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Welcome to Our August Newsletter
WERGLE FLOMP
HUMOR POETRY CONTEST WINNERS
Congratulations to Penny-Anne Beaudoin, winner
of our 2017 Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest. Her rebellious "The
Magician's Assistant" earned $1,000. We awarded
runner-up Mary Somerville $250 for "A
Friend to All Is a Friend to None". Jennifer Teunon won
a special Third Prize of $150 for "Mind
Over Mindfulness". Honorable mentions and $100 went to
Daniel Ari, Dawn Daniels, Tim Eberle, Claudia Matos, Abby McCambridge,
Jane Mitchell, Taryn Parrish, Lee Patton, Karen Schubert, and Beth
Spencer. 4,275 contestants entered. Read all
the winning entries with comments from judges Jendi Reiter and Lauren
Singer. Read the
press release. Our 2018 contest is now open for
entries. As always, this contest has no fee.
Deadline Next
Month
TOM
HOWARD/MARGARET REID POETRY CONTEST
15th year. We will award the Tom Howard Prize of $1,500 for a poem in
any style or genre, and the Margaret Reid Prize of $1,500 for a poem
that rhymes or has a traditional style. Ten Honorable Mentions will
receive $100 each (any style). The top 12 entries will be published
online. Length limit: 250 lines per poem. Entry fee: $12 per poem.
Final judge: S. Mei Sheng Frazier,
assisted by Jim DuBois. Deadline:
September 30. Submit
online here.
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Deadline: October 15
The 2017 New
Writer Awards at Sequestrum award over $500 in prizes and
publication to writers of short fiction, nonfiction, and poetry who
have yet to publish a book-length manuscript. Two first-prize winners
(one fiction/nonfiction, one poetry) will receive $200 each. A minimum
of one runner-up per genre will receive publication and a cash prize.
Finalists last year included
many new, emerging, and even first-time writers. All finalists are
listed on the website. Enter online. No length (short story/essay) or
theme restrictions. Complete guidelines here: https://www.sequestrum.org/contests
Sequestrum has an international
readership of 2,500+ per month and publishes poetry and prose on a
rolling basis. All publications are paired with a stunning visual
component. Past contributors include Guggenheim and NEA Fellows,
Pulitzer Prize finalists, as well as many new and emerging voices.
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Congratulations to L.S.
Johnson, Mark Stevick, Berwyn
Moore (featured poem: "Ambisinistrous"),
Joan Gelfand (featured poem: "Peonies:
For Jill"), Joan Leotta, Ruth
Hill, Gail Thomas, Sofia
Kioroglou, Evelyn Krieger, Janet
Garber, James Garrison, Carolyn
Howard-Johnson (featured poem: "Here
and There, Now and Then"), and Ellaraine
Lockie.
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Red Blood, Yellow Skin is the story of a young girl's survival in war-torn
Vietnam during the First Indochina War between France and Vietnam, the
civil war between North and South Vietnam, and the later American
involvement in the Vietnam War. Linda Baer was born Nguyen Thi Loan, in
the village of Tao Xa, Thai Binh Province, in North Vietnam in 1947.
When she was four years old, the Viet Minh attacked her village and
killed her father, leaving Loan and her mother to fend for themselves.
Seeking escape from impoverishment, her mother married a rich and
dominating widower who was cruel to his free-spirited and mischievous
stepdaughter. Loan found solace in the company of animals and insects
and escaped into the branches of trees.
In 1954, her family chose to
relocate to South Vietnam, rather than live under the yoke of communist
North Vietnam. When Loan was thirteen, she ran away to Saigon to flee
the cruelty of her stepfather and worked at menial jobs to help her
family. At seventeen, she was introduced to bars, nightclubs, and Saigon
Tea. At eighteen, she dated and lived with a young American airman. Two
months after their baby was born, the airman returned to America, and
Loan never heard from him again. She raised their son by herself.
However, time healed her heart, and she eventually found true love in a
young Air Force Officer, whom she married and accompanied to America.
