Submission Sunday 7.27.14

Following the success of our Writers’ Resolution Boot Camp in January, we’re now offering an expanded 13-week online summer program with separate tracks for fiction and memoir writers. Click here for more information.

Two Words For Call for Submissions

Two Words For is an online creative literary and arts publication devoted to fresh, original writing on those who came before. We publish work inspired by sources of inspiration - names in ever-current pastness that force us to create in the shadow of their unforgettable presence.

Two Words For got its start on a train between Utrecht and Amsterdam. A conversation about authors from the past. It became a reality on a computer screen. A conversation about tools from the new media. And it's on these tools that it's designed and developed in Los Angeles and edited in Paris, Amsterdam, and New York.

We ask authors and artists to name the figures that inspired them. But to overcome those names and make something new.

[PANK] Call for Submissions

Founded in 2006, the nonprofit literary arts collective [PANK] – PANK Magazine & Tiny Hardcore Press – fosters access to emerging and experimental poetry and prose, publishing the brightest and most promising writers for the most adventurous readers. To the end of the road, up country, a far shore, to the edges 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], no soft pink hands allowed.

We are open to free magazine submissions in February, March, September, October, and November, unless otherwise noted; “Tip Jar” submissions to the magazine are open year-round. As we now pay all magazine contributors, both online and in print, we encourage you to please consider using our Tip Jar submission category. FYI, all Tip Jar proceeds go to supporting author payments. But please, if you do not wish to use the tip jar, don’t; there are an entire five months out of the year where you don’t have to. And believe it or not, free and tip jar submissions are treated exactly the same during the reading and selection process; we don’t distinguish. So there.

theNewerYork Call for Submissions

We publish experimental short-fiction in print & online. We pair every story with a piece of art. Not highbrow, not lowbrow; we're no-brow. We do not publish poetry or novels. We're excited about the future of books, reading, and writing. Our submissions are 100% blind and open year-round.

Literature has been confined to poetry and short-stories for thousands of years, and novels have been around for less than 400 years. We want narratives that challenge this triumvirate. There are literary gems everywhere, from the disclaimer on a box of crackers to the instructions on your algebra test. In one high-school girl’s blog, buried in thousands of pages of gossip and conjecture, are those three lines that could move you. . . . so theNewerYork is an experiment.

We aim to be experimental, without being obtuse. We want your literary absurdities, your artifacts of stories. We enjoy short but challenging pieces (FIVE PAGES OR LESS); subjects ranging from deeply philosophical to romantic to completely dufus. Short-forms do not offer enough room to bore the reader, this allows the writer to be ridiculous or overly intense. We hope to build a community of writers and artists while amassing an encyclopedia of work that will encourage and promote experimentation with our lovely language.

Poor Yorick: A Journal of Rediscovered Objects Call for Submissions

Poor Yorick: A Journal of Rediscovered Objects brings back into light the skeletons hidden in our cultural closets.  The free online journal welcomes writing and other creative productions about lost objects and images of material culture: sculptures and paintings in the back rooms of museums or in hidden corners of public spaces; murals forgotten in plain view; lost photographic archives and restored films; newly discovered letters or manuscripts; knickknacks in attics; oddities and curiosities in misbegotten sideshows; forgotten stories that remind us of pasts that we cannot afford to forget.

Poor Yorick invites submissions in any and every literary genre and any electronically reproducible visual or audio medium.  In addition to open submissions, the journal’s editorial staff will occasionally identify a particular historical object, collection, exhibit, etc., and call for submissions inspired by the selected artifact or collection.

Salt Hill Journal Call for Submissions

Salt Hill is a literary journal publishing outstanding new fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and art. Previous contributors have included Denise Duhamel, Edie Fake, Mary Gaitskill, Terrance Hayes, H.L. Hix, Etgar Keret, Phil LaMarche, Dorianne Laux, Patrick Lawler, Maurice Manning, Eugene Marten, K. Silem Mohammad, Patricia Smith, Lynne Tillman, Joe Wenderoth among many others. Now over 15 years old, the magazine is published by writers affiliated with the Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University. Salt Hill is funded in part by the College of Arts & Sciences and the Graduate Student Organization of Syracuse University.

Salt Hill publishes poetry, prose, translations, reviews, essays, interviews, and artwork. We read submissions for the magazine between August 1 and April 1 of each year and for the Philip Booth Poetry Prize between May 15 and August 1.

Beetroot Journal Call for Submissions

Beetroot Journal is a bi-annual journal that is an expansion of LitBridge, a resource website for writers. Our team includes writers, poets, essayists, engineers, and scientists who write, read and publish literary work. We believe in the power of literature to change ourselves and others.

We do not publish a specific aesthetic, style or theme. Fiction (short and long), poetry and nonfiction are welcome. There is no required word count. Photos and artwork for issue designs are welcome. Emerging and established writers are encouraged to submit. We publish work that moves us in some manner.

Red Fez Call for Submissions

Red Fez is an artist-run organization determined to publish and promote creative, meaningful and accessible artistic pursuits and collaborations. Our mission is to provide opportunities for writers, artists and musicians to create, promote, publish and profit (in kind, in cash, in notoriety, in backrubs - hey artists will take whatever they can get these days!) from their work; and for readers, art enthusiasts and music fans to discover, connect and support art and artists meaningful and entertaining to them. We believe in accessible art and an accessible artistic community. Red Fez is a melting pot of people interested in creating, sharing and discovering writing, music, art and more.

We obey no genre and take anything from limericks to fantasy to genres yet invented. Our key desires are originality, accessibility and quality. We like work with a point, something to say or some sort of inner majic that gives greater meaning to the pretty words and thrilling plots. That said, we're not really sure what we're looking for until we've seen it, so give us a try.

Tell Us a Story Call for Submissions

Tell Us a Story publishes stories that are true and happened to the author. We publish new writers and seasoned writers, amateurs and professionals, sad stories and happy stories, dead cat stories and best friend stories.

Everyone has a good story: it’s the story you tell when you first meet people or maybe only after you’ve known them a long time. It’s the story you tell when the evening gets quiet, or when everyone’s been drinking, or when there’s a fire and comfortable chairs around. It’s the kind of story that passes the time. Your close friends probably know this story by heart. But that’s because it’s a good story.

We publish one new true story every single Wednesday. Tell us a story.

And a bonus call for opinionated poetry from the LA Times... (Deadline August 11)

Last year, when we asked readers to submit opinion poetry, we were overwhelmed. More than 1,500 poets answered the call, many with multiple entries. The poems we received dealt with every issue of the day, including the war on terror, the economy, the nanny state, student debt and the inability of so many politicians to keep their pants zipped. After reading more than 5,000 poems, we were exhausted. But we were so happy with the end result that we've decided to do it all over again.

So, now's your chance. Are you frustrated with how the president is doing his job? Irked at the Supreme Court's recent spate of rulings? Keen on the new pope? Furious at City Hall? Put it in a poem.

On Sunday, Aug. 31, The Times' Opinion section will run a page of opinionated poetry, and we're inviting submissions. So pick up your pen and register your opinion in the form of a haiku or a sonnet or a limerick. We'll welcome whatever the muse inspires, whether it's rhyming doggerel or blank verse — but this time we'll only read one poem per entrant.

There aren't strict rules, and this isn't a contest. The Opinion editors will select what we consider to be the best poems to showcase. Any subject appropriate for an Op-Ed is fair game for your Op-Poetry — politics, culture, international relations, you name it. But this is the Opinion section, so make sure you're expressing an opinion about something that's happening in the world. Humor is welcome; foul or offensive language is not. And brevity will be greatly appreciated. 

Upcoming Deadlines

Nat. Brut Call for Submissions (First Print Supplement: SALE! – Deadline July 28)
Fence Call for Submissions (Deadline July 31)
Willapa Bay Artist-in-Residence Program (Deadline July 31)
The Scotland Writing Residency (Deadline July 31)
Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award (Deadline July 31 – $1500)
The Los Angeles Review/AROHO Orlando Prizes (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Crazyhorse Crazyshorts! Short-Short Fiction Contest (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Conjunctions:63 Call for Submissions: Speaking Volumes (Deadline July 31)
A Room of Her Own Foundation Clarissa Dalloway Book Prize (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
The Journal of Experimental Fiction 2015 Kenneth Patchen Award (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Slice Magazine Call for Submissions (Deadline August 1)
American Zoetrope Screenwriting Contest (Early Deadline August 1 – $5000)
StoryQuarterly First Annual Essay Contest (Deadline August 1 – $1000)
The Chattahoochee Review Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Skin – Deadline August 1)
The Malahat Review Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize (Deadline August 1 – $1000 CAD)
Gival Press Short Story Award (Deadline August 8 – $1000)
Los Angeles Times Call for Opinionated Poetry (Deadline August 11)
PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship (Deadline August 11)
The Texas Observer 2014 Short Story Contest (Deadline August 11 – $1000)
Indiana Review 2014 Half-K Prize (Deadline August 15 – $1000)
Gigantic Sequins Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15)
The Bombay Gin Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15)
Caitlin Press Call for Anthology Submissions: Travelling Alone (Deadline August 15)
Arcadia Magazine 2014 Fiction and Poetry Chapbook Contests (Deadline August 15 – $1000)
Aesthetica Magazine Creative Writing Award (Deadline August 31 – £500)
Sport Literate 2014 Creative Nonfiction Contest (Deadline August 31 – $500)
Blue Mesa Review Annual Contest (Deadline August 31 – $500)
Geist Tobacco Lit Writing Contest (Deadline September 1 – $500)
Black Warrior Review Tenth Annual Contest (Deadline September 1 – $1000)
Good Housekeeping "All About Love" Writing Contest (Deadline September 1 – $2000)
Evil Women and Mean Girls: Critical Examinations of the Fairer Sex’s Nasty Side in History, Literature, and Popular Culture Call for Chapters (Abstract Deadline September 1)
Fourth Annual Les Figues Press NOS Book Contest (Deadline September 15 – $1000)
The Jentel Artist Residency Program (Banner, WY – Deadline September 15)
Creative Nonfiction Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Waiting – Deadline September 22 – $1000)

Submission Sunday 7.20.14

Following the success of our Writers’ Resolution Boot Camp in January, we’re now offering an expanded 13-week online summer program with separate tracks for fiction and memoir writers. Click here for more information.

Hayden's Ferry Review Call for Submissions (Theme: Chaos – Deadline October 1)

Chaos has many meanings. The ancient Greeks saw Chaos as the dark abyss from which life sprung. Mathematicians use Chaos theory to explain how small decisions can give rise to unexpectedly grave consequences. For parents, Chaos is their child’s bedroom, their busy work schedule. Most of us spend our lives trying to ward off Chaos and keep order. But what happens when we no longer avoid Chaos, and instead embrace it? In Issue 56, Hayden’s Ferry Review will celebrate the unordered, the frenzied, the messy, and the “dark, wasteful, wild.” 

Send us your stories, essays, poems, translations, and art that explore the meaning of Chaos. Maybe you have an essay disrupts the conventions of form, or a story that unravels the turmoil in a character’s life. With Chaos comes its antithesis: order, direction, calm. Capture the chaotic in ways we’ve never imagined. The deadline for this call is October 1st.

The Belleville Park Pages Call for Submissions 

The Pages will always be tangible, affordable and fresh. The Belleville Park Pages is a literary publication produced in Paris and London printing the work of contemporary writers. It is released every two weeks and costs €2/£2. Each issue is hand-folded, hand-stamped and hand-packaged with help of other artists in the Paris community.

We met on May 24th, 2013 and discussed how literature for the current reader needed a shake up. We hope to support the writing and reading communities as they develop in the modern world by connecting the printed word with digital media. Stay in touch to see what we do with the Pages.

Boston Review Aura Estrada Short Story Contest (Deadline October 1 – $1500)

Judge: Ruth Ozeki
Prize: $1,500

The winning author will receive $1,500 and have his or her work published in the July/August 2015 issue of Boston Review. Runners up may also be published. Stories should not exceed 5,000 words and must be previously unpublished.

A flourishing democracy depends on engaged public discussion of ideas that matter. Boston Review—independent and nonprofit—creates that discussion in print and on the Web, on tablets and in books, and at public events, with a range that extends from politics and economics to ethical and religious thought, from philosophy and science to the imaginative exploration of human experience in great fiction and poetry.

Monkeybicycle Call for Submissions

Monkeybicycle is an online literary journal which is updated almost daily. It is also a print journal, publishing one issue per year. Founded in 2002 in Seattle, WA, Monkeybicycle has continued to publish the absolute highest quality in a wide range of literary categories. Twice, works we’ve published were selected for inclusion in the Best American Nonrequired Reading anthologies. In 2007, Monkeybicycle became an imprint of Dzanc Books, a bold and flourishing small press in Ann Arbor, MI.

We love all kinds of things. Whatever you feel like sending to us, we'll gladly look it over, regardless of the subject matter. 

Fourth Annual Les Figues Press NOS Book Contest (Deadline September 15 – $1000)

A prize of $1,000 and publication by Les Figues Press will be given for the winning poetry or prose manuscript. FANNY HOWE will judge. Submit a manuscript of 64-250 pages with a $25.00 entry fee by the deadline, Monday, SEPTEMBER 15, 2014 (submissions open that day until midnight PST). All entrants will receive one copy of a Les Figues title of their choosing (refer to dropdown menu in submissions form for available titles). To browse Les Figues books, see www.lesfigues.com/books.

Eligible submissions include: poetry, novellas, prose poems, innovative novels, anti-novels, short story collections, lyric essays, hybrids, and all forms not otherwise specified. Beginning in 2013, Les Figues editors select an additional manuscript to be published by the press as the NOS Les Figues Editors’ Selection. Please note: The winning manuscript will be published in a design and format reflective of its content. 

Les Figues Press is a nonprofit literary organization and award-winning, independent publisher of poetry, prose, visual art, conceptual writing, and translation. Based in Los Angeles, our mission is to create aesthetic conversations between readers, writers, and artists. Les Figues Press publishes five to seven books a year and favors projects which push the boundaries of genre, form, and general acceptability. We also curate and host literary events, including readings, conversations, performances, and art salons. Les Figues Press embraces a feminist criticality and editorial vision. We are interested in work that is aware of itself as a textual body within a history and culture marked (like physical bodies) by constructs of gender, race, class, and sexuality.

Gigantic Sequins Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15)

Gigantic Sequins is happy to be your favorite black & white print journal, based in Philadelphia with outposts throughout the U.S., such as in Chicago, NYC, and San Francisco. Known for quality writing and visual art as well as unique design and aesthetic, we publish one summer and one winter issue. 

Our editors enjoy publishing writers and artists who have their hands in various sorts of figurative creative cookie jars, and we love to publish writers and artists who are established as well as those just beginning to lend their voice to the larger exosting literary and arts communities.  Our all-volunteer staff helps Gigantic Sequins in cultivating a space for writing and art that reaches beyond purely the literary arts and into other parts of our neighborhoods.  We love what we do. You will too.

The Los Angeles Review Call for Submissions

The Los Angeles Review, 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. 

The Jentel Artist Residency Program (Banner, WY – Deadline September 15)

The Jentel Artist Residency Program offers dedicated individuals a supportive environment in which to further their creative development.  Here artists and writers experience unfettered time to allow for thoughtful reflection and meditation on the creative process in a setting that preserves the agricultural and historical integrity of the land. 

Jentel Artist Residency Program lies in the Lower Piney Creek Valley with spectacular views over scoria topped hills to the majestic Big Horn Mountains. The fertile valley grows abundant hay and alfalfa for cattle. Few houses or signs of human existence dot the two mile stretch of Piney Creek that flows through the property. Many reservoirs provide oases for cattle, wildlife, and humans. The seven separate structures which form the residency village architecturally reflect the landscape and agricultural setting. Log faced cabins on the old Collins' ranch serve as office, reception, conference area and writer studios, while a pole barn houses the visual artists studios. The sweeping lines of the Residency echo the surrounding mountains and hills and provide dynamic spaces and living quarters for the residents.

