray Fellowship (Deadline July 1)

The Above the Fray Fellowship is an international reporting fellowship created in memory of John Alexander, an extraordinary young journalist who died of sudden heart failure while on assignment in Chongqing, China, in 2007. This Fellowship is a collaboration between NPR and the John Alexander Project.

The Above the Fray Fellowship is designed to give a promising journalist the opportunity to cover important but under-reported stories internationally. The ideal candidate will be selected based on a proposal to report from a region lacking significant mainstream media attention. The Fellow will spend three months filing on-air and online stories for NPR.

Upcoming Deadlines

Sweet Flash Essay Contest (Deadline June 25 – $500)
Autumn House Press Contests (Deadline June 30 – $2,500 + $1,500 travel/publicity)
NPR and the John Alexander Project Above the Fray Fellowship (Deadline July 1)
The Sun Magazine "Readers Write" Call for Submissions (Topic: In the Middle – Deadline July 1)
Wasafiri New Writing Prize (Deadline July 14 – £300)
Rattle Poetry Prize (Deadline July 15 – $10,000)
Barrelhouse Call for Nonfiction Submissions (Deadline July 15)
PRISM International Creative Nonfiction Prize (Deadline July 15 – $1500)
Writers Omi at Ledig House – Omi International Arts Center (Deadline July 15)
Santa Fe Writers Project Awards Program (Deadline July 20 – $1500)
The Gravity of the Thing Call for Submissions (Deadline July 31)
PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship (Deadline August 1)
LitMag Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15 – $1000 for prose)
The Matador Review Call for Submissions (Deadline August 31)
Fear No Lit Submerging Writer Fellowship (Deadline August 31)
Milkweed Editions Max Ritvo Poetry Prize (Deadline August 31 – $10,000)
CONSEQUENCE Magazine 2017 Women Writing War Award (Deadline September 15 – $250)
Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction / Disquiet Open Borders Book Prize / Short Story Collection Prize (Deadline September 15 – $2,500-$10,000)
Princeton Arts Fellowship / The Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University (Deadline September 19 – $80,000)
Oyez Review Call for Submissions (Deadline October 1)
Rosarium Publishing Call for Anthology Submissions (TROUBLE THE WATERS: Tales from the Deep Blue – Deadline November 1)

Submission Sunday 6.11.17

Our consultants can help you edit your drafts, prepare your submissions, and find places to submit! Contact us for customized submission assistance.

Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction / Disquiet Open Borders Book Prize / Short Story Collection Prize (Deadline September 15 – $2,500-$10,000)

The Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction recognizes daring, original, and innovative writing. A $10,000 advance and publication in Fall 2018 by Dzanc Books will be awarded to the winner. Finalists will be compiled in-house and passed along for evaluation to this year’s judges: Lindsey Drager (The Lost Daughter Collective and The Sorrow Proper), Chrissy Kolaya (Charmed Particles), and Daniel A. Hoyt, author of This Book Is Not For You, winner of the inaugural Prize for Fiction. 

Established in 2017, the Dzanc Books/Disquiet Open Borders Book Prize seeks book-lengthmanuscripts in fiction or nonfiction exhibiting a marked commitment to mutual understanding and cultural exchange across the globe. As the United States Government moves to erect barriers both physical and legal, Dzanc Books and the Disquiet International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal, strive to promote literature that crosses boundaries and to advocate for a diverse, global literary discourse. The winning submission will be awarded a $5,000 advance and publication in Fall 2018 by the Disquiet imprint of Dzanc Books.

The Dzanc Books Short Story Collection Prize celebrates imaginative and inventive writing in the short form. Past winners include Josh Emmons (A Moral Tale and Other Moral Tales), Kirstin Allio (Clothed, Female Figure), Anne Valente (By Light We Knew Our Names), and Jen Grow (My Life as a Mermaid). The winning submission will be awarded a $2,500 advance and publication in Fall 2018 by Dzanc Books.

The Matador Review Call for Submissions (Deadline August 31)

Alternative art and literature magazine The Matador Review is now accepting submissions for the Fall 2017 publication. We publish poetry, fiction, flash fiction, and creative non-fiction, inviting all unpublished literature written in the English language (and translations that are accompanied by the original text) as well as many forms of visual art. The call for submissions will end August 31.

Our purpose is to promote "alternative work" from both art and literature, and to encourage the new-wave of respect for online publications. In each issue, we offer a selection of work from both emerging and established artists, as well as exclusive interviews and book reviews from creators who are, above all else, provocative. For us, alternative is a way of voice and experience. It is the distinction from what is conventional, and it advocates for a progressive attitude.

The Gravity of the Thing Call for Submissions (Deadline July 31)

The Gravity of the Thing is an independent literary magazine dedicated to the publication of new and innovative writing. Since the journal’s inception in 2013, The Gravity of the Thing has been named one of thirty best online magazines in 2016 (Bookfox) and one of fifteen best literary journals of 2015 (Authors Publish Magazine). We publish work that is aware of its literary form, writing that defamiliarizes in craft or content for an enhanced rendering of reality.

Defamiliarization: an artistic or literary technique that presents the common in unfamiliar ways; that which has been taken for granted reenvisioned, made strange, to heighten a reader’s perception of the familiar. “The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known.” —Viktor Shklovsky, “Art as Technique”

The Gravity of the Thing publishes writers of varying experience. We encourage previously unpublished writers to submit, and we aim to support writing by those often marginalized in the literary conversation, including (though certainly not limited to) people of color, women, people with disabilities, LGBTQIA people, and people with intersectional identities.

Wasafiri New Writing Prize (Deadline July 14 – £300)

Wasafiri encourages readers and writers to travel the world via the word. For over three decades, we have created a dynamic platform for mapping new landscapes in contemporary international writing featuring a diverse range of voices from across the UK and beyond. Committed to profiling the ‘best of tomorrow’s writers today’ we simultaneously celebrate those who have become established literary voices, offering a creative space for dialogue and debate. We welcome submissions in one of three categories: Poetry, Fiction, and Life Writing (the competition is open to anyone who has not published a complete book in the category entered).

Squalorly Call for Submissions 

At Squalorly, we believe in solid writing. Period. So, suspend our disbelief and ground us in reality. Move, amaze, horrify, and educate us about the complex world in which we live. Bare your soul and bleed on the page.

We publish storytellers. Whether they are MFAs or ditch diggers is of little concern, so long as the words seem to have clawed their way onto the page, defying the will of the author, with little regard for sleep, safety or comfort. The words that we love have a mind of their own. They exist out of necessity and apologize for nothing. They are both careful and reckless and leave us screaming for more.

Squalorly is 100% independent. As in, we are staff funded and reader driven. We do this because we believe it is necessary and vital to our existence. We do this because we love the written word. We do this because we believe that literature deserves to be published beautifully and unobtrusively, no matter the medium. And, above all, we do this for you.

CONSEQUENCE Magazine 2017 Women Writing War Award (Deadline September 15 – $250)

CONSEQUENCE is an international literary magazine published annually, focusing on the culture and consequences of war. Entries must capture the nuances of the cultures and consequences of war; the topic is not limited to military matters, but includes social, political, and cultural subjects. Entries must be submitted online, and a non-refundable $10 entry fee is payable through PayPal. Previously published works (print and electronic, including websites and blogs) and works accepted for publication elsewhere cannot be considered.

Oyez Review Call for Submissions (Deadline October 1)

Oyez Review is the literary magazine of the Creative Writing Program at Roosevelt University. It is published annually, edited by a staff of MFA candidates under the direction of a faculty member with professional experience in the publishing world. Founded in 1965, Oyez Review has featured work by such writers as Charles Bukowski, James McManus, Carla Panciera, Michael Onofrey, Tim Foley, John N. Miller, Gary Fincke, and Barry Silesky, and visual artists Thomas C. Jackson, Steve Harp, Vivian Nunley, C. Taylor, Jennifer Troyer, and Frank Spidale.

The name Oyez comes from the Anglo-Norman word for hear ye, the imperative plural of oyer, meaning "to hear." It was used as a call for silence and attention in court and at public gatherings. Oyez Review accepts previously unpublished submissions of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and art. There are no restrictions on style, theme, or subject matter.

Princeton Arts Fellowship / The Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University (Deadline September 19 – $80,000)

Princeton Arts Fellowships, funded in part by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will be awarded to artists whose achievements have been recognized as demonstrating extraordinary promise in any area of artistic practice and teaching. Applicants should be early career poets, novelists, choreographers, playwrights, designers, performers, directors, filmmakers, composers, and performance artists–this list is not meant to be exhaustive–who would find it beneficial to spend two years teaching and working in an artistically vibrant university community. Princeton Arts Fellows spend two consecutive academic years (September 1-July 1) at Princeton University and formal teaching is expected. 

The Hodder Fellowship will be given to artists and writers of exceptional promise to pursue independent projects at Princeton University during the academic year. Potential Hodder Fellows are writers, composers, choreographers, visual artists, performance artists, or other kinds of artists or humanists who have “much more than ordinary intellectual and literary gifts”; they are selected more “for promise than for performance.” Given the strength of the applicant pool, most successful Fellows have published a first book or have similar achievements in their own fields; the Hodder is designed to provide Fellows with the “studious leisure” to undertake significant new work.

Upcoming Deadlines

Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowship (Deadline June 15)
Anthropoid Call for Submissions (Theme: The Future – Deadline June 15)
Sweet Flash Essay Contest (Deadline June 25 – $500)
Wasafiri New Writing Prize (Deadline July 14 – £300)
Rattle Poetry Prize (Deadline July 15 – $10,000)
Barrelhouse Call for Nonfiction Submissions (Deadline July 15)
Santa Fe Writers Project Awards Program (Deadline July 20 – $1500)
The Gravity of the Thing Call for Submissions (Deadline July 31)
PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship (Deadline August 1)
LitMag Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15 – $1000 for prose)
The Matador Review Call for Submissions (Deadline August 31)
Fear No Lit Submerging Writer Fellowship (Deadline August 31)
CONSEQUENCE Magazine 2017 Women Writing War Award (Deadline September 15 – $250)
Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction / Disquiet Open Borders Book Prize / Short Story Collection Prize (Deadline September 15 – $2,500-$10,000)
Princeton Arts Fellowship / The Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University (Deadline September 19 – $80,000)
Oyez Review Call for Submissions (Deadline October 1)

Submission Sunday 5.28.17

Our consultants can help you edit your drafts, prepare your submissions, and find places to submit! Contact us for customized submission assistance.

Boulevard Poetry Contest for Emerging Poets (Deadline June 1 – $1000)

Boulevard's mission is to publish the finest in contemporary fiction and poetry as well as definitive essays on the arts and culture, and to publish a diversity of writers who exhibit an original sensibility. It is our conviction that creative and critical work should be presented in a variegated yet coherent ensemble—as a boulevard, which contains in one place the best a community has to offer. $1,000 and publication in Boulevard awarded for the winning group of three poems by a poet who has not yet published a book of poetry with a nationally distributed press. 

Barrelhouse Call for Nonfiction Submissions (Deadline July 15)

Barrelhouse is interested only in essays that deal, in one way or another, with pop culture, though pop culture here is defined in a fairly broad way. No specific length restrictions, though we tend to select pieces shorter than 10k words. 

Barrelhouse started auspiciously in a Washington, DC bar in 2004, in between discussions of Snoop Dogg, Patrick Swayze movies, and the difficulties of getting published in literary magazines. Like a great bouncer/philosopher, Barrelhouse magazine delivers accessible reading with a smart twist.

Scoundrel Time Call for Submissions 

Today there are forces trying their hardest to divide us. In the face of that, art in its many forms can give voice to our concerns, hopes, fears, anxieties—and joys. Art can provide solace. It can spur engagement. It can increase understanding. It can help us feel less alone. We have a common language, the language of story. In a way, it all comes down to stories: whether they’re told through words or visually or otherwise, stories remind us of our humanity. And anything that can remind us of that essential quality we all share is crucial, in my view. It may seem strange to think we could forget our humanity, but of course we know from history that it’s possible. We can’t let it happen. We can’t make it through whatever is coming without each other. We are now accepting fiction and poetry submissions. We are reading pitches for essays, dispatches, humor, and visual art.

BOMB's 2017 Fiction Contest (Deadline May 31 – $1000)

Our fiction contest is now open. We are pleased to announce guest judge Paul La Farge, author of The Night Ocean. His recently published novel has received near universal praise; Gary Shteyngart calls it "the best novel of the year, almost any year."

BOMB Magazine has been publishing conversations between artists of all disciplines since 1981. BOMB's founders—New York City based artists and writers—created BOMB because they saw a disparity between the way artists talked about their work among themselves and the way critics described it.

Today, BOMB is a multi-media publishing house that creates, disseminates, and preserves artist-generated content from interviews to artists’ essays to new literature. BOMB includes a quarterly print magazine, a daily online publication, and a digital archive of its previously published content from 1981 onward.

Atticus Review Call for Series Submissions (Superunknown: Stories About Songs)

Atticus Review is a daily online journal that publishes fiction, flash, poems, creative nonfiction, video, music, book reviews, cartoons, animation, and whatever else we find worthy of eyes. This series will be comprised of pieces that are more or less "close readings" of songs. Take into account a particular song's musical and lyrical components, and set those against your own personal reflections. Write about the way a certain song makes you feel, or the events that make the song important to you. We are hoping these will be nonfiction, and no longer than 4,000 words. There is no single thing we're looking for. We just want it to tie together music and meaning, with the focus around a single song. While the piece can be about you or your life, try to bring in other cultural elements.

Buzzfeed READER Call for Essay Pitches 

READER is BuzzFeed News’s home for cultural criticism, personal essays, fiction, and poetry, as well as BuzzFeed’s Emerging Writer Fellowship. Since we launched in March 2016, we have published new poetry from National Book Award-winning authors like Robin Coste Lewis and Mark Doty, as well as work from emerging poets such as Solmaz Sharif, Danez Smith, and Donika Kelly, whom we’re confident you will be reading for years to come.

We have also started publishing excerpts from some of the year’s most talked-about novels, including Brit Bennet’s The Mothers and Michael Chabon’s Moonglow, and commissioned original short fiction, including stories by Etgar Keret, Alice Sola Kim and Lindsay Hunter. Alongside work from READER’s staff writers, we’ve published essays from contributors including Jesmyn Ward, Mira Jacob, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah and Eileen Myles.

Rattle Poetry Prize (Deadline July 15 – $10,000)

The annual Rattle Poetry Prize offers $10,000 for a single poem to be published in the winter issue of the magazine. Ten finalists will also receive $200 each and publication, and be eligible for the $2,000 Readers’ Choice Award, to be selected by subscriber and entrant vote. Additional poems from the entries are frequently offered publication as well. In 2016 we published 21 poems that had been submitted to the contest from just over 4,000 entries.

