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Enter all contests for free with your upgraded membership. Upgraded membership is only $6.95 per month. These are only a few of our contests. View our full listing here.

Without FanStory I simply would not be a writer at all. The feedback and friendships I have made here have changed my entire life. Honest feedback helped prepare me for the real world. The contests have also helped me, and continue to help me. Writing to a topic, and writing to a deadline, is key. There isn't a more valuable skill than to sit down and write about a subject by a specific date. That's the real world.
—Jen Horton (nominated as the best feature writer in the state of Florida) - More Testimonials

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CONTESTS HOSTED AT WINNING WRITERS & OPEN NOW

Closing Next Month War Poetry Contest Postmark Deadline: May 31 We seek 1-3 original, unpublished poems on the theme of war for our ninth annual contest, up to 500 lines in total. We will award $5,000, including a top prize of $2,000. Submit online or by mail. The entry fee is $15. Final judge: Jendi Reiter. See the complete guidelines and past winners.

Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Traditional Verse
Postmark Deadline: June 30
Now in its seventh year, this contest seeks poetry in traditional verse forms such as sonnets and free verse. Both published and unpublished poems are welcome. Prizes of $3,000, $1,000, $400 and $250 will be awarded, plus six Most Highly Commended Awards of $150 each. The entry fee is $7 for every 25 lines you submit. Submit online or by mail. Early submission encouraged. This contest is sponsored by Tom Howard Books and assisted by Winning Writers. Judges: John H. Reid and Dee C. Konrad. See the complete guidelines and past winners.

Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest
Postmark Deadline: September 30
Now in its eighth year, this contest seeks poems in any style, theme or genre. Both published and unpublished poems are welcome. Prizes of $3,000, $1,000, $400 and $250 will be awarded, plus six Most Highly Commended Awards of $150 each. The entry fee is $7 for every 25 lines you submit. Submit online or by mail. Early submission encouraged. This contest is sponsored by Tom Howard Books and assisted by Winning Writers. Judges: John H. Reid and Dee C. Konrad. See the complete guidelines and past winners.

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RECENT HONORS FOR OUR NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERS
Winning Writers Editor Jendi Reiter was one of seven Commended entrants in the January 2010 Leaf Books Writing About Writing Competition. Her poem "At the Skylight" was published in Issue #1 of Leaf Writers' Magazine. This small press in Wales offers several contests for poetry and flash prose. The next deadline for the Writing About Writing Competition, which offers a prize of 100 pounds, will be June 30. Sign up for their e-newsletter to keep up with their contest deadlines, which often change from year to year.

Congratulations to Kriss Erickson. Her autobiographical novel Sky Eyes was named the best nonfiction book of 2009 by e-book publisher AKW Books. Sky Eyes chronicles her struggles with Dissociative Identity Disorder, the parental abuse that created the problem, and her eventual cure. Erickson has been a freelance writer since 1981, with over 1,000 published pieces to date. She escaped the cult her parents joined when she turned 40. Erickson also creates watercolor, colored pencil and acrylic paintings in nature and energetic themes, and works as an Usui Reiki master teacher.

Congratulations to Elizabeth Marchitti. Her poem "The Music Tree" won first prize at the annual Art, Photography and Poetry Exhibition at St. Catherine's in Ringwood, NJ, held on March 5-7, 2010. Winning poems were framed and displayed on the walls of the poetry gallery and performed at a reading. She kindly shares "The Music Tree" with us below.

Congratulations to Carol Smallwood. The first chapter of her novel Lily's Odyssey (All Things That Matter Press, 2010) was shortlisted for the 2009 Eric Hoffer Award for Short Prose and included in their annual Best New Writing anthology. Deadlines are quarterly for the Hoffer Award, sponsored by Hopewell Press, which offers an annual prize of $500 for the best story or essay up to 10,000 words; the next deadline will be June 30. See the shortlist here. Lily's Odyssey is a psychological detective novel that covers religion, marriage, family—and the largely unacknowledged. Carol writes, "Thank you very much for your great help for writers. This contest listed on Winning Writers was the first free contest I entered after entering several fee ones that never brought success!"

Congratulations to Gail G. Collins. She placed third in the Dead of Winter Nonfiction Contest at the writers' resource site TheWriteHelper.com with her essay "Larry, Come Out...Please", about a SWAT standoff in her neighborhood. Read it on her website. She also won the Pennwriters Slogan Writing Contest to develop a new slogan for their online writing classes. The prize was $100 worth of free coursework. Collins is a freelance journalist who is also working on a novel. She told Winning Writers, "As budding writers, we need preserves to perfect and promote our craft. Thanks for your venue of ways to do that with the newsletter."


RECENT HONORS FOR POETRY CONTEST INSIDER SUBSCRIBERS
Congratulations to Timothy Savage. He won the February 2010 monthly competition on Lulu Poetry for his poem "Dawn". He received a $250 award. (As we reported last year, self-publishing site Lulu.com has taken over the Poetry.com domain, formerly owned by a vanity contest, and is hosting a poetry forum there.) He kindly shares his poem below. Read his other poems at Lulu Poetry here.