Upcoming Deadlines

Paste Magazine Summer-Themed Writing Contest (Deadline July 23)
Nat. Brut Call for Submissions (First Print Supplement: SALE! – Deadline July 28)
Fence Call for Submissions (Deadline July 31)
Willapa Bay Artist-in-Residence Program (Deadline July 31)
The Scotland Writing Residency (Deadline July 31)
Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award (Deadline July 31 – $1500)
The Los Angeles Review/AROHO Orlando Prizes (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Crazyhorse Crazyshorts! Short-Short Fiction Contest (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Conjunctions:63 Call for Submissions: Speaking Volumes (Deadline July 31)
A Room of Her Own Foundation Clarissa Dalloway Book Prize (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
The Journal of Experimental Fiction 2015 Kenneth Patchen Award (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Slice Magazine Call for Submissions (Deadline August 1)
American Zoetrope Screenwriting Contest (Early Deadline August 1 – $5000)
StoryQuarterly First Annual Essay Contest (Deadline August 1 – $1000)
The Chattahoochee Review Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Skin – Deadline August 1)
The Malahat Review Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize (Deadline August 1 – $1000 CAD)
Gival Press Short Story Award (Deadline August 8 – $1000)
PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship (Deadline August 11)
The Texas Observer 2014 Short Story Contest (Deadline August 11 – $1000)
Indiana Review 2014 Half-K Prize (Deadline August 15 – $1000)
Gigantic Sequins Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15)
The Bombay Gin Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15)
Caitlin Press Call for Anthology Submissions: Travelling Alone (Deadline August 15)
Arcadia Magazine 2014 Fiction and Poetry Chapbook Contests (Deadline August 15 – $1000)
Aesthetica Magazine Creative Writing Award (Deadline August 31 – £500)
Sport Literate 2014 Creative Nonfiction Contest (Deadline August 31 – $500)
Blue Mesa Review Annual Contest (Deadline August 31 – $500)

Submission Sunday 7.13.14

Following the success of our Writers’ Resolution Boot Camp in January, we’re now offering an expanded 13-week online summer program with separate tracks for fiction and memoir writers. Click here for more information.

The Texas Observer 2014 Short Story Contest (Deadline August 11 – $1000)

The 2014 Texas Observer Short Story Contest is now open for submissions. The winner receives a check for $1,000 and publication in the magazine and online. This year’s guest judge is Elizabeth McCracken, author of the recent story collection Thunderstruck  (Random House) and Fiction Chair at the University of Texas at Austin’s Michener Center for Writers.

What does Elizabeth look for in a short story? “I'll steal a line from the great William Boyd,” she tells us, “who once wrote, ‘The great modern short stories possess a quality of mystery and beguiling resonance about them—a complexity of afterthought—that cannot be pinned down or analysed.’ That's what I want in any short story, that complexity of afterthought: when I finish a short story I want to feel as though my brain has been struck like a gong.”

The Texas Observer writes about issues ignored in the mainstream press. Our goal is to cover stories crucial to the public interest and to provoke dialogue that promotes democratic participation and open government, in pursuit of a vision of Texas where education, justice and material progress are available to all.

Paste Magazine Summer-Themed Writing Contest (Deadline July 23)

Don’t you just love summer? From lounging in the sunshine with a captivating read to buying lemonade from boisterous kids in your neighborhood, summer is a time to pause and relish life’s simple pleasures. We’re so excited about the season at Paste, in fact, that we’ve teamed up with our pals at Biographile to launch a writing contest with the theme “That Summer!”

Think back on a summer that was pivotal in your life, one that remains memorable for being transformative in some way, big or small. Perhaps it was your first summer job, where you were humbled as you entered the working world? Or a vacation with family or friends in which time slowed? Maybe it was a lesson on love, one learned through heartbreak or a kindled relationship?

Whatever your story, we want to read it! Email your non-fiction tale to frannie@pastemagazine.com by July 23rd to enter the contest. A team of editors from both Paste and Biographile will judge the entries, and the winner will be announced on July 30th. In addition to having their story published on Paste and Biographile on July 31st, the winner will receive their choice of an Out of Print t-shirt and a bundle of books curated by Biographile.

Day One Call for Submissions

With so many things competing for your attention in this increasingly digital world, it can be tough to figure out what to read next—especially if you are looking for fresh voices and new perspectives. That’s why we created Day One, a weekly literary journal dedicated to short fiction from debut writers, English translations of stories from around the world, and poetry. Day One showcases just one writer and poet each week, with issues delivered directly to Kindles or Kindle reading apps. Each issue of Day One includes a letter from the editor, as well as occasional bonus content such as playlists, illustrations, or brief interviews with the authors.

In addition to fresh voices, Day One offers unique visuals—we commission the cover art for each issue from emerging artists and illustrators—and each week subscribers can learn more about the artist as well as the genesis of the cover. Day One is looking for original short fiction from debut and emerging writers (who have never before published a full-length novel or story collection) up to 20,000 words and poetry from emerging poets. We offer competitive payment terms and there is no fee to submit. To submit, please email the story or poem as a word document, along with a brief description and author bio, to dayone-submissions@amazon.com.

Caitlin Press Call for Anthology Submissions: Travelling Alone (Deadline August 15)

Caitlin Press is currently seeking submissions by women for the upcoming anthology on travelling alone. Submissions must be non-fiction, and may range from approximately 1000 to 6000 words.

This anthology explores not only the broad range of experiences of women travelling alone but the concept of aloneness. From the thrill of independence to the threat or tragic reality of violence, to reflective essays on one’s role in the world and more, we are interested in submissions from women of diverse backgrounds. We are interested in the humorous, the tragic, the poignant–but submissions should dig deep, going beyond the typical travel narratives found in adventure magazines.

Caitlin Press was established in 1977 by Carolyn Zonailo as a feminist literary press. In the 1980s, Caitlin Press expanded its mandate to that of a BC literary press.

PRISM REVIEW Call for Submissions 

Since 2008, PRISM REVIEW has annually published contemporary poetry and fiction from both national and international authors, choosing the best twenty or so pieces from the thousand-plus submissions we read each year. We also sponsor prizes in fiction and poetry judged by highly respected contemporary writers. Unlike many journals, our staff (save for a faculty advisor/editor) is entirely made up of undergraduate creative writing students here at the University of La Verne — please be impressed by their hard work and excellent taste in literature. Alongside literary works, PRISM REVIEW also publishes interviews and reviews with emerging contemporary authors.

 The 2014 Collagist Prose Chapbook Contest (Deadline July 15 – $250 plus 25 copies)

The Collagist is pleased to announce its 2014 Prose Chapbook Contest, now open for entries. The contest will select a single winner for publication, as well as three finalists. Entries will be accepted in all prose genres, including short stories, flash fiction, novellas, and non-fiction, as well as any combination thereof. Manuscripts should be between 35 and 75 pages in length.

The Collagist is a monthly journal published on the 15th of each month since August 2009. Each issue contains short fiction, poetry, essays, book reviews, and one or more excerpts from novels forthcoming from (mostly) independent presses. By publishing online, The Collagist seeks to provide access to powerful, progressive literature by both new and established writers to an ever-expanding audience.

New Flash Fiction Review Call for Submissions

We are a flash fiction magazine run by writers and teachers of the form. We love flash fiction more than feels sane, and we intend to publish pieces which move us in some inexplicable way. We want to see mighty little worlds in your stories. We want your work to wake us up so we don’t need that fifth cup of coffee.

We are open for submissions now for Issue #2. Submit one flash fiction at a time, 750 word limit. We will not consider pieces which have been previously published in literary journals.  We will not consider material of an explicitly violent or sexual nature. We are not religious fanatics, we just don’t like it. Simultaneous submissions are encouraged.

Gival Press Short Story Award (Deadline August 8 – $1000)

The Gival Press Short Story Award deadline is August 8th. Prize is $1,000.00 for best original short story, not part of a novel, in English. 

Gival Press, LLC, an award-winning independent literary publishing house located in Arlington, Virginia, publishes fiction, non-fiction (essays / educational texts), and poetry. To promote writing, Gival Press sponsors four annual contests for fiction and poetry. Our publications are in English, French, and Spanish. 

We publish the work of authors (poets / writers) from many walks of life who demonstrate quality and whose work has a message, be it philosophical or social.

Upcoming Deadlines

The New Guard Literary Review Machigonne Fiction Contest and Knightville Poetry Contest (Deadline July 14 ­– $1000)
Rattle 2014 Poetry Prize (Deadline July 15 – $5000)
Bard Fiction Prize (Deadline July 15 – $30,000 plus semester appointment)
Heavy Feather Review Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Vacancies – Deadline July 15)
 The 2014 Collagist Prose Chapbook Contest (Deadline July 15 – $250 plus 25 copies)
Paste Magazine Summer-Themed Writing Contest (Deadline July 23)
Nat. Brut Call for Submissions (First Print Supplement: SALE! – Deadline July 28)
Fence Call for Submissions (Deadline July 31)
Willapa Bay Artist-in-Residence Program (Deadline July 31)
The Scotland Writing Residency (Deadline July 31)
Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award (Deadline July 31 – $1500)
The Los Angeles Review/AROHO Orlando Prizes (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Crazyhorse Crazyshorts! Short-Short Fiction Contest (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Conjunctions:63 Call for Submissions: Speaking Volumes (Deadline July 31)
A Room of Her Own Foundation Clarissa Dalloway Book Prize (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
The Journal of Experimental Fiction 2015 Kenneth Patchen Award (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Slice Magazine Call for Submissions (Deadline August 1)
American Zoetrope Screenwriting Contest (Early Deadline August 1 – $5000)
StoryQuarterly First Annual Essay Contest (Deadline August 1 – $1000)
The Chattahoochee Review Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Skin – Deadline August 1)
The Malahat Review Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize (Deadline August 1 – $1000 CAD)
Gival Press Short Story Award (Deadline August 8 – $1000)
PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship (Deadline August 11)
The Texas Observer 2014 Short Story Contest (Deadline August 11 – $1000)
Indiana Review 2014 Half-K Prize (Deadline August 15 – $1000)
The Bombay Gin Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15)
Caitlin Press Call for Anthology Submissions: Travelling Alone (Deadline August 15)
Arcadia Magazine 2014 Fiction and Poetry Chapbook Contests (Deadline August 15 – $1000)
Aesthetica Magazine Creative Writing Award (Deadline August 31 – £500)
Sport Literate 2014 Creative Nonfiction Contest (Deadline August 31 – $500)
Blue Mesa Review Annual Contest (Deadline August 31 – $500)

Submission Sunday 7.6.14

Following the success of our Writers’ Resolution Boot Camp in January, we’re now offering an expanded 13-week online summer program with separate tracks for fiction and memoir writers. Click here for more information.

Good Housekeeping "All About Love" Writing Contest (Deadline September 1 – $2000)

Tell us your tale — a first crush, an old flame, a treasured friend or family member, a passion for a special place… 

Starting June 1, 2014, email your story of 2,500 to 3,000 words and you'll be entered for a chance to win $2,000 and possible publication in a future issue of Good Housekeeping or on goodhousekeeping.com.

Indiana Review 2014 Half-K Prize (Deadline August 15 – $1000)

Now in its thirty-seventh year of publication, Indiana Review is a non-profit literary magazine dedicated to showcasing the talents of emerging and established writers. Our mission is to offer the highest quality writing within a wide aesthetic. As a biannual literary review, IR considers previously unpublished fiction, poetry, essays, visual art, interviews, and reviews. IR is edited and managed by Indiana University graduate students and funded mainly by subscriptions, grants, and partial university support.

Works by contributors to IR have been awarded the Pushcart Prize and reprinted in The Pushcart Prize Anthology: Best of the Small Presses, as well as in the O. Henry Awards, Best American Short Stories, Best American Poetry, and Best New American Voices. In addition, Indiana Review is recognized as one of the top 50 fiction markets by Writer’s Digest and in 1996 was selected as the first place winner of the American Literary Magazine Award.

The winner of our contest will receive $1,000 and publication in Indiana Review. Each piece should be no longer than 500 words, beyond that there are no genre or form restrictions!

Anthropoid Call for Submissions: Inaugural Issue 

The Anthropoid Collective is calling for fiction, poetry, essays and ethnography, and literary/visual outliers, to be submitted toward inclusion in our inaugural issue! We welcome new and established voices, so submit your best work! We cannot wait to read it. 

We are a collective of curated writings and writers focused on the themes of participant observation, personal ethnography, and humans in our unique environs. We love the fundamental business of being humanesque. Issues of identity, culture, belonging or lack, vulnerability, collectivism, the body, ritual–anthropological subjects from a generalist’s view, or, cultural moments from a messy, personal perspective. Tightly snuggled with visuals for each feature, we publish in collected issues and individual articles: ethnography & essays, experiential narratives, fiction & poetry, visuals, conceptual work, and genre-bending, from voices in the literary field, the humanities, and the sciences.

Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award (Deadline July 31 – $1500)

Open to all writers, this category welcomes stories that have not appeared in any print publication. Maximum length: 3,000 words.

Glimmer Train has been discovering, publishing, and paying emerging writers since 1990. A handsome physical triannual (no advertising, ever), each issue presents a literary feast of short fiction!

A Room of Her Own Foundation Clarissa Dalloway Book Prize (Deadline July 31 – $1000)

The $1,000 To the Lighthouse & Clarissa Dalloway Book Prizes are awarded annually to one woman’s  unpublished poetry collection and one woman’s “everything but poetry” manuscript (respectively). Winners of both prizes receive $1000 and publication by Red Hen Press as well as  promotional efforts and coverage of some related travel expenses.

Founded in 2000, A Room of Her Own (AROHO) is the preeminent nonprofit organization working on behalf of women writers today.  AROHO’s mission is to inspire, fund, and champion works of art and literature by women. AROHO has channeled more than 1,000,000 publicly gifted dollars into new awards, fellowships, and life-changing opportunities for women and has inspired thousands of books and works of art by women.

While advancing Virginia Woolf’s belief that “women need money and a room of their own if they are to write,” AROHO also works to cultivate an environment of collective fellowship in which creative women bravely unearth, articulate, and contribute transformational literature and art.

The Fiction Desk Call for Submissions

The Fiction Desk publishes an anthology series dedicated to new short fiction, with volumes published in January, May, and September. We're always looking for new short stories for the Fiction Desk anthologies, and most of the stories we publish are unsolicited submissions. Stories can be from 2,000 to 11,000 words, and should be submitted through our online form.

We began life in 2007 as a short-lived book blog called The Serial Comma, which was relaunched in 2008 as The Fiction Desk, combining editing services with coverage of new books. In 2010, The Fiction Desk stopped offering editing services in order to concentrate on publishing. The blog continues to offer coverage of news and new titles from across the book trade, as well as projects from The Fiction Desk. The Fiction Desk Ltd is a company registered in the UK.

Bombay Gin Literary Journal Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15)

Started in 1974, Bombay Gin is the literary journal of The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics—co-founded by Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman—at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Edited by department faculty, students and staff, Bombay Gin publishes innovative poetry, prose and hybrid texts as well as art, translations and interviews. Emerging from the “Outrider” or left-hand lineage, which operates outside the cultural mainstream, Bombay Gin honors a heritage of powerful scholarship and counter-poetics through the publication of work that challenges the boundaries of language, form, and genre.

Cities are constantly becoming the city they will someday be, perpetually re-imagined; the city shakes with sunlight each morning, unfinished. What is it that shakes the boundaries, the borderlands, the lines and angles of your city? Is it a constant hum of robots or insects; does your city sleep? Does it mutate? Where are you now? Are the architectural or bodily structures of your city reverberating with the histories and reveries of your durational / temporal / phenomenological existence? How has the mode of the music shifted around you? Do the lights flicker, or blur?

Send us your field notes, your guides, your manuals. Send us your resonant flashes that hold what trembles, what revolts. Send us a map of what vibrates. What reverberates. What reforms. Send us your artwork, book reviews, prose, poetry, cross-genre, and cross-disciplinary investigations. We are ready to shake as you shake.

The Scotland Writing Residency (Deadline July 31)

The Scotland Writing Residency is located in Brora, a coastal village in the east of Sutherland in the Highland area of Scotland. The writer resides, for one week during summer or fall, in a furnished and recently renovated, traditional croft cottage, containing three-bedrooms. It enjoys uninterrupted views southwards over the Moray Firth and providing open access to the beaches, hills, burns, lochs and the beautiful unspoiled sandy beaches. It is a perfect base for hill and coastal walks, scenic drives and touring the Northern Highlands.

A short drive will take you to Loch Brora with its superb Pictic sites or up the more rugged Glen Loth to the lookout point on the shoulder of Beinn Dhorain. The area abounds with an interesting array of wildlife including Arctic Terns, Herons, Cormorants, and Otters on the River Brora. Deer abound on the surrounding hills and can be seen near Loch Brora.