With the winners judged in a anonymous review by the editors to ensure a fair and consistent selection, an entry fee that is simply a one-year subscription to the magazine—and a large Readers’ Choice Award to be chosen by the writers themselves—we’ve designed the Rattle Poetry Prize to be one of the most inspiring contests around. Past winners have included a retired teacher, a lawyer, and several students. It’s fair, it’s friendly, and you win a print subscription to Rattle even if you don’t win.

Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowship (Deadline June 15)

The Vermont Studio Center was founded by artists in 1984. Our location--situated along the banks of the Gihon River in the historic village of Johnson, Vermont--was chosen with the intention of fostering creativity through community, collaboration, and quiet reflection supported by the unspoiled beauty of the northern Green Mountains.

Over the last 30 years, VSC has grown to become the largest international artists' and writers' residency program in the United States. Our mission is to provide studio residencies in an inclusive, international community, honoring creative work as the communication of spirit through form. 

Twenty-five (25) VSC fellowships open to ALL artists and writers living and working anywhere in the world. All applicants will be automatically considered for one of these twenty-five unrestricted awards. These awards are for residencies scheduled between September 2017 and May 2018.

Upcoming Deadlines

The Lifted Brow & non/fictionLab Prize for Experimental Nonfiction (Deadline May 29 – $5000)
BOMB's 2017 Fiction Contest (Deadline May 31 – $1000)
New England Review Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
NBCUniversal 2017 Writers on the Verge Program (Deadline May 31)
The Masters Review Flash Fiction Contest (Deadline May 31 – $2000)
Terrapin Press Call for Anthology Submissions ("Donut Poems" – Deadline May 31)
Taliesin Nexus Calliope Workshop for Fiction and Nonfiction Authors (Deadline May 31)
University of Georgia Press Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction (Deadline May 31 – $1000)
The American Short Fiction Contest (Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Boulevard Poetry Contest for Emerging Poets (Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Nowhere Magazine Spring 2017 Travel Writing Contest (Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Southern Indiana Review Thomas A. Wilhelmus Short Prose Award (Deadline June 1 – $2000)
Transom Story Workshop (Scholarship Deadline June 2)
Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowship (Deadline June 15)
Anthropoid Call for Submissions (Theme: The Future – Deadline June 15)
Sweet Flash Essay Contest (Deadline June 25 – $500)
Rattle Poetry Prize (Deadline July 15 – $10,000)
Barrelhouse Call for Nonfiction Submissions (Deadline July 15)
Santa Fe Writers Project Awards Program (Deadline July 20 – $1500)
PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship (Deadline August 1)
LitMag Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15 – $1000 for prose)
Fear No Lit Submerging Writer Fellowship (Deadline August 31)

Submission Sunday 5.14.17

Our consultants can help you edit your drafts, prepare your submissions, and find places to submit! Contact us for customized submission assistance.

PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship (Deadline August 1)

The Emerging Voices Fellowship is a literary mentorship that aims to provide new writers who are isolated from the literary establishment with the tools, skills, and knowledge they need to launch a professional writing career. By the end of the Emerging Voices Fellowship, a writer will leave with:

• Seven months of guidance from a professional mentor and written notes on their current writing project.
• An author photo and bio.
• A logline—the short summation of the project in progress.
• A clear action plan for finishing this project.
• Writing life, and craft tips, from notable visiting authors.
• An editing guide from a professional copy editor.
• Insider knowledge of publishing from agents, publishers, and editors.
• An individualized submission guide for literary journals, agents, residencies, and fellowships.
• Improved reading technique from a professional voice coach.
• Public reading experience for a variety of audiences.
• An understanding of how to be an effective workshop participant.
• Lifetime membership in PEN Center USA.
• An introduction to the Los Angeles literary community.

The Emerging Voices Fellowship runs from January to July. Participants need not be published, but the fellowship is directed toward poets and writers of fiction and creative nonfiction with clear ideas of what they hope to accomplish through their writing.

Spilled Milk Call for Submissions

Consider Spilled Milk a highly caffeinated alternative to mindlessly scrolling your infinite, mundane newsfeeds. We are a quarterly online literary magazine for micro-fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art.

Fiction & Nonfiction: The prose we are interested is unique, captivating, and experimental. Individual pieces should be no more than 750 words.

Poetry: The poetry we find ourselves drawn to is original and innovative. We are eager to publish work that feels adventurous and necessary. Individual pieces should be no more than 30 lines.

Artwork: We are interested in artwork that is (much like the writing) unique and engaging. We are happy to look at all kinds of art work including but not limited to: paintings, mixed media, graphic design, 2D renderings of 3D artwork, etc. 

Punctuate. A Nonfiction Magazine Call for Submissions

Punctuate. A Nonfiction Magazine is a new online and print publication from the Creative Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago. The word punctuate derives from the Latin punctum, meaning point; we aim to promote a kind of striking, honest, diverse nonfiction writing that has a point to prove.

Punctuate seeks emerging and established writers to submit complex, provocative, unique nonfiction writing. Punctuate publishes traditional and experimental writing side by side, showcasing a mosaic of forms that push disciplinary boundaries, including personal essays, flash nonfiction, graphic essays, and journal excerpts.

Southern Indiana Review Thomas A. Wilhelmus Short Prose Award (Deadline June 1 – $2000)

Southern Indiana Review presents a cross-section of emerging and established artists and writers whose work is both regional and national in scope and degree of recognition. With the support of the Indiana Arts Commission and National Endowment for the Arts, SIR is published in October and May by the University of Southern Indiana and sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts.

A prize of $2,000 and publication by Southern Indiana Review Press is given annually for a creative nonfiction or short story collection, novella, or stand-alone memoir or novel excerpt. Submit a manuscript of 40 to 80 pages with a $20 entry fee ($5 for each additional entry) by June 1. David H. Lynn will judge. All entries are considered for publication.

The Spectacle Call for Submissions (Deadline May 15)

The Spectacle is open to poetry, fiction, and nonfiction submissions from traditionally underrepresented voices, including but not limited to LGBTQ+ writers, writers of color, indigenous writers, people with disabilities, and women. We’re a little cracked, and we like it that way. We aim for content that reminds us that our lenses matter—they focus, distort, clarify, conceal. We seek out and publish revelatory writing, while also knowing that there are forms of revelation that come only through distortion or concealment. Aristotle, in his Poetics, isolated six aspects of dramatic art, of which “spectacle” (opsis) was the least important. We disagree.

We like scholars who write great poetry, poets who write incisive monographs, credulous skeptics, wary believers, hidebound experimentalists, radical realists, mystical engineers, analytical mystics, catholic snobs, and modish antiquarians. We have a soft spot for keen amateurs and sincere dilettantes. We actively seek to transgress the border between creative and critical work: see, for example, Dan Beachy-Quick’s essay-poems in our inaugural issue. We also value and emphasize relationships between literary and visual arts. If you’re thinking about submitting to The Spectacle, you should know that we pair the majority of the pieces we publish with original work from a variety of contributing visual artists.

Nowhere Magazine Spring 2017 Travel Writing Contest (Deadline June 1 – $1000)

Award-winning literary travel magazine, Nowhere, is accepting submissions for the Spring 2017 Travel Writing Contest. We are looking for young, old, novice and veteran writers to send us stories that possess a powerful sense of place. Stories can be fiction, nonfiction or essay, but please indicate which genre at the top of your manuscript. Entries should be between 800-5,000 words and must not have been previously chosen as a winner in another contest. Previously published work is accepted, but again, please indicate this. Every submission will be read blind, so anyone can win...

The winner will receive $1,000 and publication in Nowhere Magazine. Up to ten finalists will also be published. Brush off your manuscripts or write something new and send it to the only literary travel magazine going... We look forward to reading your work!

The Los Angeles Review Call for Submissions

The Los Angeles Review, a semi-annual literary journal established in 2003, is the voice of Los Angeles, and the voice of the nation. With its multitude of cultures, Los Angeles roils at the center of the cauldron of divergent literature emerging from the West Coast. Perhaps from this place something can emerge that speaks to the writer or singer or dancer or wild person in all of us, something disturbing, something alive, something of the possibility of what it could be to be human in the 21st century. We invite both published and emerging writers to submit their work to our editors, and we thank you for being part of The Los Angeles Review.

Taliesin Nexus Calliope Workshop for Fiction and Nonfiction Authors (Deadline May 31)

Calling the next great American author!  If that’s you, then this summer get ready to have Taliesin Nexus fly you out to Los Angeles, put you up in a hotel, and spend an entire weekend developing your work at the Calliope Authors Workshop. You will have the opportunity to get thorough notes on your in-progress work as well as career advice from successful novelists, nonfiction authors, publishers, and literary agents.

Part of what makes Calliope unique is that while most writing workshops focus exclusively on short stories, we accept novels, long-form narrative non-fiction, graphic novels, and short stories. We balance workshopping with panels on Traditional and Self-Publishing Strategies, Research and Outlining, and How to Develop an Effective Career Plan. Moreover, you’ll be joined by 12 mentors and panelists and 15 peers, growing your personal network and knowledge of the publishing industry. Taliesin Nexus also awards five scholarships annually to students to help pay for study in an MFA program with grants up to $3000. 

Upcoming Deadlines

The Spectacle Call for Submissions (Deadline May 15)
The Raymond Carver Short Story Contest (Deadline May 15 – $1500)
Granta Magazine Call for Nonfiction Submissions (Deadline May 24)
The Lifted Brow & non/fictionLab Prize for Experimental Nonfiction (Deadline May 29 – $5000)
New England Review Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
NBCUniversal 2017 Writers on the Verge Program (Deadline May 31)
The Masters Review Flash Fiction Contest (Deadline May 31 – $2000)
Terrapin Press Call for Anthology Submissions ("Donut Poems" – Deadline May 31)
Taliesin Nexus Calliope Workshop for Fiction and Nonfiction Authors (Deadline May 31)
University of Georgia Press Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction (Deadline May 31 – $1000)
The American Short Fiction Contest (Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Nowhere Magazine Spring 2017 Travel Writing Contest (Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Southern Indiana Review Thomas A. Wilhelmus Short Prose Award (Deadline June 1 – $2000)
Transom Story Workshop (Scholarship Deadline June 2)
Anthropoid Call for Submissions (Theme: The Future – Deadline June 15)
Sweet Flash Essay Contest (Deadline June 25 – $500)
Santa Fe Writers Project Awards Program (Deadline July 20 – $1500)
PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship (Deadline August 1)
LitMag Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15 – $1000 for prose)
Fear No Lit Submerging Writer Fellowship (Deadline August 31)

Submission Sunday 4.30.17

Our consultants can help you edit your drafts, prepare your submissions, and find places to submit! Contact us for customized submission assistance.

Granta Magazine Call for Nonfiction Submissions (Deadline May 24)

From Nobel laureates to debut novelists, international translations to investigative journalism, each themed issue of Granta turns the attention of the world’s best writers on to one aspect of the way we live now. Granta does not have a political or literary manifesto, but it does have a belief in the power and urgency of the story and its supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real.

Granta magazine was founded in 1889 by students at Cambridge University as The Granta, a periodical of student politics, badinage and literary enterprise, named after the river that runs through the town. In this original incarnation it published the work of writers like A.A. Milne, Michael Frayn, Stevie Smith, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. In 1979, Bill Buford transformed Granta from a student publication to the literary quarterly it remains today. Granta Books came ten years later, quickly becoming one of the most independent-minded and prestigious literary publishers in the UK.

Granta’s Best of Young issues, released decade by decade, introduce the most important voices of each generation – in Britain, America, Brazil and Spain – and have been defining the contours of the literary landscape since 1983. As the Observer writes: ‘In its blend of memoirs and photojournalism, and in its championing of contemporary realist fiction, Granta has its face pressed firmly against the window, determined to witness the world.’

Sweet Flash Essay Contest (Deadline June 25 – $500)

Too often in the mainstream media, the label “nonfiction” implies that the facts are more important than the art. But at Sweet we think creative nonfiction must be held to the same standards as the other literary genres. In short, it must taste good, not merely be good for us.

Sweet is thrilled to announce its first annual Flash Essay Contest. Broadly speaking, we appreciate a close attention to language and a quirky sense of humor, and you can always read published essays in previous Sweet issues on our website. We look forward to reading your work!

New England Review Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)

By publishing new fiction, poetry, and nonfiction that is both challenging and inviting, New England Review encourages artistic exchange and thought-provoking innovation, providing publishing opportunities for writers at all stages in their careers. NER is published by Middlebury College, and as a nonprofit organization we rely on subscriptions and charitable donations to support our mission.

The selection of writings in each issue presents a broad spectrum of viewpoints and genres, including traditional and experimental fiction, long and short poems, translations, criticism, letters from abroad, reviews in arts and literature, and rediscoveries. New England Review exists in a place apart from mass culture, where speed and information overload are the norm. At NER, serious writing is given serious attention, from the painstaking selection process through careful editing and publication, where finally the writer’s words meet up with a curious and dedicated readership.

Writer's Digest Annual Writing Competition (Deadline May 5 – $1000)

Writer’s Digest hosts the 86th Annual Writing Competition. This competition spotlights writing in many genres including short fiction, poetry, script writing and nonfiction pieces. This is your chance to win $5,000 in cash, a feature article about you in the December 2017 issue, and a paid trip to our ever-popular Writer’s Digest Conference! Writer’s Digest has been shining a spotlight on up and coming writers in all genres through its Annual Writing Competition for more than 80 years. Enter our 86th Annual Writing Competition for your chance to win and have your work be seen by editors and agents! Almost 500 winners will be chosen. The top winning entries of this writing contest will also be on display in the 86th Annual Writer’s Digest Competition Collection.

The Collagist Call for Submissions 

The Collagist published its first issue in August 2009 under the editorship of founding editor Matt Bell. New issues are published once every two months on the 15th. Each issue features original fiction, poetry, and essays, most of which come from unsolicited submissions. Work first published in The Collagist has been featured in the Pushcart Prize anthology, Best New Poets, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, the Wigleaf top 50, and by Longform and other publications. The Collagist is proud to be an imprint of Dzanc Books.

The Raymond Carver Short Story Contest (Deadline May 15 – $1500)

Now in its 17th year, the Raymond Carver Short Story Contest is one of the most renowned fiction contests in the world. Featuring prominent guest judges and offering $2500 across five prizes, the contest delivers exciting new fiction from writers all over the world. The contest opens each year April 1 - May 15 and prizewinners are published in the following fall issue in October.

The American Journal of Poetry Call for Submissions

The American Journal of Poetry publishes superlative poetry from beginners to the most renowned poets in the world. We are an online biannual journal of poetry. Our hallmark is “Strong Rx Medicine” ®  Risk taking and a distinctive voice is highly prized.  There are absolutely no restrictions with regard to style, length or subject matter. Send your best. We read year round. We are a writer-friendly review. We do not employ readers or screeners. Each and every submission is read by our Editor-in-Chief, Robert Nazarene and our Senior Editor, James Wilson. Unique to the literary world, you may rely on a response within 15 business days from receipt of your submission.

Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat (Deadline May 1)

Jack Jones Literary Arts is hosting its first annual writing retreat at SMU-in-Taos in Taos, New Mexico. This two-week retreat will be held October 12- 26, 2017, and is open exclusively to women of color. National Book Award finalist, Angela Flournoy, author of The Turner House, is joining us as our Writer-in-Residence for week one, and Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellow and NEA award winner, Angel Nafis, author of BlackGirl Mansion, will join us as Writer-in-Residence for week two.

As part of the retreat experience, Jack Jones is featuring daily one hour Skype master classes with agents, editors and acclaimed women in publishing to promote networking, learning and engagement. These sessions are totally optional for retreat participants. The retreat rate is $1050.00 for the two weeks and includes individual writing suites with private bedroom, communal baths, writing area, library, computer center, wifi, air conditioning, and all meals are provided. We are pleased to offer eleven fully-funded scholarship opportunities, travel stipends and admissions fee reimbursements. 

Longreads Call for Pitches 

Longreads is currently accepting pitches for original work. We pay competitive rates. Blog posts go beyond curation to engage with longform essays and journalism published online. The idea here is to either take an item or discussion in the news—or a recently published piece of longform journalism that is being discussed online—and thread together a post that may lead the reader to other great longreads they may not have known about. Reading lists are a simple way to do this, but we’re more interested in posts that do this with a strong voice. This could also involve an annotation or argument that walks the reader through an essay or long feature. 

Personal essays have been the heart of Longreads for the past several years, and they are thoughtfully written and engaging, often dealing with topics in the news from a personal angle or a historic one. This is the place you can be a bit experimental with your writing or research, ideas-based essays are particularly welcome here. These are generally between 2,000-3,000 words, but could be longer. Ideas for long-form features take a considerable amount of time and research to develop. These stories can involve multiple reporting trips, sources, and in-depth research. Although they don’t necessarily need to deal with current events, they should have an excellent sense of story and purpose and be able to hold a reader’s attention with a compelling premise. Features are generally between 3,000 and 6,000 words, but can be longer or broken up into a series depending on length and subject matter.

Upcoming Deadlines

Arcadia 2017 Dead Bison Editors' Prize (Deadline April 30 – $1000)
Catapult Call for Submissions (Deadline April 30)
The Tishman Review Tillie Olsen Short Story Award (Deadline April 30 – $500)
Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat (Deadline May 1)
Cosmonauts Avenue 2017 Nonfiction Prize (Deadline May 1)
The Tin House Summer Writer's Workshop (Deadline May 1)
Electric Literature Call for Essay Submissions (Deadline May 1)
Slice Magazine Call for Submissions (Theme: Borders – Deadline May 1)
December Magazine Curt Johnson Prose Awards (Deadline May 1 – $1500)
Boston Review Call for Submissions (Theme: Global Dystopias – Deadline May 1)
Unnamed Press Call for Anthology Submissions ("What Future" – Deadline May 1)
Writer's Digest Annual Writing Competition (Deadline May 5 – $1000)
The Raymond Carver Short Story Contest (Deadline May 15 – $1500)
Granta Magazine Call for Nonfiction Submissions (Deadline May 24)
The Lifted Brow & non/fictionLab Prize for Experimental Nonfiction (Deadline May 29 – $5000)
New England Review Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
NBCUniversal 2017 Writers on the Verge Program (Deadline May 31)
The Masters Review Flash Fiction Contest (Deadline May 31 – $2000)
Terrapin Press Call for Anthology Submissions ("Donut Poems" – Deadline May 31)
University of Georgia Press Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction (Deadline May 31 – $1000)
The American Short Fiction Contest (Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Transom Story Workshop (Scholarship Deadline June 2)
Anthropoid Call for Submissions (Theme: The Future – Deadline June 15)
Sweet Flash Essay Contest (Deadline June 25 – $500)
Santa Fe Writers Project Awards Program (Deadline July 20 – $1500)
LitMag Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15 – $1000 for prose)
Fear No Lit Submerging Writer Fellowship (Deadline August 31)

Submission Sunday 4.16.17

Our consultants can help you edit your drafts, prepare your submissions, and find places to submit! Contact us for customized submission assistance.

Anthropoid Call for Submissions (Theme: The Future – Deadline June 15)

SHOW US YOUR VISION OF WHAT’S YET TO COME.
WILL YOU BE A SEER, FORTUNE TELLER, AN ORACLE?
WILL YOUR FUTURE VISION BE UTOPIAN OR DYSTOPIAN?

It’s not meant to be an easy task. Whatever you take in your rucksack, carry a watchful eye and sharp gaze, and maybe also joy, humor, retribution (and maybe also a towel). Our visions of future often are imbued with the cultural weight of our past, so we’re looking for poems, stories, essays & ethnographies, and other pieces which crackle into vivid image, which paint a star-map whose demands seem so real that we readers feel for a moment as though we are living it. Reinvent the form of our typical “future / scifi / apocalyptic” genres (toward “lit fic” if you will), show us a future imagined in times past, or speak of futures which will never be or which seem inevitable, or, time-travel, or brave a new world, or black mirror all the glitches in the human machine, or put on your space-helmet and show us the alien spaces of our own backyard, even in the present, even in the past, if it shows us some sign of what’s next, or some vision in the surface of the water.

The Masters Review Flash Fiction Contest (Deadline May 31 – $2000)

“Notice the small things. The rewards are inversely proportional.”

Our love of flash fiction runs deep. And throughout our six years of reading work by emerging writers we’ve seen some incredible pieces of small and powerful fiction, but we’ve never hosted a call for flash. So here it is: a home for your very best small fiction. Send us big worlds in tiny packages, large ideas with a low word count. Dazzle us with your best fiction under 1000 words. $2000, publication on the Masters Review site, and recognition in Poets & Writers Magazine.

Catapult Call for Submissions (Deadline April 30)

Catapult is an innovative publisher that celebrates extraordinary storytelling. We promote American and international fiction and narrative nonfiction that is insightful, stirring, and surprising by way of unique voices—whether emerging or established—that honor the craft of writing. “We must contribute to both contemporary literary culture and the pleasure and knowledge of a diverse and serious readership,” says Editor in Chief Pat Strachan. “As Rebecca Mead wrote in The New Yorker, ‘There are pleasures to be had from books beyond being lightly entertained.’”

The Lifted Brow & non/fictionLab Prize for Experimental Nonfiction (Deadline May 29 – $5000)

The Lifted Brow & RMIT non/fictionLab Prize for Experimental Non-fiction aims to unearth new, audacious, authentic and/or inauthentic voices from both Australia and the world. This prize seeks work that is unlike any other. We want to hear from writers we’ve never read before, and we want writers we already know and love to challenge themselves to create work unlike any they’ve previously produced.

Submissions to this prize need to be able to be published on the printed page. We applaud the current focus and fascination with boundary-pushing non-fiction that is published online, but we still believe there’s scope to further experiment on the page, using facts, maybe-facts, words from life, journals, journalism, collage, theory, photography, illustration, tricks, arguments, etc. The essay, as the end of experience, is a malleable form, and we want to celebrate that with this prize.

What is ‘experimental non-fiction’? Like all non-fiction writing it is steeped in facts, real events and real people, with the aim of communicating information, argument, and truth. It differs from traditional non-fiction in that it tries to convey its meaning using unorthodox form, or style, or voice, or point-of-view, or etc. The best pieces of experimental non-fiction are those in which any unorthodox element deepens the meaning and authenticity of the subject matter.

The Coachella Review Call for Submissions 

The Coachella Review is the literary arts journal of the University of California Riverside–Palm Desert Graduate Center and the MFA program in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts. 

The Coachella Review is now accepting submissions for our June 2017 issue. We accept original work that is vibrant, thoughtful, and precise. Whether your work is innovative or traditional, we strive to celebrate writing that holds readers in awe. 

University of Georgia Press Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction (Deadline May 31 – $1000)

More than fifty short-story collections have appeared in the Flannery O'Connor Award series, which was established to encourage gifted emerging writers by bringing their work to a national readership. The first prize-winning book was published in 1983; the award has since become an important proving ground for writers and a showcase for the talent and promise that have brought about a resurgence in the short story as a genre. Winners are selected through an annual competition that attracts as many as three hundred manuscripts. Winners of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction include such widely read authors as Ha Jin, Antonya Nelson, Rita Ciresi, and Mary Hood.

The Rumpus Call for Submissions

At The Rumpus, we’re focused on publishing good writing. Good writing and good ideas are not always the same thing. A topic for an essay might sound horrendous but if a writer is in love with the idea enough she’ll often render something beautiful. We try to maintain high standards even though we don’t have any money and can’t pay much. Accepted contributors maintain all copyrights to the work we publish.

We’re interested in seeing finished essays that intersect culture. We realize it’s a lot to ask for people to write something without knowing if it will be published. On the other hand, if you aren’t driven by the story so much that you have to write it then it’s probably not a good fit for The Rumpus.

Transom Story Workshop (Scholarship Deadline June 2)

The Transom Story Workshop is a nine week, residential program of full-time training for beginning producers. It’s held in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. We offer Workshops in spring (end of March – May) and fall (end of September – November). 

Transom channels new work, voices, and ideas into public media through the Internet and workshops. Our goal is to be useful and inspiring. Transom is a performance space, an open editorial session, an audition stage, a library, and a hangout. Our purpose is to pass the baton of mission and good practice in public media through tools, philosophy, and technique.

Story Workshop alums are earning livings as independent producers; some have gone on to start their own podcasts; others are station-based at stations from Key West to Alaska. Our graduates work at This American Life, Radiolab, Invisibilia, and The Moth Radio Hour among other shows. Some use their audio skills at non-profits and NGOs. We even have award winning alums—Best New Artist and Best Documentary: Bronze at Third Coast International Audio Festival and winners of WNYC's Podcast Accelerator. We could go on boasting on our alums but we'll stop there for now.

Upcoming Deadlines

Stonecoast Review Call for Submissions (Deadline April 16)
Fellowships for Writers Week at Idyllwild Arts (July 3–7, 2017 – Deadline April 17)
Northridge Review Call for Submissions (Deadline April 19)
DIAGRAM 2017 Chapbook Contest (Deadline April 28 – $1000 plus publication)
Arcadia 2017 Dead Bison Editors' Prize (Deadline April 30 – $1000)
Catapult Call for Submissions (Deadline April 30)
The Tishman Review Tillie Olsen Short Story Award (Deadline April 30 – $500)
Cosmonauts Avenue 2017 Nonfiction Prize (Deadline May 1)
The Tin House Summer Writer's Workshop (Deadline May 1)
Electric Literature Call for Essay Submissions (Deadline May 1)
Slice Magazine Call for Submissions (Theme: Borders – Deadline May 1)
December Magazine Curt Johnson Prose Awards (Deadline May 1 – $1500)
Boston Review Call for Submissions (Theme: Global Dystopias – Deadline May 1)
Unnamed Press Call for Anthology Submissions ("What Future" – Deadline May 1)
The Lifted Brow & non/fictionLab Prize for Experimental Nonfiction (Deadline May 29 – $5000)
NBCUniversal 2017 Writers on the Verge Program (Deadline May 31)
The Masters Review Flash Fiction Contest (Deadline May 31 – $2000)
Terrapin Press Call for Anthology Submissions ("Donut Poems" – Deadline May 31)
University of Georgia Press Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction (Deadline May 31 – $1000)
The American Short Fiction Contest (Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Transom Story Workshop (Scholarship Deadline June 2)
Anthropoid Call for Submissions (Theme: The Future – Deadline June 15)
Santa Fe Writers Project Awards Program (Deadline July 20 – $1500)
LitMag Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15 – $1000 for prose)
Fear No Lit Submerging Writer Fellowship (Deadline August 31)

Submission Sunday 4.2.17

Our consultants can help you edit your drafts, prepare your submissions, and find places to submit! Contact us for customized submission assistance.

The Tishman Review Tillie Olsen Short Story Award (Deadline April 30 – $500)

Olsen was born in 1912 on a tenant farm in Nebraska, the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants. Early in her life, she began crusading for worker rights, jailed for organizing packinghouse workers and for participating in strikes. She continued working as an activist her entire life, especially in her San Francisco community. She and her partner Jack Olsen suffered under McCarthy’s witch hunt. Olsen died at the age of 95—a mother, grandmother, award-winning writer, feminist, and human rights and anti-war activist.

Olsen’s family has graciously given The Tishman Review permission to name our short story contest in honor of one of our heroes, Tillie Olsen. Entries should consist of unpublished (including online and personal blogs) short stories not longer than 5,000 words in length. We at The Tishman Review seek to publish work that reflects these values, offers new insights into the human condition, finds beauty in the garish, and that when we read it, we want to read it again and again. We want to fold an issue closed and find ourselves richer for knowing the words contained within.

Electric Literature Call for Essay Submissions (Deadline May 1)

Electric Literature is opening submissions of personal and critical essays starting next Monday, as well as humor that reflects on the world of reading, writing, literature, and storytelling in all its forms. We’re particularly interested in pieces that examine the intersection of the literary world and other creative disciplines: film, fine art, music, video games, architecture — you name it. Payment for personal and craft essays, as well as humor pieces, is $50. Length is up to you; most essays we publish fall between 1500–5000 words.

The American Short Fiction Contest (Deadline June 1 – $1000)

The American Short Fiction Prize—a contest for stories between 2,000 and 6,500 words—is now open for submissions. This year we are honored to have Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies (Obama’s favorite book of 2015), as our guest judge.

Issued triannually, American Short Fiction publishes work by emerging and established voices: stories that dive into the wreck, that stretch the reader between recognition and surprise, that conjure a particular world with delicate expertise—stories that take a different way home. Stories published by American Short Fiction are anthologized in Best American Short Stories, Best American Non-Required Reading, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, and elsewhere.

Terrapin Books Call for Anthology Submissions ("Donut Poems" – Deadline May 31)

We will consider up to five published or unpublished poems about any kind of donut, e.g., jelly donut, sugar, powdered, glazed, Boston cream, donut holes, cruller, long john, fritter,  pączki, oliebollen, ponchik, fánk. Send us your poems about making donuts, eating donuts, donuts and family rituals or traditions, your love or fear of donuts, your first donut, a memory associated with donuts, cops and donuts, a fight over donuts, a dream or a nightmare about donuts.

Terrapin Books is a new small press specializing in poetry books. Our intention is to publish books by individual authors, an occasional anthology, and a small number of craft books. We are a small press and plan to stay that way. We will accept only a limited number of manuscripts at a time so that we can carefully edit each one and work closely with our authors. Because we will be accepting a limited number of manuscripts during each submission period, we expect to publish each accepted manuscript within six months. We don't want you to grow old before your book enters the world.

