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Award-Winning Poems: Winter 2010-2011
One of the "101 Best Websites for Writers"
Writer's Digest, 2005-2010
Welcome to our Winter 2010-2011 selection of award-winning poems. These quarterly specials are included with your free Winning Writers Newsletter subscription. We'll release our next regular newsletter on December 15, with news about the winners of the seventh annual Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Traditional Verse.
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Writer's Digest is calling for nominations for its 2011 101 Best Websites for Writers. As you know, we were grateful to be named to this list for the past six years. Please consider sending an email to writersdigest@fwmedia.com. Put "101 Websites" in the subject line and include a brief note about how Winning Writers helps you. Copy us on your nomination if you feel like it. We appreciate it!
Attention Advertisers
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FEATURED SPONSOR'S MESSAGE
Welcome to Carpe Articulum Literary Review, a full-colour, international, quarterly journal of resplendent literature! This perfect-bound, archival quality journal is the perfect fit for the most discerning reader's home, office, or private window seat. Once again we bring you a wonderful selection of cross-genre literature as well as spectacular interviews from famous industry greats. Genres include: Poetry, Short Fiction, Novellas, Screenwriting & Non-Fiction. We also include full-colour photography, informative articles and insightful interviews. Welcome to CarpeArticulum.com.
GET A FREE ELECTRONIC ISSUE! This is a gift from us all at CALR with our compliments. Click to download a free electronic copy of last quarter's issue.
$10,000 per year in cash awards provided to exceptional writers and photographers! See this quarter's announcements below for details.
THIS ISSUE'S FEATURED GUESTS: We welcome Barbara Ehrenreich, author of seventeen books including bestsellers such as Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch and her newest book, Bright-Sided, which explores her amazing take on the "positive minded" philosophies being perpetuated in society, especially in the shadow of her own struggle with breast cancer.
We welcome Stan Jones and his wildly successful series of novels on Alaskan natives and stunning landscape as seen through the eyes of the half Inuit, Nathan Active!
We welcome Bruce Piasecki, whose non-fiction books including The Surprising Solution have been translated into over five languages worldwide! These remarkable and seasoned writers have graced Carpe Articulum's pages with their wit, wisdom, unusual experiences and advice. These interviews are rare and exclusive to Carpe Articulum—you won't see them anywhere else!
SPECIAL THANKS TO FORMER HEAD OF MGM STUDIOS, PARAMOUNT AND DESILU PRODUCTIONS, MR. HERBERT F. SOLOW, FOR THE LOVELY INTERVIEWS THIS ROTATION and HARRISON SOLOW FOR HER ENLIGHTENING INTERVIEW ON LIMINALITY, LUMINESCENCE AND LITERATURE. Last quarter, Mr. Solow spoke about what screenwriters should know about the industry, the true stories behind his mega-hits Star Trek and Mission: Impossible, and how things really work in Hollywood. Stay in touch to see the exciting new interviews in upcoming issues!
Carpe Articulum is available in print in Barnes & Noble, Borders and other fine bookstores worldwide. Online editions available as well.
THIS QUARTER'S ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Current call for submissions: Short Fiction, Screenwriting (Best opening scene only) and Non-Fiction & Poetry. NO PAGE LIMITS! Multiple submissions permitted; submit online via the website! Previously published work is permitted only if the print run did not exceed 2,000 copies.
ANNUAL REVOLVING DEADLINES
SHORT FICTION: Mar 30, Sep 30
POETRY: Mar 30, Sep 30
NOVELLA: Jan 7
ESSAY/NON-FICTION: Jan 7, Aug 30
PHOTOGRAPHY: Aug 30
SCREENWRITING: Nov 30
YOUNG WRITERS: Feb 1
Submit your work online now. Go to http://www.carpearticulum.com/submissions/
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RECENT HONORS FOR OUR NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERS
Congratulations to Tendai Mwanaka. His poetry collection Voices from Exile was released this month by Lapwing Publications, a small press in Northern Ireland. The book features poetry about Zimbabwe's political situation and the resulting migrations and life in exile. He kindly shares a sample below. For author-signed copies, email him at mwanaka@yahoo.com. Each copy will be 10 pounds plus postage of 3 pounds. You can also purchase directly from the publisher. Read Mwanaka's poem "Unbroken Awareness" and our critique from October 2007 here.