The Scotland Writing Residency awards a free one-week stay in the Brora cottage based on a completed application. The residency does not come with a cash prize. Applications for the SWR are chosen by a peer-review committee. To apply, candidates are required to submit all of the following as ONE PDF or Word document by July 31st, and the winner will be notified between August and September:

Upcoming Deadlines

Firewords Quarterly Call for Submissions (Deadline July 11)
Apocalyptic Media in the Millennium: We Dare Not Go Back!—Call for Collection Proposals (Deadline July 12)
The New Guard Literary Review Machigonne Fiction Contest and Knightville Poetry Contest (Deadline July 14 ­– $1000)
Rattle 2014 Poetry Prize (Deadline July 15 – $5000)
Bard Fiction Prize (Deadline July 15 – $30,000 plus semester appointment)
Heavy Feather Review Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Vacancies – Deadline July 15)
Nat. Brut Call for Submissions (First Print Supplement: SALE! – Deadline July 28)
Fence Call for Submissions (Deadline July 31)
Willapa Bay Artist-in-Residence Program (Deadline July 31)
The Scotland Writing Residency (Deadline July 31)
Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award (Deadline July 31 – $1500)
The Los Angeles Review/AROHO Orlando Prizes (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Crazyhorse Crazyshorts! Short-Short Fiction Contest (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Conjunctions:63 Call for Submissions: Speaking Volumes (Deadline July 31)
A Room of Her Own Foundation Clarissa Dalloway Book Prize (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
The Journal of Experimental Fiction 2015 Kenneth Patchen Award (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Slice Magazine Call for Submissions (Deadline August 1)
American Zoetrope Screenwriting Contest (Early Deadline August 1 – $5000)
StoryQuarterly First Annual Essay Contest (Deadline August 1 – $1000)
The Chattahoochee Review Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Skin – Deadline August 1)
The Malahat Review Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize (Deadline August 1– $1000 CAD)
PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship (Deadline August 11)
Indiana Review 2014 Half-K Prize (Deadline August 15 – $1000)
The Bombay Gin Call for Submissions (Deadline August 15)
Arcadia Magazine 2014 Fiction and Poetry Chapbook Contests (Deadline August 15 – $1000)
Aesthetica Magazine Creative Writing Award (Deadline August 31 – £500)
Sport Literate 2014 Creative Nonfiction Contest (Deadline August 31 – $500)
Blue Mesa Review Annual Contest (Deadline August 31 – $500)

Submission Sunday 6.29.14

Following the success of our Writers’ Resolution Boot Camp in January, we’re now offering an expanded 13-week online summer program with separate tracks for fiction and memoir writers. 
Click here for more information.

The Austin Review Call for Submissions

In the parched sprawling landscape of Texas, the imaginative population and natural springs of Austin have made it an oasis in an unlikely state. The Austin Review offers similar respite for the weary literary traveler, wandering the wilds of a seemingly endless landscape of words.

Only publishing nine stories per issue, we have a commitment to quality over quantity. At once progressive and rooted in the current literary culture, The Austin Review's selection of fiction, flash non-fiction, and analysis is a resource for good reading and critical inquiry. The Austin Review invites curiosity, community, and good taste. 

Radiotonic Call for Submissions

RN’s Creative Audio Unit has created two new programs, Radiotonic and Soundproof, to create and broadcast work across a wide spectrum of creative audio with exciting online and cross-platform possibilities. The programs welcome collaborations with radiomakers, writers, artists, performers and musicians, in creating audio work across genres, media and forms. Radiotonic and Soundproof explore storytelling and deep listening through a mix of commissioned work and in-house production, curated works from partners around the world, and occasional samplings from the ABC Archive. 

Works can be any duration and take the form of a series or a one-off program. Please consider what format best suits your story and what length best speaks to the ideas. Your program does not have to fill the whole hour. In fact we encourage pieces that span a range of durations. Please also offer some thoughts about potential online elements of your story/program. Our website can host a variety of multi-media content, so think about photographs, audio-visual slideshows, links to other websites and documents such as stories or essays that will complement the radio piece, etc. If you project has larger cross-platform possibilities, we’d like to hear them.

American Zoetrope Screenwriting Contest (Early Deadline August 1 – $5000)

The 12th Annual American Zoetrope Screenplay Contest is now open! We look forward to reading your work. The winner and ten finalists will be considered for representation by William Morris Endeavor, CAA, The Gersh Agency, Exile Entertainment, ICM, Oasis Media, UTA, The Radmin Company, Prolific Entertainment, Energy Entertainment, and Dontanville/Frattaroli.

Their scripts will be considered for film option and development by leading production companies, including: American Zoetrope, Samuel Goldwyn Films, Fox Searchlight, Sony Pictures Classics, IFC Entertainment, Paramount Classics, Lionsgate, Icon Pictures, Lleju Productions and Films, Second and 10th, Working Title, Dimension Films, Frelaine, Michael London Productions, Hope for Film, Kulture Machine, Number 9 Films, Folo Films, Next Films, Pretty Pictures, Roserock Films, Benderspink, Astrakan Films, Industry Entertainment, Category 5 Entertainment, Nine Yards Entertainment, Anonymous Content, Jim Wedaa Productions, Robert Evans Company, Fortis Films, Jean Doumanian Productions, Agape Media International, FX, and Ziskin Productions.

The contest's aim is to seek out and encourage compelling film narratives, and to introduce the next generation of great screenwriters to today's leading production companies and agencies.

Circus Road Screenplay Contest (Deadline July 1 – $5000)

The team at Circus Road has over twenty years experience in Hollywood.  We have been active in all aspects of filmmaking, from the initial idea to the theatrical release. Circus Road has produced 17 feature films, and has worked with Fox, Sony, Universal, Lionsgate, Magnolia, IFC, Oscilloscope, Phase 4, Drafthouse, Image, Anchor Bay, HBO, Showtime, Starz, Lifetime and Syfy.

We will do all we can to see that the winner makes it to the screen. When you are an undiscovered screenwriter, getting in the door is more difficult than writing your screenplay.  The Circus Road Screenplay Contest wants to bust open that door.  Circus Road has decided to utilize their years of experience in Hollywood producing and distributing movies to find an undiscovered screenplay that deserves to make it to the screen.

Bard Fiction Prize (Deadline July 15 – $30,000 plus semester appointment)

The Bard Fiction Prize is awarded to an emerging, published writer who is an American citizen aged 39 years or younger at the time of application. In addition to the monetary award, the winner receives an appointment as writer in residence at Bard College for one semester, without the expectation that he or she teach traditional courses. The recipient gives at least one public lecture and meets informally with students.

The creation of the Bard Fiction Prize, presented each October, continues Bard’s long-standing position as a center for creative, groundbreaking literary work by both faculty and students. From Saul Bellow, William Gaddis, Mary McCarthy, and Ralph Ellison to John Ashbery, Philip Roth, William Weaver, and Chinua Achebe, Bard’s literature faculty, past and present, represents some of the most important writers of our time. The prize is intended to encourage and support young writers of fiction to pursue their creative goals and provide an opportunity to work in a fertile and intellectual environment. 

Cleaver Magazine Call for Submissions

Cleaver Magazine shares “cutting-edge” artwork and literary work from a mix of established and emerging voices. We were founded in January 2013 and are currently preparing our sixth full-length issue. We publish poetry, short stories, essays, flash prose (500 words or less), visual art, and reviews of poetry books and other small press publications. We publish quarterly, in March, June, September, and December. In each issue we present several emerging writers and at least one emerging visual artist alongside established writers and artists. We see ourselves as facilitators and stewards of the literary and artistic work that we publish.

About our name: “cleave” is a Janus word, also known as an “auto-antonym”, meaning both itself and its opposite. To “cleave” is both to stick tight and to fall away. A cleaver is the most broad-edged and brutally efficient kitchen knife, designed to be swung like a hammer for the most effective channel of force. “Cleave” also means to come together with strong attachment. Our editors have deep ties to the Philadelphia community. We are an international magazine, but maintain a commitment to publish about ⅓ Philadelphia-based writers in each issue.

StoryQuarterly First Annual Essay Contest (Deadline August 1 – $1000)

Founded in 1975, StoryQuarterly has been publishing emerging and established writers for over 30 years. Originally an independent quarterly based in Illinois, its contributors’ work has been selected for inclusion in the annual collections The Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize: The Best of the Small Presses, and The Best American Non-Required Reading. Among the acclaimed writers who have written for the journal are Margaret Atwood, T.C. Boyle, Lydia Davis, Mark Doty, Jhumpa Lahiri, Elizabeth McCracken and Joyce Carol Oates.

Our First Annual Essay Contest is judged by Maggie Nelson, author of Bluets, The Art of Cruelty, and The Argonauts (forthcoming Graywolf Press, 2015). The winner will receive $1000, the first runner-up $500, and the third $250. All three winners will be published in StoryQuarterly 48. Limit: Up to 6250 words, double-spaced.

Apocalyptic Media in the Millennium: We Dare Not Go Back!—Call for Collection Proposals (Deadline July 12)

The apocalypse has often been the narrative and thematic subject of millennial media. We invite essays for a collection that explores the topics/themes/ideas in and socio-cultural implications of apocalyptic media in the millennium (2000-2015). Within this context, the term apocalypse can be interpreted in the broadest sense. We seek essays that critically engage every stage of the apocalypse from initial threat through aftermath and reconstruction. We intend to focus primarily on TV series and theatrical films. Tentatively, the book will include sections about apocalyptic subjects related to The Infected, Natural Disaster, Unnatural Disaster, and Alien Invasion. We anticipate that this collection will include 16-20 essays, and as a working guide, the essays should be 3500-4500 words. Essays must adhere to the most current MLA format.

Submission Guidelines: Please send a 500-word proposal in Word, followed by a short bibliography showing the paper's scholarly and theoretical context. Please also include a short professional description of yourself. We are particularly interested in essays that include analyses of two or more films or single TV series, with special consideration given to television series and other forms of new media. At this stage of the project, no further essays will be accepted on The Walking Dead, Godzilla (2014), Fido, The World’s End, This is the End, Sleepy Hollow (TV), Supernatural (TV), Children of Men, Cloverfield, and Pacific Rim.

Upcoming Deadlines

Dzanc Books Nonfiction Prize (Deadline June 30 – $1500)
Red Hen Press Short Story Award (Deadline June 30 – $1000)
Burnside Review Chapbook Contest (Deadline June 30 – $200)
Black Lawrence Press Open Reading Period (Deadline June 30)
University of Pittsburgh Press Drue Heinz Literature Prize (Deadline June 30)
The Moth Magazine International Short Story Prize (Deadline June 30 – €3000)
Barbara Deming Memorial Fund: Nonfiction & Poetry (Deadline June 30 – $500–$1,500)
Circus Road Screenplay Contest (Deadline July 1 – $5000)
Bellevue Literary Review 2015 Literary Prizes (Deadline July 1 – $1000)
POP Montreal/Matrix Magazine Lit POP 2014 (Deadline July 1 – Trip to POP Montreal)
Firewords Quarterly Call for Submissions (Deadline July 11)
Apocalyptic Media in the Millennium: We Dare Not Go Back!—Call for Collection Proposals (Deadline July 12)
The New Guard Literary Review Machigonne Fiction Contest and Knightville Poetry Contest (Deadline July 14 ­– $1000)
Rattle 2014 Poetry Prize (Deadline July 15 – $5000)
Bard Fiction Prize (Deadline July 15 – $30,000 plus semester appointment)
Heavy Feather Review Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Vacancies – Deadline July 15)
Nat. Brut Call for Submissions (First Print Supplement: SALE! – Deadline July 28)
Fence Call for Submissions (Deadline July 31)
Willapa Bay Artist-in-Residence Program (Deadline July 31)
The Los Angeles Review/AROHO Orlando Prizes (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Crazyhorse Crazyshorts! Short-Short Fiction Contest (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Conjunctions:63 Call for Submissions: Speaking Volumes (Deadline July 31)
The Journal of Experimental Fiction 2015 Kenneth Patchen Award (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Slice Magazine Call for Submissions (Deadline August 1)
American Zoetrope Screenwriting Contest (Early Deadline August 1 – $5000)
StoryQuarterly First Annual Essay Contest (Deadline August 1 – $1000)
The Chattahoochee Review Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Skin – Deadline August 1)
The Malahat Review Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize (Deadline August 1– $1000 CAD)
PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship (Deadline August 11)
Arcadia Magazine 2014 Fiction and Poetry Chapbook Contests (Deadline August 15 – $1000)
Aesthetica Magazine Creative Writing Award (Deadline August 31 – £500)
Sport Literate 2014 Creative Nonfiction Contest (Deadline August 31 – $500)
Blue Mesa Review Annual Contest (Deadline August 31 – $500)

Submission Sunday 6.22.14

Following the success of our Writers’ Resolution Boot Camp in January, we’re now offering an expanded 13-week online summer program with separate tracks for fiction and memoir writers. 
Click here for more information.

University of Pittsburgh Press Drue Heinz Literature Prize (Deadline June 30)

The University of Pittsburgh Press announces the 2015 Drue Heinz Literature Prize for a collection of short fiction. The prize carries a cash award of $15,000 and publication by the University of Pittsburgh Press under its standard contract. The winner will be announced in December or January. The award is open to writers who have published a novel, a book-length collection of fiction, or a minimum of three short stories or novellas in commercial magazines or literary journals of national distribution.

The University of Pittsburgh Press is a scholarly publisher with distinguished books in several academic areas and in poetry and short fiction, as well as books about Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania for general readers, scholars, and students. The Press was founded in 1936 with funding from the A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, the Buhl Foundation, the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, and the University of Pittsburgh.

Our mission is to "extend the reach and reputation of the University through the publication of scholarly, artistic, and educational books that advance learning and knowledge and through the publication of regional books that contribute to an understanding of and are of special benefit to western Pennsylvania and the Upper Ohio Valley region."

Storychord Call for Submissions 

Every other Monday, Storychord features one story + one image + a one-song soundtrack -- each by a different, underexposed artist -- for a collaborative, multi-media storytelling experience. All issues are thoughtfully curated by Sarah Lynn Knowles. 

Writers may submit short fiction (4,000 words maximum) either in the body of an email or as an .rtf attachment to storychord@yahoo.com. Be sure to send a short bio, including any recent or upcoming publication credits and your website link. Photographers & other visual artists may submit links to images/portfolios (no attachments, please) to storychord@yahoo.com. Be sure to send a short bio, including any recent or upcoming gallery/publication credits and your website link. Bands/labels may submit songs (1-2 songs per artist) via Storychord's Soundcloud dropbox. Be sure to include a short bio specifying the artist's location, label (if unsigned, say so), album title/release date, and website.

Travel by the Books: A Literary Travel Journal Call for Submissions

Published semiannually by four literary fanatics, Travel by the Books first saw the light of day in 2009. The site combines our love of great reading and writing with a travel slant: give us a reason to salivate over the setting of a book, a destination frequented by a famous author or poet, a tour focusing on characters or the author of a book, or short fiction based on a book or character inabiting a setting. We want to share your insights, see the world a little differently, and inspire others to read the stuff you love.

Barbara Deming Memorial Fund: Nonfiction & Poetry (Deadline June 30 – $500–$1,500)

Barbara Deming (1917-1984) was a feminist, lesbian, poet, writer and nonviolent activist in the civil rights, anti-war and women’s movements. She founded the Money for Women Fund in 1975 to give financial and moral support to creative women. The Fund makes awards ($500-1,500) twice a year to individual feminist women in the arts whose work focuses upon women.

Money for Women is the oldest ongoing feminist granting agency. After Barbara’s Deming’s death in 1984, we became a memorial fund. While other grant sources have come and gone, our fund is in its third decade. We are still feminist and still willing to take risks. The fund gives encouragement and grants to individual feminists in the arts (writers, and visual artists). The Fund relies on a volunteer Board and judges to collaborate in making awards.

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

Black Warrior Review is named after the river that borders the campus of The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The city, river, and journal derive their names from the sixteenth-century Indian chief Tuscaloosa, whose name comes from two words of Creek or Choctaw origin—tusca (warrior) and lusa (black).

Established in 1974 by graduate students in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Alabama, Black Warrior Review  publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and art by Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners alongside up-and-coming writers. Stories and poems appearing in Black Warrior Review have been reprinted in the Pushcart Prize series, Best American Short Stories, Best American Poetry, New Stories from the South, and other anthologies. Each issue features a chapbook from a nationally known poet.

This year we are honored to have  Richard Siken (Poetry), Lily Hoang (Fiction/Prose), and Kiese Laymon (Non fiction) as our guest judges. Winners in each genre receive a $1,000 prize and publication in BWR 41.2, our Spring/Summer 2015 issue. One runner-up from each genre will receive $100 and finalists will receive notation in that issue and are considered for publication.

Firewords Quarterly Call for Submissions (Deadline July 11)

Firewords was set up by a small group of creatives, frustrated by writing magazines that concentrated on substance over style, or vice versa. Firewords Quarterly aims to have an abundance of both; powerful writing enhanced by bold design—leaving pretension behind.

We believe there should be a better platform for exciting new writers to have their voice heard and remembered. We also think a literary journal should be easy to pick up and dip in and out of; a rich, immersive experience that takes you to another world. This is why, for a long time now, our dream has been to create this magazine.

Issue 2 will be arriving in Summer 2014 and, topically, 'Summer' will also be its theme. However, we would recommend not taking the theme too literally. It is more about the feelings the season represents, and the connotations associated with the word, than the word itself. Remember, it is not mandatory for all the writing to fit in with this theme - it is just a loose framework to give the issue an identity.