Congratulations to Veronica Hallissey. Nostalgia Press chose her as their first Featured Writer of the Month for April 2010. Several of her poems can be read on their website, reprinted from her collection Kiss the Moon (Light's Way Press, 2000).


RECENT PUBLICATION CREDITS FOR OUR SUBSCRIBERS
Tony Peyser's poem "Incident Outside a Used Bookstore" appeared in Issue #41 of Pearl. He kindly shares it with us below.

Rosa Maria Del Vecchio's poetry chapbook Voices from the Castle Dungeon is now available from Cyberwit Publishers. She kindly shares a sample poem below.

Lorne S. Jones' novel Mighty Oaks is now available from CreateSpace. Mighty Oaks is based on the true-life romance of Canadian poets Milton Acorn and Gwendolyn MacEwen.

Devi Amanullah's poems "My Tree", "Faith", "These Are the Things", "Sometimes I Am", and "Someone" were published in the magazine Schoon Schip in Dutch translation by Hannie Rouweler. Schoon Schip is distributed in the Netherlands and Belgium. Visit DeviAmanullah.com to see these and other poems.


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TRY POETRY CONTEST INSIDER
If you enjoy using The Best Free Poetry Contests, consider upgrading to Poetry Contest Insider. The Best Free Poetry Contests profiles the 150 or so poetry contests that are free to enter. With your Poetry Contest Insider subscription, you'll get access to all of our 750+ poetry contest profiles, plus over 300 of the best prose contests. Contest rules, addresses and deadlines change constantly. We update Poetry Contest Insider nearly every day to stay on top of them. Search and sort contests by deadline, prize, fee, recommendation level and more. Access to Poetry Contest Insider is just $9.95 per quarter, with a free 10-day trial at the start. Cancel at any time.

Most contests charge entry fees. You can easily spend hundreds of dollars and many hours entering these contests each year. Don't waste your time or money. Out of hundreds of contests, there might only be two or three dozen that are especially appropriate for your work. We help you find them fast. Interviews and links to award-winning entries help you refine your craft. Learn more about Poetry Contest Insider.

"Your website is invaluable: definitely the best around. I have benefited greatly from the database of contests. Thank you and keep up the fantastic work!... Last year I received first prize in both the Dorothy Prizes and the Room of One's Own poetry competition—both of which I learned of through your database." Vicki Duke, Alberta, Canada See more testimonials here, plus coverage of Winning Writers in Writer's Digest and The Writer, or start your trial now.

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THE BEST FREE POETRY CONTESTS
Deadlines: April 16-May 31

Here is a summary of upcoming free poetry contests. Click the contest names to be taken directly to their profiles (you may be asked to login on your first click of the day). You may also view the profiles by logging in to The Best Free Poetry Contests here and clicking the Find Free Contests link to search for contests by name.

New Feature! Bookmark Your Favorite Contests with "My Favorites" By subscriber request, we've added a new way to keep track of the contests you are most interested in. The "My Favorites" feature lets you bookmark these contests and pull up their profiles quickly when you're ready to enter. To bookmark a contest, click the gray "Add to Favorites" button in the top right corner of the contest profile. You can then search for all your favorites at once from the Find Contests screen, or click the "My Favorites" link in the Browse menu or in the Quick Links sidebar. When doing an "Advanced Search" for contests with specific qualities, you may "Search All Contests" as before or restrict your search to "Search in Favorites". Have ideas for other new features? Please contact us.

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Please go to http://www.winningwriters.com/forgot_password.php
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Winning Writers gathers contest information from a wide variety of sources including publishers' press releases, online link directories, Poets & Writers Magazine, and e-newsletters such as TOTAL FundsforWriters, The Practicing Writer, and CRWROPPS. We encourage readers to explore these useful resources, and let us know about worthwhile contests we may have missed.

4/30: Arabic Translation Award +++
Entries must be received by this date; formerly April 15
Highly recommended free contest for book-length translations of Arabic literature into English offers $5,000 each for translator and original author. (An author who translates his or her own work will only receive one $5,000 award.) Submit manuscript as hard copy and on CD. Winner published by Syracuse University Press.

4/30: Dylan Thomas Prize +++
Entries must be received by this date
Highly recommended free contest offers 30,000 pounds, plus 1,000 pounds for shortlisted authors, for published books of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction or drama by authors aged 18-29. For the 2010 award, eligible books must have been published in English for the first time in the United Kingdom between May 1, 2008 and April 30, 2010. For TV writing and theatrical films, the script or screenplay must have been commissioned between those dates.

4/30: Friends of Acadia Poetry Competition +
Extended from January 30
Neutral free contest offers top prize of $350 for 1-3 poems, maximum 30 lines each. Sponsored by the Friends of Acadia, a group founded to preserve Acadia National Park in Maine, this contest seeks to promote and recognize distinctive nature poetry. Biennial (even-numbered years only). No simultaneous submissions. Formerly the Nature Poetry Competition, changed name in 2010.

4/30: Lucidity Poetry Journal Clarity Awards +
Twice-yearly neutral free contest offers top prize of $100 for poems about the human experience. Authors must be 18+. Editor Ted Badger says: "Seeking poetry that deals with people, relationships, life issues and events, written in clear and concise English. Form of the poem is open but it must have something to say without resorting to vulgarity. Clarity is crucial. We publish poetry that everyday people can relate to, understand and enjoy." Submit 1-5 poems, maximum 36 lines each (including stanza breaks).

