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May 2010
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Welcome to our May newsletter. This is the companion to our online database, The Best Free Poetry Contests. It alerts you to upcoming contests and important contest changes, highlights quality resources for writers, and announces achievements and great poems by our readers.
Attention international readers! We've added another new feature to The Best Free Poetry Contests and Poetry Contest Insider. You can now search for contests that have no geographic restrictions. Learn more.
Lost one of our newsletters? Formatting doesn't look right? Not to worry. All our recent newsletters are posted online at http://www.winningwriters.com/news
Coming June 1: Award-Winning Poems
Each quarter we publish a special edition of this newsletter featuring the winning poems from contests we admire. The next edition is June 1. Please watch for it in your mailbox!
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FEATURED SPONSOR'S MESSAGE
Carpe Articulum will award $10,000 this year! Winners to be published in our international, cross-genre, quarterly review, and receive 2 copies. Requirements: Cover sheet with full contact information. Title only on actual piece. $15 reading fee per entry. See complete details and submit online at www.carpearticulum.com or mail to: Carpe Articulum Literary Review, CLPW Department, [your contest genre], P.O. Box 409, Lake Oswego, OR 97034. Checks payable to Carpe Articulum Literary Review. Optional editorial feedback fee: $49. Questions? Please email editor-in-chief@carpearticulum.com. Yes, we accept unsolicited submissions without a reading fee (but you can only receive publication, not a cash award). Congratulations to this quarter's Short Fiction winners: Harrison Solow, Jaina Sanga, Julian Hoffman, and Ruth Ann Dandrea. Register at the site now and receive one free issue.
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CONTESTS HOSTED AT WINNING WRITERS & OPEN NOW
Last Call!
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We seek 1-3 original, unpublished poems on the theme of war for our ninth annual contest, up to 500 lines in total.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.
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Closing Next Month
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. Submit poems of any length. 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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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. Submit poems of any length. 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 won the 2010 Cervena Barva Poetry Chapbook Prize for her manuscript Barbie at 50, which will be published later this year. Read a poem from this collection on her blog. Joan Gelfand, one of our newsletter subscribers, won the corresponding Fiction Prize for Here and Abroad. These contests offer $100 and publication by Cervena Barva Press, an independent small press based in the Cambridge/Boston area. The most recent deadline was January 31.
Congratulations to Carolyn Howard-Johnson. Her poem "Endangered Species" won first prize in the 2009 Franklin-Christoph Poetry Contest. Her poem was inspired by a visit to the Long Beach Aquarium, where she came face-to-face with a delicate sea dragon camouflaged in its habitat by the gently wafting kelp in its tank. Read the winners on their website. This free contest from Franklin-Christoph, Ltd., a seller of luxury pens and desk accessories, offers $1,000 and web publication. The most recent submission period was July 15-November 30.
Congratulations to Joel Schwartzberg. The 40-Year-Old Version: Humoirs of a Divorced Dad, his collection of personal essays and humor, was named a finalist in both the Essays and Humor categories of ForeWord Magazine's Book of the Year Awards for books published in 2009.
Congratulations to Eva Schlesinger. Her poetry book View from My Banilla Vanilla Villa was published this spring by Dancing Girl Press.
Congratulations to Gabriela Blandy. Her story "Playing With Guns" was one of seven runners-up for the 2009 Fish International Short Story Prize, selected from a field of over 1,800 entries. This contest from Irish literary press Fish Publishing offers a top prize of 3,000 euros. The most recent deadline was November 30.
Congratulations to Dick Sheffield. His short story "Maere Tungol" won third prize in the national category of the 2009 Hackney Literary Awards for Poetry & Short Fiction. Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama offers these long-running awards with top prizes of $600, one national-level and one state-level (Alabama), in each genre. The most recent submission period was September 1-November 30. Sheffield describes his story thus: "When a man's struggle with regret surfaces unexpectedly at a train station in New York City he realizes when the rare opportunity of true love had presented itself to him years before, he not only chose badly, he bypassed completely."
Congratulations to Christopher Provost. He won the runner-up prize in the adult poet category of the North Carolina State University Insect Museum's 2010 Hexapod Haiku Challenge. This contest, which closed March 20, awarded small cash prizes for Japanese short-form poetry featuring insects and other arthropods. Nearly 300 entries were received. Read the winners and judges' comments on their blog. Provost's poem is below:
summer symphony
I awaited your encore
for seventeen years
RECENT HONORS FOR POETRY CONTEST INSIDER SUBSCRIBERS
Congratulations to Carol Gilbertson. Her poem "On the Train from Krakow" was named runner-up (honorable mention) in the 2009 MacGuffin Poet Hunt contest and appeared in their Winter 2010 issue. She kindly shares it with us below. This $500 prize from the literary journal of Schoolcraft College is currently open to submissions through June 3. In other news, her poem "At Hawkshead" was published in the April 6, 2010 issue of The Christian Century.
Congratulations to Ruth Hill. Her poem "Public Inquiry" won an honorable mention in the 2010 Connecticut River Review Annual Poetry Contest. This award from the Connecticut Poetry Society offers a top prize of $400. The most recent deadline was February 28. Her narrative poem "There's Just Something About an Aqua Velva Man" was also shortlisted for the 2010 Fish One-Page Story Prize, which closed March 20 and offered a top prize of 1,000 euros.
RECENT PUBLICATION CREDITS FOR OUR SUBSCRIBERS
Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé has recently been published in Monkey Bicycle ("thank god it's disco friday") and Spilt Milk ("Ariel's Tulip and Their Familiars"). Recent publications have also included his interviews with writers: Boey Kim Cheng in Cerise Press, Megan M. Garr in Luna Park Review, and Fiona Sze-Lorrain in the Australian magazine Retort.
Ellen LaFleche's poems "Hag", "Family Sweatshop, 1910", and "After the Diagnosis, I Organize my Own Funeral Banquet" were accepted for publication in CaKe, a journal of poetry and art edited by the students and faculty of Florida A&M University. CaKe "strives to give voice to those who have been traditionally underrepresented by the literary community".
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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.
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Deadlines: May 16-June 30
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! Geographic Eligibility Search Field
Readers have asked how to search for contests that accept entries from all nations. Now, when you go to the Find Contests pages at The Best Free Poetry Contests and Poetry Contest Insider, you'll find a new "Geographic Eligibility" dropdown menu under Advanced Search. Use this menu to find contests without geographic restrictions, or, if you prefer, to limit your search to contests that are more restrictive.
Searching on "All" will retrieve all contests, whether or not they have geographic restrictions (this is the default setting). Searching for "International" contests will retrieve those that are open to authors worldwide. Other categories include "US Only", "Canada Only", and "UK Only". Contests for residents of a particular state, county, or metro area within the US are categorized as "US Regional Only". As always, full details are provided within the profile of each contest.
Keep those suggestions coming! Click to contact us.
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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.
5/31: Bordighera Poetry Prize ++
Recommended free contest for manuscripts by Italian-American poets offers $1,000 each to the author and a commissioned translator who will translate the book into Italian. The poet must be a US citizen, but the translator may be an Italian native speaker from any country. The poet may translate his/her own work if bilingually qualified. Initial submission should be a 10-page sample from a manuscript of 48 pages maximum. See website for complete details.