The Writing Disorder Call for Submissions

A quarterly literary journal that publishes new works of fiction, poetry, nonfiction and art. We also feature interviews and reviews. The Writing Disorder is published four times a year: new issues are posted in Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.

We seek work of the highest quality, but do not have specific guidelines for style or subject matter. Check our website before submitting for any announcements. Although we look for short stories and poetry, we also publish personal essays and memoirs. Novel excerpts are acceptable, if self-contained. Reviews, nonfiction pieces, humor, comic art, and criticism are also welcome. And we love experimental work. For poetry, please submit five to eight poems. Also, let us know what type of work you are submitting. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell whether a piece is fiction or nonfiction. Thank you for submitting your work. We appreciate it!

Lee & Low/Tu Books New Vision Award (Deadline October 31 – $1000)

Tu Books, the fantasy, science fiction, and mystery imprint of LEE & LOW BOOKS, award-winning publisher of children’s books, is pleased to announce the first annual NEW VISIONS AWARD. The NEW VISIONS AWARD will be given for a middle grade or young adult fantasy, science fiction, or mystery novel by a writer of color. The Award winner receives a cash prize of $1000 and our standard publication contract, including our basic advance and royalties for a first time author. An Honor Award winner will receive a cash prize of $500. 

The contest is open to writers of color who are residents of the United States and who have not previously had a middle grade or young adult novel published. Manuscripts will be accepted now through October 31, 2014. An Honor Award winner will also receive a cash prize of $500.

Upcoming Deadlines

Civil Coping Mechanisms Mainline Competition (June 23 – June 29)
Dzanc Books Nonfiction Prize (Deadline June 30 – $1500)
Red Hen Press Short Story Award (Deadline June 30 – $1000)
Burnside Review Chapbook Contest (Deadline June 30 – $200)
Black Lawrence Press Open Reading Period (Deadline June 30)
University of Pittsburgh Press Drue Heinz Literature Prize (Deadline June 30)
The Moth Magazine International Short Story Prize (Deadline June 30 – €3000)
Barbara Deming Memorial Fund: Nonfiction & Poetry (Deadline June 30 – $500–$1,500)
Bellevue Literary Review 2015 Literary Prizes (Deadline July 1 – $1000)
POP Montreal/Matrix Magazine Lit POP 2014 (Deadline July 1 – Trip to POP Montreal)
Firewords Quarterly Call for Submissions (Deadline July 11)
The New Guard Literary Review Machigonne Fiction Contest and Knightville Poetry Contest (Deadline July 14 ­– $1000)
Rattle 2014 Poetry Prize (Deadline July 15 – $5000)
Heavy Feather Review Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Vacancies – Deadline July 15)
Nat. Brut Call for Submissions (First Print Supplement: SALE! – Deadline July 28)
Fence Call for Submissions (Deadline July 31)
Willapa Bay Artist-in-Residence Program (Deadline July 31)
The Los Angeles Review/AROHO Orlando Prizes (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Crazyhorse Crazyshorts! Short-Short Fiction Contest (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Conjunctions:63 Call for Submissions: Speaking Volumes (Deadline July 31)
The Journal of Experimental Fiction 2015 Kenneth Patchen Award (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Slice Magazine Call for Submissions (Deadline August 1)
The Chattahoochee Review Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Skin – Deadline August 1)
The Malahat Review Constance Rooke Creative Nonfiction Prize (Deadline August 1– $1000 CAD)
PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship (Deadline August 11)
Arcadia Magazine 2014 Fiction and Poetry Chapbook Contests (Deadline August 15 – $1000)
Aesthetica Magazine Creative Writing Award (Deadline August 31 – £500)
Sport Literate 2014 Creative Nonfiction Contest (Deadline August 31 – $500)
Blue Mesa Review Annual Contest (Deadline August 31 – $500)

Submission Sunday 6.15.14

Following the success of our Writers’ Resolution Boot Camp in January, we’re now offering an expanded 13-week online summer program with separate tracks for fiction and memoir writers. Click here for more information. 

The Missouri Review Call for Submissions

The Missouri Review maintains an “open submission” policy and read year round, sifting through approximately 12,000 submissions each year.  New, emerging, and mid-career writers whose work has been published in The Missouri Review have been anthologized over 100 times in Best American Short Stories,Best American Essays, Best American Travel Writing, Best American Poetry, The O. Henry Prize Anthology, and The Pushcart Prize. We are also pleased to be the first to have published the fiction of many emerging writers, including Katie Chase, Nathan Hogan, Jennie Lin, Susan Ford, and Elisabeth Fairchild.

One of the best offers we have is our Submit and Subscribe: submit your unpublished work to us and get a one-year subscription to the digital version of The Missouri Review for just $20, which is over fifteen percent lower than the print subscription. It’s a great opportunity to not only send your work to us but also to get a fantastic deal on four issues of our magazine. You can Submit and Subscribe here and, if you’re still not convinced, you can check out a sample of the digital issue. I hope you’ll find that this is a great way to experience the best new literature there is to offer. Thanks so much for supporting our magazine! We’re looking forward to reading your work!

3:AM Magazine Call for Submissions

I’m extremely honored to be joining 3:AM as a contributing editor. To me, 3:AM has always published cutting-edge work—especially with regard to nonfiction, criticism, reviews, interviews, and those pieces that blur all preexisting lines—and it’s in that same vein that I would love to read work to consider for publication here.

In particular, I am very much interested in nonfiction that falls (roughly) into the following categories:

          —Literature in translation, especially fiction
          —Literary and cultural theory/criticism
          —Poetics; ars poetica; linguistics
          —Interviews with authors and translators
          —Film, especially European cinema past and present
          —Gender and sexuality studies; feminist and queer theories
          —Psychoanalytic and trauma theory and the humanities

Pieces that experiment with the essay form—and even call “form” itself into question—are strongly encouraged, as are more traditional pieces. I am especially eager to consider pieces that are interdisciplinary in scope, as well as those that shed light on writers, art works, artists, etc. that are considered “marginal” or non-canonical.

Please feel free to be in touch with any questions, pitches, or ideas—however tentative.

Cheers,
K. Thomas Kahn

Marginalia Review of Books Call for Proposals

The Marginalia Review of Books is an international, open access review of literature and culture in the nexus of history, theology, and religion. MRB examines, critiques, and illuminates the traditions, institutions, discourses, and practices of religions and their believers. We aim to connect the academic and public worlds by providing an intellectually rich and broadly accessible conversation. We publish every other Tuesday, with some special features appearing at other times.

Marginalia is a Los Angeles Review of Books Channel. LARB Channels are a community of wholly independent, vanguard online magazines specializing in literary criticism, politics, science, the arts and culture, supported by the Los Angeles Review of Books. MRB commissions contributions but the editors are equally interested in hearing from you about those pieces that demand to be written. The editors welcome proposals for book reviews, essays, interviews, and op-eds, but you should first read our notes for contributors before contacting us. 

Civil Coping Mechanisms Mainline Competition (June 23 – June 29)

If you're lost, and it's okay if you are, we're here to help. If you're here because you want to be, we think you are awesome. Amazing. Evidence that there's still a lot of good left in the world. But if you are lost, take a look at our Catalogue. See it? A continuously expanding selection of innovative literature and poetry. The kind of stuff that stays with you. Take a look. Find yourself. No regrets here. We're all coping.

We’re looking for work so conceptually or aesthetically innovative it simply can’t be published anywhere else, fully embracing the surreal, the avant-garde, the postmodern. Work in alternative genres is encouraged. We want literary objects infused with otherness: So new, so different, that they renovate our notion of what literature can be. We accept unsolicited submissions.

During the months of February, June, and September, CCM hosts a week-long competition called Mainline. The contest consists of a rapid review and selection of submitted manuscripts with daily reports delivered across social media. Mainline is not a replacement of standard submissions; rather, it acts as a second, sometimes more immediate, means of submitting to our press.

Blue Mesa Review Annual Contest (Deadline August 31 – $500)

Each year Blue Mesa Review holds a writing contest in Fiction and Poetry. The 2014 judges are Roxane Gay for Fiction and Carmen Giménez Smith for Poetry. 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!

Fence Call for Submissions (Deadline July 31)

Founded in 1998 by Rebecca Wolff, Fence is a biannual journal of poetry, fiction, art, and criticism that has a mission to redefine the terms of accessibility by publishing challenging writing distinguished by idiosyncrasy and intelligence rather than by allegiance with camps, schools, or cliques. It is Fence‘s mission to encourage writing that might otherwise have difficulty being recognized because it doesn’t answer to either the mainstream or to recognizable modes of experimentation. Fence is long-term committed to publishing from the outside and the inside of established communities of writing, seeking always to interrogate, collaborate with, and bedevil other systems that bring new writing to light.

The New Inquiry Call for Submissions

The New Inquiry is a space for discussion that aspires to enrich cultural and public life by putting all available resources—both digital and material—toward the promotion and exploration of ideas.

We welcome short- and long-form pieces from anyone who wants to write. We look for well-written, original posts on ideas, books, art, culture, and more. These posts may contain a fully-formed idea or merely the seed of one; they may be full essays or only a paragraph. We do not accept fiction or poetry.

Red Hen Press Short Story Award (Deadline June 30 – $1000)

Red Hen Press is committed to publishing works of literary excellence, supporting diversity, and promoting literacy in our local schools. We seek a community of readers and writers who are actively engaged in the essential human practice known as literature.

Established in 2001, in celebration of the new century and a new tradition of literature, this award is for an original short story with a maximum of 25 pages. Submission is open to all writers and themes. Award is $1000 and publication of the awarded story by Red Hen Press in The Los Angeles Review. Entry fee is $20 for two stories, 25 page limit per story. Please include your name on the cover sheet only. Send SASE for notification. Entries must be postmarked by June 30.

Upcoming Deadlines

Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowship (Deadline June 15)
DimeStories Call for Submissions (Deadline June 15)
Salamander Magazine Fiction Prize (Deadline June 15 – $1500)
New American Press 2014 Fiction Prize (Deadline June 15 – $1000)
PULP Literature Magpie Poetry Contest (Deadline June 15 – $500)
Southern Poetry Review Guy Owen Award (Deadline June 15 – $1000)
M Literary Residency: Shanghai, China or Bangalore, India (Deadline June 20)
Write-a-House Residency (Deadline June 21)
Civil Coping Mechanisms Mainline Competition (June 23 – June 29)
Dzanc Books Nonfiction Prize (Deadline June 30 – $1500)
Red Hen Press Short Story Award (Deadline June 30 – $1000)
Burnside Review Chapbook Contest (Deadline June 30 – $200)
Black Lawrence Press Open Reading Period (Deadline June 30)
The Moth Magazine International Short Story Prize (Deadline June 30 – €3000)
Bellevue Literary Review 2015 Literary Prizes (Deadline July 1 – $1000)
POP Montreal/Matrix Magazine Lit POP 2014 (Deadline July 1 – Trip to POP Montreal)
The New Guard Literary Review Machigonne Fiction Contest and Knightville Poetry Contest (Deadline July 14 ­– $1000)
Rattle 2014 Poetry Prize (Deadline July 15 – $5000)
Heavy Feather Review Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Vacancies – Deadline July 15)
Nat. Brut Call for Submissions (First Print Supplement: SALE! – Deadline July 28)
Fence Call for Submissions (Deadline July 31)
Willapa Bay Artist-in-Residence Program (Deadline July 31)
The Los Angeles Review/AROHO Orlando Prizes (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Crazyhorse Crazyshorts! Short-Short Fiction Contest (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Conjunctions:63 Call for Submissions: Speaking Volumes (Deadline July 31)
The Journal of Experimental Fiction 2015 Kenneth Patchen Award (Deadline July 31 – $1000)

Submission Sunday 6.8.14

Following the success of our Writers’ Resolution Boot Camp in January, we’re now offering an expanded 13-week online summer program with separate tracks for fiction and memoir writers. Click here for more information. 

Black Lawrence Press Open Reading Period (Deadline June 30)

Black Lawrence Press is an independent publisher of contemporary poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. We also publish the occasional translation from the German and the French. Founded in 2004, Black Lawrence became an imprint of Dzanc Books in 2008. In January 2014, we spread our wings and became an independent company in the state of New York. Our books are distributed nationally through Small Press Distribution to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and various brick and mortar retailers. We also make our titles available through our website and at various conferences and book fairs. Through our annual contests and open reading periods, we seek innovative, electrifying, and thoroughly intoxicating manuscripts that ensnare themselves in our hearts and minds and won’t let go.

Through our annual contests and open reading periods, we seek innovative, electrifying, and thoroughly intoxicating manuscripts that ensnare themselves in our hearts and minds and won’t let go. During our June and November open reading periods, we accept fee-free submissions in the following categories: novel, novella, short story collection (full-length and chapbook), poetry (full-length and chapbook), biography & cultural studies, translation (from the German and the French), and creative nonfiction. 

Write-a-House Residency (Call for Women/Nonfiction Applicants – Deadline June 21)

Write A House, a different kind of writer’s residency program. The Detroit writers and urban activists who founded the organization in 2012 did so with one goal: use vocational training to renovate vacant homes and then give these homes to writers.

The homes are in emerging, active, and diverse neighborhoods. It won’t be Beverly Hills, but maybe that’s okay.We believe writers are out there – perhaps in Cleveland, Denmark, Brooklyn, or maybe out just past Eight Mile, who are interested in becoming a part of Detroit today. Or maybe they just want a home.  We would like to invite them to move in. Even if you already live in Detroit, feel encouraged to apply. We don’t know of another movement like this, but then Detroit is a unique place. Our idea supports literary arts, vocational education, neighborhood stabilization, and the creation of more vibrant cities. Good, right?

Nat. Brut Call for Submissions (First Print Supplement: SALE! – Deadline July 28)

Nat. Brut is an online multimedia art and literary magazine. SALE! is Nat. Brut's first ever print supplement! We're compiling a newsprint publication similar to the coupon supplements you find in your Sunday newspaper. It will be composed entirely of fake advertisements; i.e. vintage ads, newspaper classifieds, coupons, local business phonebook ads, etc. In designing this supplement, we're looking to adhere to a relatively unified aesthetic. As such, fully realized, well-designed ads are certainly welcome, but we encourage writers and artists to submit concepts, product ideas, spot art, and copy that we may design and lay out advertisements for. 

Sport Literate 2014 Creative Nonfiction Contest (Deadline August 31 – $500)

Sport Literate is a literary journal focusing on “honest reflections on life’s leisurely diversions.” A subsidiary of Pint Size Publications, Inc., a nonprofit corporation, Sport Literate was established in 1995 on the 12th floor of Columbia College in Chicago. The first issue was a modest affair, printed at a local copy shop and stapled down the middle. But the idea of considering sport stories as something deeper than journalism, of illuminating the common experience of life beyond the daily grind and elevating it to something literary and thought-provoking, had staying power.

Sport Literate has grown up to be a perfect-bound magazine published yearly and supported by 18 consecutive grants from the Illinois Arts Council. Our issues and authors have garnered awards and recognition in anthologies such as The Best American Sports Writing and The Best American Essays. We are proud to be perhaps the nation’s lone literary magazine examining sports and leisure primarily through the lens of creative nonfiction.

Since its humble genesis, Sport Literate has sought to publish the best writing about how people pass their free time. We read elements of story in all sport; we are less interested in the final score than in figuring out why we play in the first place. Through memories, dialogue recast, and real-life characters rendered as accurately as possible on the page, our poets and writers tell true tales artistically. Our definition of sport is broad, literary excellence is our only criterion, and our loyalties lie with a story unforgettably told.

New Orleans Review Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Science Fiction – Deadline December 31)

As science and technology have turned yesterday’s wild speculations into today’s mundane realities, the genre of science fiction has grown from a pop cultural escape to a bellwether force. Science fiction propels not only our literary imaginations but also our lived lives to logical, inspiring, and sometimes horrifying destinations. As well, the genre is no longer limited to “fiction”—essays, poetry, hybrid texts, and image/text pieces are all fair game.

New Orleans Review is now accepting work for a special science fiction issue that will be published in spring 2015. We are looking for science or speculative fiction in any genre, including short stories, flash fiction, image/text collisions, creative nonfiction, and poetry. Prose submissions should be no longer than 7,500 words. Poetry submissions should be no more than 5 pages (if you are working in long-form or series, you may send up to 15 pages of poetry). No previously published work. Simultaneous submissions are okay.

The Feminist Wire First Annual Poetry Contest (Deadline October 1 – $200)

Submissions are now open for The Feminist Wire’s First Annual Poetry Contest, judged by Evie Shockley. The winner will receive publication in The Feminist Wire and $200. The 1st runner up will receive publication in The Feminist Wire and $100. All submissions will be judged anonymously and considered for publication.