4/30: Odes to the Olympians Poetry Contest +
Entries must be received by this date
Neutral twice-yearly free contest offers $50 apiece in adult and youth categories for unpublished poems up to 30 lines about Greek and Roman mythology. Enter by email only. Themes change with each contest; the Spring 2010 contest is for poems about Hermes (Mercury). This contest is sponsored by Victoria Grossack and Alice Underwood, authors of The Tapestry of Bronze, a series of historical novels set in the ancient world.

4/30: Smories Prize +
Entries must be received by the last day of each month
Neutral free contest offers monthly prizes up to $500 for poetry and short stories for children aged 3-8. Submit 1-2 entries, maximum 750 words each, via online form. Fifty stories will be shortlisted each month, get narrated by kids and filmed, and the five films attracting the most traffic on the site will win the prizes.

4/30: The Shine Journal Poetry Contest +
Entries must be received by this date
Neutral free contest offers prizes up to $100 plus publication in The Shine Journal, a webzine of flash literature and art. Submit 1 unpublished poem, maximum 100 lines. Submit by email only. Poems must be received between 6 am EST April 1 and 6 am EST on April 30.

5/1: Crucible Poetry and Fiction Competition +
Entries must be received by this date
Neutral free contest offers top prizes of $150 in each genre, plus publication in Crucible, the literary journal of Barton College. All submissions to the journal are considered for the prize. Send 1-5 poems or one story of no more than 8,000 words. One entry per person per genre. No simultaneous submissions. As of 2010, enter online only.

5/1: David Reid Poetry Translation Prize +
Entries must be received by this date
Neutral free contest offers 750 euros for the best Dutch-to-English translation of a poem posted on the website of Subtext Translations, a Dutch company that provides subtitling and commercial translation services. Twice a year, the title of the chosen poem will be posted on the contest website at midday on March 1 and September 1. The May 1, 2010 poem is 'Moederken' by Guido Gezelle. Winners published on website. Enter by email only.

5/1: Oneswan Productions Writing Competition +
Neutral free contest offers top prize of $300 (across all genres) for unpublished poetry, fiction, and Christian inspirational essays, plus prizes of $100 and $75 in each category. Fiction may be romance, mystery, sci-fi, horror or fantasy. Maximum 2 entries per category. Length limits are 65 lines for poetry, 2,500 words for fiction, 1,500 words for essay.

5/7: CreekFest Poetry Contest +
Formerly May 1
Neutral free contest offers prizes up to $75 for adults (aged 15+) and $50 for youth, for unpublished poems. Poems relating to waterways (in Michigan or elsewhere) will be favored. All finalists must be present at CreekFest in Ortonville, MI in June to read their poems at the festival, which celebrates and promotes preservation of Michigan waterways.

5/7: Lewis Galantiere Award ++
Recommended free contest offers $1,000 for a distinguished book-length literary translation from any language, except German, into English. Entries must have been published in the US in the past two years, and authors should be US citizens or permanent residents. Publishers should send 2 copies of the book plus supporting materials and excerpts from the original language. See website for details. Offered in even-numbered years only, alternating with the Ungar German Translation Award.

5/14: IUPUI Poetry Contest +
Entries must be received by this date; formerly February 5
Neutral free contest for high school students or homeschooled students of high school age includes prizes up to $200. Submit one poem, no more than 50 lines in length. As of 2010, enter online only.

5/15: James Boatwright III Prize for Poetry +++
Entries must be received by this date
Highly recommended free contest offers $1,000 for the best poem published in Shenandoah, the prestigious literary journal of Washington & Lee University, each year. There is no separate application process. Send 1-5 unpublished poems, following regular submission guidelines. Best for intermediate/advanced authors.

5/15: James Laughlin Award +++
Highly recommended free contest for a poet's second book, under contract to a publisher. The Academy of American Poets will award the winner $5,000 and buy copies of the winning book for distribution to its members. Publisher should submit four copies of manuscript or galleys with author's name removed.


Login to The Best Free Poetry Contests now to view these and all our profiles of free contests. You can browse contests by deadline date, name, recommendation level, and more.

Key to Ratings
Highly Recommended: +++
Recommended: ++
Neutral: +

All deadlines are postmark deadlines unless otherwise specified.


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Neil Postman Award for Metaphor (no fee)
Rolling Deadline
Although primarily known as an educationist and a media critic, Neil Postman was, at his core, a "noticer"—and he particularly noticed what we do with metaphor and how metaphor shapes and creates our cognitive world. Postman maintained that words (and words, in truth, are metaphors) are as much the driver of reality as they are the vehicle. Consequently, metaphor was not a subject to be relegated and limited to high school poetry units wherein a teacher drones on about the difference between "like" and "as" and considers the job finished. For Postman, the study of metaphor was unending and metaphors were as crucial as they were omnipresent; they served to give form to and dictate experience.

In honor and remembrance of Neil Postman, who died on October 5, 2003, we have established the Neil Postman Award for Metaphor. The motivation for the award is simple and two-fold: To reward a given writer for his or her use of metaphor and to celebrate (and, hopefully, propagate) Postman's work, and the typographical mind.