5/31: Smories Prize +
Entries must be received by this date
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.
6/1: American-Scandinavian Foundation Translation Prizes ++
Recommended free contest offers $2,000 for unpublished English translations of modern poetry, fiction, drama, or literary prose originally written after 1800 in Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian, or Swedish. $1,000 Leif & Inger Sjoberg Prize will also be awarded to an individual whose translations have not previously been published. Submissions should not exceed 25 pages of poetry or 50 pages of prose (double-spaced).
6/1: Amy Award +
Neutral free contest seeks lyric poems by women age 30 and under who are residents of Long Island or NY metropolitan region. Winners receive an honorarium and a reading with a distinguished poet in NYC. The Amy Award honors the memory of the poet Amy Rothholtz, author of Iced Tigers, who died at age 25. Formerly sponsored by Guild Hall of East Hampton, NY, the award was taken over by Poets & Writers Magazine in 2004.
6/1: Harold Witt Awards +
Neutral free contest offers prizes of $100 and $50 for poems published in the past three issues of Blue Unicorn, a literary journal established in 1977. Follow their regular submission guidelines: 3-5 short poems, no simultaneous submissions. "Blue Unicorn wants well-crafted poetry of all kinds, in form or free verse, as well as translations. We shun the trite or inane, the soft-centered, the contrived poem. Shorter poems have more chance with us because of limited space."
6/1: Inglis House Poetry Contest +
Neutral free contest offers top prize of $50, smaller prizes, in each of two categories: poems about disability, or poems by disabled authors. Inglis House is a Philadelphia-based center for wheelchair-bound adults.
6/1: Stowe Prize +++
Highly recommended free contest offers a $10,000 achievement award to the US author whose work "makes a tangible impact on a social justice issue critical to contemporary society." This prize was launched to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of the antislavery classic Uncle Tom's Cabin. Deadlines in even-numbered years only. Entrants may nominate themselves or be nominated by another. See website for entry form. Submit by mail or email.
6/1: Woodrow Hall Jumpstart Award +
Neutral free contest for Wisconsin poets offers grants of $500 and $250 to help fund projects that present poetry to the public in an unexpected or unconventional manner. Submit entry form with description of your proposed project and your relevant background. Woodrow Hall Editions is a project of Poetry Jumps Off the Shelf, a program launched in 2004 by Shoshauna Shy in Madison, Wisconsin, with the mission of bringing poetry out of the libraries, bookstores and classrooms into the public arena.
6/15: Towson University Prize for Literature ++
Recommended free contest offers $1,000 for published books of fiction, poetry, drama, or imaginative nonfiction by Maryland residents (entries in all genres compete together). By nomination only. The work must have been published within the three years prior to the year of nomination or must be scheduled for publication within the year in which nominated.
6/24: Utah Arts Council Original Writing Competition ++
Formerly June 25
Recommended free contest for Utah residents offers prizes up to $1,000 for unpublished full-length manuscripts of poetry, novels, general nonfiction and juvenile literature, plus smaller awards for individual poems, stories and essays. Manuscript prizes are for authors with no published books in the genre they are entering; other prizes are open to all.
6/30: Ekphrasis Editor's Award +
Neutral free contest offers $500 for the best poems published in Ekphrasis, a venerable literary journal specializing in poems about other works of art. Submit 3-5 poems as part of the regular submission process. All poems published in the journal during the calendar year are considered for the award. No simultaneous submissions, but previously published poems are eligible.
6/30: Frederik van Eeden Poetry Competition +
Entries must be received by this date
Neutral free contest offers 100 pounds and online publication for a poem up to 30 lines. Contest sponsor London-based Holland Park Press Ltd. publishes literary fiction and poetry and places special emphasis on bringing the work of Dutch authors to the English-language market. Launched in 2010 to celebrate the 150th birthday of Frederik van Eeden (1860-1932), the contest seeks poems inspired by a quote from his novel Hedwig's Journey. Enter by email only. This will probably be a one-time contest for 2010.
6/30: John Glassco Translation Prize +
Neutral free contest offers C$1,000 for an author's first book-length translation into French or English, published in Canada during the previous calendar year; work may be poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, or children's book (all genres compete together). Contest is open to Canadian citizens or landed immigrants.
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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SPONSORS' MESSAGES
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Last Call!
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 Jendi Reiter's interview with Robert Stewart, editor of New Letters, that appeared in the Spring 2007 edition of Poetry Contest Insider:
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Q: Are there topics, styles or cultural perspectives you'd like to see more of in the submissions New Letters receives? Any that you'd like to see less of?
A: I wish I could remember who said, Don't tell me about your sad and lost childhood. Maybe that. However, I think it's a bad idea to restrict any topics. New Letters does not usually make editorial decisions based on topic but rather on the quality of the writing. A great part of our mission is to publish writing that advances the art, that uses language in a fresh and exciting way. Subject matter influences how that looks, of course, but a good subject—I want to tell all those cover-letter composers—won't sell the work. I would like to see more writing come to us with a social or environmental consciousness. Much of that kind of writing does turn to polemic, sadly, but I also think it's worth trying to discuss the crises in the world. We did run a powerful essay by Wendell Berry called "The Way of Ignorance", about the environment and politics; we have run other work along those lines, as well.
Q: What do you wish contest entrants would understand about New Letters before submitting their work?
A: Voice. If they write their stories, poems, essays by stringing together conventional phrases, they are unlikely to make the finalist batch. Preliminary judges want to discover a voice that sounds fresh, authentic, driven.
Q: Who are some of your favorite authors (classic or contemporary) that deserve a wider readership than they've received? What can today's writers learn from them?
A: I think the New York translator and critic Eliot Weinberger should have a wider readership, although he has several books of essays from New Directions. He strips his essays of hype and sentimentality, and every sentence moves forward more information. I think, believe it or not, Henry Miller remains under-appreciated in this country. He's still known for writing about sex, but read his nonfiction; he's one of the most spiritual, uplifting, tough-minded and self-critical writers I know.
[click for the complete interview]
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 Last Call!
Christian Publishers Poetry Prize
Postmark Deadline: May 31
Are you a poet of Christian faith? Do you prefer to write poetry in traditional styles of rhyming verse? Is Christian faith the visible theme of your poetry? If so, the Christian Publishers Poetry Prize is tailor-made for you! $1,000 in cash prizes will be awarded.
You can enter the classical category or the open category. Either way, your poem must rhyme and it must be about some aspect of Christian faith. Prizes are guaranteed by the Utmost Christian Writers Foundation. See our website for the complete guidelines.
Please enjoy "A Country Graveyard" by Richard B. Mowry of Florida, the first-prize winner for classical Christian poetry in 2009.
A Country Graveyard
by Richard B. Mowry
An album filled with memories... it was an Easter day
we walked that rural road at dusk and saw along the way
the benediction's setting sun... the vision was sublime
enough to aim your camera there and freeze that frame of time.
A setting sun beyond a graveyard scattered on a hill
is boxed inside this photograph with history standing still.
While stopping on that rural road, why was this picture taken
of solar setting at a place so lonely and forsaken?
