Karen's blog: CRAFT Hybrid Writing Contest 2023, deadline 28 February 2023

Full details below:

CLOSING SOON: 2023 CRAFT Hybrid Writing Contest

Guest Judge: Nicole McCarthy
$1,500 Awarded

Submissions are open until Tuesday February 28, 2023! Guest Judge Nicole McCarthy will select one winner and two runner-ups from the shortlist. This contest is open to hybrid work only! We are looking for cross-genre submissions, for example: prose poetry (but not traditional, lineated poetry), speculative memoir, work that engages with image in innovative ways, lyric essay, etc. $20 reading fee per entry allows ONE piece from 1,001 to 5,000 words OR up to TWO pieces of 1,000 words or fewer each—if submitting two pieces (2,000 words maximum combined/1,000 words maximum each), please put them both in a SINGLE document.

The word experiment is the embodiment of risk. With hybrid writing, we can explore the boundaries of conventional writing standards and subvert expectations. We can rupture text and create visuals in an effort to paint a larger picture for our reader, adding additional layers of meaning in the process. Through hybridity in writing, we can elevate and liberate text, give ourselves room to try and fail and try again, and move beyond traditional writing forms into new creative possibilities.

Ask your piece: What are you trying to say? What do you need to transform?

Risk more. Be boundless. —Nicole McCarthy, Guest Judge

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Need a reminder to submit? Add us to your calendar with the button below:

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AWARDS:

The writer of the winning piece will receive:

$1,000;
publication in CRAFT, with an introduction by Nicole McCarthy;
publication of an author’s note (craft essay) to accompany the piece;
and a free three- or six-week writing class of choice from Project Write Now’s Writers Institute, up to a $250 value.

The two runner-ups will receive:

$300 and $200 respectively for second and third place;
publication in CRAFT, with an introduction by Nicole McCarthy;
and publication of an author’s note (craft essay) to accompany the piece.

GUIDELINES:

Open January 3 to February 28, 2023.
CRAFT submissions are open to all writers.
International submissions are allowed.
Please submit work primarily written in English, but conceptually or stylistically necessary codeswitching is warmly welcomed.
Hybrid work only! (Please, no work that fits into easy genre or category definitions.)
We are looking for cross-genre submissions, for example: prose poetry (but not traditional, lineated poetry), speculative memoir, work that engages with image in innovative ways, lyric essay, etc. However, we are not accepting video or audio submissions at this time.
5,000 word count maximum, please.
Previously unpublished work only—we do not review reprints or partial reprints, including self-published work (even if only on social media), for our contests. Reprints will be automatically disqualified.
We allow simultaneous submissions—writers please notify us and withdraw your entry if your work is accepted elsewhere.
$20 reading fee per entry allows ONE piece from 1,001 to 5,000 words OR up to TWO pieces of 1,000 words or fewer each—if submitting two pieces (2,000 words maximum combined/1,000 words maximum each), please put them both in a SINGLE document.
We allow multiple submissions—each entry should be accompanied by a reading fee.
All entries will also be considered for publication in CRAFT.
Please include a brief cover letter with your publication history (if applicable).
We do not require anonymous submissions.
We do not discriminate on the basis of age, ancestry, disability, family status, gender identity or expression, national origin, race, religion, sex or sexual orientation, or for any other reason.
Additionally, we do not tolerate discrimination in the writing we consider for publication: work we find discriminatory on any of the bases stated here will be declined without complete review (you will be refunded, less fees).

2023 Spring Salon
All welcome!

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Please join us in person or virtually for this FREE reading of poetry and prose!

Hosted by the University of Washington’s Creative Writing Department
Friday, March 10, 2023, 6-8 p.m. PT, Simpson Center for the Humanities

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Featured Readers: Rebecca Evans & Nicole McCarthy

Additional Readers: Tami Haaland, Robert Herbst, Julia Spicher Kasdorf, Eliot Li, Rachel Rix, Suzanne Roberts, & Ross Showalter

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Please register in advance with the button below.
More details provided via your confirmation email upon registration.

