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Tom
Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest - Last Five Days
Your opportunity to enter our contest closes at
the end of the day on September 30, 11:59pm Hawaii time. We'll award $3,000
to the best poem in any style and $3,000 to the best poem that rhymes or
has a traditional style. 10 honorable mentions will receive $200 each. The
top two winners will also receive two-year gift certificates from our
co-sponsor, Duotrope (a $100 value). Submit published or unpublished work.
The top 12 poems will be published online.
$15 entry fee per poem.
Submit as many poems as you like. Most countries eligible. Judge: S. Mei
Sheng Frazier, assisted by Jim DuBois. This contest is sponsored by Winning
Writers and recommended
by Reedsy.
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Prefer to
Enter by Mail?
Send
your entry and fee to: Winning
Writers, Attn: Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest, 351 Pleasant
Street PMB 222, Northampton, MA 01060-3961, USA. Checks must be drawn on
US banks in US funds, payable to Winning Writers. You may also send US
currency. Please postmark your entry by September 30.
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Questions?
See past
winners and more contest information at Winning
Writers.
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© 2001-2020 Winning Writers. All rights reserved except
for fair use. 351 Pleasant Street PMB 222, Northampton, MA 01060.
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We found almost
two dozen excellent free poetry and prose contests with
deadlines between September 15-October 31. In this issue, please enjoy "Because I could
not stop for Death" by Emily Dickinson, illustrated by Julian
Peters.
Last Call!
TOM
HOWARD/MARGARET REID POETRY CONTEST
Deadline September 30. We have increased the Tom Howard Prize to $3,000
for a poem in any style or genre, and the Margaret Reid Prize to $3,000
for a poem that rhymes or has a traditional style. Ten Honorable
Mentions will receive $200 each (any style). The top 12 entries will be
published online. The top two winners will also receive two-year
gift certificates from our co-sponsor, Duotrope (a $100 value). Length
limit: 250 lines per poem. Entry fee: $15 per poem. Final judge: S. Mei
Sheng Frazier, assisted by Jim
DuBois. Our contests are recommended
by Reedsy. Submit
online or enter by
mail.
View past newsletters in our archives.
Need assistance? Let us
help. Join our 135,000 followers on Twitter.
Advertise
with us, starting at $40.
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Don't miss
these contests. All
have cash prizes. At FanStory,
you can enter dozens
of contests, get feedback for everything you write, and have
fun with your writing. Membership is only $9.95 per month. Discounts
available! View the
discounts.
 100 Word
Flash Fiction
Write a flash fiction story on any topic that uses exactly 100 words. Win
cash!
Deadline tomorrow! September 16th
New
Arrival Poetry
The purpose of this contest is to welcome new poets to the site. Write
a 5-7-5 poem. The first line has five syllables. The second line has
seven. The third line has five again. Cash prize
to the winner.
Deadline in 2 Days! September 17th
6 Word
Poetry
Write a poem with only six words. The winner takes away a cash
prize.
Deadline September 25th
Cinquain
Poetry
Write a 5-line poem with these syllable counts: 2, 4, 6, 8, and 2.
Rhyming is optional. Choose any subject. The winner takes away a cash
prize.
Deadline September 27th
3 Line
Poetry Contest
Write a 3-line poem with these syllable counts: 5, 7, and 5. Cash
Prize!
Deadline September 28th
Flash
Fiction
Write a story (on any topic) using exactly 150 words. The title does
not count towards the word limit. Cash prize
to the winner.
Deadline September 30th
These are just
a few of our contests. View the
listing.
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Congratulations to Anna
Scotti (featured poem: "The
Nature of Objects"), Gary Beck, Ute
Carson, Paul Scollan (featured
poem: "Wedge
of Blacktop, Saturday, 1955"), Barbara
de la Cuesta, Jennifer R. Farmer, Janet
Garber, Dr. Christopher D. Handy, Rick
Lupert (featured poem: "At
Meiji Shrine"), Meg Eden, Neil
Perry Gordon, Michael McKeown Bondhus, Angélique
Jamail, Ellaraine Lockie, Freddy
Niagara Fonseca, Antoinette Carone, Cynthia
Harris-Allen, and Duane L. Herrmann.
Learn
about our subscribers' achievements and see links to samples of their
work.
Have news? Please email it to jendi@winningwriters.com.