This rustic sanctum of the dead in sight of setting sun
portrays the grave as the only goal we claim when day is done.
Those roses by a grave where seeds once buried in a hole,
do sprouting stems of spring suggest the flowering of the soul?
'Twas seven years ago we walked the aisles between those rocks
lined like soldiers in formation, then saw the stone that talks
with names of passing people who were swallowed by the earth,
but only brief biographies... the date of death and birth.
A garden of rock with sun set souls while sun set in the west...
or was it rising in the east, for pictures can't suggest
if it was dawn or dusk that day... tell me in my forgetting
was sun upon horizon rising that I assume was setting?
I bask in glory at the dawn of resurrected sun
to celebrate the victory that another Son had won,
for was it on that Easter morn they saw the empty tomb
while ember Easter egg of dawn was rising from the womb?
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Last Call!
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 "Water" by Tim Johnston, winner of the 2008 Gival Press Short Story Award:
She was a good sleeper, a dependable sleeper, but that night Charlotte woke up with her heart whumping, like a young mother. There had been something.
She lay there in the dark, not breathing. At one window the drapes were shaped by faint light from the street, but at the other there was nothing, no light from the neighbors, no moonlight, and the effect was briefly frightening, as if the wall had fallen away into space, or a black sea.
She drew the alarm clock into focus: 1:36. She had a son who would stay out late, but when he came home he was like a cat, and if she heard him at all it was because she had gotten up to use the washroom, pausing by his door just long enough to hear him clicking at the computer in there, or humming to the iPod, or shhshing Ginny Simms, his girl.
She heard none of this now, nothing at all but the heat pumping invisibly, bloodlike, in the walls of the house. This was late October, two nights before Halloween, the first truly cold night of the season.
She closed her eyes and the dream she'd been having eddied back to center—a dream of hands, the feel of them, the smell of them; muscle and tendon, palm and finger. Her body, under the bedding, still hummed. She breathed, she slowed, she drifted down.
And heard it: Water.
Water was running in the pipes somewhere. Not the shower, or the toilet, or the kitchen sink: this was the distinctive 1-inch-pipe gush you heard when the boys were washing the truck, or the dog, or filling the plastic pool for the neighbor kids. She had been married to a plumber and she knew about pipes.
She got into her robe and went down the hall, past the boys' rooms—John's door open, no John; Dukie's door shut but him in there, a mound of sleep she could feel like a pulse—and down the stairs to the kitchen, where the noise was loudest.
[click for more]
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Last Call!
The Writer's Digest 79th Annual Writing Competition
Late Postmark Deadline: June 1
For 79 years, the Annual Writer's Digest Competition has rewarded writers just like you for their finest work. We continue the tradition by giving away more than $30,000 in cash and prizes! Compete and win in 10 categories!
Win a trip to New York City!
GRAND PRIZE: $3,000 cash and a trip to New York City to meet with editors or agents. Writer's Digest will fly you and a guest to The Big Apple, where you'll spend three days and two nights in the publishing capital of the world. While you're there, a Writer's Digest editor will escort you to meet and share your work with four editors or agents!
First Place: All First Place Winners receive $1,000 cash and $100 worth of Writer's Digest Books.
Second Place: All Second Place Winners receive $500 cash, plus $100 worth of Writer's Digest Books.
Third Place: All Third Place Winners receive $250 cash, plus $100 worth of Writer's Digest Books.
Fourth Place: All Fourth Place Winners receive $100 cash.
Fifth Place: All Fifth Place Winners receive $50 cash.
Sixth through Tenth Place: All Sixth through Tenth Place winners receive $25 cash.
First through Tenth Place Winners also receive a copy of the 2011 Writer's Market Deluxe Edition and a one-year subscription to Writer's Digest.
11th through 100th Place: All other winners receive certificates honoring their accomplishment.
Visit http://writersdigest.com/annual for complete guidelines and to enter online.
Closing Next Month
2010 Guy Owen Poetry Prize
Postmark Deadline: June 15
$1,000 and publication in Southern Poetry Review for the unpublished poem selected by a distinguished poet. Submit three to five poems (10 pages maximum), a $15 entry fee by check or money order (good for a one-year subscription to SPR), and a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) for reply only. Include contact information on cover sheet only. No electronic submissions; none on disk. Mail your entry to:
Southern Poetry Review
Guy Owen Prize
Department of Languages, Literature, and Philosophy
Armstrong Atlantic State University
11935 Abercorn Street
Savannah, GA 31419-1997
All entries considered for publication. Visit website for more information. www.spr.armstrong.edu
Southern Poetry Review is the second oldest poetry journal in the region, with its origins in Florida and subsequent moves to North Carolina and now Georgia. Continuing the tradition of editorial openness and response to writers that began with Guy Owen in 1958, SPR publishes poems from all over the country as well as from abroad and maintains a worldwide readership. Past issues feature work from Chana Bloch, Billy Collins, Alice Friman, David Hernandez, Andrew Hudgins, Maxine Kumin, Heather McHugh, Sue William Silverman, R. T. Smith, Eric Trethewey, and Cecilia Woloch.
Please enjoy "Lightweights" by Jeff Hardin, published in the Southern Poetry Review.
Lightweights
by Jeff Hardin
Even in these hostile times,
I sort of prefer those people
others consider
lightweights.
Those who,
during the meeting,
doodle in the margins,
inking out long-stemmed daisies
with words rising up
out of the stamens.
Watch how they're
not really ruffled
when referred to
as loafing.
Their tenacity
at not being
too insistent—
now that's a feat.
A mouse could run off
with their crumbs
and they wouldn't flip out,
call in a search party,
order a fatwa.
I imagine they know already
that plot is simply
what it is
—mostly a distraction—
that what matters
hasn't happened yet,
the realm of the possible,
which sometimes
doesn't occur.
While others strategize,
organize coalitions,
they fiddle with a grass blade,
inspecting its shape.
When they speak up,
it's to ask
some loll-about question
already drifting
right out of the room.
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Closing Next Month
NEW MILLENNIUM WRITINGS Thirtieth Writing Awards
Postmark Deadline: June 17
Categories: Fiction, Poetry, Short Fiction, and Non-fiction
Prizes: $4,000 in prizes - $1,000 for first prize in each category
Criteria: Our sole criterion is superior writing. We look for originality, accessibility, musicality, psychological insight, and moral sensibility.
Contest Rules & Online Submissions: http://www.newmillenniumwritings.com
Since 1996, we have published over 1,000 writers and poets and awarded over $100,000 in prizes to help launch writing careers. NMW is winner of a Golden Press Card Award for Excellence. According to Kane S. Latranz of Alibi, "I found this to be one of the most powerful literary experiences I've ever had. For anyone who gives a whit about writing or the human condition, New Millennium Writings should be required reading."
Please enjoy this excerpt from "The Resiliency Gene" by Ellen Graf, the tie winner for non-fiction in our 28th contest:
My husband needed a job. In 2002 he'd flown over a vast ocean in twelve hours, but crossing the land bridge between Chinese and English was taking forever. Since immigrating to America at age 45, he'd encountered more than a few roadblocks, including an illness that arrested his second language development in its infancy. He said himself that he could not rely on past accomplishments to win an instant livelihood—here, he must "from zero start".