Before submitting, please familiarize yourself with the mission and vision of The Feminist Wire. It may be helpful to look over our previous poetry publications. While you will certainly notice a range of styles, influences, themes, and voices, we believe you will find that the work we are interested in creates space for feminist, radically inclusive, anti-racist, and anti-imperialist ways of thinking, loving, living, and creating in this world. Sometimes we find that in narrative, other times we find that in lyric, and sometimes we find that in experimental forms (to name just a few). We do not have an allegiance to any particular poetic school or movement – we simply want to read your best work!

PULP Literature Magpie Poetry Contest (Deadline June 15 – $500)

In my experience writers are the most supportive and collaborative people on earth. But contests serve a purpose. Not only do they help fund fledgling magazines like ours, and put money into the pockets of deserving authors, they help groom good writers.  What author can resist the inner excitement that comes from the challenge of capturing a prize?  What poet doesn’t both thrill to and loathe the sharp focus that comes from the dual pressure of dreaded deadline and hope of glory?  Such is the deepest desire of all writers:  to be seen fully, their souls naked on a page, and crowned with a laurel wreath.  To be noticed, to be known, is to be validated.

Winning is good. But truth be told, no one else can give a writer that internal validation. I’ve received awards before, and they felt awkward things in my hands. I wanted to hide myself rather than be on a stage. Other people’s compliments and praise never live up to expectations, never satisfy that inner longing we all have to be truly heard. No matter how many prizes we win, I’m not sure that the yearning ever leaves us. I’m not sure I want it to, or else I might stop writing with the same intensity.

Winning a contest is an important feather to tuck in your cap in an occupation that has no promotions, performance bonuses, or yearly raises.  And a cash prize of $500 is nothing to sneeze at either! So please do enter our Magpie poetry contest. (Deadline is June 15th, limited to 500 entries.) Our editors will be reading your poem, gently and with reverence, and we will appreciate the coins you are tossing into our cap.  We are brothers and sisters together, dreaming of the laurel wreaths that hide our fears.

Talking Writing 2014 Prizes for Flash Nonfiction and Writing Advice (Deadline October 1 – $250)

Talking Writing is a nonprofit magazine that supports writers and literature online by encouraging discussion of the writing process.

The Talking Writing Prize is an annual contest that celebrates the diversity online of original, personally driven writing. In this year's Flash Nonfiction category, we're looking for very short, very powerful nonfiction work on any theme—be it creative nonfiction, an essay, or a tiny memoir. The key here is "flash."

The word limit—a maximum of 500 words—is mandatory for this category. Include only the story title (not your name or affiliation) on the first page and in the page headers. Submissions will be judged by Dinty W. Moore and Emily Toth.

Upcoming Deadlines

Prada Journal Second Edition Contest (Deadline June 10 – €5,000)
Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowship (Deadline June 15)
DimeStories Call for Submissions (Deadline June 15)
Salamander Magazine Fiction Prize (Deadline June 15 – $1500)
New American Press 2014 Fiction Prize (Deadline June 15 – $1000)
PULP Literature Magpie Poetry Contest (Deadline June 15 – $500)
Southern Poetry Review Guy Owen Award (Deadline June 15 – $1000)
M Literary Residency: Shanghai, China or Bangalore, India (Deadline June 20)
Write-a-House Residency (Deadline June 21)
Dzanc Books Nonfiction Prize (Deadline June 30 – $1500)
Burnside Review Chapbook Contest (Deadline June 30 – $200)
Black Lawrence Press Open Reading Period (Deadline June 30)
The Moth Magazine International Short Story Prize (Deadline June 30 – €3000)
Bellevue Literary Review 2015 Literary Prizes (Deadline July 1 – $1000)
POP Montreal/Matrix Magazine Lit POP 2014 (Deadline July 1 – Trip to POP Montreal)
The New Guard Literary Review Machigonne Fiction Contest and Knightville Poetry Contest (Deadline July 14 ­– $1000)
Rattle 2014 Poetry Prize (Deadline July 15 – $5000)
Heavy Feather Review Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Vacancies – Deadline July 15)
Nat. Brut Call for Submissions (First Print Supplement: SALE! – Deadline July 28)
Willapa Bay Artist-in-Residence Program (Deadline July 31)
The Los Angeles Review/AROHO Orlando Prizes (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Crazyhorse Crazyshorts! Short-Short Fiction Contest (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Conjunctions:63 Call for Submissions: Speaking Volumes (Deadline July 31)
The Journal of Experimental Fiction 2015 Kenneth Patchen Award (Deadline July 31 – $1000)

Submission Sunday 6.1.14

Following the success of our Writers’ Resolution Boot Camp in January, we’re now offering an expanded 13-week online summer program STARTING TODAY, with separate tracks for fiction and memoir writers. Click here for more information.

Salamander Magazine Fiction Prize (Deadline June 15 – $1500)

Salamander, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit literary organization that publishes a biannual magazine of poetry, fiction, memoir, and works in translation. It was founded by Jennifer Barber in 1992 with the aim of publishing a generation of writers reaching artistic maturity and deserving of a wider audience alongside new work by established writers. In addition to the magazine, Salamander, Inc. sponsors events and readings in the Boston area and in New York. Salamander became affiliated with Suffolk University in the fall of 2005. Its annual fiction contest began in 2010.

Cactus Heart Call for Submissions

Cactus Heart is a quarterly e-magazine, published as a full-color PDF. We also produce two print versions each year, separately from the e-issues. For both electronic and print issues, we acquire first-time publication rights until the journal is published; after publication, rights revert to the author/artist. Payment for publication is a free copy of the issue in which your work appears.

Cactus Heart seeks new and original poetry, fiction, nonfiction, & art/photography. Send us work that is sharp, relentless, coursing with energy and able to thrive in the harshest of places, all while maintaining a vulnerable, succulent interior. Make us swoon.

Southern Poetry Review Guy Owen Award (Deadline June 15 – $1000)

SPR is the second oldest poetry journal in the region, with its origins in Florida and subsequent moves to North Carolina and now Georgia. Continuing the tradition of editorial openness and response to writers that began with Guy Owen in 1958, SPR publishes poems from all over the country as well as from abroad and maintains a worldwide readership. Past issues feature work from Chana Bloch, Billy Collins, Alice Friman, David Hernandez, Andrew Hudgins, Maxine Kumin, Heather McHugh, Sue William Silverman, R. T. Smith, Eric Trethewey, and Cecilia Woloch.

SPR reads submissions year-round and annually sponsors The Guy Owen Prize Contest. The result is a semi-annual literary publication showcasing poems by leading poets as well as those writers we think will become leading poets. We look forward to hearing from you and reading your work. Be sure to check out our news section below for noteworthy updates about our authors, upcoming contests, and awards. And please take some time to browse our archives and enjoy our rich trove of previously published poets.  

Gold Man Review Call for Submissions

Gold Man Review, an annual literary magazine located in Salem, Oregon, is aimed at serving our community of authors and artists. Thanks to enormous support, Gold Man Review has had the privilege of publishing some of the best writers in Oregon and, as of 2014; we accept submissions from California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii. 

The purpose behind Gold Man Review is to provide a platform for writers and artists while promoting, encouraging, and supporting creativity. Our mission statement of "Creativity Becomes Community" was inspired by our belief that artists are vital to the community and that there is an ongoing need to further education in the arts. Being teachers, students, entrepreneurs, thinkers, philosophers, poets, and writers ourselves, we are and will continue to be staunch advocates for artists. We pride ourselves in the fact that Gold Man Review is the product of that advocacy turned into action.

First and foremost, we are looking for outstanding and exceptional work. We are not looking for particular themes; however, we are looking for the unusual and random. Make us laugh. Make us cry. Make us see the extraordinary. Make us see the beautiful. That’s it. Fairly simple.

Image Call for Submissions

Image speaks with equal force and relevance to the secular culture and to the church. By finding fresh ways for the imagination to embody religious truth and religious experience,Image challenges believers and nonbelievers alike. Through a commitment to artistic excellence and religious truth, Image has taken its place on the "public square" and is poised to make a lasting impact on the future of our national culture.

Image do es not have a formal set of guidelines. We do welcome unsolicited subm issions, however, and consider all submissions carefully. We ask th ose who wis h to submit writing—whether fiction, essay, interview, memoir or poetry—to read the journal and get an idea for the type and range of material we publish. In general, we have a 6,000-word maximum.

New American Press 2014 Fiction Prize (Deadline June 15 – $1000)

We are an independent non-profit literary publisher. We like poetry, fiction, drama, nonfiction, and some things that defy categorization. But ultimately we want what any reader wants: to be dazzled, engrossed, and amazed. We publish between three and five full-length books each year. Annually, we award a New American Fiction Prize and a New American Poetry Prize, each for a full-length book that we publish and tell all our friends about. 

Winner receives a publication contract, including 25 complimentary copies, promotional support, and a crisp check for $1,000. The submission period is February 1, 2014 - midnight on June 15, 2014. All full-length fiction manuscripts are welcome, including novels, novellas, collections of stories and/or novellas, novels in verse, linked collections, as well as full-length collections of flash fiction and short-shorts. Full-length fiction manuscripts tend to be at least 100 pages. There is no maximum length.

The Briar Cliff Review Call for Submissions (Deadline November 1)

Founded in 1989, The Briar Cliff Review is an eclectic literary and art magazine.  Its full-size format and elegantly simple design provide an aesthetically pleasing venue for the work of contributors. The editors are committed to nurturing writers and artists and fostering the best of both emerging and established writers and artists. Our writers have won the Pushcart Prize and have been featured in The Best American Poetry/Short Stories/Essays and Mystery Writers series.

We invite your contributions. We are looking for quality poetry, fiction, humor/satire, Siouxland history, thoughtful nonfiction, book reviews and art: drawings, paintings, photos, sculptures woodcuts, computer graphics and other camera-ready artwork.

Nowhere Spring Travel Writing Contest (Deadline June 15 – $1000)

Nowhere is a journal of literary travel writing—which to us means narrative with a strong sense of place, character or time. We’ve run stories about the longest sea voyage in history, living on a farm in Tuscany and kidnappings in Libya. We don’t publish reviews of spas or shopping centers or “Top 10 Vacation Getaways.” The magazine is published digitally so we can distribute globally, across borders and cultures, instantaneously.

Award-winning literary travel magazine, Nowhere, is teaming up with Outside Magazine Executive Editor Sam Moulton for the first Nowhere Spring Travel Writing Contest. We are looking for young, old, novice and veteran voices with a powerful sense of place in their writing. Stories can be fiction or nonfiction, but please indicate which at the top of each manuscript. Entries should be 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...

Upcoming Deadlines

American Short Fiction Short Story Contest (Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Electric Literarture Recommended Reading Call for Submissions (Deadline June 1)
Southern Indiana Review Thomas A. Wilhelmus Editors' Award (Deadline June 1 – $1500)
Mid-American Review 2014 Fineline Competition for Prose Poems, Short Shorts and Anything In Between (Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Headlands Center for the Arts Residency Program (Deadline June 6)
Prada Journal Second Edition Contest (Deadline June 10 – €5,000)
Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowship (Deadline June 15)
DimeStories Call for Submissions (Deadline June 15)
Salamander Magazine Fiction Prize (Deadline June 15 – $1500)
New American Press 2014 Fiction Prize (Deadline June 15 – $1000)
Southern Poetry Review Guy Owen Award (Deadline June 15 – $1000)
M Literary Residency: Shanghai, China or Bangalore, India (Deadline June 20)
Dzanc Books Nonfiction Prize (Deadline June 30 – $1500)
Burnside Review Chapbook Contest (Deadline June 30 – $200)
The Moth Magazine International Short Story Prize (Deadline June 30 – €3000)
Bellevue Literary Review 2015 Literary Prizes (Deadline July 1 – $1000)
POP Montreal/Matrix Magazine Lit POP 2014 (Deadline July 1 – Trip to POP Montreal)
The New Guard Literary Review Machigonne Fiction Contest and Knightville Poetry Contest (Deadline July 14 ­– $1000)
Rattle 2014 Poetry Prize (Deadline July 15 – $5000)
Heavy Feather Review Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Vacancies – Deadline July 15)
Willapa Bay Artist-in-Residence Program (Deadline July 31)
The Los Angeles Review/AROHO Orlando Prizes (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Crazyhorse Crazyshorts! Short-Short Fiction Contest (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Conjunctions:63 Call for Submissions: Speaking Volumes (Deadline July 31)
The Journal of Experimental Fiction 2015 Kenneth Patchen Award (Deadline July 31 – $1000)

Success Story: Lynn Rosenberg

Sacha met Lynn Rosenberg at the West Hollywood Book Fair, where WordCraft was running a panel of writing prompts and high-speed consultations. She showed him a few pages of her memoir in progress about discovering her sexuality at age 70, and he gave her some ideas on focusing the story and pointed her toward some outlets that might publish an excerpt.

A few months later, Lynn had a piece featured on Salon, which led to an interview with the Huffington Post and a story in London’s Sunday Times. Congratulations, Lynn! Go to www.lynnbrownrosenberg.com to read more about her story. 

If you want to work with Sacha and benefit from his submission wisdom, get in touch today during the final hours of our May sale!

WordCraft Summer Camp—Counselor Option

We've received feedback from some campers that they'd like a little more accountability. For those writers who prefer someone expecting work from them at a particular time on a particular day, we have come up with the Counselor Option.

For $150, you will still receive weekly e-mails with craft tips, writing prompts, excerpts from classic and contemporary writers, and links to other resources. You can also participate in our online forum, where you will have immediate access to our consultants to ask questions and exchange ideas. In addition, with the Counselor Option, each week for three months you will be expected to send your homework to Chris, Jen, Megan, or Sacha (your choice). Your counselor will acknowledge receipt, or if you don't meet your deadline, remind you of it gently but firmly. Then at the end of the camp, you can send 2,500 words to your counselor and receive a 300-word critique.

You can enroll below and we will be in touch soon to get started on June 1. (We can start your three months at a later date if that is more convenient for you. You can also sign up here for our standard summer camp.) Join today! Your writing deserves it.

Which counselor do you prefer?

Fiction or memoir?

Submission Sunday 5.25.14

Following the success of our Writers’ Resolution Boot Camp in January, we’re now offering an expanded 13-week online summer program beginning June 1, with separate tracks for fiction and memoir writers. Click here for more information.

Creative Nonfiction Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Waiting – Deadline September 22 – $1000)

For an upcoming issue, Creative Nonfiction is seeking new essays about WAITING. We’re looking for well-crafted true stories of delays, postponements, and pauses that explore and examine our relationship with time.

The theme is open to interpretation. Maybe you’re waiting tables or you’re on a waiting list; you could be waiting for the bus or the bell or a friend or a phone call. Maybe you’re waiting for a diagnosis, or for your ship to come in, or for Godot. Maybe you’re expecting. Maybe your story isn’t about you at all; maybe it’s a true story about a town under siege, or a scientific experiment, or a lady-in-waiting … However you approach the subject, we can’t wait to read your work.

Submissions must be vivid and dramatic; they should feature a strong and compelling narrative and reach beyond a strictly personal or anecdotal experience for some universal or deeper meaning. (Put another way: something should happen, and it should matter to readers.) Our readers also like to learn new things: tell us something, whether it’s about the history of clocks or how the mind processes time, or maybe about how waiting-period laws vary from state to state. We’re looking for well-written prose, rich with detail and a distinctive voice; all essays must tell true stories and be factual accurate.

Santa Monica Review Call for Submissions

Founded by Jim Krusoe in 1988, Santa Monica Review is a nationally distributed literary arts journal sponsored by Santa Monica College. The journal is published twice yearly, in Fall and Spring. The Santa Monica Review features fiction and nonfiction only. The editors are commited to fostering new talent as well as presenting new work by established authors. There is a special effort toward presenting and promoting writers who make their home in Southern California. To this end, each issue combines work by established and emerging writers from Southern California and beyond.

To get a sense of the kind of literary short stories, essays and interview the Review is looking for, please read the journal. Sample copies are available for $7. Past issues have featured work by Charles Baxter, Greg Bills, John Cage, Bernard Cooper, Amy Gerstler, Judith Grossman, Peter Handke, Jim Krusoe, Michelle Latiolais, Dwight Yates and Victoria Patterson. A special edition book, Absolute Disaster, featured the work of Los Angeles writers, including T.C. Boyle, Aimee Bender, Carolyn See, Lawrence Thornton, Judith Freeman, Harlan Ellison, and others.

Extract(s) Call for Submissions

Extract(s) features bite-sized literature in surprising forms. We don’t want to be your everything, but we do want to be one thing that makes your day more interesting. Drop by for a few minutes every day. We’ll give you something to think about. 

Extract(s) is looking for submissions for our Poems, Stories, and Mid-Week features, as well as excerpts from upcoming novels, memoirs, and poetry and story collections. 