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Deadline: September 30
Award-winning independent press
Dzanc
Books seeks daring, experimental, and innovative literary
fiction and nonfiction for its three annual contests:
·
the Prize
for Fiction, which recognizes bold and well-crafted
novels (35,000 words and up) and offers a $5,000 advance and
publication;
·
the Short
Story Collection, which seeks unique and powerful
book-length collections and offers a $2,000 advance and publication;
·
the Diverse
Voices Prize (no fee), seeking book-length
literary fiction and nonfiction from writers in minority,
underrepresented, or marginalized communities. The Diverse Voices Prize
offers a $3,000 advance and publication. This contest does not have a
reading fee.
The winner of the Prize for
Fiction will be selected by Anne Valente (Our
Hearts Will Burn Us Down and By Light We Knew Our Names),
Tina May Hall (The Snow Collectors
and The Physics of Imaginary Objects), and Jessie
van Eerden, author of Call It Horses,
which was chosen as the winner of last year's Prize for Fiction. The
winner of the Diverse Voices Prize will be selected by Charles
Johnson (Middle Passage, The Words and Wisdom of
Charles Johnson), Chaya Bhuvaneswar (White
Dancing Elephants), and Robert Lopez
(Kamby Balongo Mean River, All Back
Full). The Short Story Collection Prize is judged in-house.
Winners and finalists will be
announced on January 15, 2021. $25 submission fee per entry for the
Prize for Fiction and Short Story Collection Prize; Diverse Voices
Prize entries do not require a submission fee. Enter via
Submittable.
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EARLY BIRD
SPECIAL - Enter
online by September 30 and receive a $60 discount on the
entry of a second category.
The Early Bird Special Entry
Fee is only $75 and includes the entry of one title in two categories. On October 1, the price to enter two
categories increases by $60.
Entries are now being accepted
for the 2021 Next
Generation Indie Book Awards, the most exciting and
rewarding book awards program open to independent publishers and
authors worldwide who have a book written in English and released in
2019, 2020 or 2021 or with a 2019, 2020 or 2021 copyright date. The
Next Generation Indie Book Awards is presented by Independent
Book Publishing Professionals Group.
With over 70 categories to
choose from, enter
by February 12, 2021 to take advantage of this exciting opportunity to
have your book considered for cash prizes, awards, exposure, possible
representation by a leading literary agent, and recognition as one of
the top independently published books of the year!
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Deadline: October 1
$5,000 Fiction
| $5,000 Nonfiction | $5,000 Poetry
Winners receive a cash prize,
publication, promotion, and a virtual event to be determined. Submit
one piece of fiction or nonfiction up to 8,500 words or up to 10 pages
of poems. Enter online or
by mail. All entries considered for publication.
Regular entry fee: $25. All-Access entry fee: $30. Winners will be
announced in early 2021.
Each entrant receives a
one-year subscription to the Missouri Review in digital
format (normal price $24) and the digital short story anthology Strange
Encounters, forthcoming from Missouri Review Books (normal
price $7.95). All-Access entrants receive full access to our ten-year
digital archive.
Check out these excerpts from
last year's winners, Seth
Fried in Fiction, Heather
Treseler in Poetry, and Jennifer
Anderson in Nonfiction.
Please enjoy this reading
and conversation with Heather Treseler on YouTube.
Questions? Email contest_question@moreview.com.
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$3500 Awarded for Artfully Communicated Poetry
Deadline: October 18
We are so thrilled to offer poets space to stretch their creativity
into new and exciting projects. This unique multimedia
contest will accept work that incorporates poetry into new
media formats, including but not limited to: music, video, art,
photography, sculpture, and performance—use the communication technique
that you feel most creatively gets across the experience of your
poetry. You choose the creative canvas. $3500 will be awarded and all
winners will be published on Palette
Poetry.
We will rate the work accordingly: 50% poetic experience, 50% media
experience. Each submission must include poetry into the work in some
significant way—visually written or audio recorded. Ekphrasis is
welcome as well, as long as the art is original.
We're looking to experience poetry in a new way, beyond just black text
on a blank page! Our editorial team will select the winner of the $3000
top prize, as well as two runner-ups for $300 and $200 respectively. We
can't wait to see what you send us!
Full details
and submissions
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Deadline: October 19
New Letters is looking for work that experiments, that crosses
the traditional boundaries of genre and form. Enter your hybrid work—your lyric essays, prose
poems, short-shorts, collages, micro-memoirs...whatever you're doing
that's experimental, that defies easy categorization. Entries must not
exceed 8,000 words and must be previously unpublished. A one-year
subscription to New Letters, shipped to any
address within the United States, is included with the first entry.