In China, my husband had been a linguistics major, but his verbal eloquence was geographically sensitive. In America, his body rejected English like a bad skin graft. As a result, after seven years in the United States, he had never been able to work as the fast talking sales manager he had been in China; instead, the first year he worked as a grocery stocker, a gardener, and a Tai Chi teacher at a convent, where the director admonished him to stop talking because it upset the sisters. He put in applications at Wal-Mart, gas stations, school maintenance departments and electronics factories. He filled out eight at the local convenience store where a four-season sign hung on the door: "We Need Help!" They never called him. We even invited the sales rep from the auto mechanics school into our house and for a few fantasy hours ran our fingertips over the color photos of clean young men peering into clean Volvo engines. Dressed up or dressed down, clean-shaven or stubble-faced, there was no niche for a person who could neither read nor speak the language fluently.
[click for the complete essay]
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Closing Next Month
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 self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE). 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 this excerpt from "Golden Retrievers" from Attention Please Now by Matthew Pitt, the winning manuscript in the 2009 Autumn House Fiction Contest:
Even before August, summer was smothering the dogs of L.A. June's heat wave shocked Orange County. The forecasters laughed it off. It'll peter out, they predicted; but it didn't. A tractor-trailer filled with Pacific fish jackknifed in July, leaving Hollywood and Vine smelling of mackerel and eel and smelt roe, a foggy, murderous scent the street cleaners couldn't erase. A scent the dogs could neither locate nor escape from. They ran down Gower beside their owners, actors trying to shed water weight in the heat. They ran across bridges which rose above rivers; when the dogs saw the barren riverbeds they howled. Their tongues swelled as they begged licks of Evian from their masters' palms.
Then came August 5th—and the meltdown of Susie Light's Hollywood career. On the evening of the 4th, Susie shut out the lights at Peticular Bliss, her kennel for the dogs of stars. She'd just finished preparing sixty meals: fifteen low-cal, eleven no-fat, nine vegetarian, and twenty-five more assorted rations, all done up with capers, coated with twists of lemon, and spooned into colorful, Fiesta-style ceramic bowls. The next morning Susie knew something was wrong by the smell outside the bedding area. Food. Food? But the dogs always ate what was given them. She unlocked the door. A pulse of heat lurched at her. Her hair fizzed, her lungs felt thin: The air inside was grim and splintered with stillness.
Susie walked the aisles, pawing fur, checking for heartbeats, holding her breath in hope of hearing theirs. A minute later, a recorded, eerily perky, female voice filled the otherwise silent room. It came from Ab's suite. Ab Doberman, a Pinscher belonging to an aerobics instructor who taped two shows for ESPN2: Lose the Fat! and Living With Fat. The instructor insisted that Ab wake up in the morning to her programs. Susie approached Ab: His rangy body lay stiff on the carpet and his face was a queer void, though his nose was still slightly moist, like a stick of butter left out to soften. She bent down and petted his fur. You liked Desert Palm Bottled Water mixed with a protein supplement that made it look like split pea soup, and you liked to hear your owner feeling the burn. Could you be dead too, baby? |
Closing Next Month
Heart Poetry Award $500
Postmark Deadline: June 30
The winner and all Honorable Mentions will be published in the Fall 2010 edition of Heart. $10 covers 3 poems and reserves your copy. We seek insightful, immersing, unpublished prose poems. Include on each page your name, address, phone, and email address (optional). Winners announced on website or include a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) for printed announcement. Your poems will not be returned—please keep a copy. Mention you saw this ad and receive a free back issue when you enter the contest.
Mail entries and checks payable to Nostalgia Press, 2003 Broughton Street, Orangeburg, SC 29115. Questions or comments, please visit www.nostalgiapress.com or email heart@sc.rr.com.
Benjamin W. Farley will judge this year's contest. He is the Younts Professor of Philosophy & Religion Emeritus at Erskine College, Due West, SC. In addition to his poetry and scholarly works, Farley's publications include Corbin's Rubi-Yacht, Of Time and Eternity, Mercy Road, The Hero of St. Lo, and Quilly Hall. Read a sample poem by Dr. Farley.
Please enjoy "A Far Distant Cry" by Melinda Kemp Lyerly of Aberdeen, NC, the winning entry in the 2009 Heart Poetry Contest.
A Far Distant Cry
by Melinda Kemp Lyerly
We've come full compass, the year and I,
in this new northern land. This solitary planet
has once again turned and tilted on its axis,
offering a moment briefly suspended—
the season of instinctual gathering,
of selves, of inner and outer stores;
a golden swath of time
that parts the glow of summer memories
and the approaching winter's bundled slumber.
Fragrant wood smoke envelops my senses
and the graceful lace of branches become still
and stark against a blue paper sky. Vibrant,
crisp light, that singular late autumn creature
perches gently on my shoulder and caresses my hair,
beckoning something deep within, wordless
and waiting.
A sound of muted trumpets rise and fall
as winter geese wedge themselves
through bright, cut glass air
all the way to the hard horizon,
a vanishing point leading south,
to the land of my birth.
Oh, the sight, the sound, fills me with such longing!
How I ache to let loose wild, wishful wings
feathered in the last of the season's fiery leaves
and let the wind take my body, to sweep
my lonely spirit up and away, following them
along their ancient migratory path,
toward my heart's home
and the hushed notes
of a far,
far distant cry...
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 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 Between Panic and Desire by Dinty Moore. This manuscript won our 2008 National Book Prize in Non-Fiction.
I see the world through undeniably distorted lenses, the particular curves and hollows of my distortions fashioned by forces personal and political, intimate and widespread. My mental optics are warped by the fear and panic induced by the Kennedy assassinations, the King assassination, Kent State, the rise and fall of Richard M. Nixon, Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver, Chuck Manson, the breakup of the Beatles, and the drinking, depression, and divorces that shaped my early family life. Add in countless nights of smoking too much dope and driving pointlessly in circles, and you've mapped the roots of my delusion fairly well.
But here's the rub: for the most part this list of formative events is communal. An entire generation lived through the untimely death of JFK (lost a good father), the resignation of Tricky Dick (lost a dysfunctional dad), and the turmoil of Vietnam (lost our Uncle Sam). We've all spent years, or maybe decades, feeling fatherless, cynical, unmoored. We were told to reach out to our government, grab hold, and it would pull us up out of the swamp. Instead it often turned, slithered, and bit us on the hand. The old rope and snake trick, in reverse.
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The Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Literature (no fee)
Postmark Deadline: July 30
The Vilcek Foundation shall award a prize of $25,000 to a foreign-born writer who demonstrates outstanding early achievement. In addition, four finalists will receive awards of $5,000 each. There is no fee to enter. Four categories of writers are eligible to apply:
- Poets
- Novelists
- Short Fiction Writers
- Short Creative Nonfiction Writers
ELIGIBILITY
To be eligible for The Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in the Arts and Humanities, applicants must meet all of the criteria listed below.
- Applicant must have been born outside the United States.
- Applicant must not be more than 38 years old as of December 31, 2010 (born on or after January 1, 1972).