Burnside Review Chapbook Contest (Deadline June 30 – $200)

Burnside Review is a small-press publisher, located in Portland, Oregon. Founded in 2004, the journal is published every 9-12 months. Yearly, we also publish two full-length books of poetry and two chapbooks (one fiction, one poetry) through our contests. We welcome submissions but please read our guidelines first. Thank you, and welcome to Burnside Review!

DimeStories Call for Submissions (Deadline June 15)

In celebration of its 10th Anniversary, DimeStories will publish a print anthology of 3-minute stories, the best from California, New Mexico, and beyond.  Stories will be selected by an editorial board including published authors Amy Wallen, Meredith Resnick, Susan Henderson, and Dan Mueller. 

Stories must be submitted online using our online submission manager and may not exceed 500 words. They can be fact or fiction. If previously published, please note in your cover letter where and when and confirm that you have the rights. Previous participation in a DimeStories event not required. We’re asking for a $5 fee (per story) to help defray costs of printing.

Nonvella Call for Submissions

Nonvella publishes high-quality 5K-20K word nonfiction pieces by established and emerging authors. We’re fans of thought-provoking nonfiction of all kinds. This includes literary journalism, memoir, essays, and emerging non-fiction hybrids. We’re after substance — substance with style. Writers with strong voices. Vivid narratives. Life-sized questions and big ideas.

Nonvellas are timely, memorable works of nonfiction—narrative journalism, reportage, adventure writing, memoirs, essays— that run from roughly five to twenty thousand words. As one writer described their fictional counterparts, nonvellas “combine the dynamic thighs of a sprinter with the long-distance lungs of a mountaineer.” This means tightly-paced reads that stride like books, not news hits. They keep the good parts.

If you’ve got an idea for a nonvella, email us (with “Query” as the first word in the subject line). Include a couple of paragraphs describing the possible project, your publishing experience to date, and a writing sample or two. We’ll do our best to get back to you in a timely manner.

Aesthetica Magazine Creative Writing Award (Deadline August 31 – £500)

Aesthetica Magazine is inviting all writers and poets to submit their work into the Creative Writing Award. Aesthetica combines dynamic content with compelling critical debate, exploring the best in contemporary art and culture. 

The Creative Writing Award is a fantastic opportunity for existing and aspiring writers and poets to showcase their work to a wider, international audience: previous entrants have gone on to achieve success and recognition across the world. There are two categories for entry: Poetry and Short Fiction.

The Airship Call for Submissions 

The Airship is a blog that surveys literature, art and culture, and is piloted by Black Balloon Publishing. Our writers cover the arts, contemporary culture, language, Scrabble, performance, travel, historical figures and, of course, great books. We here at The Airship are always looking for 500-to-2,000-word blog posts of delicious, Internet goodness.

Did you discover a digital relic from the America Online era? Is there a mind-bending technological breakthrough that you just found out about and that no one else seems to be aware of? Have you found a thread that unravels every Stephen King book and film? Great! Now can you write about it in a succinct, entertaining way? If the answer is still yes, well then you're the person we've been looking for!

Send your pitches or complete nonfiction pieces about anything relating to literature, art and culture directly to our editor at Arv@AirshipDaily.com, and we can discuss the subject, length and rates — because, yes, we do pay our writers.

Upcoming Deadlines

Tupelo Quarterly Prose Open Contest (Deadline May 27 – $1000)
New England Review Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Tin House Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Crazyhorse Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
The Threepenny Review Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize (Deadline May 31 – $12,000)
Creative Nonfiction Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Memoir – Deadline May 31 – $1000)
One Story Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
The Baltimore Review Summer Contest (Theme: "How to" – Deadline May 31 – $500)
American Short Fiction Short Story Contest (Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Electric Literarture Recommended Reading Call for Submissions (Deadline June 1)
Southern Indiana Review Thomas A. Wilhelmus Editors' Award (Deadline June 1 – $1500)
Mid-American Review 2014 Fineline Competition for Prose Poems, Short Shorts and Anything In Between(Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Headlands Center for the Arts Residency Program (Deadline June 6)
Prada Journal Second Edition Contest (Deadline June 10 – €5,000)
Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowship (Deadline June 15)
DimeStories Call for Submissions (Deadline June 15)
M Literary Residency: Shanghai, China or Bangalore, India (Deadline June 20)
Dzanc Books Nonfiction Prize (Deadline June 30 – $1500)
Burnside Review Chapbook Contest (Deadline June 30 – $200)
The Moth Magazine International Short Story Prize (Deadline June 30 – €3000)
Bellevue Literary Review 2015 Literary Prizes (Deadline July 1 – $1000)
POP Montreal/Matrix Magazine Lit POP 2014 (Deadline July 1 – Trip to POP Montreal)
The New Guard Literary Review Machigonne Fiction Contest and Knightville Poetry Contest (Deadline July 14 ­– $1000)
Rattle 2014 Poetry Prize (Deadline July 15 – $5000)
Heavy Feather Review Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Vacancies – Deadline July 15)
Willapa Bay Artist-in-Residence Program (Deadline July 31)
The Los Angeles Review/AROHO Orlando Prizes (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Crazyhorse Crazyshorts! Short-Short Fiction Contest (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Conjunctions:63 Call for Submissions: Speaking Volumes (Deadline July 31)
The Journal of Experimental Fiction 2015 Kenneth Patchen Award (Deadline July 31 – $1000)

Submission Sunday 5.18.14

Following the success of our Writers’ Resolution Boot Camp in January, we’re now offering an expanded 13-week online summer program beginning June 1, with separate tracks for fiction and memoir writers. Click here for more information.

Slice Magazine Call for Submissions (Deadline August 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 and interviews from renowned writers and lesser known voices alike. Along with these pieces, we publish fiction and poetry that isn’t bound by the theme—we simply look for works by writers who promise to become tomorrow’s literary legends. We offer all contributors of Slice a monetary award for their work ($100 for stories and essays and $25 for poems).

Our next reading period will run from June 1 - August 1, 2014. All submissions will be considered for Issue 16 (Spring '15). The theme for this issue is "Resistance."

Tupelo Quarterly Prose Open Contest (Deadline May 27 – $1000)

Tupelo Press discovers luminous writers, gives each author the vessel of a beautiful book, and shares their passions with as many readers as possible. Tupelo’s list speaks to the diversity of influences upon contemporary art and culture, and the Press takes a keen interest in promoting a dialogue between the written and fine arts.

In this digital milieu, Tupelo Quarterly extends and expands upon that vision, publishing work by emerging and established writers and artists of many sensibilities and styles. In addition to a stunning poem or story on the page, we want to include work that takes full advantage of the medium. We want to honor the art as received, and to extend the scope of what a literary journal can do. Tupelo Quarterly cultivates generous artistic community, celebrates intellectual curiosity and creative risk, and presumes abundance. We hold the gate open, not closed. 

TQ4′s Prose Open Contest will accept entries between April 15 – May 27 (a 6 week reading period, as always). Please send us one, single, solitary piece of prose: any style or sensibility, 15 pages or less. Truly, we mean it: one piece of flash/micro/sudden fiction, one creative non-fiction piece or essay, one short story, one peculiar hybrid: we want it all, we want one at a time (your best), and we want 15 pages or less (if your best is a 100 word flash, that’s what you should send). Multiple TQ editors will consider each entry on its own merits, and select 20 finalists. We are not comparing genres, we are asking of each entry: ‘what is this piece trying to achieve, and how well does it do it?’

Evil Women and Mean Girls: Critical Examinations of the Fairer Sex’s Nasty Side in History, Literature, and Popular Culture Call for Abstracts (Deadline September 1)

The editors invite scholars from relevant disciplines to submit original research for the proposed collection Evil Women and Mean Girls. The purpose of this edited collection is to explore gendered representations of “evil” in popular culture and history (historical era and geographical region open). Scholars often explore the relationships between gender, sex, and violence through theories of inequality, violence against women, and female victimization, but what happens when women are the perpetrators of violent or harmful behavior?

In this volume, we seek to explore the following questions: How do we define “evil”? What makes evil men seem different from evil women? When women commit acts of violence or harmful behavior, how are they represented differently from men? How do perceptions of class, race, and age influence these representations? How have these representations changed over time, and why? What purposes have gendered representations of evil served in culture and history? What is the relationship between gender, punishment of evil behavior, and equality?

Posit: A Journal of Literature and Art Call for Submissions

Posit publishes finely crafted contemporary poetry, very short fiction, hybrid literary forms, and visual art. We publish three to four issues per year, and consider submissions year round. We are looking for innovation, aesthetic vision, and accomplished craftsmanship. Our tastes are non-sectarian, with an interest in the experimental. We accept simultaneous submissions, but please notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.

Posit considers only unpublished written work, and acquires first-time North American rights upon publication. Thereafter, all rights revert to the author, and the work may be reprinted as long as appropriate acknowledgement to Posit is made. No such restrictions apply to visual art submissions.

• Poetry: 3-6 poems, no line limits, but no epics, please.
• Fiction and hybrids: 1000 words or less.
• Visual Art: Please submit six to nine jpeg images, a brief artists statement and CV.
• Film and animation: no longer than 5 min. please.

Willapa Bay Artist-in-Residence Program (Deadline July 31)

Willapa Bay AiR, situated on 16 acres in coastal Southwest Washington state, launched its residency program in March 2014. The Residency has been specifically designed, from the site selection to the architecturally specific building concepts, layouts, and materials, to combine the opportunity for solitude with the opportunity for daily community that fosters creative endeavor.

We offer month-long, self-directed residencies to emerging and established artists, writers and scholars. Rotating committees of artists and professionals in their field and discipline select participants from a broad spectrum of creativity - from visual, musical or literary arts to environmental or scientific projects. The Residency provides lodging, meals, and work space, at no cost, to five residents each month from March 1 through September 30 of the year.

Meridian Call for Submissions

Meridian is a semiannual literary journal produced at the University of Virginia in conjunction with the university’s M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing, whose students serve as the magazine’s editors. Founded in 1998, Meridian has featured the works of numerous Pulitzer Prize Winners, National Book Award Winners, and established writers including Charles Wright, Rita Dove, Yusef Komunyakaa, Seamus Heaney, Ann Beattie, John Casey, George Garrett, Heather McHugh, Richard Bausch, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Cathy Song, and Eric Pankey. However, as a magazine edited by young writers, we value nothing more than showcasing tomorrow’s talent, often publishing a new author’s first story or poem. So don’t let the big names fool you. We welcome–and carefully read–every submission we receive.

The magazine also features a regular Lost Classic where we locate and print an unpublished (or “under” published) work by a renowned author of the past. Lost Classics have included Walt Whitman’s Civil War diaries, work by Zora Neale Hurston, nonfiction by Washington Irving, fragments of never-before-seen poetry by Robert Frost, and the first chapters of an unpublished novel by John Dos Passos. Though a relatively young publication, Meridian poetry and prose has appeared in Best American Poetry, Best American Short Stories, Best American Essays, the Pushcart Prize anthology, and New Stories from the South. Our stories have also been short-listed for the O. Henry Prize, and our fine authors and poets have gone on to win many awards.

Crazyhorse Crazyshorts! Short-Short Fiction Contest (Deadline July 31 – $1000)

Crazyhorse has been publishing the best established and emerging writers for over 50 years. Founded by the poet Tom McGrath in Los Angeles in 1960, Crazyhorse continues to be one of the finest, most influential literary journals published today. Past contributors include such renowned authors as John Updike, Raymond Carver, Jorie Graham, John Ashbery, Robert Bly, Ha Jin, W. P. Kinsella, Richard Wilbur, James Wright, Carolyn Forché, Charles Simic, Charles Wright, Billy Collins, Galway Kinnell, James Tate and Franz Wright. Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners alike appear regularly in its pages, right alongside Guggenheim fellows, National Endowment for the Arts fellowship recipients, and writers whose work appears in the O. Henry Prize, Pushcart Prize, and Best American anthologies. Submit 1-3 short-shorts of up to 500 words.

Profane Literary Journal Call for Submissions

Profane is an annual print and audio journal featuring an eclectic mix of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction (CNF). We publish in the fall/winter. We record every poem and piece of prose we publish in the author's own voice. Despite the audio feature, we only accept work that stands up to scrutiny on the page. We feel the audio adds texture to our journal, and that it makes for an even more exciting product for our contributors and readers to share. It also makes it easier to ingest and digest an entire issue in the midst of hectic schedules. 

We appreciate writing that has movement, writing which, as it progresses, delves into the nuances and complications of the spaces it explores. We're keen on celebrating writers who present us with challenging material. Writing that is surprising or difficult, intellectually and emotionally, in even small, subtle ways, has the potential to leave the reader different as a result. To possess that potential is our definition of "good writing." And ultimately, good writing, whatever form it takes, is what we're after.

We're particularly interested in work that is able to confront and subvert our perceptions of the world in which we live. It should be said that with any content we publish, it's not our goal to offend. But ideally, we'd like the writing we publish to meet readers in their uncomfortable places, to provoke conversations worth having. With that aspiration in mind, we believe there is no subject too taboo for exploration. We're incredibly grateful for your interest.

Upcoming Deadlines

Tupelo Quarterly Prose Open Contest (Deadline May 27 – $1000)
New England Review Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Tin House Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Crazyhorse Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
The Threepenny Review Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize (Deadline May 31 – $12,000)
Creative Nonfiction Call for Submissions (The Memoir Issue – Deadline May 31 – $1000)
One Story Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
The Baltimore Review Summer Contest (Theme: "How to" – Deadline May 31 – $500)
American Short Fiction Short Story Contest (Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Electric Literarture Recommended Reading Call for Submissions (Deadline June 1)
Southern Indiana Review Thomas A. Wilhelmus Editors' Award (Deadline June 1 – $1500)
Mid-American Review 2014 Fineline Competition for Prose Poems, Short Shorts and Anything In Between(Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Headlands Center for the Arts Residency Program (Deadline June 6)
Prada Journal Second Edition Contest (Deadline June 10 – €5,000)
Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowship (Deadline June 15)
M Literary Residency: Shanghai, China or Bangalore, India (Deadline June 20)
Dzanc Books Nonfiction Prize (Deadline June 30 – $1500)
The Moth Magazine International Short Story Prize (Deadline June 30 – €3000)
Bellevue Literary Review 2015 Literary Prizes (Deadline July 1 – $1000)
POP Montreal/Matrix Magazine Lit POP 2014 (Deadline July 1 – Trip to POP Montreal)
The New Guard Literary Review Machigonne Fiction Contest and Knightville Poetry Contest (Deadline July 14 ­– $1000)
Rattle 2014 Poetry Prize (Deadline July 15 – $5000)
Heavy Feather Review Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Vacancies – Deadline July 15)
Willapa Bay Artist-in-Residence Program (Deadline July 31)
The Los Angeles Review/AROHO Orlando Prizes (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Crazyhorse Crazyshorts! Short-Short Fiction Contest (Deadline July 31 – $1000)
Conjunctions:63 Call for Submissions: Speaking Volumes (Deadline July 31)
The Journal of Experimental Fiction 2015 Kenneth Patchen Award (Deadline July 31 – $1000)

Join Our Online Summer Writing Camp Starting June 1

“What did you do last summer?”

If you want an excellent answer to that question, check out WordCraft LA’s Summer Writing Camp. Following the success of our Writers’ Resolution Boot Camp in January, we’re now offering an expanded 13-week summer program beginning June 1, with separate tracks for fiction and memoir writers. From generating ideas to building an author platform, we’ll help you make significant progress on a writing project.

For only $90, you will receive weekly e-mails with craft tips, writing prompts, excerpts from classic and contemporary writers, and links to other resources. You can also participate in our online forum, where you will have immediate access to our consultants to ask questions and exchange ideas. For stricter deadlines and more accountability, check out our Counselor Option.

Our WordCraft consultants represent decades of teaching, writing, and editing experience. You'll find multi-genre book and journal editors, two PhDs in English, an Oxford-educated tutor, lecturers in the English department at UCLA and the humanities division at Caltech, a PEN Emerging Voices Fellow, and a former editor to Hunter S. Thompson. 

Our clients’ work has been published in Eclectica, The Iowa Review, The Missouri Review, New Southerner, The Rattling Wall, Salon, Slice Magazine, The Sunday Times (London), and by Etruscan Press and Bloomsbury Academic, to name just a few. We bring a wide variety of perspectives, academic training, and knowledge to the table, and we have a lot to say about words that work.

Spend the summer with us! We’ll make sure you have something to show for it.

WordCraft Summer Camp — 3 Months — $90

Enter your subscription email:

Fiction or memoir?

Submission Sunday 5.11.14

For the month of May, we’re offering a 15% discount on the WordCraft service of your choice. Contact us for your customized estimate.

POP Montreal/Matrix Magazine Lit POP 2014 (Deadline July 1 – Trip to POP Montreal)

POP Montreal and Matrix Magazine are thrilled to announce: Lit POP is back! Matthew Zapruder and Heather O'Neill are the 2014 judges!