Congratulations to Evelyn Krieger. She won an honorable mention in the 2010 Jewish Literary Festival Writing Contest for her essay "New Girl". The most recent deadline was September 27. Winners were recognized at a reception held at the Washington, DC Jewish Community Center. In other news, Krieger's debut novel for young adults, One Is Not a Lonely Number, was released in June by YM Books, a publisher of books for observant Jewish girls and teens. Krieger's novel features 13-year-old Talia Shumacher, the only child of a wealthy orthodox couple, known for their hospitality. As Talia becomes a teenager, her parents' open-door policy begins to irritate her. When Gabrielle Markus, an eccentric 23-year-old ballet dancer, shows up one day, Talia's life is turned upside down. Convinced that Gabrielle is harboring a secret, Talia and her friends set out to uncover it. Along the way, Talia must deal with the loneliness she feels as an only child living in a religious community that celebrates large families.
Congratulations to Nicole Nicholson. She was awarded a 2010 Naturally Autistic Award in the Adult International Literary category by the ANCA Foundation. Nicholson, who has Asperger Syndrome (an autism spectrum disorder), says about her creative process, "I've encountered other autistic people who think primarily in pictures, or moving films. I myself am also a visual thinker. I see what's happening in the poem inside my mind, and I tend to concentrate on sensory data—sights, sounds, smells. I use these sorts of details to reconstruct and translate the pictures in my head back into words." She kindly shares a sample below from her winning entry "Novena", a collection of nine poems. More information about ANCA and the Naturally Autistic Awards can be found at http://naturallyautistic.com/. Nicholson blogs her poetry at Raven's Wing Poetry, and writes about her experiences with Asperger Syndrome, issues affecting the autistic community, and neurodiversity at Woman With Asperger's.
Congratulations to Darrell Lindsey. His recent honors include the Scorpion Prize from
Roadrunner Haiku Journal, two honorable mentions in the 2010 World Haiku Festival Competition, and the poem "Hawking's Companion" published in the Autumn 2010 issue of Illumen. Five of his poems (including one tanka) are currently in the Prize Round of the Poetry Ark prize project. The top three poems and their publishers receive over $2,000 in prizes. Winners are determined by the votes of the readers.
Congratulations to Maggie Grinnell. AG Press recently published her new book for children, The Ketchup Bottle and the Takeover. In this illustrated tale, Tommy Tomato, a ketchup bottle with an ego, moves into the refrigerator and tries to take it over. Read more about Grinnell's work on her website.
RECENT HONORS FOR POETRY CONTEST INSIDER SUBSCRIBERS
Congratulations to Marcia Popp. Her short story "The Ugliest Dog in the World" was a runner-up for the 2010 Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adult and Children's Writing. The most recent deadline for this $1,000 prize from Hunger Mountain, the literary journal of Vermont College of Fine Arts, was June 30. In other news, Garrison Keillor read Popp's poem "accidents" on The Writer's Almanac on October 13, 2010. The poem is included in her collection comfort in small rooms (Black Zinnias Press, 2009).
Congratulations to Ellen LaFleche. Her poem "Bayou-scape: The Day Before the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig Exploded" won third prize in the 2010 Connecticut River Review Annual Poetry Contest. This contest, one of several sponsored annually by the Connecticut Poetry Society, offers prizes of $400, $200, and $100. The most recent submission period was August 1-September 30.
RECENT PUBLICATION CREDITS FOR OUR SUBSCRIBERS
Thomas Lindsay's poem "Glory To Glory" was published in Sketchbook: A Journal for Eastern & Western Short Forms. Mr. Lindsay writes, "I learned a great deal through Winning Writers, things like 'Properly lining up my work with contest and general submission guidelines'. This is my first work accepted for inclusion for a publication and I'm grateful to Sketchbook and my writing resource Winning Writers."
Barb Caffrey has placed four short stories with e-Quill Publishing, a new e-book publisher in Australia: her original tale "The Fair at South Farallon", a science fiction satire about aliens, friendship, and unemployment; "Iron Falls", a near-future military suspense tale co-authored with Piotr Mierzejewski; and two stories co-authored with her late husband Michael B. Caffrey, "Trouble with Elfs" and "A Dark and Stormy Night: A Joey Maverick Adventure". Three of Mr. Caffrey's stories about Princess Columba and her shapeshifting cat/husband have also been released by e-Quill as a special anthology. Her poem "A Love Eternal" will appear in e-Quill's anthology of poems about mortality. Visit their author pages here and here. Ms. Caffrey blogs at elfyverse.wordpress.com. In other news, her poem "No Rest" was accepted by Midwest Literary Magazine for inclusion in their November issue and their anthology Bearing North.
Winning Writers Poetry Reviewer Tracy Koretsky's poem "Meditation on a Pinkie Toe" was published in the poetry e-zine Chantarelle's Notebook.