- Applicant must be a naturalized citizen or permanent resident (green card holder) of the United States.
- Applicant must intend to pursue a professional career in the United States.
- Applicant must be the individual who has authored the submitted work.
SELECTION PROCESS
A panel of distinguished members of the literary community will evaluate each application based on its quality, the level of creativity, clarity of vision, impact and the individual's ability to present his/her work in a professional manner.
The prize winner selected by the jury will be a candidate whose work best exemplifies the characteristics indicated above. Additionally, the jury will identify four finalists, each of whom will receive an award of $5,000. Recommendations of the jury will be submitted to the Vilcek Foundation's Board of Directors for final approval.
The winner will be notified in November 2010 and will be invited to attend an awards ceremony in New York City in the spring of 2011. Travel expenses and accommodations will be covered by The Vilcek Foundation.
Learn more at our website.
Download a PDF of the application guidelines.
Apply online.
Dream Quest One Poetry and Writing Contest
Postmark Deadline: July 31
This writing contest is open to anyone who loves to express their innermost thoughts and feelings in poetry or to write a short story that's worth telling everyone! We're accepting poems, 30 lines or fewer on any subject, and short stories, 5 pages maximum on any theme (single- or double-line spacing). Multiple entries welcome.
Prizes
Short Story First Prize: $500, 2nd: $250, 3rd: $100
Poetry First Prize: $250, 2nd: $125, 3rd: $50
Entry fees
$10 per story
$5 per poem
How to Enter
Send your work with a cover page that lists the title(s) of your poem(s)/story(ies), name, address, phone number, and email address, along with a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) for entry confirmation. Make your entry fee payable to "DREAMQUESTONE.COM" and mail to Dream Quest One Poetry & Writing Contest, P.O. Box 3141, Chicago, IL 60654. Electronic entries accepted via PayPal. Visit www.dreamquestone.com for details and to enter.
Please enjoy "Camera" by Claire Trainor of Denver, Colorado, the third-prize entry in our Winter 2009-2010 contest:
Camera
by Claire Trainor
Put the camera down; give it its well-earned break,
And let your memory do its job.
Stop watching the world through that 2-inch LCD screen
You brag so much about
And let your eyes see the vivid colors the world holds.
The bright blues, and dark greens,
The gentle pinks and purples and oranges
Of the setting sun that last ever so slightly
Before fading into nothingness.
Let them watch the way a breeze can ever so slightly move a tree,
See the emotion that faces really hold,
Not those phony smiles they plaster on for the flash
Before the faces fade back to the
Heartache, love, hatred, joy, disappointment, and happiness they usually hold.
Skip freely,
Run as fast as you can,
Hold on tight,
Otherwise you're left in the dust,
Splash in the ocean waves
And feel the salt bathe your skin
Without the worries of dropping your beloved camera,
Because I bet all it wants,
With its 2-inch LCD screen capturing every moment
Is to break and have its job be done,
So it can do you a favor and let you see the world
As it's supposed to be seen,
Remembering what you remember, forgetting what you forget
And watching those colors of the sunset fade into nothingness
Knowing that your memory captured it all.
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14th Annual Robert Frost Foundation Annual Poetry Award
Postmark/Email Submission Deadline: September 15
The Robert Frost Foundation welcomes poems in the spirit of Robert Frost for its 14th Annual Award. The winner will receive $1,000 and an invitation to present the winning poem this fall at the Frost Festival located at the Lawrence Public Library in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the library in which Frost first explored the traditions of English and Irish poetry.
Please submit two copies of each poem, one copy with contact information (name, address, phone number, email address) and one copy free of all identifying information. Reading fees are $10 per poem (send fees via regular mail, please). Make your check payable to The Robert Frost Foundation. Mail your entry to: The Robert Frost Foundation, Attn: Poetry Award, Lawrence Public Library - 3rd Floor, 51 Lawrence Street, Lawrence, MA 01841. Include a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) or an email address if you'd like to receive the contest results. Email submissions are accepted at frostfoundation@comcast.net if you send your entry fee by regular mail.
You may submit up to three poems of no more than three pages each. Both published and unpublished works are accepted. See the complete contest guidelines at www.frostfoundation.org and more on last year's winners at frostawards.blogspot.com.
Please enjoy "Harvest" by Megan Grumbling, the winning entry in our 2004 competition.
Harvest
by Megan Grumbling
Frost wouldn't wait, this fall, for moon
to hang her round September seal;
practicality precedes myth
in the sense and strike of that old
severance. This season, clarity
grows zen-cold; that silversteel blade
seeks the deep ways origin went,
whittles away what won't winter.
Sap ran a raw ring from each stalk.
I sawed through, prolonging the pierce
of the knife somewhere in myself
as I rent body from below.
Pain was my sole umbilical,
'til the swelling moon cut the clouds
to recall the tale of will's relent,
return and end at once at one.
Walking fields back, harvest in arms,
I saw that the truth would stumble
in the morning, cleaving to dream
as belief, to root as yet bound,
'til the chill slice of recognition
stings early through sleep to the frost
on the panes, awakening the loss
and cutting all this faith to rest.
Reap and way fell dark under the pines.
Those most tangible momenta—
memory, impulse—led me blind
along most turnings of the trail,
and moonlight seeped to reveal the rest.
Past and instinct aligned in the light,
guiding harvest toward a graceful yield,
a story—though not without
my feet sometimes tripping on roots,
my feet sometimes tripping on roots. |
Open City's 2010 RRofihe Trophy Short Story Contest
Postmark Deadline: October 15
7th year! The RRofihe Trophy for an unpublished short story! Limit: 5,000 words. Winner receives: $500, trophy, and publication in Open City magazine. Judge: Rick Rofihe.
Guidelines:
- 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
Rick Rofihe is the author of FATHER MUST, a collection of short stories published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. His fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Grand Street, Open City, Swink, Unsaid, and on epiphanyzine.com, slushpilemag.com and fictionaut.com. His nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The Village Voice, SPY, and The East Hampton Star, and on mrbellersneighborhood.com. A recipient of the Whiting Writers' Award, he has taught MFA writing at Columbia University. He currently teaches privately in New York City, and is an advisor to the Vilcek Foundation for their 2011 prizes in the field of literature. Rick is the editor of the new online literary journal, anderbo.com.
Please enjoy this excerpt from the 2009 winning story, "Mum", by Leslie Maslow of Brooklyn, New York:
Roger ignored his mother and curled himself into a hole that Jacks, the family's Springer Spaniel, had dug under a pine tree. All week, she'd promised to take him to Dorney Park, but last night his mother suddenly announced that she was going to visit her great aunt at a nursing home near Philadelphia. Pulling her car onto Argyle Road, she called, "Be back tomorrow!"
How stupid to be left behind with Ellie, their housekeeper. The rattling engine faded into the distance. Roger wished he could stay there and let Jacks cover him with dirt, but he was too big. His teddy bear fit perfectly in the hole.
Paddington's arms stuck up towards him. Roger dropped handfuls of soil onto the smiling bear. He would show his parents that he did not need to carry around stuffed animals. His father complained that a boy of five and half was too old for it. Roger liked this new sensation of burning in his throat and chest that came from holding back tears. He ran his hands over the earth to hide Paddington's grave.