Enter via our online submission manager, Submittable.
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Deadline: December 31
Calling all gifted fiction
writers! Lilith
Magazine—Independent, Jewish & frankly feminist—seeks
quality short fiction, 3,000 words or under, for our Annual
Fiction Contest. First prize $250 + publication. We
especially like work with both feminist and Jewish content, and are
eager to read submissions from BIJOC writers. Please submit to info@Lilith.org with "Fiction
Contest" and your name in subject line and full
contact info on manuscript. No fee to enter.
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First Prize:
$2,500, publication in LitMag, and
agency review
Finalists: Three finalists will receive $100 each
All finalists will be
considered for possible agency review and publication.
Deadline:
December 31
Contest Fee: $20. Entries must
be unpublished short stories between 3,000 and 8,000 words. Submit
through Submittable
only. See the
results of previous contests.
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Deadline: December 31
Attention
Women Poets:
Two Sylvias
Press is looking to publish Full-Length Poetry Manuscripts by Women
Over 50
(Open to both established or emerging poets)
Prize: $1,000 and print book
publication by Two Sylvias Press, 20 copies of the winning book, and a
vintage art nouveau pendant
The
Wilder Series Poetry Book Prize is open to women over 50
years of age (born on or before December 31, 1970). Women submitting
manuscripts may be poets with one or more previously published
chapbooks/books or poets without any prior
chapbook/book publications. (We use an inclusive definition of
"woman" and "female" and we welcome trans women,
genderqueer women, and non-binary people who are significantly
female-identified.) All manuscripts will be considered for publication.
See the
complete contest guidelines.
Learn
more about the prize and Two Sylvias Press. Previous winners
& manuscripts chosen from the Wilder Poetry Book Prize include Gail
Martin, Kelly Cressio-Moeller, Erica Bodwell, Adrian Blevins, Dana
Roeser, Molly Tenenbaum, and Carmen Gillespie.
Simultaneous
submissions allowed.
NOTE: Our
mission at Two Sylvias Press is to support poets. Your manuscript will NOT be disqualified if it was
submitted incorrectly. We will not penalize you for trying and
making a mistake. If we have a question or concern about your
manuscript format, we will contact you and allow you to resubmit.
Please know that we are on your side. Thank you for trusting us with
your work.
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Deadline: January 15, 2021
The annual Rattle
Chapbook Prize gives poets something truly special. Every
year, three winners will receive: $5,000 cash, 500
contributor copies, and distribution to Rattle's ~8,000
subscribers. In a world where a successful full-length poetry book
might sell 1,000 copies, the winning book will reach an audience eight
times as large on its release day alone—an audience that includes many
other literary magazines, presses, and well-known poets. This will be a
chapbook to launch a career.
And maybe the best part is
this: The $25 entry fee is just a standard subscription to Rattle,
which includes four issues of the magazine and the winning chapbook,
even if it isn't yours. Rattle is one of the most-read literary
journals in the world—find out why just by entering! For more
information, visit our website.
We congratulate our three winners
from our 2020 contest:
·
Kathleen McClung, A Juror Must
Fold in on Herself (September 2020)
·
Tom C. Hunley, Adjusting
to the Lights (December 2020)
·
Jessy Bertron, A
Plumber's Guide to the Light (March 2021)
Please enjoy this poem
from Ms. McClung's winning entry:
The Public
Defender First Approaches the Box
My client's just like you,
except he's not
got gum or ibuprofen in a purse.
His silence is his right. I'll talk a lot
about the night in question,
which was caught
on video. Your call: a blessing or a curse.
My client's just like you, except he's not
inclined to ruminate, to dwell
on thoughts
of Trump and Pence; he's clear which one is worse.
His silence is his right. I'll talk a lot
about police departments, how
they're fraught
with graft, with hotheads prone to pull triggers.
My client's just like you, except he's not
received a fair shake from
these guys. You ought
to walk inside his shoes, then write some verse.
His silence is his choice. I'll talk a lot.
Some sentences may leave you
cold—some, hot.
My job: to sow a field of doubts through words.
My client's just like you. Except he's not.
He's silent. So are you. But me, I talk a lot.