The POP Montreal International Music Festival and Matrix Magazine have once again joined forces to bring you North America's most innovative and exciting literary competition. We are looking for innovative, fresh, exciting writing destined for the top of the charts! If you have what it takes, you will get your work published in Matrix, and get free travel to POP Montreal for a night in your honor.

The winners, one from each category, will receive a round-trip ticket to POP Montreal from September 17 – 21, 2014, a VIP pass to POP Montreal, free accommodation at a bed and breakfast, fall publication in Matrix Magazine with full honorarium, and presentation at a special Matrix Lit POP event during the festival.

Front Porch Journal Call for Submissions

Front Porch is the online literary journal of Texas State University’s MFA program. Founded in 2006 by MFA students, Front Porch publishes exceptional poetry, fiction, nonfiction, reviews, and interviews. We’re also pleased to feature a one-of-a-kind video and audio archive, which showcases celebrated authors reading and discussing their work.

At Front Porch, you will find some of the best and most renowned talents in contemporary writing published alongside promising new voices. Our editors seek out both innovative and traditional literature. Front Porch accepts flash fiction, short stories, poetry, and creative nonfiction. In short, we’re looking for insightful and relevant writing that excels, no matter its form. Visit our submissions page, join our mailing list, or do both. We would love to hear from you.

Avidly (Relaunch) Call for Submissions 

Avidly specializes in short-form critical essays devoted to thinking and feeling about culture. We publish twice a week, featuring fresh perspectives, whether academic or otherwise, on everything from theory and literature to the cultural mores of gender, sports, politics and entertainment. As its name suggests, Avidly responds to literature and culture by blending critical rigor with enthusiasm. We welcome submissions and pitches!

Avidly is proud to be a part of the Los Angeles Review of Books Channels Project. LARB Channels are a community of wholly independent, vanguard online magazines specializing in literary criticism, politics, science, the arts and culture, supported by the Los Angeles Review of Books.

We welcome pitches and submissions! We mostly publish pieces under 1000 words; if you are interested in writing for Avidly take some time to go through our archives to see the sort of work we favor. Avidly’s official editorial position is usually “cut the first paragraph.” Send your ideas and writing to submissions at avidly dot org.

Arcadia Magazine 2014 Fiction and Poetry Chapbook Contests (Deadline August 15 – $1000)

We're happy to announce our new fiction chapbook contest. A prize of $1,000 and twenty-five author copies will be given annually for a fiction chapbook. The chapbook will also be published by Arcadia and distributed as an issue of the magazine to subscribers. Submit a manuscript of thirty to forty-five pages with a $20.00 entry fee by August 15. All individual stories submitted will be considered for publication in Arcadia. The editors will judge and a winner will be announced in September. The winning chapbook will appear as the summer issue of Arcadia. 

We're excited to bring the Ruby Irene Poetry Chapbook Contest into its second year. A prize of $1,000 and twenty-five author copies is given annually for a poetry chapbook. The chapbook will also be published by Arcadia and distributed as an issue of the magazine to subscribers. Submit a manuscript of fifteen to thirty-five pages with $20.00 entry fee by August 15. All poems submitted will be considered for publication in Arcadia. The editors will judge and a winner will be announced in September. The winning chapbook will appear as the winter issue of Arcadia. 

Rattle 2014 Poetry Prize (Deadline July 15 – $5000)

The annual Rattle Poetry Prize offers $5,000 for a single poem to be published in the winter issue of the magazine. Ten finalists will also receive $100 each and publication, and be eligible for the $1,000 Readers’ Choice Award, to be selected by subscriber and entrant vote. Additional poems from the entries are frequently offered publication as well. In 2013 we published 21 poems that had been submitted to the contest from over 2,000 entries.

With the winners judged in a blind 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 now 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 writer-friendly contests around.

The American Reader Call for Submissions

The American Reader is a monthly print and digital literary journal. It is committed to inspiring literary and critical conversation among a new generation of readers, and restoring literature to its proper place in the American cultural discourse. It seeks to be principled, but not dogmatic; discerning, but not cruel; popular, but not populist. It honors the dignity of the reading public and heralds the reemergence of a thriving and serious-minded national literary culture.
 
The American Reader is a hardy and handy compendium of new literature and current critical and industry-related discussions. It features new fiction; new poetry; translated portfolios of international fiction, poetry, and drama; well-argued reviews of new literature; considered essays on all matters literary; and occasional interviews with writers, publishers, editors, and various industry professionals. TheAmericanReader.com provides a free-ranging, dynamic space for readers to take up the conversation inaugurated in our pages.

Caketrain Call for Submissions

Caketrain is a literary journal and press based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Our interest is in bringing readers the very best in contemporary creative writing, full stop.

Submissions are now being considered for Caketrain Issue 12, tentatively slated for release in late 2014. Please submit up to seven poems, works of fiction or creative nonfiction (no book reviews), works of visual art, or any combination therein, to editors@caketrain.org. 

Gigantic: A Magazine of Short Prose and Art Call for Submissions

Gigantic is a magazine of short prose, interviews, and art.

Prose submissions should be under 1,000 words. Submissions over 1,000 words will either be rejected or, in certain cases, pared down. If you are submitting a series of pieces where each segment is under 1,000 words, that could work. Convince us. If you have multiple very short submissions (100 to 300 words) you may submit up to four at a time, but please submit them as individual pieces.

Upcoming Deadlines

Sonora Review Nonfiction Contest (Deadline May 15 – $1000)
Ploughshares 2014 Emerging Writer's Contest (Deadline May 15 – $1000)
Denver Quarterly Call for Submissions (Deadline May 15)
Ragdale Residency Program Fellowships (Deadline May 15)
Carve Magazine Raymond Carver Short Story Contest (Deadline May 15 – $1500)
Flavorwire 2014 Short Fiction Contest (Deadline May 16 – $500)
New England Review Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Tin House Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Crazyhorse Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
The Threepenny Review Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize (Deadline May 31 – $12,000)
Creative Nonfiction Call for Submissions (The Memoir Issue – Deadline May 31 – $1000)
One Story Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
The Baltimore Review Summer Contest (Theme: "How to" – Deadline May 31 – $500)
American Short Fiction Short Story Contest (Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Electric Literarture Recommended Reading Call for Submissions (Deadline June 1)
Southern Indiana Review Thomas A. Wilhelmus Editors' Award (Deadline June 1 – $1500)
Mid-American Review 2014 Fineline Competition for Prose Poems, Short Shorts and Anything In Between(Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Headlands Center for the Arts Residency Program (Deadline June 6)
Prada Journal Second Edition Contest (Deadline June 10 – €5,000)
Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowship (Deadline June 15)
M Literary Residency: Shanghai, China or Bangalore, India (Deadline June 20)
Dzanc Books Nonfiction Prize (Deadline June 30 – $1500)
The Moth Magazine International Short Story Prize (Deadline June 30 – €3000)

Submission Sunday 5.4.14

For the month of May, we’re offering a 15% discount on the WordCraft service of your choice. Contact us for your customized estimate.

Flavorwire 2014 Short Fiction Contest (Deadline May 16 – $500)

Flavorwire is excited to announce our 2014 short fiction contest. For the second year in a row, in honor of May’s National Short Story Month, we’re offering a prize of $500 for one outstanding short story. To enter, simply send a story of 5,000 words or less — in the body of a message, not as an attachment — along with a brief author bio and all relevant contact information to flavorwirefiction@gmail.com by Friday, May 16. Flavorwire Literary Editor Jason Diamond will judge all entries and announce the results on Monday the 26th. We’ll publish the winning story, along with a handful of honorable mentions, on Flavorwire throughout the final week of May.

While all styles of short fiction are fair game, we can’t consider nonfiction or poetry submissions. Due to time constraints, Flavorwire can only accept entries via email and will be unable to provide feedback on individual stories. Simultaneous submissions are welcome, but only previously unpublished work will be eligible; entrants must notify us immediately if a story is selected for publication elsewhere during the contest.

Electric Literarture Recommended Reading Call for Submissions (Deadline June 1)

Recommended Reading, a magazine by Electric Literature, publishes one story a week, each chosen by today’s best authors or editors.

Recommended Reading is released on a four week curation cycle: beginning with a story chosen by Electric Literature, followed by an excerpt from an indie press, then an author recommendation, and finally a selection from a magazine’s archive. Each issue includes an editor’s note written by that week’s partner, introducing you to the work and their mission.

In this age of distraction, we’re uncovering writing that’s worth slowing down and spending some time with. And in doing so, we’re giving great writers, literary magazines, and independent presses the recognition (and readership) they deserve.

Prada Journal Second Edition Contest (Deadline June 10 – €5,000)

PRADA is an internationally well-known fashion company which has been always interested in promoting cultural activities and sponsoring young artists. PRADA, within its consolidated philosophy based on a careful development of the artistic “languages”, has devoted and continuously devotes resources in order to offer to young artists the opportunity to express their talent and to make spaces available to them to represent and divulge their Short Stories of art. With such aim, PRADA wishes to invite talented people to manifest their imagination and artistic skills through the following contest. 

Prada and Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore present the second edition of Prada Journal, the literary prize reserved for emerging literary voices. Prada Journal is intended for writers around the globe with a talent for exploring the visual universe we inhabit in the written word. Established as a universal bond between fashion and literature, the Prada-Feltrinelli Prize focused on our world and everyday life in its first edition. Now it attempts to understand the transformation that we are undergoing today and how we will change tomorrow:

"What are the signs of a changing world? And what situations can we envision? Taking a good look at the details might give us the answer."

Once again, the eyewear was the preferred starting point for this exploration of our universe in its many forms, producing ideas that pave the way to potential change. The line of inquiry launched in 2013 continues with the same progressive, inquisitive spirit that both Prada and Feltrinelli and Luxottica are renowned for. The study extends its reach to encompass everything imaginable, everything thinkable, and every idea which, once both form and content have been delineated, can be written down. The contest will end on 11 June.

Conclave: A Journal of Character Call for Submissions

When we decided to create Conclave: A Journal of Character, we knew that our focus would be on character-driven writing and photography, so we sought out a name for our literary magazine that would reflect the assembly of all those characters, as well as the artists and writers who dream them up. We chose conclave because it means a gathering, a private chamber, a room that may be locked. It has the Latin roots of com (meaning “with” or “together”) and clavis (meaning “key”).  

Conclave is a bi-annual print and e- journal of character-focused writing and photography. We seek writing that centers around well-crafted and authentic characters: like Leopold Bloom, Huckleberry Finn, Anna Karenina, Hamlet, Miss Havisham, Hannibal Lecter, Hester Prynne, and others. Whether you love them or hate them, these characters are unforgettable and infuse their stories with life beyond the page. Those are the kinds of characters that we'd like to have populate the pages of Conclave: A Journal of Character. 

Geist Tobacco Lit Writing Contest (Deadline September 1 – $500)

Geist is a Canadian literary magazine of ideas and culture. We publish the best that we can find of narrative (fiction and non-fiction), essays, poetry, reviews, photography, drawings, comix, puzzles and miscellany—with a special interest in fresh interactions between text and image. We strive to be articulate, humorous and identifiably Canadian. Our mandate is to find and encourage a wide audience for new and established Canadian writers and artists of merit.

Introducing the Geist Tobacco Lit Writing Contest—submit before September 1, 2014 to win cash prizes and publication in Geist. It calms, soothes, relaxes, smells great, tastes better; loosens muscles, heightens focus; makes you look older, makes you look cooler; dulls taste buds, shortens your breath; yellows teeth, blackens lungs; cripples your heart, fries your brain, and of course, it kills you. To the cigarette, for all that it does, it is time we pay tribute.

Cancer, strokes, birth defects, heart attacks, hypertension, and now $1000 in cash prizes: Tobacco has it all. How it works: Write some tobacco lit. True or false, and any genre—we're not picky, as long as it's an original work. Just make it 500 words or less. 

The Baltimore Review Summer Contest (Theme: "How to" – Deadline May 31 – $500)

The theme for The Baltimore Review’s summer contest is "How To."

Why? Because I'm an old dog that can--and likes to--learn new tricks. Because--lucky me--I get to pick the contest theme. Because I know that a lot of writers, like me, spend way too much time in research activities because we're hopelessly inquisitive. Because I know that many of you have an amazing array of skills anyway. Because so many of you can instruct readers in such an eloquent way.

Thus, the theme for our summer contest (May 31 deadline) is "How To." Poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction. As long as you instruct the reader in how to do anything--anything at all--in the course of your work, you're good. Three winners will be selected from among all entries. So winners could be one story and two poems; or two stories and one work of creative nonfiction; or one story, one poem, one work of creative nonfiction--you get the picture.

Thurber House John E. Nance Writer-in-Residence (Deadline June 2)

The John E. Nance Writer-in-Residence at Thurber House was begun in 2012 by Sally Crane, in honor of her late husband, John E. Nance, a critically acclaimed photojournalist. As Associated Press Bureau Chief in the Philippines, Nance wrote The Gentle Tasaday about a primitive tribe in the Philippines as well as Lobo of the Tasaday, a Horn Book Award Honor Book. Nance was a Thurber House writer-in-residence twice, in 1995 and 1998.

The John E. Nance Writer-in-Residence program is an annual residency of four weeks housed in a two-bedroom apartment in the boyhood home of author and New Yorker cartoonist, James Thurber, and is designed to provide a writer with the gift of time to develop a work in progress.

Applicants must have had a book published by a traditional publisher within the last three years and have another work under contract or in progress. The resident will receive a stipend and will be available for at least three community outreach opportunities such as readings and teaching writing classes offered by Thurber House. Each year, the residency focuses on different genres. For 2014, the work may be fiction, or creative non-fiction including memoir.

The Bridport Prize (Deadline May 31 – £5,000)

The Bridport Prize International Creative Writing Competition was founded by Bridport Arts Centre in 1973 and has steadily grown in stature and prestige. Right from the start the competition attracted entries from all parts of the UK and from overseas. Today many thousands of entries are received from over 80 countries worldwide.

The mission of the Bridport Prize is to encourage emerging writers and promote literary excellence through its competition structure. The Bridport Prize was founded by Bridport Arts Centre in 1973 and has steadily grown in stature and prestige. Right from the start the competition attracted entries from all parts of the UK and from overseas.

One of the richest writing competitions in the UK, the Bridport Prize is open to all nationalities aged 16 years and over. The poem and short story categories each have a first prize of £5,000, second prize £1,000 and third prize £500. An additional 10 supplementary prizes (for each category) of £50 each are awarded. A new category for flash fiction with a prize of £1,000 was launched in 2010. There is a second prize of £500, 3rd prize of £250 and 3 supplementary prizes of £25.

Upcoming Deadlines

Guernica Call for Submissions: Class in America (Deadline May 10)
Sonora Review Nonfiction Contest (Deadline May 15 – $1000)
Ploughshares 2014 Emerging Writer's Contest (Deadline May 15 – $1000)
Denver Quarterly Call for Submissions (Deadline May 15)
Ragdale Residency Program Fellowships (Deadline May 15)
Carve Magazine Raymond Carver Short Story Contest (Deadline May 15 – $1500)
Flavorwire 2014 Short Fiction Contest (Deadline May 16 – $500)
New England Review Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Tin House Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Crazyhorse Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
The Threepenny Review Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize (Deadline May 31 – $12,000)
Creative Nonfiction Call for Submissions (The Memoir Issue – Deadline May 31 – $1000)
One Story Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
The Baltimore Review Summer Contest (Theme: "How to" – Deadline May 31 – $500)
American Short Fiction Short Story Contest (Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Electric Literarture Recommended Reading Call for Submissions (Deadline June 1)
Southern Indiana Review Thomas A. Wilhelmus Editors' Award (Deadline June 1 – $1500)
Mid-American Review 2014 Fineline Competition for Prose Poems, Short Shorts and Anything In Between(Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Headlands Center for the Arts Residency Program (Deadline June 6)
Prada Journal Second Edition Contest (Deadline June 10 – €5,000)
Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowship (Deadline June 15)
M Literary Residency: Shanghai, China or Bangalore, India (Deadline June 20)
Dzanc Books Nonfiction Prize (Deadline June 30 – $1500)
The Moth Magazine International Short Story Prize (Deadline June 30 – €3000)

Announcing Our May Sale!

For the month of May, we’re offering a 15% discount on the WordCraft service of your choice. We’ve put together a list of possible consultation projects below. Price estimates are based on several variables (length, scope, turnaround time, distance, etc.) and previous client arrangements.

You're welcome to read our testimonials, and please contact us if you have any questions. You can write to our consultants directly or email us all at wordcraft@wordcraftla.com. We hope to work with you soon!