Red Blood, Yellow Skin is a story of romance, culture, traditions, and
family. It describes the pain, struggle, despair, and violence as Loan
lived it. The story is hers, but it is also an account of Vietnam—of
those who were uprooted, displaced, brutalized, and left homeless. It
is about this struggle to survive and her extraordinary triumph over
adversity that Baer writes.
Watch for the sequel coming
this November...
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$1,000 award and publication
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Entry fee: $25
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Submit a manuscript of up to
75-100 pages
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Previously published works may
be entered
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$1,000 award and publication
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Entry fee: $25
·
Submit a novella of up to
50,000 words or a manuscript of short stories of up to 200 pages
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Any well-written manuscript on
any topic will be considered
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Previously published works may
be entered
We are proud to announce that Rupert
Fike of Georgia has won the 2016 Violet Reed Haas Prize
for his poetry collection, Hello the House, and Tom
Benz of Chicago has won the Serena McDonald Kennedy
Award for his collection of short stories, Home & Castle.
See
selections from their work.
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Deadline: September 1
Gulf Coast is now accepting
entries for the inaugural Toni Beauchamp Prize in Critical Art Writing.
The contest awards $3,000 and publication in Gulf Coast to the winner.
The Prize will consider submissions of work that has been written (or
published) within the last year. A variety of creative approaches and
formats to writing on the visual arts are encouraged, and can include
thematic essays, exhibition reviews and scholarly essays. Two runners
up will be awarded $1,000 each. Prize winners will be featured in Gulf
Coast's printed journal as well as online. There is no entry fee. Darby
English will judge. Click here
for full guidelines and to submit.
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Deadline: September 8
The Barthelme Prize for Short
Prose is open to pieces of prose poetry, flash fiction, and
micro-essays of 500 words or fewer. Established in 2008, the contest
awards its winner $1,000 and publication in the journal. Two honorable
mentions will receive $250, and all entries will be considered for paid
publication on our website as Online Exclusives. Roxane Gay is this
year's judge.
All entrants to the Barthelme
Prize receive a one-year subscription to Gulf Coast, beginning with the
year in which the corresponding prize winner is published. We will
accept submissions both via our online submissions manager and via
postal mail. Click here
for full guidelines and to submit.
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Deadline: September 8
Gulf Coast is now accepting
entries for the Gulf Coast Prize in Translation. In 2017, the contest
is open to prose (fiction or nonfiction) in translation. The winner
receives $1,000 and publication in the journal. Two honorable mentions
will each receive $250. All entries will be considered for paid
publication on our website as Online Exclusives. John Keene is this year’s
judge.
Entry to the contest also
includes a one-year subscription to Gulf Coast, beginning with the
issue in which the corresponding prize winners are published. We will
accept submissions both via our online submissions manager and via
postal mail. Click here
for full guidelines and to submit.
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Deadline: September 11
Creative Nonfiction is currently seeking experimental nonfiction for
the "Exploring the Boundaries" section
("experimental," "boundaries" ... yes, we know
these can be loaded terms). We're looking for writing that is
ambitious, pushes against the conventional boundaries of the genre,
plays with style and form, and makes its own rules. As always, we have
only one absolute rule: nonfiction must be based in fact.
Please note that this is
NOT a call for an entire "Exploring the Boundaries" issue of
the magazine; accepted pieces will be published one per issue, and the
earliest possible publication will be in Issue #67 (Spring 2018).
All essays submitted will be
considered for publication; this is a paying market.
Essays must be previously
unpublished and no longer than 4,500 words. All essays must tell true
stories and be factually accurate. Everything we publish goes through a
rigorous fact-checking process, and editors may ask for sources and
citations.
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Dwarves and golems, Fates and
minotaurs, metamorphoses, murder, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. L.S.
Johnson delivers a provocative and original short story collection that
ingeniously blends myth and nightmare. Whether it concerns the efforts
of an infertile witch to construct a golem-baby, or a daughter's quest
to understand a father's guilt and a mother's supernatural
infidelities, or a woman's violent association with a group of possibly
imaginary but nonetheless dangerous little men, each story in this
remarkable collection demonstrates the limitless capacity of
intelligent speculative fiction to enthrall, inspire, and amaze. Available
now at Amazon,
Kobo,
Barnes
& Noble, and iBooks.