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Winning Writers contest judge
Ellen LaFlèche's debut poetry collection, Walking into
Lightning, explores the dying of the poet's husband of
ALS in 2014, and the first years of widowhood. With profound sensuality
and intense imagery, these poems speak of the physicality of love and
loss, and the whole territory of grieving: its violence and its
ordinariness, the interplay of memory, desire, and sorrow.
"Walking into Lightning is a tender, fierce, raging, stunning book that
left me breathless.
How generous of Ellen LaFlèche to share this intimate love story with
the world! Her metaphors go straight to the heart: seagulls hover 'like
crosses over the waning tides'; dawn is 'a languid unfurl, / a woman
releasing her hair pin by pin from her nape'; and an IV bag is 'a
goblin's bobbling head'. The tension between the sensual and the sorrowful
makes this book stand out from other poetry collections about loss and
death. Walking into Lightning is an extraordinary
collection that teaches us how to live each moment to the
fullest."
—Lesléa Newman, author of I Carry My Mother and Lovely
Please enjoy this poem from Walking into Lightning:
Because the
dead cannot tell us what it's like to die
That time our yard was a
blurred gyroscope of snow
and our driveway a gloss lake of ice.
Your breath: a momentary ghost on our bedroom window.
Snow shivered the pine needles
and a maple branch snapped off at the elbow.
A blue jay slung a blur of sky across the storm
and somehow, somehow
the sun slipped through that momentary blueness.
Your breath on the glass glowed hot with light.
Dying might be like that.
That time we watched the ocean
roll, ancient with salt,
with boneless creatures bobbing through the breakers.
The sun lulled our muscles like a hot stone massage.
The waves unfurled their bolts of lace
and you peered into a quahog's pink-lined jewel box.
Sunset turned the water to Sauvignon wine
and sailboats to palettes of van Gogh mauve.
But you said there was nothing so beautiful
as my long white hair lifting into a squall.
Dying might be like that.
That time in the shower
when you slid an oval of jasmine soap down my right arm,
then my left.
I slid the mauve oval down your left leg,
then your right. Our breaths added the smell of fermented grapes
to the gathering mist. After the lathering,
steam lifted off your shoulders like a departing spirit.
My eyes wept away the soap's jasmine burn
and for a moment
I saw you pass through the frosted glass door.
Dying might be like that.
Buy Walking into
Lightning at Amazon.
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Jendi Reiter's debut novel Two Natures
(Saddle Road Press) is the spiritual coming-of-age story of a NYC
fashion photographer during the 1990s AIDS crisis. Two
Natures won the Rainbow Award for Best Gay Contemporary
Fiction and was a finalist for the Book Excellence Awards, the Lascaux
Prize for Fiction, and the EPIC e-Books Awards.
British literary critic and
fiction writer Jack Messenger says:
"Jendi Reiter's wise and
ambitious novel Two Natures is the story of
young gay man Julian Selkirk who, Crusoe-like, finds himself washed
ashore in New York in 1991 and 'dependent on the kindness of
strangers'. Julian is an aspiring fashion photographer whose career
lows and highs quickly alternate, mirroring his personal exploration of
the gay scene and his search for love. The spiritual and the carnal,
the beautiful and the sordid, interweave in complex patterns,
overshadowed by the gathering AIDS crisis, as the years to 1996 become
increasingly hostile to difference. The intensely personal is the
politically fraught, and Julian has to cope with the vagaries of love
and ambition while mourning friends and lovers.
"Two
Natures is an all-encompassing work that plunges us into
New York's rent-controlled apartments, gay bars and nightclubs, and the
overlapping world of fashion shoots and glamour magazines, in pursuit
of the spirit of the times."
Read the
full review.
Buy Two Natures on
Amazon.
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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
PEN/Robert
J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers.
PEN America will award 12 prizes of $2,000 and anthology publication
for the first published short story, 12,000 words maximum, by a US
citizen or permanent resident. Entries must be submitted online by
editor. Eligible publications may be digital or print literary
magazines, journals, or cultural websites. Stories must have been
published in or are forthcoming in the current calendar year. Due
November 15.
Intermediate Writers
Glenna
Luschei Prize for African Poetry. The
African Poetry Book Fund at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln will
award $1,000 for the best full-length collection of poetry published in
the previous calendar year by an African national, African resident, or
poet of African birth or African parentage. Translations are eligible;
self-published books are not. Publisher should send an entry form and 4
copies of each nominated title. Due October 1.