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Interview: Nicole McCarthy

CRAFT is excited to collaborate with Nicole McCarthy, our guest judge for the 2023 Hybrid Writing Contest. Below, Leslie Lindsay interviews Nicole about memory, story, and hybridity.

Nicole McCarthy: Initially I just started writing: it was a literal coffee-induced frenzy as I tried to write down every idea I had for the book. The Greek root of memory! Breakthrough scientific experiments! Neurons and the hippocampus! At the same time, I had bullet points in my journal of the personal elements I wanted (needed) to address: packing up and potentially moving away from the only homes I’ve ever had; my grandma being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and my dad showing signs of memory issues; moments of trauma I held onto from an abusive relationship when I was younger. I knew pairing these elements together would make the personal more effective, but I also knew the reader would potentially see themselves in the narrator’s place.

Read It

ICYMI

Fiction:

David nods, but he isn’t paying attention when he replies, instead maneuvering one of the white seeds from the watermelon and attempting to drive a fork prong through the seed’s center. “Carl says if you eat the black seeds, they’ll grow watermelons in your stomach.” Carl is David’s only friend, although I don’t know how they became friends. Carl is a wiry guy, so much shorter than the other twelve-year-olds that he blends in with the elementary school kids. He always has detention or wrestling practice and will ride the late bus home with David, who stays late because I don’t get back from work until five and he doesn’t want to be home alone.  —Lucy Zhang, “I Saved You in Every Life” (short fiction)

Winter arrives. We do not hibernate. Hibernation is for suckers. The beautiful Asian women of Vermont develop an appetite for snowplows. It’s the metal blade-y part they can’t get enough of. The snow piles in the streets, the fluffy cake-like layers topped with a frozen glaze that you crack through, cursing, up to your shoulders in snow, on your way to unbury your car. By spring, most of you have resigned yourselves to your new reality: the months-long campaigns of devastation ebbing into reprieves during which you wearily rebuild so that, like the gleeful toddler tempted by a tower of impeccably stacked blocks, we can smash it all again.  —Tessa Yang, “There Are Hundreds of Beautiful Asian Women Waiting to Meet You” (flash fiction)

Creative Nonfiction:

When I visit from the states my cousin Marco becomes wind. In the car to the restaurant where our mothers wait he’s all curls dancing, all cheeks stretching, speeding so fast I’m sure we’ll either die or take off. He bump-bumps onto the median, breezes past the others stopped at a red light, glides through the intersection despite what could happen, a storm erupting from his throat. I’m like bro, chill and he’s like you chill, I’ve never been caught. We’re so free here.  —Amanda Whitehurst, “Home Like This” (flash creative nonfiction)

Craft:

Thus, personal histories are revealed through a summary of a conversation, presented, in part, as a list, without any flashback. We learn more facts about each man’s family, none of which surprise us, given what we already know about them and our own preconceived notions of who these men might be. This list hides the exposition as a summary of dialogue, an efficient way to underscore or elaborate on who we think these characters are. —Daniel Abiva Hunt, “Belt Buckles and Sad Songs: Manifesting the Past in Annie Proulx’s ‘Brokeback Mountain’”

Sarah Blake: Worldbuilding is something that I like to do before I start drafting. I daydream about a world for weeks or months. I talk through it with my friends. I draw pictures and floorplans. I don’t feel confident enough to start drafting until I have a very clear sense of my world. I think that’s why I don’t end up writing out much of my world. It’s all perfectly set up in my head, so I only mention what needs to come up as I’m drafting. —Melanie Pierce, “Interview: Sarah Blake”

I see us as circus performers, and more specifically, glasswalkers. Walking over the shards of rejection. Our feet become hurt, but after so many years, we develop the remarkable ability to heal up more quickly. And there are the benefits in learning from editors what is, and what is NOT working. We can use that information, and grow as writers, as long as we don’t give up. —Meg Pokrass, “Conversations Between Friends: Grant Faulkner and Meg Pokrass”