Read a
free excerpt.
"I can say without
hesitation, reservation or exception that this is a collection full of
brilliantly written and powerfully affecting stories, each of which profoundly
impressed me in different ways ... Johnson's Vacui
Magia is a book that never goes quietly, and it is
wonderful for it." – The Future Fire Reviews
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Deadline: September 30
Lilith
Magazine invites submissions of quality short fiction,
3,000 words or under, for our Annual Fiction Contest. When selecting
what you'll submit, please remember our tagline—independent, Jewish and
frankly feminist. The magazine proudly spotlights both emerging and established
writers. Winner receives $250 + publication. Put "Fiction Contest
Submission" as subject line and send to info@Lilith.org.
Since 1976, Lilith charts
Jewish women's lives with exuberance, rigor, affection, subversion and
style. Lilith's mission is to be the feminist change-agent in and for
the Jewish community, amplifying Jewish women's voices, creating a
woman-positive Judaism, spurring gender consciousness in the Jewish
world and empowering Jewish women and girls to envision and enact
change in their own lives and their communities.
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Deadline: October 23
The Writing Pittsburgh Book
Prize will recognize one book focusing on a subject of regional and
national significance, by a writer with a meaningful Pittsburgh
connection. The author of the winning manuscript will receive a $10,000
honorarium; publication of their book by the Creative Nonfiction
Foundation's independent book imprint, In Fact Books (IFB); national
distribution; and a marketing and publicity campaign.
Manuscripts will be judged on
originality; the subject's broad appeal and resonance with a national
readership; interpretation of the "Writing Pittsburgh" theme;
and literary quality and strength of prose. The selected book might be
an in-depth reporting project focusing on one organization, individual,
or event; alternatively, it might be a more personal writing
project—for example, a memoir. All submissions will be judged by CNF's
editorial staff.
The winning author will work
with CNF/IFB's editorial staff to refine and polish the manuscript.
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From the author of Uncle
Otto, winner of the 2016 North Street Book
Prize for literary fiction, comes a story of perilous love during
the conflagration of the Civil War. Kirkus
Reviews writes:
"Jerry Hawthorne and
Daniel Cook are an unlikely pair of lovers. They are both men, and in
19th-century America, theirs is a dangerous union. They share intense
memories of growing up together on the Hawthorne plantation, with
Daniel a slave and Jerry the scion of the family that owned him. When
they are still boys, Jerry’s father dies, throwing the future of the
plantation in doubt...
"...the leads are
compelling, and the investigation of interracial and homosexual
relationships in the Civil War period should keep audiences invested in
their struggles. The book is well-crafted and will likely please
readers beyond those who are fans of gay fiction."
An affecting story of two souls
separated by slavery and war.
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Deadline:
October 31 (postmark or online submission date)
Final Judge: To be announced
The Sunken Garden Poetry Prize
is a prestigious national poetry prize for adult writers. Established
in 2002, the Prize has drawn submissions from around the country that
have been judged by renowned poets such as Martha Collins, Patricia
Smith, and Tony Hoagland. The winner receives a cash prize, an
introductory reading at the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, and
publication of a chapbook. Hill-Stead began partnering with Tupelo
Press for the publication of the chapbook in 2013.
The Tupelo Press Sunken Garden
Poetry Prize includes a cash award of $1,000, publication by Tupelo
Press, a book launch, and national distribution with energetic
publicity and promotion. Results announced in winter 2018.
Submit a previously
unpublished, chapbook-length poetry manuscript with a table of contents
and an acknowledgements page (if applicable). There is no mandatory
page count, but we suggest in the area of 20 to 36 pages. All manuscripts
will be read and considered with full respect, regardless of length,
and no manuscript will be rejected simply because it's shorter or
longer. We encourage online submission via our Submittable system. You
may also submit via postal mail:
Tupelo Press
Sunken Garden Chapbook Poetry Prize
P.O. Box 1767
North Adams, MA 01247
For mailed manuscripts, request
notification of receipt by including a SASP. For notification of the
winner, enclose a SASE. Manuscripts will not be returned.