Northridge Review Call for Submissions (Deadline April 19)

Northridge Review is a literary & arts journal of the present, produced by students in the creative writing program at California State University Northridge. 

Founded in 1962 as a campus publication of student work, Northridge Review now seeks to broaden its scope and join the larger literary community by moving to an online format and publishing exceptional student work alongside established and emerging writers from across the globe. 

We encourage submissions of timely, provocative, and innovative Prose, Poetry, Drama, and Art that pushes boundaries in subversive, disruptive, or other challenging ways.

Unnamed Press Call for Anthology Submissions ("What Future" – Deadline May 1)

We are seeking a varied collection of articles, essays, other forms of journalism (including profiles of thought leaders and scientists), and creative non-fiction published during the calendar year of 2016. We are primarily interested in long form, in-depth pieces that consider a given topic carefully.

 A best-of-the-year anthology, What Future collects long-form journalism and essay writing that address a wide range of topics crucial to our future, from environmental and political, to human health and animal rights, to technology and the economy. What Future is committed to a variety of diverse perspectives; and will include new writing by and about the scientists, writers, journalists, and philosophers who are proposing the options that lay not just ahead, but beyond. The 2017 edition will be published in October of 2017.

Slice Magazine Call for Submissions (Theme: Borders – Deadline May 1)

Slice Magazine welcomes submissions for short fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. We’re looking for anyone with a fresh voice and a compelling story to share—basically any work that really knocks our socks off. We’re not drawn to experimental or heavy-handed genre fiction. The best way to get a sense of Slice’s content is to read the magazine. At the core, Slice aims to bridge the gap between emerging and established authors by offering a space where both are published side-by-side. In each issue, a specific cultural theme becomes the catalyst for articles, interviews, stories, and poetry from renowned writers and lesser known voices alike. 

The Tin House Summer Writer's Workshop (Deadline May 1)

The Tin House Summer Workshop is a weeklong intensive of workshops, seminars, panels, and readings led by prominent contemporary writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The program combines morning workshops with afternoon craft seminars and career panels. Evenings are reserved for author readings and revelry.

Workshops meet for six sessions, Monday through Saturday, from 9:30 am until 12:30 pm. Each workshop will have no more than twelve students and will treat two manuscripts per session. Each student will meet with their faculty instructor for a 15-minute one-on-one meeting during the week.

Tin House editors and guest agents are available to meet individually with students throughout the week. For students who have completed a collection of stories or poems, a memoir, or a novel, one-on-one mentorships are available with select faculty and staff for an additional fee.

Upcoming Deadlines

New Delta Review Call for Submissions (Deadline April 5)
The 7th Annual Bread Loaf in Sicily Conference (Deadline April 15)
Stonecoast Review Call for Submissions (Deadline April 16)
Fellowships for Writers Week at Idyllwild Arts (July 3–7, 2017 – Deadline April 17)
Northridge Review Call for Submissions (Deadline April 19)
DIAGRAM 2017 Chapbook Contest (Deadline April 28 – $1000 plus publication)
Arcadia 2017 Dead Bison Editors' Prize (Deadline April 30 – $1000)
The Tishman Review Tillie Olsen Short Story Award (Deadline April 30 – $500)
Cosmonauts Avenue 2017 Nonfiction Prize (Deadline May 1)
The Tin House Summer Writer's Workshop (Deadline May 1)
Electric Literature Call for Essay Submissions (Deadline May 1)
Slice Magazine Call for Submissions (Theme: Borders – Deadline May 1)
December Magazine Curt Johnson Prose Awards (Deadline May 1 – $1500)
Boston Review Call for Submissions (Theme: Global Dystopias – Deadline May 1)
Unnamed Press Call for Anthology Submissions ("What Future" – Deadline May 1)
NBCUniversal 2017 Writers on the Verge Program (Deadline May 31)
Terrapin Press Call for Anthology Submissions ("Donut Poems" – Deadline May 31)
The American Short Fiction Contest (Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Santa Fe Writers Project Awards Program (Deadline July 20 – $1500)
LitMag Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15 – $1000 for prose)
Fear No Lit Submerging Writer Fellowship (Deadline August 31)

Submission Sunday 3.19.17

Our consultants can help you edit your drafts, prepare your submissions, and find places to submit! Contact us for customized submission assistance.

Santa Fe Writers Project Awards Program (Deadline July 20 – $1500)

SFWP is an independent press dedicated to the craft of writing. We stand by our authors and we stand by our books, embracing new trends and ideas beyond those of the current publishing industry. Our history, and our mission, goes far beyond publishing. At the heart of SFWP, we are a resource for authors. Since 2000, we have hosted an internationally recognized Literary Awards Program. 

What are we looking for? All fiction and creative nonfiction will be eligible despite genre, form, subject, or length. So we’ll take full-length manuscripts, collections short or long, and essays. We don’t care about what the big presses believe to be “marketable,” we want to see excellence in writing, no matter the form it takes. Past winners have ranged from flash fiction to memoir to magical realism to literary fiction to essays.

Boston Review Call for Submissions (Theme: Global Dystopias – Deadline May 1)

A special call for submissions from Boston Review's fiction editor Junot Díaz: Over the last decades dystopian narratives have proliferated to the point where they seem to have become our default mode for conceptualizing the future. But dystopias are not merely fantasies of a minatory future; they offer critically important reflection upon our present. If (as Tom Moylan has argued) traditional dystopias crafted cognitive maps of the terrors of the twentieth century, what cognitive maps does our current dystopian turn provide us of our turbulent global present?

Throughout 2017, we will feature stories, essays, and interviews on the theme of global dystopias. The project will culminate in a special print issue in the fall of 2017. We are seeking essays, interviews, and fiction from writers around the globe that engage the theme of dystopia. Nonfiction, personal essay, genre fiction (SF, fantasy, horror, Afrofuturist, slipstream), and work that resides across/between genres are welcome.   

NBCUniversal 2017 Writers on the Verge Program (Deadline May 31)

NBCUniversal is doing more and more to find aspiring filmmakers, actors, and now the media company is looking for aspiring writers. As part of the company’s 2017 Writers on the Verge program, NBCUniversal is now accepting applications for aspiring writers. Writers that are selected will be invited to join a 12-week program focused on polishing writers and preparing them for a position a TV series. “We are looking for writers who are “almost there” but need that final bit of preparation with their writing and personal presentation skills. We particularly encourage writers of diverse backgrounds to apply.”

Classes concentrate on creating exceptional material to enhance their portfolio, and understanding the dynamics of pitching oneself in the television industry. Writers are given the chance to interact with industry players ranging from network executives to show runners to agents and receive valuable feedback on their work and pitch style.

Stonecoast Review Call for Submissions (Deadline April 16)

We welcome writing in the genres of creative nonfiction, fiction, popular (speculative) fiction, and poetry. We also welcome visual art submissions. Our goal is to publish innovative, inclusive, and deeply resonant literature that embodies our core values of social and environmental justice, cultural awareness, and international perspectives. We especially want unique, powerful writing that takes chances and brings the reader to entirely unexpected places. With that in mind, we strongly encourage artists from underrepresented communities and cultures to submit.

December Magazine Curt Johnson Prose Awards (Deadline May 1 – $1500)

We are pleased to announce Lily King (Fiction) and Roxane Gay (Nonfiction) will judge our 2017 Curt Johnson Prose Awards. $1,500 and publication in our Fall/Winter 2017 issue for First Place (fiction and nonfiction); $500 and publication in our Fall/Winter 2017 issue for honorable mention (fiction and nonfiction).

december magazine was founded in Iowa City in 1958 by a group of poets, writers, and artists who declared, “We are humanists…far more concerned with people than dogmatic critical or aesthetic attitudes." december was a pioneer in the “little” magazine and small press movement, publishing cutting-edge fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and art. By 1962, the founding editors had left Iowa City; one of them, Jeff Marks, took december to Chicago and turned it over to Curt Johnson, an award-winning short story writer and novelist. Johnson edited and published december for the next 46 years until his death in 2008.

Cease, Cows Call for Submissions 

You may see the title of our silly literary magazine and ask yourself, “What the [insert f-bomb] is that?” We’ll appease your burning curiosity. It’s from a novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, by the excellent Gabriel García Márquez. Now you have secret knowledge. Use it wisely. Or don’t. Whatevs. It’s your life.

At Cease, Cows we want to explore the contemporary, the strange, the big questions. We want to feel cultural pulses, expose mental arteries, bathe in both the sanguine and sanguinary. We want to publish prose with fire and truth. Humans may be animals, but the power of words can allow us to revel in or transcend the physical. The best literature achieves both. Or something profound like that.

If you’re a writer, send us your best work. Hell, always write your best work, whether you send it to us or not. Life is short. We want: strange literary, magical realism, speculative, slipstream, utopian and dystopian, bizarro, apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic, and just plain weird fictions. So, surprise and delight us. Pretty please.

Arcadia 2017 Dead Bison Editors' Prize (Deadline April 30 – $1000)

A prize of $1,000 and publication in Arcadia is given annually for a short story, a work of nonfiction, and a group of poems. Using the online submission system, submit up to 25 pages of fiction or nonfiction and 10 pages of poetry with a $15 entry fee by April 30. 

Arcadia Press is a non-profit literary arts organization serving Oklahoma City since 2008, and publishes Oklahoma’s only independently-operated literary magazine, Arcadia. Our magazine semi-annually publishes earnest, hardscrabble fiction, poetry, and narrative nonfiction from both nationally-prominent and emerging writers.

While we’re best known for our titular literary magazine, we also annually publish a set of three artfully designed chapbooks—fiction, poetry, and nonfiction—which represent the winners of the Arcadia Press Chapbook Prize. Our newest project, Dead Bison, will launch sometime in late 2016. Dead Bison will be a compendium of online and print media that explore the history and culture of the Great Plains region through literature, art, and historical archives.

Community of Writers at Squaw Valley Writers Workshops (Deadline March 28)

For 46 summers, the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley has brought together poets and prose writers for separate weeks of workshops, individual conferences, lectures, panels, readings, and discussions of the craft and the business of writing. Our aim is to assist writers in the refinement of their craft and thus, in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual support, move them closer to achieving their goals. The Community of Writers holds its summer writing workshops in Squaw Valley in the ski lodge at the foot of the ski slopes. Panels, talks, staff readings and workshops take place in these venues with a spectacular view up the mountain.

These workshops assist serious writers by exploring the art and craft as well as the business of writing. The week offers daily morning workshops, craft lectures, panel discussions on editing and publishing, staff readings, and brief individual conferences. The morning workshops are led by staff writer-teachers, editors, or agents. There are separate morning workshops for Fiction and Narrative Nonfiction/Memoir. In addition to their workshop manuscripts, participants may have a second manuscript read by a staff member who meets with them in individual conferences. Nonfiction or memoir submissions should be in a narrative form. Travel, self-help, how-to, or scholarly works will not be considered.

Upcoming Deadlines

The Frankenstein Bicentennial Dare (Deadline March 20 – $10,000 – and July 31)
Community of Writers at Squaw Valley Writers Workshops (Deadline March 28)
Booth: A Journal Call for Submissions (Deadline March 31)
The Masters Review Anthology Volume VI (Deadline March 31 – $500)
The Lascaux Review Prize in Flash Fiction (Deadline March 31 – $1000)
New Delta Review Call for Submissions (Deadline April 5)
The 7th Annual Bread Loaf in Sicily Conference (Deadline April 15)
Stonecoast Review Call for Submissions (Deadline April 16)
Fellowships for Writers Week at Idyllwild Arts (July 3–7, 2017 – Deadline April 17)
DIAGRAM 2017 Chapbook Contest (Deadline April 28 – $1000 plus publication)
Arcadia 2017 Dead Bison Editors' Prize (Deadline April 30 – $1000)
Cosmonauts Avenue 2017 Nonfiction Prize (Deadline May 1)
December Magazine Curt Johnson Prose Awards (Deadline May 1 – $1500)
Boston Review Call for Submissions (Theme: Global Dystopias – Deadline May 1)
NBCUniversal 2017 Writers on the Verge Program (Deadline May 31)
Santa Fe Writers Project Awards Program (Deadline July 20 – $1500)
LitMag Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15 – $1000 for prose)
Fear No Lit Submerging Writer Fellowship (Deadline August 31)

Submission Sunday 3.5.17

Our consultants can help you edit your drafts, prepare your submissions, and find places to submit! Contact us for customized submission assistance.

The Kerouac Project Residency (Deadline March 12)

The Kerouac Project provides four residencies a year to writers of any stripe or age, living anywhere in the world. In the past we have accepted writers with no formal writing education alongside those with MFA’s and impressive résumés. You will be judged on the quality of the writing sample you submit. Each residency consists of approximately a three month stay in the cottage where Jack Kerouac wrote his novel Dharma Bums. Utilities and a food stipend of $1,000 are included. As writer-in-residence, all you are required to do is live in the Kerouac House during your residency, work on your writing project, and participate in two events—a Welcome Potluck dinner for you, and a Final Reading of your work at the Kerouac House at the end of your residency. Should you desire them, the Kerouac Project can also offer opportunities for you to participate in other readings, lead workshops, and interact in other ways with the vibrant Central Florida literary community.

Cosmonauts Avenue 2017 Nonfiction Prize (Deadline May 1)

Cosmonauts Avenue is thrilled to announce that our inaugural Nonfiction Prize is now open for submissions! Our judge is (deep breath)… Roxane Gay!

What are we looking for? We love writing that is personal, necessary, darkly funny, unfunny, candid, unique, upsetting, popculture-y, untold, includes in-depth research into Channing Chatum’s abs (kidding but not?) – writing that is deeply good and deeply you. The winner will receive $500 and publication in Cosmonauts Avenue.

Territory Call for Submissions (Theme: Treasure – Deadline March 15)

Territory is a literary project about territories and the maps that will always fail to capture them. It’s about the naive dream of objectivity, and how we use the act of representation to both hide and broadcast our subjectivities. The map has a specific allure. It reduces the complexity of the world to a manageable space, and suggests distant lands are not so distant. In this miniaturized space, it’s easy to envision an entire world. Perhaps too easy—maps often destroy through their creation. They are a barbaric art, or an art used for politics and propaganda.

This is why maps are instruments of both progress and regress. They inspire and enable discovery, but also conquest and colonization. They tell some histories while denying others. They both reveal and conceal the spaces they circumscribe. The map is not the territory, surely, but then why is our world built on so many getting this so wrong?

Territory wants to understand these paradoxes by understanding the maps that inspire them. We invite writers, musicians, and other artists to respond to maps and the fallacies they engender, in turn creating secondary maps. We then present these two maps side-by-side as a means of getting at, but still failing to capture, the underlying territory. We are building an atlas knowing it will be a reduction, an anachronism, a distortion. But we build it anyway.

