The Masters Review Spring Small Fiction Awards, deadline 1 June 2023

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LEARN MORE CLOSING SOON:  Spring Small Fiction Awards Guest Judge: K-Ming Chang We’ve long admired the mighty power of the compressed form, which is why we are expanding our search for the very best in small fiction. The Masters Review is excited to announce the new Spring Small Fiction Awards! This contest will honor a grand prize winner in three categories—Microfiction, Flash Fiction, and Sudden Fiction—by awarding $1,000 and online publication to each winner selected by by the magnificent K-Ming Chang! A runner-up in each category will also be honored with a $200 prize and online publication. For this contest: Microfiction is any story up to 500 words. Flash Fiction is any story between 501 and 1,000 words. Sudden Fiction is any story between 1,001 and 1,500 words. We welcome up to two stories per submission, in any combination of the three categories. Please include both stories in one document. DEADLINE: June 1, 2023 SUBMIT NOW Need a reminder to submit? Add us to your calendar to be notified on the last day!  ADD TO CALENDAR SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: Grand Prize Winners in each category receive $1,000 and online publication. Runners-up in each category receive $200 and online publication. Microfiction is any story up to 500 words. Flash Fiction is any story between 501 and 1,000 words. Sudden Fiction is any story between 1,001 and 1,500 words. Your $20 entry fee allows up to two stories. If submitting two stories, please include both stories in one document. If your two stories are from different categories, please check both relevant boxes in the submission form. Submitted work must be previously unpublished in any form. Reprints will be disqualified. Simultaneous and multiple submissions are allowed, though each submission requires a $20 entry fee. All submissions will be considered for publication in New Voices. This contest is for emerging writers only. Writers with book-length work published or under contract with a major press are ineligible. We are interested in providing a platform to new writers; authors with books published by indie presses are welcome to submit unpublished work, as are self-published authors. International submissions are allowed, provided the work is written primarily in English. Note our deadline: June 1, 2023. All submissions will receive a response by the end of August. Winners will be announced by the end of September. Friends, family, and associates of the final judge are not eligible for this award. A significant portion of the editorial letter fee goes to your feedback editor. GUEST JUDGE: K-Ming Chang is a Kundiman fellow, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree. She is the author of The New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice novel Bestiary (One World/Random House, 2020), which was longlisted for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award. In 2021, her chapbook, Bone House, was published by Bull City Press. Her most recent book is Gods of Want (One World/Random House, 2022). Her next books are a novel titled Organ Meats (One World) and a novella titled Cecilia (Coffee House Press). She can be found birdwatching in California.

Jessica Yen’s “The Space Between Heartbeats,” this week’s New Voices entry, offers an honest look at the difficulties of pandemic parenting. Already an isolating and exhausting experience, the forced-solitude of the COVID pandemic compounded the frustrations of raising a newborn and led, Yen shows us, to this moment of frustration, and the moment immediately after, when “remorse overtook frustration.” Read Yen’s flash nonfiction with the button below! Jessica Yen is a Chinese American author who explores the intersection of memory, family, culture, language, identity, and history. Her work has received support from the Oregon Literary Fellowship, Regional Arts and Culture Council, Caldera Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, and VONA. Her work has appeared in Fourth Genre, Oregon Humanities, and Best American Travel Writing, among others. She is currently working on a memoir. By day, she writes grants and edits academic manuscripts for non-profits, university departments and scholars, and clinics who seek to address health inequities. You can find her online at www.jessicayen.com. READ IT   “B.I.W. Boys” by Katherine Cart, this week’s New Voices story, follows three Bucksport boys—Samual, Quiller and Jacob—who are all hired out of high school to work at the iron works in nearby Bellport. The B.I.W. boys grow into their idea of men throughout the pandemic, as their understanding of themselves and the others shifts. Cart’s voice and stream-of-conscious style sweeps you up and barrels you along into the yawning vacuum at the end. Katherine Cart writes about labor and wealth disparity in this changing ecosystem. She is a candidate for an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Virginia and has a BS in General Biology from the University of New Hampshire. Before returning to academia, she worked on commercial fishing vessels in the Bering Sea and Gulfs of Maine and Alaska. She is at work on her first novel, which asks repeatedly if childhood desperation can shape a later hate. Her short fiction is forthcoming in Raritan. She paints disrupted figures in oils and ink and misses living on the water quite often. Katherine’s visual work can be found at katherinecart.com. READ IT

 

WritingWorkshops.com is delighted to announce its Fall Writing Workshop in Paris! Join them this fall, September 10th - 15th, in the heart of Literary Paris, rich with history and inspiration. Workshops are led by Fiction Instructor Christine Pride, Nonfiction Instructor Mira Ptacin, and Writing for Children Instructor Ying Chang Compestine. For six days and five nights, writers will reside at the centrally-located, 4-star Hôtel Trianon Rive Gauche and discover the magic of Paris, old and new. We'll bring together writers for an intensive week of workshops, craft seminars, one-on-one conferences, and in-depth discussions on the craft and business of writing. Apply if you want to strengthen your voice, develop a greater understanding of craft, and forge a path to publication along the way. Visit the WRITING WORKSHOPS PARIS website and apply for the fiction, nonfiction, or writing for children workshop by May 31st and uncover new inspiration in the City of Lights! LEARN MORE & APPLY

At long last: the shortlist for the 2022 Chapbook Open is here! Guest judge Kim Fu will be selecting the winning chapbook from these final eight, which The Masters Review will publish next spring. We’ve read a number of incredible chapbooks over the last 5 months, and we are so grateful to all of our submitters. It was truly a challenge to narrow down to these final eight; Kim Fu has their work cut out for them! Congratulations to our shortlisted and notable chapbooks, and thank you once again to all of our submitters. Check back next month for the results! SEE THE SHORTLIST

 

Classifieds from The Masters Review

During this ten-day challenge, we’re not seeking full scenes or stories, but rather a sketch of a singular character in no more than 500 words. We’re looking for the most compelling character in this challenge, but will also consider the apt use of language and style. The sole winner of the CRAFT Character Sketch Challenge will receive $500 and publication. Learn More Here

 

Volume XI of our annual anthology of stories and essays is now available for purchase through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bookshop.org! This year’s volume includes pieces selected by guest judge Peter Ho Davies. Buy it at your favorite book retailer today!

Have you written a gripping and captivating YA novel? Enter our Novel Excerpt Contest for a chance to showcase your talent! We warmly invite you to send us your favorite chapters from your YA novels! We want the chapter that makes us hungry for the rest of the book, that makes us desperate to spend more time in the world of your creation! Deadline: June 1 | Learn More Here

 

Literistic delivers a timely, robust, and tailored list of writing opportunities—including magazines, presses, contests, grants and residencies—to your inbox and your calendar. Learn More Here

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