Back inside, Roger crept through forbidden rooms seeking answers to why things were so different lately. Father was away at more and more conferences, like the one he was attending all this week. Roger poked his finger at the white puff of tissue paper stuffed in a hole over Mother's door handle. She used to bolt herself in until father had the lock removed. Even now, Mother kept the door shut and came out only when Father came home from his office at the end of the day. With a high, cheerful voice, she spoke of the small things that had happened, like the milkman forgetting eggs or a neighbor's new car. She presented her cheek to accept Father's kiss. Roger noticed that his father sniffed her face, like Jacks did to Roger whenever he got home from school... |
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These free prose contests with deadlines between May 16 and June 30 are included as a bonus in The Best Free Poetry Contests.
Click the contest names below to go straight to their profiles, or login to The Best Free Poetry Contests here. After you login, please click the Find Free Contests link, then search by Prose Contest Type to find prose contests.
5/30: WORK Literary Magazine Employee of the Month Contest +
Entries must be received by this date
Neutral free contest offers prizes of $100 for nonfiction on the theme of work, in three genres: memoir, general nonfiction, and interview. WORK is a webzine "dedicated to celebrating the daily grind". Prizes are awarded once annually in each genre, but there are different deadlines for each genre: Memoir: April 1, 2010; Nonfiction: April 30, 2010; Interview: May 30, 2010. One of the three winners will be chosen as the Employee of the Month, will be awarded an additional $100, and will be invited to read at First Wednesday Readings hosted in Portland, Oregon. Entries should be 2,500 words maximum. Enter by email.
5/31: Black Orchid Novella Award ++
Recommended free contest offers $1,000 and publication in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine for the best traditional mystery novella. Contest sponsor The Wolfe Pack is the official fan club for Nero Wolfe, a legendary fictional sleuth created by Rex Stout in a series of mystery novels published from 1934 to 1975. Entries should be 15,000-20,000 words. See website for thematic and stylistic restrictions. Essentially, they are looking for an old-fashioned story of deduction, with a witty style and an engaging relationship between the characters, and no explicit sex or violence.
5/31: Hayek Essay Contest +
Formerly April 30
Neutral free contest offers prizes up to $2,500, plus travel grant to annual conference, for essays of 5,000 words maximum in the spirit of free-market economist F.A. Hayek. Entrants must be aged 35 or younger. Sponsored by the Mont Pelerin Society, a libertarian think tank in Virginia. Offered in even-numbered years only.
5/31: Jerry Jazz Musician Fiction Contest +
Entries must be received by this date
Thrice-yearly free neutral contest offers $100 and web publication for short fiction. The Jerry Jazz Musician reader has interests in music, social history, literature, politics, art, film and theatre, particularly that of the counter-culture of mid-20th century America. Entries should appeal to a reader with these characteristics. Submit stories of 1,000-5,000 words by email to jm@jerryjazz.com as an MS Word or Adobe Acrobat attachment. Please be sure to include your name, address and phone number with your submission. Please include "Short Fiction Contest Submission" in the subject heading of the email.
5/31: Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Award +++
Entries must be received by this date; formerly March 31
Highly recommended free contest offers $10,000 for a novel first published in Spanish after 2007 by a female author. Winner also receives travel expenses to the award ceremony at the Guadalajara International Book Fair in Mexico. Send 6 copies of the published Spanish-language book, a curriculum vitae, and copies of any reviews that the book received. Contact David Unger for details.
6/1: Fraser Institute Student Essay Contest ++
Entries must be received by this date
Recommended free contest for high school, college, and graduate students awards prizes up to C$1,000 for short scholarly essays on an annual theme dealing with current events. 2010 topic is "What should government do in times of economic crisis?" Enter by mail or online. Entries must be received by 5 PM Pacific time on the deadline date. Entries may be written in English or French. The Fraser Institute is a Canadian free-market think tank.
6/1: Hillerman Mystery Competition +++
Highly recommended free contest offers $10,000 and publication by St. Martin's Press for a mystery novel set in the Southwestern US, by an author with no published books in that genre. Entries should be a minimum of 220 pages (60,000 words). Early entries strongly encouraged. Contest is co-sponsored by St. Martin's Press and the Tony Hillerman Writers Conference. Tony Hillerman was the author of the best-selling Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee mystery series set on a Navajo reservation.
6/18: BBC National Short Story Prize +++
Entries must be received by this date; formerly June 15
Highly recommended free contest for UK citizens/residents with "a prior record of publication" offers 15,000 pounds for the best short story up to 8,000 words, plus other large prizes. Stories must either be unpublished or have been published during the current calendar year. See website for detailed eligibility rules.
6/25, 8/6: Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize ++
Entries must be received by these dates; former deadlines were June 26 and August 7
Recommended free contest offers C$25,000 for novels or short story collections published in Canada during the calendar year by Canadian citizens or landed immigrants. Deadline varies depending on when your book was published: books published between October 1 and April 22 must be received by April 23; those published between April 23 and June 24 must be received by June 25; and those published between June 25 and September 30 must be received by August 6. Publishers should submit 5 copies of the book (or 3 bound galleys, to be followed by at least 2 copies of the book), press kit, entry form, and list of titles published by that publisher, to establish eligibility. See website for detailed requirements.
6/25, 8/6: Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize ++
Entries must be received by these dates; former deadlines were June 26 and August 7
Recommended free contest offers C$25,000 for nonfiction books published in Canada during the calendar year by Canadian citizens or landed immigrants. Deadline varies depending on when your book was published: books published between October 1 and April 22 must be received by April 23; those published between April 23 and June 24 must be received by June 25; and those published between June 25 and September 30 must be received by August 6. Publishers should submit 5 copies of the book (or 3 bound galleys, to be followed by at least 2 copies of the book), press kit, entry form, and list of titles published by that publisher, to establish eligibility. See website for detailed requirements. Formerly known as the Nereus Writers' Trust Non-Fiction Prize, changed name in 2009.
6/30: Drue Heinz Literature Prize +++
Highly recommended free contest for an unpublished book-length collection of short fiction (150-300 pages) includes $15,000 and publication by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Open to writers who have published a book-length collection of fiction or a minimum of three short stories or novellas in commercial magazines or literary journals of national distribution.
6/30: Eric Hoffer Award for Short Prose +
Entries must be received by this date
Neutral free contest from Hopewell Publications offers $500 and anthology publication for unpublished short fiction or essays (both genres compete together) up to 10,000 words. Enter online only. No simultaneous submissions. Deadlines are quarterly, but there is only one annual prize. You can enter one story per quarter.
6/30: Goi Peace Foundation International Essay Contest for Young People ++
Entries must be received by this date
Recommended free contest offers top prize of 100,000 yen (about $1,000) for short essays by children and youth on themes of cross-cultural reconciliation. Prizes awarded in age categories under-14 and 15-25. See website for details on the annual theme and formatting rules. Entries may be written in English, Spanish, German, French or Japanese. Send by mail or email.