The Southampton Review Frank McCourt Memoir Prize (Deadline March 15 – $1000)

We want your best personal memoirs. In honor of Frank McCourt's writing, we're looking for prose that reveals the humor in even the bleakest of situations. We want raw honesty. We want to be unsure whether to laugh or cry. Dazzle us with your insight into the human experience. We're excited to read your work! Dedicated to publishing fine fiction, nonfiction, plays, screenplays, literary cartoons, photography, and art, TSR opens its pages to writers across the globe whose work is compelling.

Fear No Lit Submerging Writer Fellowship (Deadline August 31)

In 2017, FEAR NO LIT will pull one submerging writer out of the water and offer them:

– a chapbook (limited-edition print run of 50 copies)
– a launch party at AWP 18 (reading featuring the winner & 3 finalists)
– $500 for AWP 18 expenses (travel, room)
– $500 to spend however they like, no strings attached (maybe scuba gear?)

You’re eligible if:

– you don’t have a book
– you write your ass off
– you have won no major awards
– you aren’t currently in an MFA/PhD program
– you battle daily the barriers of luck, society, fate, a curse, the cosmos, some major setback, or all of the above

For writers who have the chops but lack the luck; who drown, who try, who try again; who try again so many times there might not be any tries left; who see writing as both a buoy and shark-bite—a boogie-board and an iceberg; who would love to attend AWP to meet the writers they admire but just can’t fucking afford it; who are sinking in the giant sea of the writing industry.

New Delta Review Call for Submissions (Deadline April 5)

NDR is an online literary and arts journal produced by graduate students in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Louisiana State University. Since 1984, NDR has published the work of emerging and established writers. Each issue includes original fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, reviews, interviews, and artwork. In our 30 years of publication, authors of international renown–National Book Award finalist Patricia Smith, Puschcart Prize-winning Stacey Richter, and former Poet Laureate Billy Collins, to name a few–have shared our pages with tomorrow’s literary stars. Our contributors are regularly included in anthologies such as Best American Short Stories, New Stories from the South, and Best American Poetry.

As a journal we are committed to publishing underrepresented voices, and aim to foster diversity in our issues. Although we ask for a small fee for our general submissions, this fee helps us sustain and extend this practice into our community by hosting and supporting readings and other literary events.

The 26th Annual James Jones First Novel Fellowship (Deadline March 15 – $10,000)

The 26th Annual James Jones First Novel Fellowship will be awarded to an American author of a first novel-in-progress, in 2017, by the James Jones Literary Society.

The award is intended to honor the spirit of unblinking honesty, determination, and insight into cultural and social issues exemplified by the late James Jones, author of From Here to Eternity and other prose narratives of distinction. Jones himself was the recipient of aid from many supporters as a young writer and his family, friends, and admirers have established this award of $10,000 to continue the tradition in his name. Two runners up awards of $1000 each may be given by the Jones Literary Society.  All selections are at the discretion of the judges.

The 7th Annual Bread Loaf in Sicily Conference (Deadline April 15)

The 7th annual Bread Loaf in Sicily Conference is an intensive seven-day writers' conference held in Erice, an ancient, hilltop town on the western coast of Sicily. Featuring five workshops with six participants in each group, the conference provides a small group of writers with a concentrated and personalized Bread Loaf experience.  

The conference is held at the Hotel Villa San Giovanni, which offers modest but very comfortable accommodations and a breathtaking view of the Tyrrhenian Sea and Sicilian countryside. A walled medieval town of narrow, winding, cobblestone streets, Erice’s compact size makes it easy to walk from the conference hotel to restaurants, cafés, and shops, and to explore its beautifully restored churches, Norman-era castle, and ancient walls.

Upcoming Deadlines

The Kerouac Project Residency (Deadline March 12)
Territory Call for Submissions (Theme: Treasure – Deadline March 15)
The Writer's Block Eliza So Finish-Your-Book Fellowship (Deadline March 15)
The Missouri Review 10th Annual Miller Audio Prize (Deadline March 15 – $1000)
The 26th Annual James Jones First Novel Fellowship (Deadline March 15 – $10,000)
The Southampton Review Frank McCourt Memoir Prize (Deadline March 15 – $1000)
The Frankenstein Bicentennial Dare (Deadline March 20 – $10,000 – and July 31)
Booth: A Journal Call for Submissions (Deadline March 31)
The Masters Review Anthology Volume VI (Deadline March 31 – $500)
The Lascaux Review Prize in Flash Fiction (Deadline March 31 – $1000)
New Delta Review Call for Submissions (Deadline April 5)
The 7th Annual Bread Loaf in Sicily Conference (Deadline April 15)
Fellowships for Writers Week at Idyllwild Arts (July 3–7, 2017 – Deadline April 17)
DIAGRAM 2017 Chapbook Contest (Deadline April 28 – $1000 plus publication)
Cosmonauts Avenue 2017 Nonfiction Prize (Deadline May 1)
LitMag Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15 – $1000 for prose)
Fear No Lit Submerging Writer Fellowship (Deadline August 31)

Submission Sunday 2.19.17

Our consultants can help you edit your drafts, prepare your submissions, and find places to submit! Contact us for customized submission assistance.

Fellowships for Writers Week at Idyllwild Arts (July 3–7, 2017 – Deadline April 17)

Poets and writers from around the world have found a special home at Idyllwild Arts. For decades, it has gathered thoughtful, provoking, successful and notable guests—among them Ray Bradbury, Norman Corwin, Lucille Clifton, Sharon Olds, Maxine Kumin, Billy Collins, Ted Kooser, Philip Levine, David St. John and Natasha Trethewey. Expect to be inspired and challenged by world-class voices at the annual Writers Week. Learn from, listen to and socialize with some of the country’s premier literary artists. More than poetry, fiction and nonfiction workshops, the week will feature special guests and events. The fellowship covers tuition, meals and housing on campus. Fellowship recipients are responsible for their own transportation to and from Idyllwild, CA.

Post Road Flash Fiction Contest (Deadline March 1 – $500)

Post Road publishes twice yearly and accepts unsolicited poetry, fiction, nonfiction, short plays and monologues, and visual art submissions. Submit to Post Road’s first-ever flash fiction contest, to be judged by writers Elizabeth Graver and Suzanne Matson. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners will receive prizes of $500, $250, & $100, respectively. All entries will be considered for publication, and selected finalist manuscripts will be included in the prize folio in Post Road 33, due out in the fall of 2017. The contest deadline is March 1st, 2017, and the co-judges will consider previously unpublished stories up to 1000 words. 

Basalt and Storyfort's First Line Micro-Fiction Contest (Deadline March 2) 

This contest is open to all. The contest will be closing at 11:59 PM March 2!

1) Stories must begin with one of the following first lines (omit artist and song title): 

• Tommy used to work on the docks. (Bon Jovi, "Livin' On a Prayer")
• We know where we wanna go. (Built to Spill, "Living Zoo")
• Ghost in the mirror, I knew your face once, but now it's unclear. (Rihanna, "Never Ending")

2) Each entry must be between 300 and 500 words in length. Strictly enforced!

3) $5 reading fee for each entry, 3 entries max.

 

4) Each piece submitted must be a completely resolved and compelling story (in 300-500 words).

 

5) All submissions are anonymous. Name and contact details must not appear on the stories.

 

6) All judging is anonymous. The judges' verdict is final. No correspondence will be entered into.

First place: 5-day Treefort pass
Second place: Weekend 2-day Treefort pass
Third place: Storyfort shirt and SWAG

Prizes are non-transferable. All winning submissions will be published in the upcoming Spring 2017 issue of Basalt, CWI's literary journal. All winners are invited to read winning submissions on the final day of Storyfort. 

Epiphany Magazine Annual Spring Contest (Deadline February 20 – $400)

Our annual writing contest is open, with four writers we revere judging four categories: Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction, Fiction in Translation. If an epiphany is a moment of sudden revelation, Epiphany, the literary journal, is a crucible of those moments, expressed in fiction, memoir and poetry.  Our biannual journal regards the world from all aspects: giving voice to the talented and innovative writers of the 21st Century. We seek outstanding literary work, and connect it with a focused readership.  In its ten years of operation, Epiphany has established a reputation as a magazine that supports both emerging and established writers—from near and from afar—whose explorations of new territory may not have found validation elsewhere, wherever they fall on the spectrum from experimental to traditional.

The Writer's Block Eliza So Finish-Your-Book Fellowship (Deadline March 15)

We're very excited to offer the 1st Annual Eliza So Finish-Your-Book Fellowship. The goal of the fellowship is to give a writer time and solitude to help finish a book that is already in progress. The fellowship includes room and board at Las Vegas' Writer's Block for the month of June 2017, along with a $500 food stipend and $400 toward airfare. There is no fee to apply.

Requirements: 1) You have a novel, collection of stories, or memoir in progress (100 pages minimum) or poetry collection in progress (30 pages minimum). 2) You are at least one of the following: a) A US immigrant (documented or undocumented), b) first-generation American, c) a resident of Montana, or d) a parent with at least one child under the age of 5. The Writer's Block is located in downtown Las Vegas and consists of a Book Shop, Las Vegas' only independent bookstore; Codex, a writers' studio dedicated to education, production, and publishing; and The Book Machine, a unique and quick book-making tool for self-publishers. There is also an artificial bird sanctuary. 


The Missouri Review 10th Annual Miller Audio Prize (Deadline March 15 – $1000)

The Missouri Review welcomes submissions to our 10th Annual Miller Audio Prize. We are always open for regular submissions of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry at our submission manager.

Poetry

Submit an original poem or collection of poems as a single audio file. Entries may be solely author-read or contain other voices, sounds, or music.

Prose

Submit a short story or piece of creative nonfiction. Entries may be solely author-read or contain other voices, sounds, or music.

Humor

Submit your funniest poem, story, or piece of creative nonfiction. Entries may be solely author-read or contain other voices, sounds, or music.

Audio Documentary

Submit an audio documentary on any subject. Documentaries can be presented in a variety of forms including narrative, interview, or documentary play.

HBOAccess 2017 Writing Fellowship (Application Process March 1-4, 2017)

The HBOAccess Writing Fellowship is designed to give emerging, diverse writers the opportunity to develop a half-hour or hour script suitable for HBO or Cinemax. The program will select up to 8 diverse writers to take part in a series of master classes held over one week in July at the HBO campus in Santa Monica. Classes will consist of discussions with HBO executives and showrunners and will focus on the craft of writing including structure, story, and character as well as the business aspects of securing an agent and effective networking.

Winners will be paired with an HBO or Cinemax development executive who will serve as his/her mentor over the course of 10 months. Mentoring can be done remotely or in person pending whichever is logistically feasible. In addition, we will hold monthly group meetings during which projects will continue to be work-shopped.

TASTE Call for Pitches

TASTE is an online magazine for today’s home cook, reporting from the front lines of dinner. Stories we are looking for: Original recipes with colorful headnotes, reported stories between 500 and 2,000 words, concise guides for the home kitchen (baking butter, seaweed, Mexican spices), unique chef and cookbook author profiles with a home cooking angle. Photo essays with a strong point of view. Humor, personal essays, fist-shaking opinion pieces, shopping guides, and “I cooked from the book” recipe road testing is of interest, too.

We’re most interested in your well-reasoned idea. A story with a strong point of view that is backed by clear reporting and/or is supported by proven expertise. We don’t care too much about where you’ve been published, where you live, how old you are, and whether you hold an English/journalism degree, let alone went to college. But we do want to know why you are qualified to write this story. And if we don’t know you, we’d like to see some of your work. Links are great. The pitch should outline the story in detail, with specifics. For us, the excitement comes from not just colorful copy, but substance to back it up. A wise turn of phrase is not a reason to flake on details. We’d like to see both—voice and substance. If you are pitching a feature that involves recipe development, or sourcing from chefs, clips of similar work are required.

Upcoming Deadlines

Epiphany Magazine Annual Spring Contest (Deadline February 20 – $400)
Portland Review Call for Submissions (Deadline February 28)
The Matador Review Call for Submissions (Deadline February 28)
The Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing (Deadline February 28 – $10,000)
Summer Literary Seminars / Fence Magazine 2017 Literary Contest (Deadline February 28)
The Lunch Ticket Diana Woods Memorial Award in Creative Nonfiction (Deadline February 28)
Penny Call for Submissions (Deadline March 1)
The Iowa Review Series in Fiction (Deadline March 1) 
Post Road Flash Fiction Contest (Deadline March 1 – $500)
Basalt and Storyfort's First Line Micro-Fiction Contest (Deadline March 2) 
HBOAccess 2017 Writing Fellowship (Applicaton Process March 1-4, 2017)
The Writer's Block Eliza So Finish-Your-Book Fellowship (Deadline March 15)
The Missouri Review 10th Annual Miller Audio Prize (Deadline March 15 – $1000)
The Frankenstein Bicentennial Dare (Deadline March 20 – $10,000 – and July 31)
Booth: A Journal Call for Submissions (Deadline March 31)
The Masters Review Anthology Volume VI (Deadline March 31 – $500)
The Lascaux Review Prize in Flash Fiction (Deadline March 31 – $1000)
Fellowships for Writers Week at Idyllwild Arts (July 3–7, 2017 – Deadline April 17)
DIAGRAM 2017 Chapbook Contest (Deadline April 28 – $1000 plus publication)
LitMag Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15 – $1000 for prose)

Submission Sunday 2.5.17

Our consultants can help you edit your drafts, prepare your submissions, and find places to submit! Contact us for customized submission assistance.

LitMag Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15 – $1000 for prose)

LitMag is a print journal of fiction, poetry and nonfiction, a home for established, emerging and unknown writers. We seek work that moves and amazes us. We are drawn to big minds and large hearts.

The print journal is stitched, a beautiful object. Hold LitMag in your hands and feel and smell its pages. Or download the digital version wherever you are. LitMag Online publishes web exclusives. It’s free.

The Masters Review Anthology Volume VI (Deadline March 31 – $500)

Judge: Roxane Gay. Every year The Masters Review opens submissions to produce our anthology, a collection of ten stories or essays written by the best emerging authors. Our aim is to showcase ten writers who we believe will continue to produce great work. The ten winners are nationally distributed in a printed book with their stories and essays exposed to top agents, editors, and authors across the country. Our third volume was awarded the Silver Medal for Best Short Story Collection through the INDIEFAB Awards in 2015, and our fourth volume was an honorable mention for best anthology.

ROAR Call for Submissions  

We are a magazine of intersectional feminist resistance, committed to inclusivity and concerned with all marginalized people. We promote the understanding that justice for all must be sought as a whole. Through the finest writing, Roar seeks to inspire and challenge, to promote resistance and revolution, and to change hearts and minds.

We want to offer a space for politically engaged art. We are tired. We are weary. We are brokenhearted. We are scared. So, we fight. Roar seeks to shift established systems that benefit the few and offers a provocation of ideas and practical suggestions of what you can do to be in the fight.