Each spring the editors will choose one poem from all of the submissions received by RATTLE during the previous year. The author of the chosen poem will receive $500. There are no entry fees or special submission guidelines. Send up to 5 unpublished poems plus a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) to: RATTLE, 12411 Ventura Boulevard, Studio City, CA 91604. To browse previous winners, and for information on how to submit electronically, visit our website: www.rattle.com

Please enjoy this excerpt from "Silences" by Richard Jackson, the winner of the 2009 Neil Postman Award:

Silences by Richard Jackson       The world is made of water.       —Parmenides I can barely remember, now, that unwritten poem in which you suddenly appeared, and which disappeared the way your Mohawk fathers disappeared from the valley I lived in once. I have only these words that seem as if they climbed up from the bottom of a dry well. There are so many things we don't hear: the hawk's talon piercing the skull of the meadow vole, the moon scratched by a branch of the hackberry, the cicada emerging from its cocoon in this false Spring. I am told that when I was young I watched a butcher push his hand down the throat of a lamb's carcass and pull out its heart. Can you imagine a silence so desperate to be heard? [click for the complete poem]

E.M. Koeppel Short Fiction Contest
Postmark Deadline: April 30
First Place $1,100; Editors' Choices, $100. Seeks unpublished stories, 3,000 words maximum. Any style, any theme. $15 fee for one story, $10 each additional story, payable to Writecorner Press. Send one title page with author's name, address, phone, email address, and short bio. Send second title page with title only. Read the complete guidelines. Read past winners.

Writecorner Press judges all submissions anonymously. Winning poems and stories will be published on our literary site, www.writecorner.com. After publication, writers retain all rights. No email entries, please. Fees are used to pay awards and site expenses. Read the contest guidelines, then mail your submissions to Writecorner Press Contests, P.O. Box 140310, Gainesville, FL 32614.

Please enjoy this excerpt from "Death and Popcorn" by Megan Somogyi, the Writecorner Press 2005 Short Fiction Grand Prize Winner:

Percy checked his watch for the third time that morning, irritated that the minute hand was moving much faster than he'd hoped. It was already 7:23 am. He liked to be in the office by seven, earlier if possible. Every morning he stood in line at Starbuck's with all the brokers who had to be up for the foreign markets, ordered his venti coffee with two shots of espresso, and navigated the surprisingly heavy traffic on the freeway. He had been commuting at this hour for over 20 years, and it never ceased to amaze him how many people were up and about before dawn. Percy was always slightly disturbed by these people because they intruded on his sense of solitude. He was an accountant—his firm didn't open until 9:00 a. m.—and he treasured the first two hours of the day because they belonged to him alone. Percy tapped his foot impatiently as the elevator crawled down to him from the 17th floor. The pause between one number going dark and the next one lighting up was interminable, and by the time it had reached the fifth floor there was a thin sheen of sweat on his bald pate. He wasn't completely bald, his wife often pointed out; he had a few stray hairs that looked just lovely when he combed them over the top of his head. You could hardly tell the difference, she said. Percy admitted freely that his wife was not the most worldly of women; between her needlepoint, toy poodle, and the umpteen bottles of "relaxants" she kept in the medicine cabinet for her "nerves", Millicent was pretty well out of touch with the world. She had been like that all her life, a semi-ethereal creature that had little interest in reality as other people defined it. It was the reason Percy married her. She was like background music, a gentle pattering that he liked to have around but liked even more because it didn't intrude on his life. They had no children because neither of them would be capable of raising them properly. Percy was seldom at home and Millie would let the kids get into any mischief they wanted. They would probably have drowned, set themselves on fire, or gotten run over by a car. Children would also have been difficult because Percy and Millie rarely had sex. [click for the complete story]

Closing Next Month
Artists Embassy International Poetry Contest - Three Grand Prize Winning Poems to be Danced and Filmed
Postmark Deadline: May 15

• 3 Grand Prizes will receive $100 each plus their poems will be danced and filmed. Each Grand Prize winner will be invited onstage for photo ops with the dancers and a bow in the limelight.
• 6 First Prizes will receive $50 each
• 12 Second Prizes will receive $25 each
• 30 Third Prizes will receive $10 each

All prize winners will receive a prize certificate suitable for framing and a ticket to the Dancing Poetry Festival 2010, and be invited to read their prizewinning poem at the Festival to be held on September 18 at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. The top three poems chosen as Grand Prizes will be choreographed, costumed and recorded live in an on-stage performance at the Festival. See pictures from our 2009 Festival.

Last year's Grand Prize winners included Gretchen R. Fletcher, Nancy Rakoczy and Jeanne Wagner. Recent topics of winning poems have touched on the travels of Matisse, a Picasso painting, falling leaves, love, Iraq, China, history, dance, current events, reverie, socially significant situations and even some humor sprinkled here and there. Please don't feel constrained to write a poem about dancing.

The entry fee is $5 per poem or $10 for 3 poems. Each poem may be up to 40 lines long. Send two copies of each poem. One copy should be anonymous (just title and poem), the other should have your name, address, phone, email address and where you heard about this contest (e.g. Winning Writers Newsletter). There is no limit on the number of entries.