6/30: L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest +++
Highly recommended free contest for emerging writers of short science fiction, fantasy and horror offers quarterly prizes of $1,000 plus an annual $5,000 grand prize for one of the four winners. Send only one story per quarter, maximum 17,000 words. See website for eligibility rules. Entrants may not have professionally published a novel or short novel, or more than one novelette, or more than three short stories, in any medium.
Login to The Best Free Poetry Contests now to view these and all our profiles of free contests.
Key to Ratings
Highly Recommended: +++
Recommended: ++
Neutral: +
All deadlines are postmark deadlines unless otherwise specified.
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Narrative Magazine iPoems
Rolling Deadline
Narrative Magazine, an online journal of fiction, nonfiction, and narrative poetry, is celebrating the launch of its iPhone app in Spring 2010 with a new poetry submission category, the iPoem. Enter via online form. Submissions accepted year-round. Contributors will be paid $50 per poem. Editors say, "An iPoem is a short poem that will fit within no more than two screens on the iPhone. An iPoem may be up to 150 words long. However, we favor iPoems that can be read in a single screen, which would be a poem of about 40 words, allowing space for title and byline. Just as the advent of the typewriter both limited and enhanced the form of poetry, the new media are making an impact on the form and how readers experience it. So, without establishing specific formal criteria for the iPoem, other than length, we are nonetheless interested in seeing works that indicate the poet's awareness of how the new media affect, for instance, the line in poetry. We favor works that demonstrate an awareness of and interest in prosody."
Burnside Review
Rolling Deadline
Burnside Review, a literary journal based in Portland, OR, is seeking submissions of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and artwork for their whiskey-themed issue. Submissions will be accepted till the journal is full, with a publication date around January 2011. Manuscripts and bio should be sent as single attachment (this means everything as a single file) to submissions@burnsidereview.org. Word documents or Rich Text Files are the only acceptable format for attachment (no PDFs and DO NOT paste poems into the body of your email). The subject line of the email should read: Poetry Submission-Your Last Name (i.e.: Poetry Submission-Miller). Browse samples from the magazine on their website before entering. Recent contributors have included Carl Phillips, Ed Skoog, Campbell McGrath, and Franz Wright.
Women and Poetry: Tips on Writing, Teaching and Publishing by Successful Women Poets
Entries must be received by May 24
Submissions are sought for an anthology of essays about women's experience in poetry publishing. Suggested topics include markets for women, why women write, time management, using life experience, women's magazines, critique groups, networking, blogs, unique issues women must overcome, lesbian and bisexual writing, formal education, queries and proposals, conference participation, family scheduling, feminist writing, self-publishing, teaching tips. Practical, concise, how-to articles with bullets/headings have proven the most helpful to readers. Please avoid writing too much about "me" and concentrate on what will help the reader. No previously published, co-written, or simultaneously submitted material. Essays should be 1,900-2,100 words. Potential contributors should submit 3-4 topic proposals by the deadline, and wait to hear back before sending the full essay. Email co-editor Carol Smallwood for full guidelines.
Women Writing on Today's American Family
Entries must be received by May 24
Submissions are sought for an anthology of essays about writing and publishing by women with family publication experience. Possible subjects: markets; using life experience; networking; unique issues women must overcome; formal education; queries and proposals; conference participation; self-publishing; teaching tips. Family in creative nonfiction, poetry, short stories, novels. Practical, concise, how-to articles with bullets/headings have proven the most helpful to readers. Please avoid writing too much about "me" and concentrate on what will help the reader. No previously published, co-written, or simultaneously submitted material. Essays should be 1,900-2,100 words. Potential contributors should submit 3-4 topic proposals by the deadline, and wait to hear back before sending the full essay. Email co-editor Carol Smallwood for full guidelines.
Kyoto Journal "Biodiversity" Issue
Entries must be received by May 25
Kyoto Journal, an English-language international quarterly based in Kyoto, Japan, is seeking submissions of poetry and short essays (500 words maximum) for a special themed issue on Biodiversity. The issue will be distributed at the COP10 biodiversity conference sponsored by the United Nations, which will be held in Nagoya, Japan, in October 2010. It is expected to draw 7,000 delegates from 130 nations. Please email poems to kyotojournal@sbcglobal.net and essays to submissions@kyotojournal.org.
Submissions should consider one or more of the following three broad questions:
- What is the single best idea (or tangible success story) you know of for the preservation or restoration of biodiversity?
- What are the most important things that we need to become aware of, or teach, in the next decade to promote biodiversity?
- Beyond biodiversity, diversity itself (of languages, cultures, etc.) is endangered. What does diversity mean to you personally, philosophically, and/or politically? How can it be effectively protected?
Bop, Strut, and Dance
Entries must be received by September 15
Submissions of Bop poems are sought for the upcoming anthology Bop, Strut, and Dance: A Post-Blues Form for New Generations, edited by poets Afaa Michael Weaver and Tara Betts. Steeped in the musicality of jazz and blues, the Bop is a new poetic form invented by Weaver in 1997 while teaching at Cave Canem, the renowned workshop for African-American poets. Authors of all ethnicities are encouraged to submit 3-5 poems by email as MS Word attachments, with a short bio and contact information, to webebop@gmail.com.
Inspired by Langston Hughes' blues poems and the triadic structure of the Pindaric ode, Weaver established the original form of the Bop as a poetic argument consisting of three stanzas, each stanza followed by a repeated line, or refrain, and each undertaking a different purpose in the overall argument of the poem. In Afaa's original form, the first stanza (six lines long) states the problem, the second stanza (eight lines long) explores or expands upon the problem, and the third stanza (six lines long) attempts a resolution. If a substantive resolution cannot be made, then this final stanza documents the attempt and failure to succeed. The refrain forms the final stanza.
As Afaa stated in revealing the form to his workshop students that the refrain was to be a line from a song, hence the direct reference to the traditions of African-American musical expression. (The use of such lines has to be observant of copyright restrictions where applicable.)
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On the Train from Krakow
by Carol Gilbertson
Outside the window
herds of white birches unleafed,
skeletal. I remember Yellowstone
after the fire—hill, valley, hill, valley—
thousands of pine trunks
standing scorched in mid-summer
like wartime photos of ghost bodies
staring from camp fences.
At Auschwitz the guide,
in memorized English, detailed the scope
and efficiency of the demolition. Pointing
to one crematorium and then its twin
across the road, she did not notice her slip:
These two are miracle images.
The trains left indelible tracks
which still end abruptly at the heart of the camp
as did their hordes of terrified passengers,
each one bearing a singular name.
At Josepha Synagogue the walls
seemed papered with an intricate design.
I wanted to touch but leaning in close
discovered finely-lettered script,
name after name in rows—each
miraculous life-line mirroring the next—
like tiny cars on a track.
Copyright 2010 by Carol Gilbertson
This poem was a runner-up (honorable mention) in the 2009 MacGuffin Poet Hunt contest and appeared in their Winter 2010 issue. The MacGuffin is the literary journal of Schoolcraft College.