A reading fee of $25 payable by
check to Tupelo Press or via Submittable must accompany each
submission. Multiple submissions are accepted, each accompanied by a
$25 reading fee.
Please enjoy this selection by
Emily Jungmin Yoon, author of Ordinary Misfortunes (Tupelo
Press, 2017), winner of the 2017 Sunken Garden Poetry Prize:
An Ordinary
Misfortune
by Emily Jungmin Yoon
Mine is the jam-packed train.
The too-weak cocktail. This
statement by an American man at the bar: Your life in
Korea would have been a whole lot different without the
US. Meaning: be thankful. This question by a
Canadian
girl, a friend: Why don’t you guys just get along?
The guys:
Japan and Korea. Meaning: move on. How do I answer
that? Move on, move on, girls on the train. Destination:
comfort stations. Things a soldier can do: mount you before
another soldier is done. Say, Drink this soup made of human
blood. Say, The Korean race should be erased from this
earth.
Tops down. Bottoms up. Things erased: your name, your
child, your history. Your new name: Fumiko, Hanako, Yoshi-
ko. Name of the condom: Charge Number One. Name of the
needle: Compound 606. Salvarsan means, an arsenic to save.
Ratio 291: 29 soldiers per girl. Actual count: lost. Lost: all.
Shot, shot, shot, everybody. Give thanks.
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FundsforWriters
is internationally known for its level-headed yet tough-love advice to
writers, both emerging and seasoned. Recognized by Writer's Digest for
its 101 Best Websites for Writers for over 15 years, the site serves up
plates full of motivation also delivered in the weekly newsletter to
35,000 readers. The Best of
FundsforWriters, Vol. 1 offers 32 essays and how-to
strategies that struck positive chords with readers around the globe.
"FundsforWriters
helps writers achieve more success with their writing by finding and sharing the
information that writers need to fund their writing."
—Robert Lee Brewer, Editor, Writer's Market
"FFW is
quite simply the best online resource for writers. I get dozens of writers' newsletters in my inbox
every week, but FFW is the only one I read right away, from top to
bottom, and save for future reference. Hope Clark rocks."
—Glenn Walker, Editor-in-chief of the pop culture website, www.BiffBamPop.com
"No matter
what kind of writer you want to be, FundsforWriters gives you the
resources, guidance and inspiration we all need to hone our craft. All writers need hope, and C. Hope Clark's
FundsforWriters brings you the tools, resources and real world
knowledge that will make you a better writer."
—Mark Lund, award-winning magazine publisher, screenwriter and
filmmaker
ABOUT THE
AUTHOR
Well known throughout the writing industry, C. Hope
Clark founded FundsforWriters two decades ago when she could
not find what she wanted for her own writing career. Today, she is
editor of FundsforWriters, an award-winning author of two mystery
series, and an active freelance entrepreneur. She and her motivational
voice and writer support message appear often at conferences, nonprofit
galas, book clubs, libraries, and writers' groups across the country.
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Deadline: November 6
Every decision we make, whether
as individuals or as a society, involves some risk—whether physical or
emotional, economic or legal, social or spiritual. Our comfort level
with uncertainty defines not only our choices in any given situation,
but how we live.
For a special
issue of Creative
Nonfiction
magazine, we're seeking true stories illustrating the ways we balance
the threat of loss against the promise of gain.
Possible subjects could be big
or small, personal or public. We're interested in intersections between
deeply personal decisions and those that affect larger communities.
·
How is risk intertwined with
life decisions like entering relationships, starting or ending a
pregnancy, or revealing a sexual or gender preference?
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How do the risks associated
with social interactions, whether online or in person, affect people's
behavior or speech?
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How does risk relate to deeply
held religious and/or political beliefs, especially within a
pluralistic society?
·
Why do some people actively
seek risk, and how does this affect their quality of life?
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How are emerging technologies
such as gene editing and artificial intelligence changing the nature of
the risks we face?