Ruth Hill has several publications to report. Her coming-of-age poem "Stockings" will be published in Song of the San Joaquin in December. "Fading into Fog," a poem about divorce, will appear in the Ascent Aspirations online journal in January. "Exchamsiks Woman", a poem celebrating First Nations legends, will appear in the Summer 2011 issue of Northwords Magazine of Smithers, British Columbia as the first poem accepted for their all-prose magazine. Her poem "Rune the Raccoon" was accepted for the children's poetry anthology Happily Ever After, forthcoming from Forward Press in January 2011. Her poems "Pas de Deux" and "Bloomin' Sunshine" will appear in the Little Red Tree Anthology in January. The latter poem also won a special commendation in the 2010 Firstwriter.com International Poetry Competition that closed October 1.
Robert Hill Long's prose-poems "Dog Fennel", "The Throw Pillow", and "Rasa" were published in the online journal Stickman Review, Vol. 9 No. 2. Mary Christine Delea's poems "The Shape of Birds" and "Way Out There" also appeared in this issue.
Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé has recently been published in Folly Magazine ("Excerpts From In Memoriam to a Marionette: Caudate Sonnet of the Year Ad Interim"), Titular (an installment within its Gertrude Stein Collaboratives Series), The Writing Disorder ("Origami Between Workstations"), Grey Sparrow Journal ("Vignette 009", "Vignette 015"), Orion Headless ("an accidental wandering", "round the clock"), Umbrella Factory ("a haiku is diego velazquez at home", "realism is a sandstone haiku", "a haiku is a raggamuffin"), and Write From Wrong Magazine ("social realism is a table napkin of haiku", "empathy is a lunar haiku", "a haiku and auden's unknown citizen"). Recent publications have also included his interviews with Singaporean poets: Toh Hsien Min in Prick of the Spindle, and Yeow Kai Chai in Luna Park Review. His poem, "ekatra iva alambana aneka utkranti uttara utpanna", which first appeared in Gulf Coast, has been reprinted in GASPP: A Gay Anthology of Singaporean Poetry and Prose, edited by Ng Yi-Sheng, Dominic Chua, Irene Oh, and Jasmine Seah. Published by The Literary Centre, the anthology was launched in Malaysia and Singapore.
Sandeep Sinha's illustrated poetry book Autobiographies of Silent Creatures is now available from Universal Poetry Publications. These 54 poems narrate the feelings of animate and inanimate entities, such as Eyes, Lips, Heart, Nose, Saree, Necktie, Beard, Moustache, School, University, Love, etc.
Jim Fox's story "Polka Dots and Sunshine Teardrops", the 2009 winner of Kiwi Publishing's life changing moments contest, is the lead story in their latest Thin Threads Anthology: Stories of Joy and Inspiration, released last month.
BARB CAFFREY'S BLOG: "More on the War Poetry Contest at WinningWriters.com"
We appreciate Barb Caffrey's recent comments about our War Poetry Contest on her blog. Here is an excerpt:
"Those fighting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq deserve our support, and our understanding. And the first part of giving our support and our understanding is to listen, to read, and to understand—not to shut out the soldiers who've given everything of themselves in order to derail the al-Qaedas and Talibans of this world so perhaps fewer innocents will die than would've died had our soldiers not given everything they have in the attempt.
"The War Poetry contest is a good way to keep the conversation going, and to understand exactly what is going on with our returning soldiers and how hard it is to deal with what most of us see as 'normality' after dealing with things that no man, or woman, or child should ever have to see. It also is a way to affirm the sacrifices of our men and women in a positive, life-affirming way."
Read more here and here. We were also glad to see coverage of our winner, Gerardo Mena, in the Columbia Daily Tribune
and Salem-News.com.
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CONTESTS HOSTED AT WINNING WRITERS & OPEN NOW
Tom Howard/John H. Reid Short Story Contest
Postmark Deadline: March 31, 2011
Now in its 19th year. Prizes of $3,000, $1,000, $400 and $250 will be awarded, plus six Most Highly Commended Awards of $150 each. Submit any type of short story, essay or other work of prose, up to 5,000 words. You may submit work that has been published or won prizes elsewhere, as long as you own the online publication rights. $15 entry fee. 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.
Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest - No Fee
Online Submission Deadline: April 1, 2011
Winning Writers invites you to enter the tenth annual Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest. We'll award $3,600, including a top prize of $1,500. Submit one humor poem online. No length limit. Both published and unpublished poems are welcome. No fee to enter. Final judge: Jendi Reiter. See the complete guidelines and past winners.