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PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
ProLiteracy President Speaks at International Conference on Afghanistan
From the May 4, 2010 remarks of David C. Harvey, President and CEO, ProLiteracy:
...Our model for supporting adult literacy programs throughout the world is called Literacy for Social Change. Very simply, literacy for social change is a common sense approach to working in a culturally respectful, cost-effective manner with local communities around the globe. We embed adult literacy instruction within social action projects in six action areas: economic self reliance (micro-enterprise and microfinance), health, education, environment, human rights, and peace. Within this model, communities identify their most pressing needs—such as developing livelihoods through small business, lowering infant mortality, organizing a school for children—and then develop community-led projects to solve those needs. Literacy instruction in the basics of reading, writing, and math is infused throughout these community solutions. It is not literacy for literacy's sake but applied literacy instruction within the realities of everyday life.
Despite a history of involvement in Afghanistan that dates back to 1951 and the work of one of ProLiteracy's founders, Dr. Frank Laubach, we have been a strictly limited partner, providing financial and technical support with few strings attached to small grassroots organizations on the ground. There have been many interruptions in our involvement in Afghanistan throughout the years, due to changing political and security problems. Today, our main local partner is the Roqia Center, founded and led by Nasrine Gross.
The adult literacy statistics for Afghanistan are challenging: more than 11 million Afghans over the age of 15 cannot read and write. In rural areas, where three-fourths of Afghanis live, 90 percent of the women and more than 60 percent of the men are illiterate.
Very simply stated, ProLiteracy's perspective is that peace, stability, democracy, and economic development depend on a literate adult population. Illiteracy is a core problem; unless this core problem is addressed in a culturally competent manner, many other efforts to assist Afghani society will fail. Period. Adult literacy is the pure back-bone of development; it is central to peace and security...
Click for the complete remarks
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This month, Critique Corner is pleased to present "Six" by Charlotte Mandel and "Rain Sestina" by Chuck Levenstein.
If you would like a chance to be critiqued, please email your poem to critique@winningwriters.com.
Send the poem in the body of your email message (no attachments) and put "poetry critique" in the subject line. One submission per poet per month. Thanks!
Six
by Charlotte Mandel
At six, my cheeks were apple red.
Relatives pinched me like fruit on a stand,
testing me. I longed to be pale,
glassy and flat like the people
reflected in black mirror windows
staring in the howl of subway tunnels.
Riding to Coney Island, the tunnels
blasted into daylight. Veiny red
blobs flooded my eyes. Sun melted the windows.
I jumped and slid off the wicker to stand,
squares imprinted on my thighs. I smelled people
and corned beef. I could hear the rattle of my pail.
Under my wet wool suit, sand rubbed the pale
hidden chinks of my body. I dug tunnels
with care, my fingers creeping like people,
sandhogs meeting, their torches red
fire boring through. I mixed mud to stand
firm, fit in bits of shell for windows—
white, like eyes of a fish. Windows
couldn't be trusted. Glass looked pale
but might be backed with silver, force you to stand,
rigid, planted in a screaming tunnel
watching faces staring in the dim red
narrow passage, the eyes of bodiless people.
In the movies, behind the screen, real people
ballooned like silhouettes in windows.
My mother sat beside me, offering a red
apple that felt cold and black in the pale
gigantic flickering talking tunnel.
A man was touching me—I didn't understand
why my mother looked away, letting me stand
it, letting me suffer eyes and hands of people—
the man's fingers groping for tunnels
under my dress. The wall in front was a window
framing a strange man's eyes magnified, pale—
a scream in my throat like sand, burning red—
"We'll go home, your skin is red." My mother made me stand,
pulled off my bathing suit. Pale bodiless eyes of people
stared through black mirror windows at my body screaming in tunnels.
Copyright 2010 by Charlotte Mandel
Rain Sestina
by Chuck Levenstein
Patience is a virtue nurtured by endless rain:
Old forests are proud of their ability to wait
While lesser shrubs insist on irrigation ditches
And pipes of stolen water, streams diverted,
Dams inserted to pool and pump the skies
While the trees and I are dry or wet as Nature wills.
My tribe is not inclined to subdue weather with its will
Our rites include no prayer or sacred dance for rain
Or sun; legend tells that for forty years we had to wait
With backpacks and flat bread, trudge through desert ditches
And dunes behind old Moses, from refuge diverted
Because the fool struck a rock, impatient with the skies
A pity we were abandoned to sand and white skies,
And a jealous god insistent on his will,
When there were swimming deities who loved rain,
Imbibed heavenly nectar and were content to wait
While we stumbled away from digging Egyptian ditches
(Desire to escape from slavery, of course, not to be diverted.)
Suppose, just suppose, the fleeing caravan had been diverted
And dark Atlantic waters parted under Brazilian skies,
And we trailed the Amazon drenched as a wet god willed,
My ancestors might have learned the Portuguese for "rain",
And armed with arrow and bow we would wait
To ambush Herzog's Jesuits in soggy ditches!
Alas, we were not born with the britches to sit in ditches!
The fate of a destined stream cannot be diverted,
Exiled tribes may yet find their way to Himalayan skies
Where upstream Tzaddiks spin the wheel of no-one's will
And on Bhuddish heads snow falls, quiet as this summer's rain,
And Godot! There he is! Sits but doesn't wait.
These umbrella musings keep us dry while we wait
For slippery waters to cease slithering by in roadside ditches.
Our wetlands misery, malarial mold and all, must be diverted
Until clouds dissipate, as in memory did clear the skies
And they filled with radiant Apollo's will.
How long will our patience be tried by this damned rain!
Yes, even flowery patience will wilt if forced to wait
For an end to endless rain, the petals diverted
From terran skies end their short lives in a ditch.
Copyright 2010 by Chuck Levenstein
Critique by Tracy Koretsky
The sestina is scary. That's what I think most poets think, and I find that sad because the sestina is one of the most enjoyable ways I have ever found to write a poem.
But I think I know why they're scary (I have three reasons, actually) and this month in Critique Corner, with contributions from two highly accomplished poets, I'd like to see if I can allay some fears.
They are Charlotte Mandel with "Six", which was originally published in her collection A Disc of Clear Water (Saturday Press, 1982), and Chuck Levenstein, editor of the former online zine Poems Niederngasse, with "Rain Sestina".
Scary Thing #1: I Flunked Math
These charts one sees all over the Internet! They make the form appear like kabbalistic numerology comprehensible only to pattern-seeking savants. No! Remember this is a form invented by people who wove their own belts; the rules of the sestina are no more complicated than tying a macramé knot, each line of poem, a cord of twine. As a string of knots, the pattern doesn't refer back to the first knot but just to the previous. The stanzas spool off of one another: 6,1/5,2/4,3 of the previous stanza, 6 times—a simple braid.
Now to finish a row, some sort of edging stitch is needed. In sestinas, this is called the envoi. Although once there were traditional patterns for the envoi, they have long ago been abandoned to more general rules: all the end words appear somewhere in the last three lines, usually two per line, one at the end and one somewhere in the middle. Also, most sestinas end with the last word of the poem's first line. Not only does this not require any computer programs to remember, but it is a pleasure of the form to exploit it to expressive effect....
Click to continue reading this critique
These poems and our critique appear in full at:
http://www.winningwriters.com/resources/critiques/2010/urc_1005mandel.php
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COMING JUNE 1: AWARD-WINNING POEMS
Our Summer 2010 selection of winning poems from contests we admire
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