Advanced Writers
PEN/Faulkner
Award for Fiction. Books of fiction (novels,
novellas, and short story collections) by US permanent residents
published in the current year can win a top prize of $15,000, with four
runners-up receiving $5,000. Recent winners have been well-established
writers such as Philip Roth, Sherman Alexie, and John Updike. Due
October 31.
See more
Spotlight Contests for emerging,
intermediate,
and advanced
writers within The Best Free Literary Contests database.
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Voting can be an intimidating
process, especially for adults with low literacy. To provide some
guidance through election season, News for You® created the Election
2020 Voting Guide to better explain who can vote, how
Americans choose their leaders, how to register to vote, and how to
cast your ballot.
New
Readers Press, the publishing division of ProLiteracy,
created News for
You to help adult learners understand current events. News
for You is a printed newspaper and website that offers engaging,
easy-to-read stories to help learners learn to read, write, speak, and
understand the English language.
Download
the voting guide.
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September Links
Roundup: The Rules Never Applied
[Fascists'] absurdity or incompetence isn't a lapse in effectiveness,
it's a deliberate middle-finger to the very idea that truth matters in politics...The
MAGA crowd's support for unchecked police power isn't actually
inconsistent with their hyper-individualism about gun ownership,
mask-wearing, and paying taxes. It only seems contradictory if you
believe the surface claim that all Americans live under the same rule
of law. But the rules were never meant to apply to them. Beneath the
surface, there are two Americas. Authoritarian policing is for black
people; freedom of choice is for white people.
[read
more]
Jendi
Reiter is the editor of Winning Writers.
Follow
Jendi on Twitter at @JendiReiter.
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From Carolyn
Howard-Johnson, a trusted Winning Writers sponsor | From
Carolyn Howard-Johnson, a trusted Winning Writers sponsor
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From Carolyn Howard-Johnson, a trusted Winning
Writers sponsor
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2nd
Edition Now On Sale
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Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips for
Writers
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Carolyn
Howard-Johnson picks the trip-you-up words
that her clients struggle with and puts them in a quick reference
guide to keep at your fingertips.
Carolyn says, “I wrote this little booklet
as an addendum to the list of word trippers I included in the
winningest book in my HowToDoItFrugally Series for writers, The Frugal Editor.
It’s not
a complete reference on homonyms. Instead, I wanted to write
something that could be used as an inexpensive gift that
recipients can tuck into a glove compartment or purse to keep
their homonym skills fresh.
“I hope authors will also refer to it as a last-minute confidence
builder before they submit their manuscripts to fussy agents and
publishers (and all of them are!) In addition to a list of some
of my clients’ most often misused words, it assures writers that
traditional grammar rules aren't always the best choice.
“So, go ahead. Have some fun with style choices and this
fifty-some page booklet. Give it as a thank you gift to a fellow
writer. Stuff it in a stocking during the holidays. And please
read at least one of the books I suggest in the appendix, too!”
The
Kindle version is just $2.99 at Amazon, or buy the paperback directly from the publisher and
save 20%.
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Praise for Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips for Writers
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“Carolyn Howard-Johnson has
created something of unmatched value: usage advice that cuts through the contentious world of
grammar to offer real help. Writers polishing their manuscripts and
query letters will find Howard-Johnson’s guide more useful than Strunk
and White.”
—June Casagrande, author of Grammar
Snobs Are Great Big Meanies (Penguin) and syndicated
grammar columnist guru
“That so much helpful advice is couched in such
light-hearted, easy to read and entertaining prose is due to
Howard-Johnson’s abilities...”
—Magdalena Ball, founder and editor of The Compulsive Reader review
website
“...it’s
editing books like this that help us get one step closer to
writing, and speaking, clearly and succinctly. Five
stars.”
—Dawn Colclasure, author. Follow Dawn on Twitter at @dawncolclasure
“This book
is a good investment for all writers, no matter how
skilled and experienced they believe they are. And, if you believe
you ‘could care less’, you really need this book.”
—Boyd Sutton, author
“From adapting/adopting to
wreak/reek, Great Little Last-Minute Editing
Tips For Writers is
highly recommended reading for anyone preparing to write pretty
much anything—and a fascinating read in its
own right for those who appreciate word-play and the occasionally
encountered dilemmas of the English language!”
—Jim Cox, Editor-in-Chief, Midwest Book Review
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