We want to keep an eye on the fascism happening in our government and our country and fight it.  Our focuses include:  the treatment of women and girls; gender, race and class justice; justice for all LGBTQQIA+ folkx; justice for people with disabilities; the “Black Lives Matter” movement, police brutality and mass incarceration; the treatment of Native and Indigenous people; immigration, immigrants of all statuses and the plight of refugees; the lives of the economically impoverished; abortion rights, access and funding; the treatment of people with diverse religious traditions, especially Muslim, Jewish and Sikh people; sex and sexuality; climate change and the environment.

American Short(er) Fiction Contest (Deadline February 17 – $1000)

The American Short(er) Fiction Contest is open for submissions. This year we are honored to have Justin Torres as our guest judge. Submit your stories of 1,000 words or fewer now! Issued triannually, American Short Fiction publishes work by emerging and established voices: stories that dive into the wreck, that stretch the reader between recognition and surprise, that conjure a particular world with delicate expertise—stories that take a different way home. Stories published by American Short Fiction are anthologized in Best American Short Stories, Best American Non-Required Reading, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, and elsewhere.

The Lascaux Review Prize in Flash Fiction (Deadline March 31 – $1000)

The Lascaux Review accepts stories, poems, and essays of literary quality. The Lascaux Prize in Flash Fiction is presently open for submissions. Stories may be previously published or unpublished, and simultaneous submissions are accepted. Winner receives $1,000, a bronze medallion, and publication in The Lascaux Review. The winner and all finalists will be published in The 2018 Lascaux Prize Anthology. Maximum story length is 1,000 words. All genres and styles are welcome. All contest participants receive free downloads of the Lascaux Prize anthologies to date.

Waccamaw Call for Submissions (Deadline February 15)

Waccamaw is a graduate student and faculty collaboration featuring contemporary poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Our magazine is published online twice a year, in the fall and spring, from The Athenaeum Press at Coastal Carolina University.

The editors encourage interested authors to read previous issues of Waccamaw before submitting, and should know we are a revolving, evolving crew. We all agree, though, that the diversity of race, culture, class, sexuality, gender identity, philosophy, religion, and experience of our contributors and their worlds is important to us. We want to have an experience when we read. We like experimentation, quirks, texture. We want the belonging of naming while owning nothing there.

The Lunch Ticket Diana Woods Memorial Award in Creative Nonfiction (Deadline February 28)

Lunch Ticket is honored to serve as the host for the Diana Woods Memorial Award in Creative Nonfiction. Author Diana Woods exuded unwavering intellectual curiosity, pursuing and receiving secondary degrees in law, social work, political science, and most recently, creative writing. She received her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in creative writing from Antioch University Los Angeles in 2011 at the age of 70.

The Diana Woods Memorial (DWM) Award in creative nonfiction was established in Diana’s memory by her family, friends, and the Antioch University Los Angeles MFA community. DWM serves as a special opportunity for authors worldwide to be published in the literary journal Lunch Ticket. Launched in the spring of 2012, Lunch Ticket is produced by the Antioch University Los Angeles MFA program, an innovative creative writing graduate program devoted to the education of literary artists, community engagement, and the pursuit of social justice.

Twice each year an author of a work of creative nonfiction will be selected for the DWM award by the Woods family, a member of the AULA MFA faculty in creative nonfiction, and a special guest judge. One author will be chosen for the Summer/Fall issue of Lunch Ticket and one in the Winter/Spring issue. The winning submissions will be published in Lunch Ticket and the recipient will receive $250.

Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowships (Deadline February 15) 

The Vermont Studio Center was founded by artists in 1984. Our location--situated along the banks of the Gihon River in the historic village of Johnson, Vermont--was chosen with the intention of fostering creativity through community, collaboration, and quiet reflection supported by the unspoiled beauty of the northern Green Mountains.

Over the last 30 years, VSC has grown to become the largest international artists' and writers' residency program in the United States. Our mission is to provide studio residencies in an inclusive, international community, honoring creative work as the communication of spirit through form. We offer over 120 fellowships per year to artists and writers of outstanding talent. A fellowship covers the full cost of a VSC residency (some awards also include an additional stipend for travel/lost income/etc). 

Upcoming Deadlines

Ladybox Books Zine Trio Anthology (Deadline February 14)
Pacific Review Call for Submissions (Theme: Errant Mythologies – Deadline February 14)
Waccamaw Call for Submissions (Deadline February 15)
Gigantic Sequins Call for Submissions (Deadline February 15)
Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowships (Deadline February 15) 
American Short(er) Fiction Contest (Deadline February 17 – $1000)
Portland Review Call for Submissions (Deadline February 28)
The Matador Review Call for Submissions (Deadline February 28)
The Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing (Deadline February 28 – $10,000)
Summer Literary Seminars / Fence Magazine 2017 Literary Contest (Deadline February 28)
The Lunch Ticket Diana Woods Memorial Award in Creative Nonfiction (Deadline February 28)
Penny Call for Submissions (Deadline March 1)
The Iowa Review Series in Fiction (Deadline March 1) 
The Frankenstein Bicentennial Dare (Deadline March 20 – $10,000 – and July 31)
Booth: A Journal Call for Submissions (Deadline March 31)
The Masters Review Anthology Volume VI (Deadline March 31 – $500)
The Lascaux Review Prize in Flash Fiction (Deadline March 31 – $1000)
DIAGRAM 2017 Chapbook Contest (Deadline April 28 – $1000 plus publication)
LitMag Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15 – $1000 for prose)

Submission Sunday 1.22.17

Our consultants can help you edit your drafts, prepare your submissions, and find places to submit! Contact us for customized submission assistance.

Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest (Deadline January 31)

Welcome to the 2017 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest! Accepting submissions now through January 31st! The contest is open to all writers who have not yet published a book of fiction. Submissions must be 1,200 words or fewer. Lee K. Abbott, award-winning author of Love is the Crooked Thing, Living After Midnight, Wet Places at Noon, and, most recently, All Things, All at Once: New & Selected Stories will be the final judge. The Kenyon Review will publish the winning short story in the Jan/Feb 2018 issue, and the author will be awarded a scholarship to attend the 2017 Writers Workshop in Gambier, Ohio. 

Summer Literary Seminars / Fence Magazine 2017 Literary Contest (Deadline February 28)

Summer Literary Seminars, in connection with its upcoming programs in Georgia (July 9th-22nd, 2017) and Kenya (December 2017), and in conjunction with our partner, Fence Magazine, is excited to announce its 2017 literary contest.

The first-place winners in poetry and fiction will have the choice of attending, with all expense paid, one of our innovative 2017 programs in Georgia or in Kenya, and will have their work published in Fence Magazine. Each prize includes airfare, tuition, and housing. Second-place winners will receive a full tuition waiver for the program of their choice; third-place winners will receive a 50 percent tuition discount. A number of fellowships additionally will be offered to contest participants based on the quality of their submissions.

The Matador Review Call for Submissions (Deadline February 28)

The Matador Review is an online literature and art quarterly based in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in January of 2016, TMR began as a small team of three. Our purpose: to promote "alternative work" from both art and literature, and to encourage the new-wave of respect for online publications. In a world of print, we celebrate the digital decision.

The Matador Review strives to be a cultural conservationist for the alternative world. In each issue, we offer a selection of work from both emerging and established artists, as well as exclusive interviews and book reviews from creators who are, above all else, provocative. For us, "alternative" is a way of voice and experience. It is the distinction from what is conventional, and it advocates for a progressive attitude. The Matador Review binds itself to these tenets, fostering a habitat for the unfamiliar and unsung.

Gigantic Sequins Call for Submissions (Deadline February 15)

Gigantic Sequins is happy to be your favorite black & white print literary arts journal. GS was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Philadelphia, and currently lives primarily in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, with outposts throughout the US in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, & more. We're known for the quality fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, art, & comics we print as well as our unique design & aesthetic. Our editors like to publish writers & artists who have their hands in various sorts of figurative creative cookie jars, as well as writers & artists at a variety of different stages in their careers. We publish two issues each year, one in the summer and one in the winter. Our all-volunteer staff helps cultivate a space for writing & art that reaches beyond the printed literary arts & into other parts of our neighborhoods. We aim to be the print literary arts journal on your shelf that starts a lasting conversation. 

Ladybox Books Zine Trio Anthology (Deadline February 14)

Looking for stories about:

1.) bands your exes ruined for you 

2.) songs ruined by experiences or people (Like how we all think of that dude getting his ear cut off when we hear Stuck In The Middle With You, but with your own story.)

3.) the loss of your virginity. 

Each topic will be compiled into its own zine/chapbook bursting with all the best stories. This is a Ladybox Books project, so women, LGBTQIA, gender non-binary and POC authors will have priority, but good stories will not be turned away based on whether or not you belong to these groups. There are no tales too short, if it’s basically a tweet, that’s okay. There are obviously some stories that are too long. It’s a zine. Don’t get crazy. 

Fish Publishing Short Memoir Prize (Deadline January 31 – €1,000)

Everyone must have a memoir. Go for it! Write a piece of your life, send it to Fish. This contest is a opportunity to have your memoir published. The judge, novelist and memoir writer Horatio Clare, will select 10 short memoirs to be published in the 2017 Fish Anthology which will be launched during the West Cork Literary Festival, July ’17. Publication in the annual Fish Anthology (Fish Books) has, for many authors, been a stepping-stone to a successful writing career.

Random Sample Call for Submissions 

A random sample is a statistical tool, a method by which elements of a population can be selected and closely examined, an unbiased process that allows a subset to represent the larger community.

This is Random Sample’s measure of success, although we care more about the qualitative than the quantitative. We seek to survey the most promising artistic and literary fields in order to find unique voices of the global nation, the individuals who observe, who feel, who encounter, who think, and, most importantly, who create. The sort of people who have either stumbled on or carefully collected data about human life and society and can report back to the rest of us in a meaningful and emotive way.

Our primary aim as an online literary journal is accessibility and experimentalism: we want work that yields truth, in its many forms, and speaks on behalf of the experience of the body politic. We want the random, the real, the raw, the honest. Overall, we want work that is decidedly and unabashedly human.

National Book Critics Circle Emerging Critics Fellowship (Deadline January 27)

The National Book Critics Circle serves more than 700 member critics, authors, literary bloggers, book publishing personnel, and student members. The National Book Critics Circle awards are given each March and honor the best literature published in the United States. The National Book Critics Circle is launching the NBCC Emerging Critics Fellowship, which aspires to identify, nurture, and support the development of the next generation of book critics. The NBCC can offer passionate critics looking for more experience valuable training and guidance. The NBCC will also help Fellows identify new reviewing opportunities as some outlets shrink and others develop. Members of the NBCC adhere to a Code of Ethics which will be shared with the first class of Emerging Critics.

Upcoming Deadlines

National Book Critics Ciricle Emerging Critics Fellowship (Deadline January 27)
Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest (Deadline January 31)
Nashville Review Call for Submissions (Deadline January 31)
Fish Publishing Short Memoir Prize (Deadline January 31 – €1,000)
The Cambridge University Press Nine Dots Prize (Deadline January 31 – $100,000)
The Crazyhorse Prizes in Fiction, Nonfiction, & Poetry (Deadline January 31 – $2000)
Geist 13th Annual Literal Literary Postcard Story Contest (Deadline February 1 – $500)
Conjunctions:68 Call for Submissions (Inside Out: Architectures of Experience – Deadline February 1)
Ladybox Books Zine Trio Anthology (Deadline February 14)
Pacific Review Call for Submissions (Theme: Errant Mythologies – Deadline February 14)
Gigantic Sequins Call for Submissions (Deadline February 15)
Portland Review Call for Submissions (Deadline February 28)
The Matador Review Call for Submissions (Deadline February 28)
The Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing (Deadline February 28 – $10,000)
Summer Literary Seminars / Fence Magazine 2017 Literary Contest (Deadline February 28)
Penny Call for Submissions (Deadline March 1)
The Iowa Review Series in Fiction (Deadline March 1) 
The Frankenstein Bicentennial Dare (Deadline March 20 – $10,000 – and July 31)
Booth: A Journal Call for Submissions (Deadline March 31)
DIAGRAM 2017 Chapbook Contest (Deadline April 28 – $1000 plus publication)

Submission Sunday 1.8.17

Our consultants can help you edit your drafts, prepare your submissions, and find places to submit! Contact us for customized submission assistance.

Portland Review Call for Submissions (Deadline February 28)

Portland Review has been publishing exceptional local and international writing and art since 1956. The journal is produced by the graduate students in Portland State University’s English Department, and for sixty years Portland Review has promoted the works of emerging writers and artists alongside the works of well-established authors. Past contributors include Brian Doyle, Keith Flynn, Tess Gallagher, Ursula K. Le Guin, Christopher Howell, Richard Hugo, David Ignatow, William Kittredge, Yusef Komunyakaa, Valzhyna Mort, Lance Olsen, Kevin Sampsell, Peter Sears, William Stafford, Primus St. John, Brian Turner, and Lidia Yuknavitch. We are generally looking for unique voices and publish quality writing. We also like to display the multitudes of Portland, especially those whose voices have been pushed out of the literary mainstay.

The Rattle Chapbook Prize (Deadline January 15 – $2000)

We’ve always loved chapbooks for their brevity and intensity. At a few dozen pages, a great chapbook is the perfect reading experience for the 21st century—not too long, not too short: They’re Goldilocks of the poetry world. So we wanted to do for chapbooks what we’ve done for poems with the Rattle Poetry Prize—provide a fair, fun, and friendly way to make the most of what they offer. The idea for this project came from our conversation with Jan Heller Levi, where she described how the Walt Whitman Award launched her career: “It was wonderful, but it was also a bad introduction to the world of poetry publishing. [Fox laughs] As if every publisher is going to send out 5,000 copies and your book will be everywhere.” Every publisher can’t do that—but Rattle can.

Geist 13th Annual Literal Literary Postcard Story Contest (Deadline February 1 – $500)

How it works:

1) Send us a story and a postcard—the relationship can be as strong or as tangential as you like, so long as there is a clear connection between the story and the image.

2) If you’re not sure where to look for a postcard, you can make your own or visit Wikimedia Commons.

3) The story can be fiction or non-fiction; maximum length is 500 words.

Conjunctions:68 Call for Submissions (Inside Out: Architectures of Experience – Deadline February 1)

Conjunctions:68, Inside Out: Architectures of Experience will comprise a narrative map of writings that investigate the vast range of architectures crucial to our being: stories, poems, and essays that center around a meaningful, pivotal architectural structure or space. Architectures may range from mansions, shanties, trailers, and high-rise flats to cliff dwellings, hotels and motels, hospitals and retirement communities, dorms, train stations, tents, deer stands, pillow forts, dollhouses, dioramas, scale models, beehives, birds’ nests, anthills, caves, film sets, cages, monasteries, sewer tunnels, and more. We accept short- and long-form fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. We do not accept academic essays or publish book reviews. 