	Regular Price	15% Off
Coaching/Tutoring
One-hour consultation meeting	$100	$85
(In person or via phone)
8-session tutoring package	$720	$612
(In person, college essays and coursework)
6-session coaching package for writers of all genres	$500	$425
(Three months of biweekly critiques via email)
10-session coaching package	$900	$765
(Five email critiques, five meetings via phone or in person)
12-session coaching package	$1,050	$893
(Six months of biweekly critiques via email)
Editing
Developmental editing for a 7,500-word story/essay	$200	$170
Line editing for a 60,000-word manuscript	$1,000	$850
Consultation
Critique for a 60,000-word manuscript	$700	$595
Submission consultation	$180	$153
(Guidance and ten venues for one story/essay)
Contact us for your customized estimate.

Submission Sunday 4.27.14

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

Guernica Call for Submissions: Class in America (Deadline May 10)

Guernica is now producing quarterly themed issues that follow our regular online format, but that are centered on explicit directions within the intersection of art and politics we’ve been exploring for the last ten years.

The focus of the June 15, 2014, issue is Class in America. The nation is divided, with class at the forefront. Who has voice in America? In terms of class divisions, where are we heading? We are particularly interested in under-told stories and lived experiences.

We will publish a total of six interviews (conversations) and features (journalism, reportage, polemic, personal essay, creative nonfiction). We will also publish one or two art features, two works of fiction, poetry, and a series of Daily pieces.

M Literary Residency: Shanghai, China or Bangalore, India (Deadline June 20)

In its 25 years of operation, the M Restaurant Group has been a pioneer in independent fine dining in China, with three restaurants and a glamorous bar. M at the Fringe in Hong Kong opened in 1989, followed by M on the Bund in Shanghai in 1999, the Glamour Bar in 2005 and Capital M in Beijing in 2009. From the beginning, quality cultural events and community and charity events have been a core part of the M DNA: we hold talks, music concerts and events throughout the year, and a major annual Literary Festival in Beijing and Shanghai that has become a highlight of the cultural calendar.

The M Literary Residency Programme, fully funded by M Restaurants, grew from our Literary Festivals, as we heard from writers about what was needed to nurture and produce the best writing in this region. The Residency was established to disseminate a broader knowledge of contemporary life and writing in India and China today and to foster deeper intellectual, cultural and artistic links across individuals and communities. The intent of the Residency is to provide space and time primarily for writing and location-specific research. It is not to be used as base for travel for research or leisure.  

Ploughshares "Writers Do It Best" Feature

In the “Writers Do It Best” feature, writers and writing students will discuss how their education and/or experiences as a writer have prepared them for the jobs, hobbies, and other activities they pursue outside the writing world.

Entrants must be currently be enrolled in or teaching in an MFA or MA program, undergraduate writing program, summer conference, residency, or any other writing-focused program, or have been enrolled in or teaching in one of these programs in the past 6 months. (Authors with major national publications who are not affiliated with a teaching program are also welcome to submit.) Please submit up to 500 words about how your education and/or experiences as a writer have left you uniquely prepared for a specific job or other activity.

River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Contest (Deadline October 15 – $1000)

River Teeth's editors and editorial board conduct a yearly national contest to identify the best book-length manuscript of literary nonfiction. All manuscripts are screened by the head editors of River Teeth. The winner will receive $1,000 and publication by The University of New Mexico Press. 

River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative was co-founded in 1999 by Joe Mackall and Dan Lehman, professors at Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio. The journal is recognized as a national leader in publishing quality essays, memoir, and literary journalism. From the very beginning, River Teeth has been dedicated to the simple premise that good writing counts and that facts matter.

Literary Mothers Call for Submissions (Deadline May 3)

Literary Mothers is a project on female literary influence featuring short essays by writers (of all genders) on the female writers who have inspired and/or mentored them. Contributors of all genders are welcome and encouraged to contribute to this project. Essays may be traditional or experimental, personal or craft-based. Currently accepting submissions of 500-1000 words. 

Santa Clara Review Call for Submissions 

Founded in 1869, Santa Clara Review--formerly known as The Owl and The Redwood--is one of the oldest literary publications in the Western U.S. Throughout its duration the publication has represented Santa Clara University's commitment to the humanities, a tenant of Jesuit education. Because the Review shares in Santa Clara University's commitment to the humanities, the Review will accept only the highest quality material for publication, material which echoes Santa Clara University's dedication to the pursuit of truth, honesty, and social responsibility within the literary arts.

Headlands Center for the Arts Residency Program (Deadline June 6)

Headlands Center for the Arts is a multidisciplinary, international arts center dedicated to supporting artists; the creative process; and the development of new, innovative ideas and artwork. Where we are is as important as what we do. Our campus comprises a cluster of artist-rehabilitated military buildings, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge at historic Fort Barry in the Marin Headlands, a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.  

Headlands artists programs support artists of all disciplines—from visual artists to performers, musicians, writers, and videographers—and provide opportunities for independent and collaborative creative work. Our impact is evident in the lives and careers of the artists who have participated in our programs and the experiences of our visitors.

About twice a month we host public events such as open houses, exhibitions, conversations, community meals, walks, and workshops. Regardless of the format, events are designed to connect visitors to art in real time. Headlands Center for the Arts is about people, their ideas, and the things they make, and what we do is only possible thanks to the generosity of those who support us.

Conjunctions:63 Call for Submissions: Speaking Volumes (Deadline July 31)

We are now accepting submissions for our Fall 2014 issue, Conjunctions:63, Speaking Volumes. This issue will include writing about writing itself and about the books that are home to the written word. A library of ideas about language and the book in all their forms, Speaking Volumes will collect poetry, fiction, and narrative nonfiction on historic, secret, ghostwritten, pseudonymous, banned, rare, and forged books—and on literature in every guise. 

We accept short- and long-form fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. We do not accept academic essays or publish book reviews. Because we strive to provide a forum for unconventional work, we have no official restrictions regarding word count. However, we ask that writers use common sense when it comes to sending extremely long work. Please do not send synopses or writing samples and ask us to indicate interest; just send the work itself.

Upcoming Deadlines

Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry Literary Awards: Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction & Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry (Deadline April 30 – $2000)

Lunch Ticket Call for Submissions (Deadline April 30)
Noemi Press 2014 Book Awards for Fiction and Poetry (Deadline April 30 – $1000)
Winning Writers Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction and Essay Contest (Deadline April 30 – $1000)
Hotel Amerika Call for Submissions (Deadline May 1)
Lowestoft Chronicle Call for Submissions (Deadline May 1) 
Kindred Magazine Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Memory – Deadline May 2)
Literary Mothers Call for Submissions (Deadline May 3)
Guernica Call for Submissions: Class in America (Deadline May 10)
Sonora Review Nonfiction Contest (Deadline May 15 – $1000)
Ploughshares 2014 Emerging Writer's Contest (Deadline May 15 – $1000)
Denver Quarterly Call for Submissions (Deadline May 15)
Ragdale Residency Program Fellowships (Deadline May 15)
Carve Magazine Raymond Carver Short Story Contest (Deadline May 15 – $1500)
New England Review Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Tin House Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Crazyhorse Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
The Threepenny Review Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize (Deadline May 31 – $12,000)
Creative Nonfiction Call for Submissions (The Memoir Issue – Deadline May 31 – $1000)
One Story Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
American Short Fiction Short Story Contest (Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Southern Indiana Review Thomas A. Wilhelmus Editors' Award (Deadline June 1 – $1500)
Mid-American Review 2014 Fineline Competition for Prose Poems, Short Shorts and Anything In Between(Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Headlands Center for the Arts Residency Program (Deadline June 6)
Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowship (Deadline June 15)
M Literary Residency: Shanghai, China or Bangalore, India (Deadline June 20)
Dzanc Books Nonfiction Prize (Deadline June 30 – $1500)
The Moth Magazine International Short Story Prize (Deadline June 30 – €3000)

Submission Sunday 4.20.14

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 11)

Emerging Voices is a literary fellowship that aims to provide new writers, who lack access, with the tools they will need to launch a professional writing career. During the eight month fellowship, each Emerging Voices Fellow participates in a professional mentorship, hosted Q & A evenings with prominent local authors, a series of master classes focused on genre, a voice class, a volunteer project, and several public readings. The fellowship includes a $1,000 stipend.

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.

Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowship (Deadline June 15)

Founded by artists in 1984, the Vermont Studio Center is the largest international artists' and writers' Residency Program in the United States, hosting 50 visual artists and writers each month from across the country and around the world. The Studio Center provides 4-12 week studio residencies on an historic 30-building campus along the Gihon River in Johnson, Vermont, a village in the heart of the northern Green Mountains. 

The Vermont Studio Center (VSC) is pleased to announce a major expansion of its core Fellowships program. VSC Fellowships -- open to all visual artists and writers living anywhere in the world -- provide month-long residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and are based entirely on merit. This Fellowships program embodies VSC’s founding commitment to supporting artistic talent worldwide and strengthening its international residency community.

HOOT: A Postcard Review of [Mini] Poetry and Prose Call for Submissions

HOOT is a postcard.  A very nice-looking one.  With writing on it! It is also a little more complicated than that.  It is also a brief, displayable, shareable literary magazine. We accept fiction, non-fiction, memoir, poetry, and book reviews year-round. Graphic fiction/non-fiction also welcome, but it must fit on a postcard. We publish only one (1!) piece in print form each month—we publish 1-4 pieces in our online issue.

We accept work on a rolling basis–you can expect to hear from us within a month to six weeks, if we’re on schedule, which we are about 50% of the time. We do pay for pieces published on postcards (more details on this below).

The idea is:

—to have stories and poems on a postcard, so that they can be displayed and shared easily. Stick it on the fridge! Tuck it in your husband’s/wife’s briefcase or nephew’s bookbag! 

—for people to have a literary magazine that they can both afford to subscribe to and have time to read. Never again will you be able to claim that you don’t have time to read current literature! Each post card will have fewer than two “Tweets.” Except for it’s not digital!

—to have a literary magazine that is excellent in a pure, gimmick-free way.

The Journal of Experimental Fiction 2015 Kenneth Patchen Award (Deadline July 31 – $1000)

A prize of $1,000 and publication by Journal of Experimental Fiction is given annually for an innovative novel. Renowned novelist James Chapman will serve as judge. Submit a manuscript of any length with a $25 entry fee by July 31.

The Journal of Experimental Fiction was founded in 1986 by novelist Eckhard Gerdes in order to gain wider attention for the incredible innovative fiction writing being done at that time.  JEF has been proud to be able to introduce the reading public to many fresh, original voices in the world of literature, and it continues its ongoing quest to find and introduce such material. JEF also acknowledges the great voices of innovative writing of years past and publishes essays about those voices of innovation. We publish a general fiction issue annually, or thereabouts, as well as introducing new novels to the reading public, novels that most likely would find themselves locked out by the larger presses, who have no time or interest in innovation anymore and only care about their bottom lines.

One Story Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)

One Story is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit devoted to promoting short stories and supporting the authors who write them. Our magazines, One Story and One Teen Story, feature one great short story mailed to subscribers every three weeks, allowing readers to experience each story as a stand-alone work of art. Since launching in 2002 we have grown to over 15,000 subscribers.

One Story is seeking literary fiction. Because of our format, we can only accept stories between 3,000 and 8,000 words. They can be any style and on any subject as long as they are good. We are looking for stories that leave readers feeling satisfied and are strong enough to stand alone. One Story publishes writers only once, so we are always looking for exciting new voices.

Ragdale Residency Program Fellowships (Deadline May 15)

Ragdale is a non-profit artists’ community located onarchitect Howard Van Doren Shaw’s country estate in Lake Forest, 30 miles north of Chicago. In 1976, Shaw’s granddaughter, Alice Judson Hayes, transformed her family’s summer home into an artist’s retreat to provide time and space for artists to create important new work.

Today Ragdale annually hosts more than 150 artists, writers, choreographers and composers at all stages of their careers for 2-6 week residencies, making it one of the largest interdisciplinary artist communities in thecountry. Ragdale offers a retreat setting where at any given time, a dozen creative individuals experience uninterrupted time for dedicated work, a supportive environment, dynamic artist exchanges, 50 acres of idyllic prairie and a family-style dinner each evening.

The Collapsar Call for Submissions 

The Collapsar is a bi-monthly magazine of new writing. We’re here because we’re selfish—we want to personally locate the stuff we want to read, to cut out the middle man.

The Collapsar especially welcomes work that has a strong sense of place: we want to read your stories about Oklahoma during tornado season, blazing cold winter nights in northern Idaho, the streets of Seattle on its eighteenth rainy day in a row. We want the mugginess of the bayou. But also, we want work that has no place at all, believing that place is not simply interchangeable with “setting.” Place is vision. Your story could take place in a spaceship. Or inside of somebody’s left shoe. And above all, great writing gives us new vision.

We want to set the experimental and the traditional side by side, to have a generous aesthetic. We want to bridge the gap between the fertile but oft insular sidecars of “alt-lit” and everybody else. We want great writing from women, men, straight people, GLBTQ people, black people, white people, red people, yellow people, and, if they exist, almost certainly, we want work from purple people. If you are purple, please get in touch with us. We want your boozy writing and your sober writing. We want your atheism. We want your theism. Grandeloquence and minutia. We believe that most comedy is sad. And that most sadness is at least a little funny. We like to laugh.

The New Guard Literary Review Machigonne Fiction Contest and Knightville Poetry Contest (Deadline July 14 – $1000)

MACHIGONNE FICTION CONTEST: $1,000 for an exceptional fiction in any genre. Submit up to 5,000 words: anything from flash to the long story. Novel excerpts are welcome if the excerpt functions as a stand-alone story. We do not publish illustrations. 

KNIGHTVILLE POETRY CONTEST: $1,000 for an exceptional poem in any form. Three poems per entry. Up to 150 lines per poem. 

THE NEW GUARD is an independent literary review based in Maine. We proudly publish in print, with the exception of our online feature, BANG!, a page on this site that publishes three short works by a single writer for a full month at a time. The New Guard is here to showcase newcomers alongside established writers, and to juxtapose tradition with experiment to create a new dialogue. Here at TNG and The Writer's Hotel, we work diligently to support writers. We will stand up and put on the gloves for those good stories and poems. We do all we can to help our fellow writers.

Upcoming Deadlines

Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry Literary Awards: Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction & Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry (Deadline April 30 – $2000)
Lunch Ticket Call for Submissions (Deadline April 30)
Noemi Press 2014 Book Awards for Fiction and Poetry (Deadline April 30 – $1000)
Winning Writers Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction and Essay Contest (Deadline April 30 – $1000)
Hotel Amerika Call for Submissions (Deadline May 1)
Lowestoft Chronicle Call for Submissions (Deadline May 1) 
Kindred Magazine Call for Submissions (Theme Issue: Memory – Deadline May 2)
Sonora Review Nonfiction Contest (Deadline May 15 – $1000)
Ploughshares 2014 Emerging Writer's Contest (Deadline May 15 – $1000)
Denver Quarterly Call for Submissions (Deadline May 15)
Ragdale Residency Program Fellowships (Deadline May 15)
Carve Magazine Raymond Carver Short Story Contest (Deadline May 15 – $1500)
New England Review Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Tin House Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Crazyhorse Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
The Threepenny Review Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize (Deadline May 31 – $12,000)
Creative Nonfiction Call for Submissions (The Memoir Issue – Deadline May 31 – $1000)
One Story Call for Submissions (Deadline May 31)
American Short Fiction Short Story Contest (Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Southern Indiana Review Thomas A. Wilhelmus Editors' Award (Deadline June 1 – $1500)
Mid-American Review 2014 Fineline Competition for Prose Poems, Short Shorts and Anything In Between (Deadline June 1 – $1000)
Vermont Studio Center Residency Fellowship (Deadline June 15)
Dzanc Books Nonfiction Prize (Deadline June 30 – $1500)
The Moth Magazine International Short Story Prize (Deadline June 30 – €3000)

Submission Sunday 3.30.14

Submission Sunday will be on hiatus until April 20. 

The Moth Magazine International Short Story Prize (Deadline June 30 – €3000)

Founded in June 2010, The Moth is a quarterly arts & literature magazine featuring poetry, short fiction and art by established and up-and-coming writers and artists from Ireland and abroad. Each issue also features interviews with the likes of Paul Muldoon, Belinda McKeon, Kevin Barry, Donal Ryan and DBC Pierre. The Moth appears in March, June, September and December.

The Prize is open to everyone, as long as the work is original and previously unpublished.  There is a 6,000 word limit. The entry fee is €9 per story and you can enter as many stories as you like. This year’s competition will be judged by Mike McCormack, a recipient of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature whose debut short story collection was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His novel Notes from a Coma was shortlisted for the Irish Book of the Year Award and was described in the Irish Times as ‘the greatest Irish novel of the decade just ended’. The three winning stories will feature in the autumn 2014 issue of The Moth and the winners will be invited to read at a special event at the Winding Stair Bookshop in Dublin in September 2014.  

Los Angeles Festival of Books Call for Poets/Performers (Deadline April 1)

Click to read more ...