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How do we think about and
approach potentially catastrophic risks such as a large asteroid
colliding with the earth, nuclear war, or the possibility of artificial
intelligence superseding human intelligence?
Above all, we are looking for
vivid narratives—true stories, rich with scene, character, detail, and
a distinctive voice—with unique insights into these questions.
Creative Nonfiction editors will award $1,000 for best essay and $500
for runner-up, and all essays submitted will be considered for
publication.
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Winning Writers editor Jendi
Reiter's fourth poetry book and second full-length
collection, Bullies in Love,
is available from Little
Red Tree Publishing, with illustrations by fine art
photographer and Massachusetts Cultural Council award winner Toni
Pepe. Poems in this collection have won prizes from Atlanta
Review, Anderbo, Alligator Juniper, Descant, New Millennium Writings,
Solstice Literary Magazine, Wag's Revue, and others.
Based in North Platte, NE, Little
Red Tree publishes books of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and
art that "delight, entertain, and educate", as well as the
print and online literary magazine Peacock
Journal.
"This
book is an immensely enjoyable, sometimes beautiful, and often moving
romp—tamed and targeted
rage—through the hazardous territory of inter-personal and political
relationships. Reiter's way with contemporary American English is
acutely sensitive, and I cannot think of a better way to address the
apparent oxymoron of the collection's title. It is a full, rich
book—you will get your money's worth. It is also often laugh out loud
funny—an impressive rarity in poetry that is also serious."
—E. Taylor, 5-star Amazon review
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Some contests are best suited
to writers at the early stages of their careers. Others are better for
writers with numerous prizes and publications to their credit. Here is
this month's selection of Spotlight Contests for your consideration:
Emerging Writers
Submerging
Writer Fellowship. Fear No Lit will award a top prize of
$1,000 ($500 prize and $500 to be used toward expenses associated with
attending AWP 2018 in Tampa, FL) for writers who have never published a
book or won any major writing awards, and who are not currently
studying in an MFA or PhD program. Both poetry and prose considered.
Due August 31.
Intermediate Writers
Young
Lions Fiction Award. The New York Public Library will award
$10,000 for the best published book of fiction (novel or short story
collection) by a US author age 35 or under. Books must have been
published or scheduled for publication during the current calendar
year. Must be submitted by publisher. Due September 8.
Advanced Writers
Shaughnessy
Cohen Award for Political Writing. The Writers' Trust of
Canada will award C$25,000 for literary nonfiction books about Canadian
politics by Canadian citizens or permanent residents and first
published in Canada during the calendar year. The September 13 deadline
welcomes books published between July 15 and September 12. Must be
submitted by publisher.
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Bosie
Magazine (fiction about "queers behaving badly" -
September 1)
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Rainbow
Awards (published and self-published LGBTQ books - September
5)
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Mr. Peters writes, "Here
are two illustrations inspired by the American poet Ezra Pound's famous
and famously short poem, 'In a
Station of the Metro', first published in 1913.
"I have no experience with
Chinese and Japanese brush painting, and it is known as a technique
that takes at least a whole lifetime to perfect, but it's the idea that
counts. Perhaps I will return to this theme once I've had a little more
practice with this painting style."
These illustrations are
reprinted here by kind permission of Mr. Peters. Visit
his website.
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After
Charlottesville: Readings for Racial Justice
We white liberals are belatedly waking up to the reality of the other
America that black people have lived in for centuries. It's a privilege
to be surprised that this kind of violent hatred has never gone away.
As Columbia Journalism professor Jelani
Cobb said on Twitter, "The biggest indictment of the
way we teach American history is that people can look at
Charlottesville and say 'This is not who we are.'" The best
remedial education is to immerse one's self in stories by and about
African-Americans. For me personally, one year as a judicial clerk,
reading real-life cases of minority New Yorkers' encounters with the
police and public housing authorities, was worth seven years of critical
theory in college and grad school.
With that in mind, let me offer
a few literary works from the Winning Writers contest archives that
will move you and teach you something about race relations (if you're
white) or hopefully validate your experience (if you're not).
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