When the judges evaluate entries, they look for innovative perspectives on ordinary or unusual subjects as well as excellence of craft. Your entry should be suitable for a general audience since our following is comprised of people of all ages and ethnicities. English translations must be included with non-English poems.

Our judges consist of poets, dancers, musicians and visual artists of various media, all members of Artists Embassy International. Judging is done with the anonymous copies of the poems. Artists Embassy International is a non-profit, volunteer, arts and education organization whose goal is to further intercultural understanding through the arts.

Three poets, the Grand Prize winners, will be rewarded with seeing their poems danced by Natica Angilly's Poetic Dance Theater Company, a well-known dance troupe that has performed around the world and throughout America. This company is dedicated exclusively to creating new avenues by combining poetry, dance and music together for presentation and the expansion of poetry with dance in the life of our culture.

To enter the contest, please visit our website at www.dancingpoetry.com or submit to AEI Contest Chair W, Judy Cheung, 704 Brigham Avenue, Santa Rosa, CA 95404. Questions? Please email Ms. Cheung at jhcheung@comcast.net.





Closing Next Month
The 15th Annual Blue Lynx Prize
Postmark Deadline: May 15
The Blue Lynx Prize is awarded for an unpublished, full-length volume of poems by a US author—which would include foreign nationals living and writing in the US and US citizens living abroad. The prize includes a $2,000 cash award and publication. Please note: the prize is returning this year to Lynx House Press, publisher of fine poetry and fiction since 1975.

Entries must be at least 48 pages in length and must be accompanied by a $25 reading fee and a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE, for notification only); checks to be made payable to Lynx House Press. Poems included may not have appeared in full-length, single-author collections. Send to:

     Lynx House Press
     P.O. Box 940
     Spokane, WA 99210

Lynx House is an independent non-profit publisher devoted to extending and enhancing the cultural conversation through the publication of fine poetry and fiction. If it has a bias, it is towards literary work that is highly resonant, work that, through the clarity of its vision and craft, results in a change in the emotional and intellectual temperature of whoever reads it.

Lynx House publications include books by Yusef Komunyakaa, Patricia Goedicke, Jim Daniels, Kathy Fagan, Bill Tremblay, Valerie Martin, Vern Rutsala, Gillian Conoley, Carlos Reyes, Madeline DeFrees, Donald Junkins, Carole Oles, Robert Gregory, Carolyne Wright, Robert Abel, and many others. Final judges have included Yusef Komunyakaa, Beckian Fritz Goldberg, Robert Wrigley, Dara Wier, Primus St. John, and David Wojahn.

Please enjoy "Nocturne in Blue" by Jim Daniels, winner of the 2006 Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry. This poem is published as part of Revolt of the Crash-Test Dummies.

Nocturne in Blue by Jim Daniels On Atwood Street in Pittsburgh my brother and his two sons from Detroit walk with me down one side of the street. Four young black men approach on the same side of the street. Late on an empty block. My brother slants his eyes into mine. His boys look up at us. We cross to the other side. Keep on walking. Perhaps they are relieved. Perhaps disappointed. We eye them across the empty street. I have no idea. The night holds up its empty hands and the moon bites its lip. Nobody touches. Our shadows stretch behind us under the quiet buzz of streetlights. We breathe, continue to breathe. The stars sting our skins. All of us, on Atwood, in Pittsburgh. In front of us, the sidewalk narrows until there is room for no one.

Closing Next Month
Noble Row Magazine Short Fiction Award 2010
Postmark Deadline: May 15
Noble Row, a journal of contemporary fiction, art, and music, is now accepting submissions for its annual Short Fiction Award. The competition is open to previously unpublished short stories, 8,000 words or less. Winner receives $500 cash and featured publication in the September issue of Noble Row, including an author profile and interview. Up to 3 finalists will also receive publication in Fall editions of Noble Row. What are we looking for? Stories that are personal and engaging, uncompromising in their vision, provocative, and thought-provoking. In short, excellence. All genres, styles, and themes are accepted. To enter online, please visit www.noblerow.com/fictionprize

Please enjoy this excerpt from "Cloud Pictures" by Will Brennan, featured on the Noble Row website:

Jonas looked out the window again. Pictures superimposed themselves on the scenery, his young daughters Marie and Annabel, Kristin his first wife, she was fragile, beautiful then, like fine china and he ruddy with thick black hair and all of them together at a birthday, a Christmas and Jonas watched scenes unfold like trailers at the start of a movie, highlights, first early innocent days, newness and naive bliss then the pictures changed, it was the successful years when he began to feel important, knew how to enjoy his money, then the wealthy years as the girls grew shrill, petty and petulant and his wife wasn't like fine china but chipped and brittle, like a patina of lacquer on her had yellowed, and she was tired, always her face was tired and they didn't touch each other, not for sex, no, Jonas had women for that, but they didn't touch even in occasional familiar tenderness, they might as well have lived in different houses and the girls came only occasionally and the scenes all had a theme of show with no feeling, a lifeless, practiced facade. A sick dullness settled in Jonas' chest. The leaves shivered outside. A cruel, pointless joke, he thought. On ourselves. A snare I set we all stepped in. He tried to shake his mind free of it but couldn't, his thoughts turned to how the change came, like the movement of an hour hand around a clock, imperceptible, and his mind traced to the beginning, after the marriage, when Kristin's father set him up in the position at the advertising firm and when during the first year Jonas landed a national campaign for one of the largest vodka companies the money began pouring in like from a wide-opened faucet, so ridiculously fast and easy, magic, more money than he'd ever seen, conceived of, and that was just the first success, others followed and gradually he grew used to it, to the idea of it, a new car every year, two hundred dollar shoes, weekends in France, a standard he grew used to, there was the cheap, ordinary world then there was the superior one, the world he knew, then what he lived for was holding on to the superior world, never letting go, watching his stocks, backstabbing someone on his team to co-opt an account, morals were for sissies, it was about standards, someone had to maintain them, the best did, it was Darwinian at heart, quality stock, human or the market, it was the same, all the same. That's when I began to turn insane. [click for the complete story]

Closing Next Month
New Letters Invites Writers to Send Work to Literary Awards—$4,500 in Prizes
Postmark Deadline: May 18
New Letters magazine invites you to submit fiction, essays, or poetry to the 2010 New Letters Literary Awards. Winners receive $1,500 for best essay, $1,500 for best poetry, and $1,500 for best fiction, and publication in a special 2010 awards issue of New Letters.

All entries are considered for publication and must be unpublished. First runners-up will receive a copy of a recent book of poetry or fiction from our affiliate BkMk Press. Winners will be announced mid-September 2010. Essay and fiction entries may not exceed 8,000 words; poetry entries may contain up to six poems. $15 for first entry; $10 for each entry after. $15 entry fee includes a one-year subscription to New Letters.

Previous final judges have included Philip Levine, Maxine Kumin, Gerald Early, Joyce Carol Oates, Rishi Reddi, Mary Jo Salter, Floyd Skloot, Carole Maso, Cornelius Eady, Margot Livesey, Benjamin Percy, Robin Hemley, and Kim Addonizio. For complete guidelines, visit www.newletters.org or send a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) to Ashley Kaine, Contest Coordinator, New Letters, 5101 Rockhill Road, Kansas City, MO 64110.

Please enjoy this excerpt from "Ursus arctos horribilis (Grizzly)", published in the Fall 2008 issue of New Letters:

Ursus arctos horribilis (Grizzly) by Lisa Sewell ...Don't get me wrong. Don't wander in a haze or sing a song without purpose for she can teach you a lesson, twist my arm, break your heart my whole head between her jaws and the sudden sound of all the many bones that make a skull unmaking as she clamps down and shakes. O Grizzly, most pugnacious and ancient survivor on the trail, in the brush, sing loudly, ring bells if charged, stand your ground; if attacked make a cannonball shape, cover the back of your neck with your forepaws. And if I am suddenly there, uncertain what I am or my intentions, do not look me in the eye. What looks playful could be desperation and in all the faces ever filmed you will discover no kinship, no understanding, no mercy.

Closing Next Month
On The Premises Short Story Contest: "Misunderstanding" (no fee)
Email Submission Deadline: May 30
Since 2006, On The Premises magazine has aimed to promote newer and/or relatively unknown writers who can write creative, compelling stories told in effective, uncluttered, and evocative prose.

Every four months, On The Premises sponsors a short story contest. Entrants pay no fees, and winners receive cash prizes in addition to exposure through publication. Every contest challenges authors to write creative, compelling, and well-crafted stories based on a broad premise that the magazine's editors supply.

Prize money in 2010: $140 for 1st, $100 for 2nd, $70 for 3rd, and $25 for honorable mentions, all in US dollars. Usually, two or three honorable mentions are published.

The newest contest just launched on March 7. You can find details at http://www.onthepremises.com/current_contest.html. To be informed when new contests are launched, subscribe to our free, short, monthly newsletter.

"On The Premises" is recognized in Duotrope, Writer's Market, and Ralan.com, and was recently reviewed by New Pages magazine.

Hints for Winning Our Contests

1. Your story should be CREATIVE. That doesn't mean it has to be speculative! Genre is not the issue. The issue is, how many times have we read (or seen) stories similar to yours, in any genre?


2. Your story should be COMPELLING. Make us care about your story and the characters in it. Grab our attention at the beginning and make us want to keep reading.


3. Your story should be WELL-CRAFTED. More than anything else, that means every word is chosen with great care. It also means there isn't one unnecessary word or idea in your story. The parts of your story form a perfect whole.


4. Your story should CLEARLY use the contest premise. If our premise is that a story has to be about a dog, make the dog a major character. Don't have a dog appear in the first paragraph, then never be seen again. And don't make the story about a secret organization whose initials are D.O.G. The more obvious your use of our premise is, the better.

See more hints

Closing Next Month
Enter your short story in The Writer's 2010 Short-Story Contest!
Online Submission Deadline: May 31
Have a short story just sitting around waiting for the right contest? Have an idea for a story that you didn't get around to putting on paper? Now's the time to dust off that story you never submitted or write that story you were always meaning to write, and submit it to The Writer's Short-Story Contest!