Hazlitt Call for Submissions

Hazlitt accepts original journalism, investigative features, international reporting, profiles, essays (personal, literary and illustrated), comics, cultural criticism, humour and fiction pitches. If there’s one unifying trait among the best Hazlitt pieces, it’s that their writers are clearly passionate about them—what’s the story you’ve always wanted to tell, that only you can? 

It’s helpful for us if you can include a proposed word count. In addition, we’re always looking for pitches for these three sections:

Hazlitt Firsts: Reviews of experiencing generally mundane things for the very first time as adults. Low intensity, but at best pretty funny and possibly revealing—finally interacting with firmly established pieces of culture/the world at large. 500-1000 words. 

Close Reads: The Close Read is a careful look at a component part of a thing we love—a single song, a chapter, a scene, an ingredient—often with some helpful commentary from the creators themselves. Here’s a great example from Bethlehem Shoals. 

Indefensible: A short humorous essay defending an opinion or theory that is somewhat ridiculous.

Penny Call for Submissions (Deadline March 1)

Penny is the zine of experiments in illustrated prose, published by Sixpenny & Co. We aim to be a thoughtful, accessible and collaborative literary magazine. Engagement with our readers and contributors is vital to our purpose! We are looking for prose poetry, creative nonfiction, or fiction between 500 and 2500 words. All prose will be illustrated by an illustrator of our choice prior to publishing.

The Crazyhorse Prizes in Fiction, Nonfiction, & Poetry (Deadline January 31 – $2000)

From January 1st to January 31st, submit short stories and essays of up to 25 pages or a set of 1-3 poems. Winners in each genre will receive $2,000 and publication.

This Year’s Judges:
Justin Torres, Fiction
Ada Limón, Poetry
Robin Hemley, Nonfiction

Crazyhorse has been publishing the best established and emerging writers for over 50 years. The work we’ve published has recently been reprinted in Best American Short Stories, Best American Poetry,  Best New Poets, Best American Experimental Writing, and The Pushcart Prize, among other places.

The Frankenstein Bicentennial Dare (Deadline March 20 – $10,000 – and July 31)

1) Creative Nonfiction magazine is daring writers to write original and true stories that explore humans’ efforts to control and redirect nature, the evolving relationships between humanity and science/technology, and contemporary interpretations of monstrosity.

Essays must be vivid and dramatic; they should combine a strong and compelling narrative with an informative or reflective element and reach beyond a strictly personal experience for some universal or deeper meaning. We’re open to a broad range of interpretations of the “Frankenstein” theme, with the understanding that all works submitted must tell true stories and be factually accurate. Above all, we’re looking for well-written prose, rich with detail and a distinctive voice.

Creative Nonfiction editors and a judge (to be announced) will award $10,000 and publication for Best Essay and two $2,500 prizes and publication for runners-up. All essays submitted will be considered for publication in the winter 2018 issue of the magazine.

2) Frankenstein is a classic of Gothic literature – a gripping, tragic story about Victor Frankenstein’s failure to accept responsibility for the consequences of bringing new life into the world. In this dare, we’re challenging you to write a scary story that explores the relationship between creators and the “monsters” they create.

Almost anything that we create can become monstrous: a misinterpreted piece of architecture; a song whose meaning has been misappropriated; a big, but misunderstood idea; or, of course, an actual creature. And in Frankenstein, Shelley teaches us that monstrous does not always mean evil – in fact, creators can prove to be more destructive and inhuman than the things they bring into being

Tell us your story in 1,000 – 1,800 words on Medium.com and use the hashtag #Frankenstein200. Read other #Frankenstein200 stories, and use the recommend button at the bottom of each post for the stories you like. Winners in the short fiction contest will receive personal feedback from Hugo and Sturgeon Award-winning science fiction and fantasy author Elizabeth Bear, as well as a curated selection of classic and contemporary science fiction books and  Frankenstein goodies, courtesy of the NaNoWriMo team.

Upcoming Deadlines

SAND Call for Submissions (Deadline January 15)
The Rattle Chapbook Prize (Deadline January 15 – $2000)
The Masters Review Short Story Award for New Writers (Deadline January 15 – $2000)
Nashville Review Call for Submissions (Deadline January 31)
The Cambridge University Press Nine Dots Prize (Deadline January 31 – $100,000)
The Crazyhorse Prizes in Fiction, Nonfiction, & Poetry (Deadline January 31 – $2000)
Geist 13th Annual Literal Literary Postcard Story Contest (Deadline February 1 – $500)
Conjunctions:68 Call for Submissions (Inside Out: Architectures of Experience – Deadline February 1)
Pacific Review Call for Submissions (Theme: Errant Mythologies – Deadline February 14)
Portland Review Call for Submissions (Deadline February 28)
The Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing (Deadline February 28 – $10,000)
Penny Call for Submissions (Deadline March 1)
The Iowa Review Series in Fiction (Deadline March 1) 
The Frankenstein Bicentennial Dare (Deadline March 20 – $10,000 – and July 31)
Booth: A Journal Call for Submissions (Deadline March 31)
DIAGRAM 2017 Chapbook Contest (Deadline April 28 – $1000 plus publication)

Submission Sunday 12.11.16

We will be on break for a little while, but we'll return in 2017 with more submission inspiration! Happy holidays!

The Masters Review Short Story Award for New Writers (Deadline January 15 – $2000)

The Masters Review is an online and in print publication celebrating new and emerging writers. We are on the lookout for the best new talent with hopes of publishing stories from writers who will continue to produce great work. Because of the popularity of our Short Story Award this summer and because the agents we work with were eager to see more, we are hosting a winter award. The winning story will be awarded $2000 and publication online. Second and third place stories will be awarded publication and $200 and $100 respectively. All winners and honorable mentions will receive agency review by: Amy Williams of The Williams Agency, Victoria Marini from Irene Goodman, and Laura Biagi from Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, Inc. We want you to succeed, and we want your writing to be read. It’s been our mission to support emerging writers since day one.

SAND Call for Submissions (Deadline January 15)

SAND is an international literary journal based in Berlin that publishes two print issues per year. Our contributors come from all over the world and include established and emerging writers, poets, artists, and translators. We look for work that is fresh, well written, accessible, and diverse, as we take pride in producing a beautiful journal that can be enjoyed by a wide, multi-lingual audience.  We’re particularly interested in writing from perspectives that are generally underserved in literature, including work by women, people of color, people from the LGBTQ community, and people from the wider international writing community. We’re always excited about new submissions, so don't be shy; send us your best work.

Bellevue Literary Review Call for Submissions (Theme: Family – Deadline January 1)

In Fall 2017, the Bellevue Literary Review will publish a special theme issue, seeking high-caliber poetry, fiction, and nonfiction that explore the concept of family—the primary latticework and laboratory of human nature. Family can be defined in many ways, depending on the perspective. From a literary standpoint, it might be considered as the unbalanced and unruly interplay of nature and nurture that gives rise to unique character and voice. This is why most protagonists in literature—and most of us, in the “nonfiction” of our lives—are defined within complex family structures. Illness can rattle the struts of a family unit, often irrevocably. Most families, of course, do not break completely apart because of illness, but there is no doubt that illness in one member can have profound, often permanent, effects on the nature of the family structure. By turning a creative lens to these dynamics, we hope to produce a collection of works that paints a picture—however complicated—of the frustrations, hopes, and connections that define a family.

The Great American Literary Magazine Call for Submissions

The Great American Literary Magazine is a national literary magazine based out of Southern California's Inland Empire. We publish four online issues per year and read submissions on a rolling basis.

In an area this diverse, we are looking for writing that defines what it really means to live and to write in this place so riddled with contradictions and misunderstandings. We are looking for writing that is controversial, unique, and every day—no matter how devastating this may be.  

Nashville Review Call for Submissions (Deadline January 31)

Nashville Review was founded with two guiding principles: that our venue would be inclusive of all forms of storytelling, and that it would be both free and available online to anyone who wished to enjoy it. NR seeks to feature art not traditionally recognized as literature—comics, film, music, visual art, creative nonfiction, dance, oral storytelling and other performance arts—alongside the more traditional forms of fiction and poetry. We publish three issues annually: on the 1st of April, August, and December.

 Nashville Review seeks to publish the best work we can get our hands on, period. From expansive to minimalist, narrative to lyric, epiphanic to subtle—if it’s a moving work of art, we want it. We hope to provide a venue for both distinguished and emerging artists. Most importantly, thank you for giving us a chance to read your work. We appreciate it.

Atticus Review Call for Submissions (Theme: Life in the Age of Trump)

When Colson Whitehead won the National Book Award for The Underground Railroad, just a week after the shock of the 2016 Presidential Election, he encouraged others to "make art, and fight the power."

Many writers have found themselves in a fog of sadness, despair, and anger. It can be difficult to sit at a desk and get back to the act of writing in the midst of chaos and uncertainty. But now is when the transformative power of poetry, art, and storytelling is needed more than ever.

We at Atticus Review believe in the power of the written word. We believe in creating during a time of destruction. We believe in resistance and radical hope. And we believe in providing a venue for voices to be heard. This is why we are putting out a call for nonfiction that responds to “Life in the Age of Trump.”

We are interested in reading personal reflections and stories on the election of this populist demagogue, a man who has made and continues to make racist and sexist remarks, to the office of US President. Has the election made you see your country, your community, your friends and family differently? Do you plan to respond to this situation in your own life? If so, how? We would also be interested in researched historical pieces that might shed light on this current moment in time for the United States.

Columbia Journal Winter Contest (Deadline December 12 – $500)

Columbia Journal was founded in 1977 by students in the Columbia University School of the Arts Graduate Writing program. Since then, our student production and editorial staff has been publishing the very best in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual art. Today, Columbia Journal publishes both in print and online, and represents the meeting of these two wings. The annual print edition, published in Spring, is a combination of solicited work and the very best of the submissions we’ve received, including the winners of our annual contest, all furnished in a beautifully crafted edition. Online, you’ll find work that is in flux, pieces on the cusp of change, that are changing, that aim to change us. We showcase poetry, fiction, nonfiction, translations, art, film, and music — work that is broadening the horizons of art, straining against the limits, and ultimately unveiling human experience in new and profound ways.

We are accepting submissions for our 2016 Winter Contest from October 3rd at 12AM EST until December 12th at 12PM EST. The winners in each category—fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—will receive cash prizes of $500 and have their winning works published in the print edition of the journal, which comes out in the spring. Judges: Roxane Gay, Eula Biss, and Mary Ruefle.

North American Review Call for Submissions (Theme: Gas Station Pulp – Deadline January 1)

The North American Review is the oldest literary magazine in America (founded in 1815) and one of the most respected. We like stories that start quickly and have a strong narrative arc. Poems that are passionate about subject, language, and image are welcome, whether they are traditional or experimental, whether in formal or free verse (closed or open form). Nonfiction should combine art and fact with the finest writing. 

From the editor, "I suspect that there are many writers of literary fiction who read mystery/hardboiled novels and have a work of such savage art in them. We seek to create a venue for that market. Our plan is to have a reading period of thirty days in December. We’ll ask for the first two chapters or up to fifty pages of your crime noir. I like shorter novels (60,000–75,000 words). If we like what we read, we’ll ask for the rest of your book. And from all of our finalists we will select one crime novel to publish the following year. Depending on the level of interest, we plan to publish a crime noir a year under the Gas Station Pulp banner.

Upcoming Deadlines

Columbia Journal Winter Contest (Deadline December 12 – $500)
Creative Nonfiction Call for Submissions (Theme: The Dialogue Between Science and Religion – Deadline December 12 – $10,000)
The Indianola Review Call for Submissions (Deadline December 15)
Synaesthesia Magazine Call for Submissions (Theme: Body & Sex – Deadline December 19)
Tampa Review Danahy Fiction Prize (Deadline December 31 – $1000)
New Orleans Review Call for Submissions (Theme: The African Literary Hustle – Deadline December 31)
Bellevue Literary Review Call for Submissions (Theme: Family – Deadline January 1)
North American Review Call for Submissions (Theme: Gas Station Pulp – Deadline January 1)
SAND Call for Submissions (Deadline January 15)
The Masters Review Short Story Award for New Writers (Deadline January 15 – $2000)
Nashville Review Call for Submissions (Deadline January 31)
The Cambridge University Press Nine Dots Prize (Deadline January 31 – $100,000)
Pacific Review Call for Submissions (Theme: Errant Mythologies – Deadline February 14)
The Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing (Deadline February 28 – $10,000)
The Iowa Review Series in Fiction (Deadline March 1) 
Booth: A Journal Call for Submissions (Deadline March 31)
DIAGRAM 2017 Chapbook Contest (Deadline April 28 – $1000 plus publication)

Submission Sunday 11.20.16

Our consultants can help you edit your drafts, prepare your submissions, and find places to submit! Contact us for customized submission assistance.

Cosmonauts Avenue Poetry Prize (Deadline November 25 – $500)

Cosmonauts Avenue is thrilled to announce that our 2nd annual Poetry Prize is now open for submissions! Our judge is the one and only Eileen Myles! PLUS this contest is adding prizes for second and third place because your submissions fill us with joy. The winner will receive $500, second place $150, and third place $50. All three will be published in an upcoming issue of Cosmonauts Avenue.

Cosmonauts Avenue is an online monthly literary magazine. We publish fiction, poetry, nonfiction, interviews, and more, from writers around the world, in English and in translation. Submissions are free and always will be. This is one way we hope to remain accessible to all writers, whether new or emerging or established. We are committed to providing a platform for folks who are marginalized in the literary community, including but not limited to people of color, ciswomen, trans men and women, nonbinary people, members of the LGBQA community, and differently abled people. We want to elevate underrepresented voices and include a wide range of identities and experiences. We want work that pays careful attention to craft while remaining urgent and surprising. As Beyoncé might say, we want your most flawless work. We can’t wait to read it. We believe in you.

SUBLEVEL Call for Submissions (Issue #1: Contagion – Deadline December 1)

SUBLEVEL is an online literary magazine devoted to the nexus of literature, poetics, art, criticism, philosophy, culture, and politics. SUBLEVEL inherits and reflects the dynamism of contemporary Los Angeles as a hub of literature, art, and activism, while also stretching beyond our locality. Based in the CalArts MFA Creative Writing Program, an innovative and interdisciplinary environment dedicated to the experimental impulse in writing and thinking, SUBLEVEL is a literary publication immersed in the world of art without being in service to it. We make no hard distinctions between creative and critical enterprise, but rather celebrate writing of any kind that we find stimulating, timely, or otherwise compelling. We will publish original essays, interviews, roundtables, and other features online; there will also be an annual print component. In time SUBLEVEL will expand in ways we can only begin to imagine.