In partnership with Gotham Writers' Workshop, The Writer invites submissions of unpublished short stories up to 2,000 words. We're looking for original, previously unpublished fiction on any theme that is brilliant, bold and concise. Susan Breen will be our finalist judge. She is author of The Fiction Class and a frequent contributor to The Writer.

Prizes: Cash prizes of $1,000/$300/$200 for the top three entries. The first-prize winner will also receive a free 10-week online creative-writing workshop from Gotham Writers' Workshop and publication in The Writer; second- and third-place winners receive free enrollment in "How to Get Published", a four-week online seminar taught online by a literary agent and Gotham Writers' Workshop. All winners receive a one-year subscription to The Writer and will have their stories posted on WriterMag.com.

Submit online only. Entry fee: $10 per submission. For the official rules and more information about how to submit online, see www.WriterMag.com/2010contest.




6th Annual Gival Press Novel Award
Postmark Deadline: June 1
Award given to the best original unpublished English manuscript of approximately 30,000 to 100,000 words of high literary quality, typed, double-spaced on one side of the paper only, with word count in the upper left hand side of the first page, along with the title. Please bind the manuscript with a clip or rubber band. The author's name should not appear on the numbered pages of the ms. Author should keep a copy of the submission as it will not be returned.

Our annual postmark deadline is May 30, but due to the Memorial Day holiday this year a postmark of June 1 will be accepted. Prize: $3,000 plus copies and publication. Reading fee: $50 (USD) by check or money order drawn on an American bank for each novel submitted. Payable to: Gival Press, LLC.

For complete details, visit www.givalpress.com, email givalpress@yahoo.com, or write: Robert L. Giron, Editor, Gival Press Novel Award, Gival Press, P.O. Box 3812, Arlington, VA 22203.

Please enjoy this excerpt from "I-95, Southbound" by Perry Glasser, winner of the 2009 Gival Press Short Story Award:

The day starts bad, then gets worse. Who should be surprised? Not yet 7:00 AM, too far from home, Geist sets his sole piece of luggage into the trunk of his red Toyota. The pink valise and a son are all that remain of his marriage to Linda. Geist travels too little to warrant buying anything new; besides, the silver duct tape holding closed the vinyl wound that an airline baggage handler "accidentally" slashed gives it a masculine look. Geist closes the motel door, and almost as an accident he glances at his front tires. They are low. Now what the hell is that about? They were repaired only yesterday. Geist is one careful man. He plans. He plans a lot. Geist owns two of everything that matters. In his basement, on industrial strength metal racks well off the floor, he stocks toothpaste, tomato sauce, trash bags and a shopping cart's worth of other nonperishables. He stores gallons of water against the day the mains go to hell. Geist pays his bills as they arrive. His dishes never soak in the sink. Look, alone, there is no other way to live. There is no rest; you plan. You stay on top of things. You do for yourself, because if you don't, who will? Just look at those tires. Yesterday after a breakfast of one scrambled egg with dill, a toasted Thomas' English Muffin, black coffee, and his newspaper, Geist packed the pink bag. He'd planned to set out by noon, but the tires bulged like a middle-aged man's waistline. No need to bend and measure pressure. A person could see the problem... [click for more]

Autumn House Poetry and Fiction Contests
Postmark Deadline: June 30
The winners will receive book publication, a $1,000 advance against royalties, and a $1,500 travel grant to participate in the 2010 Autumn House Master Authors Series in Pittsburgh.

We ask that all submissions from authors new to Autumn House come through one of our annual contests. All finalists will be considered for publication. The final judge for the Poetry Prize is Claudia Emerson; the final judge for fiction is Sharon Dilworth.

All poetry manuscripts 50-80 pages and all fiction manuscripts 200-300 pages are eligible. If you wish to be informed of the results of the competition, please include a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Autumn House Press assumes no responsibility for lost or damaged manuscripts.

All entries must be clearly marked "Poetry Prize" or "Fiction Prize" on the outside envelope. $25 handling fee (check or money order) must be enclosed.

MANUSCRIPTS WILL NOT BE RETURNED.

Send manuscript and $25 fee to:

     Autumn House Press
     P.O. Box 60100
     Pittsburgh, PA 15211

Learn more about the contests at our website, and please enjoy "At the Holiday Crafts Fair" from The Gift That Arrives Broken by Jacqueline Berger, winner of the 2009 Autumn House Poetry Contest:

Please mail your entry and fee to:

     Snake Nation Press
     Attn: Poetry Contest
     2920 North Oak Street
     Valdosta, GA 31602

Snake Nation Press provides an informative, non-threatening venue for writers to submit their work in the midst of an often chaotically diverse publishing world. Over the twenty-year history of the Press, the staff and volunteers have found great satisfaction in forging personalized editorial relationships with both emerging and established writers. The Snake is committed to keeping an honest and open dialogue with authors and to furthering the literary arts on a local and global scale. Many hours of volunteer labor and the electronic resources of the Web have allowed a small press to help present many new literary voices to the world-wide community.