ISSUE #1—CONTAGION: Contagion is most commonly associated with the spread of disease, poison, corruption, harmful practices or ideas, but its Latin root - con- (together) with + tangere (touch) - opens the term in a slightly different direction: co-touching, touching together. Thus: emotional contagion, behavioral contagion, financial contagion, sacred contagion, hysterical contagion, "contagion theory" (the hypnotic effects of crowds), contagion of ideas, contagion of identity. We are thinking about xenophobic fears re: contagion, we are thinking about contagious political sentiment, of both the brutal and hopeful variety. We are thinking about Édouard Glissant's theories of contamination and hybridity. We are thinking about proximity and intimacy. We are thinking about how contagion defies borders, about the virtual and physical aspects of "going viral," about how aesthetic, political, cultural, and spiritual ideas spread, about shared mind and body. We want to think contagion with you.

Tin House PLOTTO: THE MASTER CONTEST (Final Week! Deadline Monday, November 21)

Every Wednesday for five weeks, we post a prompt from William Wallace Cook’s classic how-to manual Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots. Simply use this prompt to write your own 500-word (or less) story. Stories must be submitted by Monday, November 21 at 5:00pm PST. Whether you’ve written a Plotto story every week or this is your first submission, we can’t wait to read what you send our way.

Weekly winners will be published on tinhouse.com, read their stories on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s State of Wonder, and receive the new paperback edition of Plotto. After this final week, Grand Prize Judge Paul Collins—NPR’s “Literary Detective”—will crown one winner the Plotto Writer-in-Residence. The Plotto Writer-in-Residence will be awarded a long weekend writer’s retreat at the Tin House studio in Portland, travel expenses paid.

Funhouse Magazine Call for Submissions 

Funhouse is a new magazine of writing, illustrations and comics based in East London. We want to make reading fun again and to bring writers and illustrators together. We’re here for those who feel like outsiders or those who feel their work is too strange for other magazines. The first issue features transformations, disappearances, castrations, punched faces, body parts and rabies. We’re interested in diseases, medical journals, paragraphs, genitalia, computer games, cities and dirty comics. 

The Rush Call for Submissions (Deadline December 1)

The Rush is a literary magazine edited by the graduate students at Mount Saint Mary's University in Los Angeles. We seek high-energy pieces that reflect the rush of life. We're delighted to be able to pay writers. The Rush reads submissions of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and visual art/poetics through Submittable. We respond to all submissions and aim to respond within ninety days. Please feel free to query us if, after that time, you have not received a response. No submissions depicting graphic, gratuitous sex or violence, please. 

Creative Nonfiction Call for Submissions (Theme: The Dialogue Between Science and Religion – Deadline December 12 – $10,000)

Science and religion, despite their rich, interwoven history, are too often portrayed as opposites in nearly every way. As part of a larger effort to facilitate dialogue between these two ways of knowing the world, Creative Nonfiction and Issues in Science and Technologyare seeking original narratives illustrating and exploring the relationships, tensions, and harmonies between science and religion—the ways these two forces productively challenge each other as well as the ways in which they can work together and strengthen one another. We welcome personal stories of scientists, religious figures, or (just as important) everyday people seeking to explore or reconcile their own spiritual and scientific beliefs.

We also welcome research-based narratives about historical moments in scientific and/or religious discovery; stories by or about contemporary scientists wrestling with the ethical quandaries their work entails; or essays by religious, legal, humanistic, or other experts who have encountered interesting and revealing instances of science-religion dialogue and harmonies. Above all, we are looking for narratives—true stories, rich with scene, character, detail, and a distinctive voice—that provide a nuanced, thoughtful consideration of the complex interplay and unexplored interdependencies and synergies between science and religion.

DIAGRAM 2017 Chapbook Contest (Deadline April 28 – $1000 plus publication)

DIAGRAM is an electronic journal of text and art. As our name indicates, we're interested in representations. In naming. In indicating. In schematics. In the labelling and taxonomy of things. In poems that masquerade as stories; in stories that disguise themselves as indices or obituaries.

The New Michigan Press / DIAGRAM chapbook contest announces our guidelines for 2017. We pick the majority of our chapbook list each year from the ranks of the chapbook contest finalists, so this is the best way to get your work read by our eager readers. What we want: Interesting, lovely unpublished work (unpublished as a whole; individual pieces may be published already of course), prose or poetry or some combination or something between genres, 18-44 manuscript pages (no more than one poem per page if you're sending poems unless they are very, very short).

Pacific Review Call for Submissions (Theme: Errant Mythologies – Deadline February 14)

Pacific Review accepts poems, fiction (short stories, flash fiction and excerpts that stand alone), memoir, creative non-fiction, essays, comics, visual art, photography, documented performance and hybrid. We are currently considering work for our next theme issue: Errant Mythologies. We hope you interpret Errant Mythologies in all the senses of each word, their combinations and beyond. We hope our theme provokes work you wish you could run into for the first time. Offer us the tensions that bind your truths to what you deny, to the lies you love, to what you find undeniable: work that asks, in large or small ways, the big questions: work that is curious about the mystery itself: the errant mythologies that move you, trouble you, call you to experience and imagine them.

We are open to narrative, lyric, experimentation and combinations thereof, to traditional genres and emerging ones such as Afro futurism, Chicanismo, indigipunk, displaced romance, YA of all gender identifications and sexual orientations, as well as, of course, mythic / anti-mythic revolution and renaissance. We love work that comments on the now and how we got here. We love work that imagines alternate pasts, presents and futures. We want to experience the pleasure of being immersed in or awakened by precision, by languor, by challenge. And, we want the struggle of choosing between pieces that make us jealous of you for being their authors. Offer us the pieces you loved making – because they brought you joy, because they brought you ache – the ones that surprised you in your shaping of them, the badass ones that don't give a fuck what you think you're supposed to think, the ones that demand you put your ethics and your favorite aesthetics on sleeve. Go on a journey to find your mythologies or send your mythologies on a wild goose chase. Then, please and thank you, send them to us!

Upcoming Deadlines

Tin House PLOTTO: THE MASTER CONTEST (Final Week! Deadline Monday, November 21)
Cosmonauts Avenue Poetry Prize (Deadline November 25 – $500)
Arcadia Press 2016 Chapbook Contest (Deadline November 30 – $1000)
Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival 2016-17 Fiction Contest (Deadline November 30 – $1500)
The Rush Call for Submissions (Deadline December 1)
Angels Flight • literary west Call for Submissions (Deadline December 1)
SUBLEVEL Call for Submissions (Issue #1: Contagion – Deadline December 1)
Stanford University Wallace Stegner Fellowship (Deadline December 1 – $26,000 per year)
December Magazine 2017 Jeff Marks Memorial Poetry Prize (Deadline December 1 – $1500)
The Fiddlehead 26th Annual Literary Competition (Deadline December 1 – $2000 for best story and poem)
Creative Nonfiction Call for Submissions (Theme: The Dialogue Between Science and Religion – Deadline December 12 – $10,000)
The Indianola Review Call for Submissions (Deadline December 15)
Synaesthesia Magazine Call for Submissions (Theme: Body & Sex – Deadline December 19)
Tampa Review Danahy Fiction Prize (Deadline December 31 – $1000)
New Orleans Review Call for Submissions (Theme: The African Literary Hustle – Deadline December 31)
The Cambridge University Press Nine Dots Prize (Deadline January 31 – $100,000)
Pacific Review Call for Submissions (Theme: Errant Mythologies – Deadline February 14)
The Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing (Deadline February 28 – $10,000)
The Iowa Review Series in Fiction (Deadline March 1) 
Booth: A Journal Call for Submissions (Deadline March 31)
DIAGRAM 2017 Chapbook Contest (Deadline April 28 – $1000 plus publication)

Submission Sunday 11.6.16

Our consultants can help you edit your drafts, prepare your submissions, and find places to submit! Contact us for customized submission assistance.

Stanford University Wallace Stegner Fellowship (Deadline December 1 – $26,000 per year)

Unique among writing programs, Stanford offers ten two-year fellowships each year, five in fiction and five in poetry. All the fellows in each genre convene weekly in a 3-hour workshop with faculty. Fellows are regarded as working artists, intent upon practicing and perfecting their craft. The only requirements are workshop attendance and writing. The program offers no degree.

In awarding fellowships, we consider the quality of the candidate’s creative work, potential for growth and ability to contribute to and profit from our writing workshops. The Stanford Creative Writing Program’s students are diverse in style and experience, with talent and seriousness the true common denominators.

Fellowships include a living stipend of $26,000 per year. In addition, fellows’ tuition and health insurance are paid for by the Creative Writing Program. The Stegner Fellowship is a full-time academic commitment, and is not intended to be pursued concurrently with another degree program. Fellows must live close enough to Stanford to be able to attend workshops, readings, and events.

Palooka Call for Submissions 

Palooka is an international nonprofit literary magazine and has published writers, artists, and photographers from the United States, Canada, India, United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Spain, Israel, Finland, and Austria. We publish unique fiction, poetry, nonfiction, artwork, photography, graphic narratives, comic strips, and offer print and electronic versions of the magazine. We have eclectic interests and are open to many voices, forms, and styles. 

The Cambridge University Press Nine Dots Prize (Deadline January 31 – $100,000)

The Nine Dots Prize seeks to reward original thinking in response to contemporary societal issues. Each Prize cycle lasts two years, with a new question being announced every other October. This year's question:

Are digital technologies making politics impossible?

The Board will award the Prize to the entry that in their view best responds to the set question. Responses can critique, agree or disagree with, or reject the premise of the question set, but they must engage with it fully and insightfully. The Board will be looking for originality of the ideas and arguments put forward, the ways in which the ideas are communicated and the conclusions or recommendations that the author comes to. The US$100,000 is payable in three stages: on award of the Prize; on delivery of the manuscript; and on publication of the book.

Booth: A Journal Call for Submissions (Deadline March 31)

Booth publishes one new piece or author every Friday, square on our home page. Also, we publish two print issues yearly, usually in winter and summer. Booth was established in 2009. Our staff is comprised of MFA faculty and students in the Butler University graduate writing program. 

Synaesthesia Magazine Call for Submissions (Theme: Body & Sex – Deadline December 19)

Synaesthesia is an online literary and arts magazine. We publish two issues twice a year, and aim to engage writers and artists in an exploration of the senses. We love poetry, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, photography and art. We set a theme for each issue, and encourage a multi-sensory response to each theme.

BODY&SEX is dotted legs on the beach. It's the first time you shave and the last man you kiss. BODY&SEX is skin: the way it smells, tastes, the way it likes to be touched. It's girl on girl, boy on boy. It's sinews and blood and bones. It's cartilage and movement. It's crossing your arms, uncrossing your legs. It's the tendons in your neck tightening when you're alone; the pulse in your palm when you're together. BODY&SEX is on top, against – it's keeping the lights on. It's how you move when you sleep. It's muscle and heat and walking and talking and sighing and moaning. BODY&SEX is the stray hairs in your razer blade, blood in your knickers. Handprints on the shower door. It's waking up alone, stretching.

Knee-Jerk Magazine Call for Submissions 

Think of Knee-Jerk as a dinner table filled with friends and family. We’re all sharing ideas, stories, laughter, and a whole lot of corndogs. The table is round, everyone is facing each other; everyone is enjoying the company. Next to the published writer is an emerging writer, a person who’s searching for a home for his or her first story. Also at the table, the casual reader of literature. And the guy who’s read Infinite Jest twice.

We invite you to pull up a chair and contribute to the ongoing dialogue. Like any good discussion, we’ll venture beyond that knee-jerk reaction into what [important name] called [quote about venturing beyond knee-jerk reactions]. At Knee-Jerk we hope to evoke conversations that bring everyone a little closer together, that make the literary world a little smaller. And a little bigger.

Angels Flight • literary west Call for Submissions (Deadline December 1)

Our namesake, Angels Flight – the short-tracked, steep-grade funicular that lifted millions of riders up downtown’s once-treacherous hills – may now be grounded, but it stands as a flight of purpose and as a real and emotional connection to the city’s past. Angels Flight • literary west is a new vehicle to explore uncharted stories of Los Angeles and beyond.

As fall turns to a hazy shade of winter, our next issue theme explores how the history of L.A. (past, present and yet to come) provokes change: in our lives, in stories, in imagery and in songs that interweave iconic voices, characters, events and places in Los Angeles and beyond that create our sense of “self” — who we’ve become or who we’re destined to be. This is just a taste of what’s in store for now. Look for more soon! We’re excited to share your work that relates to the theme, expressed through fiction and non-, poetry, photography, art, video, music and more. Submit to us! 

The Iowa Review Series in Fiction (Deadline March 1) 

In collaboration with the University of Iowa Press, The Iowa Review Series in Fiction will publish two innovative novels per year beginning in 2018. The goal of the new Iowa Review imprint is to publish high-quality literary fiction in a wide range of styles and genres. The Series’ advisory board includes Lan Samantha Chang, John Freeman, Amelia Gray, Garth Greenwell, Porochista Khakpour, Rebecca Makkai, Christopher Merrill, and Jayne Anne Phillips.

At this stage, the editors are not soliciting manuscripts, but rather a brief, 300-word description of the novel and an author biography. We will consider all proposals and contact those authors whose work is of interest. We welcome unpublished work by writers at all stages in their careers. TIR invites writers to submit manuscript proposals for the Series in Fiction from November 1, 2016, through March 1, 2017. Established in 1969, the University of Iowa Press is a well-regarded academic and trade publisher. In recent years, its books have been finalists for the National Book Award and the Griffin Poetry Prize; they have also been included in 100 Best Books of the Year by the New York Times and have made the New York Times Bestseller List.

Upcoming Deadlines
 

Lowestoft Chronicle Call for Submissions (Deadline November 15)
The Masters Review Fall Fiction Contest (Deadline November 15 – $2000)
Pleiades Press Robert C. Jones Short Prose Book Contest (Deadline November 15 – $2000)
Arcadia Press 2016 Chapbook Contest (Deadline November 30 – $1000)
Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival 2016-17 Fiction Contest (Deadline November 30 – $1500)
Stanford University Wallace Stegner Fellowship (Deadline December 1 – $26,000 per year)
Angels Flight • literary west Call for Submissions (Deadline December 1)
December Magazine 2017 Jeff Marks Memorial Poetry Prize (Deadline December 1 – $1500)
The Fiddlehead 26th Annual Literary Competition (Deadline December 1 – $2000 for best story and poem)
The Indianola Review Call for Submissions (Deadline December 15)
Synaesthesia Magazine Call for Submissions (Theme: Body & Sex – Deadline December 19)
Tampa Review Danahy Fiction Prize (Deadline December 31 – $1000)
New Orleans Review Call for Submissions (Theme: The African Literary Hustle – Deadline December 31)
The Cambridge University Press Nine Dots Prize (Deadline January 31 – $100,000)
The Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing (Deadline February 28 – $10,000)
The Iowa Review Series in Fiction (Deadline March 1) 
Booth: A Journal Call for Submissions (Deadline March 31)