The editors of Snake Nation Press look for manuscripts that concretely render the writer's actual and imaginative experiences. We publish writing that both newly interprets life in its everyday reality and that opens the reader's eyes to internal landscapes that have not yet been envisioned. We believe that good writing fortifies a belief in the value of human life and effort, but above all the work must connect intuition and experience to cast a spell of surprised recognition that shocks the reader with what was thought to be familiar.

Please enjoy "Rosemary" from Tania Rochelle's The World's Last Bone, published by Snake Nation Press.

Rosemary by Tania Rochelle       for Kathy, in Denver Eighty in good shape She looks like heaven— Pleated sky-blue dress White cloud of hair. She stands in the street, post-church and watches as her old friend, bent like a question mark over a hot pink skirt, skritch of walker on concrete. She must not help her friend this much is understood I jog past, past forty getting tired.

Also at Snake Nation Press: Serena McDonald Kennedy Award
Postmark Deadline: July 31
Submit a novella of up to 50,000 words or a manuscript of short stories up to 200 pages long. Fiction and nonfiction accepted. Any well-written manuscript on any topic will be considered. Previously published works may be entered. An entry fee of $25 must accompany the submission. Winner receives $1,000 award and publication.

Please mail your entry and fee to:

     Snake Nation Press
     Attn: Serena McDonald Kennedy Award
     2920 North Oak Street
     Valdosta, GA 31602



The Grub Street Book Prize
Postmark Deadlines: March 15 for Poetry, July 1 for Non-Fiction, October 15 for Fiction
The Grub Street Book Prize is awarded three times annually to a writer outside New England publishing his or her second, third, fourth (or beyond...) book. First books are not eligible. Writers whose primary residence is Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire or Rhode Island are also not eligible.

Each winner receives a $1,000 honorarium and an all-expense-paid reading/book party at Grub Street in downtown Boston. Winners will also lead a craft class on a topic of his or her choice for a small group of Grub Street members. We congratulate our 2009 winners Rick Barot (Poetry: Want), Alan Cheuse (Fiction: To Catch the Lightning), and Dinty W. Moore (Non-Fiction: Between Panic & Desire).

Though Grub Street's top criterion is the overall literary merit of the work submitted, the award committee especially encourages writers publishing with small presses, writers of short story collections, and writers of color to apply. We also want the award to benefit writers for whom a trip to Boston will likely expand their readership in a meaningful way.

See www.grubstreet.org for full application guidelines.

Please enjoy this excerpt from To Catch the Lightning by our 2009 Fiction winner, Alan Cheuse:

On this particular morning, with the women talking over the breakfast table and the children bickering, he felt unusually anxious and put upon, and he felt driven, or pulled, to leave the house as soon as he could—early in the day, low clouds overhead, low tide, the powerful reek of seaweed and fish in the air, gulls calling—he, a young fellow of impressive height, walked this morning with a slight stoop because of his burden as he scoured the gray sand for artifacts of he knew not what—his mind filled with shards of family life, children's outcries, requests, demands, dreams, nonsense. And at the particularly loud and raucous cry of a soaring gull he glanced up and saw a small, dark thing at the water's edge far along on the sand. It seemed like nothing, just a clump of something, old clothes, seaweed, nothing; he didn't know. But he felt an odd curiosity, almost as if he were being pulled toward it. Subject for a photograph, perhaps? He noticed a lot of things but made few of them into pictures. But this...whatever it was, child, stranger, wayfarer, who knew? He strode heroically forward and when he was close enough, he could see the woman crouched above the sand just at the waterline, swaddled in a blanket and digging with a stick—digging for clams. "Good morning," he called out to her. She looked up at his approach. Their eyes met. Deep and deep and deeper—he saw far into her foreign soul. They negotiated. He gave her some coins. She told him, in a voice he could scarcely hear beneath the noise of wind and lapping water, that her father had been the chief of all this land. He gave her more coins and set about his work, feeling a brief wave of nausea and drawing back for fear that if he lingered too long she might pull his own spirit into hers and never let him go. He hurried up the steep streets to his studio, with beach sand still in his shoes, his equipment seeming lighter than air, and rushed through the door and into the back. Pushing aside all other business, he made the photograph, watching carefully as the woman's mud-colored face—nearly a blur with sweat and determination that covered the cracks and fissures made by time—floated up out of the dark. The sway of her arm, reaching down as she dug in the muck, connected to the necessity of her body and the receding tide and all the muted light behind her— Here she was! He tapped the photograph into a simple frame and gave it a prominent place on the wall of the studio. He spent some time gazing at the picture, more real to him now than the memory of having seen the woman along the sandy strand. With this chilling thought imprinting itself in gooseflesh on his neck and arms—that life might disappear but his picture of it could remain—he had started down a path of no return.

• Stories should be typed, double-spaced, on 8 1/2" x 11" paper with the author's name and contact information on the first page and name and story title on the upper right corner of the remaining pages
• Limit one submission per author
• Author must not have been previously published in Open City
• Mail submissions to RRofihe, 270 Lafayette Street, Suite 1412, New York, NY 10012
• Enclose a self-addressed stamped business envelope (SASE) to receive names of winner and honorable mentions
• All manuscripts are non-returnable and will be recycled
• Reading fee is $10. Check or money order payable to RRofihe
• See the complete guidelines at http://www.opencity.org/rrofihe.html