War Poetry Contest
Postmark Deadline: May 31, 2011
We seek 1-3 original, unpublished poems on the theme of war for our tenth 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, 2011
Now in its eighth 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. The winners of the seventh contest will be announced in this newsletter on December 15, 2010.
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COCHITI LAKE, 1989
by Sawnie Morris
Winner of the 2010 George Bogin Memorial Award
Postmark Deadline: December 22
This $500 prize, part of the Poetry Society of America's prestigious annual award series, seeks a selection of 4-5 poems that use language in an original way to reflect the encounter of the ordinary and the extraordinary and to take a stand against oppression in any of its forms. Here, Morris reminisces about a nighttime swim in a lake that the lovers do not know is polluted with trace metals. Juxtaposing mythic and natural images with forbidding technical terms, the fractured form of the poem mimics the disruption of the environment.
MIGRATION
by Karen Solie
Co-winner of the 2010 Griffin Poetry Prize
Postmark Deadline: December 31
The Griffin Poetry Prize awards two annual prizes of $65,000, one for a book of original or translated poetry first published in Canada, the other for a book published anywhere in the world. Books must be in English, and first published in the year in which the deadline falls. Karen Solie's Pigeon won the Canadian prize for 2010 (deadline in 2009). This poem treasures the faint signs of life's renewal in cold northern towns where harsh weather, debt, and personal losses have accumulated.
THE LIONESS
by Stuart M. Anderson
Winner of the 2010 Merton Prize for Poetry of the Sacred
Entries must be received by December 31
This free contest in honor of contemplative Christian writer Thomas Merton offers a top prize of $500 and publication for an unpublished poem of 100 lines maximum that "expresses, directly or indirectly, a sense of the holy or that, by its mode of expression, evokes the sacred." Anderson's winning poem takes the point of view of an aging predator who is frustrated that she cannot seize her desired knowledge of the divine as she might pounce on a zebra or antelope.
We are gathering a growing library of award-winning poems in Poetry Contest Insider, over 125 to date. Enjoy a wide range of today's best work. Sign up for a free trial. Learn more below.
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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 still the highlight of my life. I use it every day. I have had positive feedback from several editors and judges, have won some contests, and have been accepted for publication several times. I have also enjoyed the links for reading more poetry and learning more about the craft."
Ruth Hill, British Columbia, Canada
"Congratulations: Winning Writers is an extremely well-built and eminently useful tool! I have recommended it to many writers. Cheaper and easier to use than Poets and Writers, it also includes those valuable recommendations for those not yet (or only sometimes, as in my case!) in-the-know about the relative merits of the many invitations to submit, submit, submit."
Nancy White, New York
"...about a year ago I shifted my writing focus (novels, nonfiction) to poetry. I use your site exclusively to select contests. I’ve won, placed, and/or published 13 poems. The site is great. I can’t
imagine how much time it would take to search contests out and qualify them one at a time."
Lee Whipple, Florida
"I love using winningwriters.com. I send poems and manuscripts out to probably 20 contests each month from your listings... I recommend it to all my
writer friends and students, too. I don’t see how a writer can live without it. It’s like air or water."
Tom Lombardo, Georgia
"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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2006 WAR POETRY CONTEST—FINALIST
STRIP POKER
by Christopher Leland
Why would they think that someone had to teach us?
That year, we played in basements, musty forts
we built of rotting wood and weathered branch.
Cards riffling teased a boner in our pants.
Our flushes, straights, full houses, double
pairs slapped down on dirt or plank
till finally one stood naked there. Loser,
winners—hot with guilt and lust. Some trilling
mix we could not understand
hummed down our nerves like anarchy.
We knew the switch's cut and leather's burn.
To grow was an experience in pain.
Strip poker there at twelve gave us our chance
to feel the rush of power as we snapped
the collar round the loser's neck to lead
him like a dog through jeers and swats.
The boyish games, the next year, were forgot,
but high school honed those skills in shame.
The football team. The secret gang.
The point was to make certain that he cried.
Tabasco. Strops. Three golf balls and a pine cone.
The new boy's abject hurt was our reward.
So when they told us those we held were not
yet softened up enough, we were prepared.
As they supposed—such games are not some
redneck aberration, but flourish still
from sea to shining sea. And here,
no chance the tables would be turned.
And so we played. Those naked bodies ours to
use, humiliate, remembering the lessons
we had learned when we were powerless.
Dogchains, flashlights, "Make him..."
Those fine and simple means that drive a man
to shame so great his last defenses crack.
We knew they knew—the colonels and the generals.
They knew if they unleashed us what we'd do.
They, after all, had once been mere boys, too.
Copyright 2006 Christopher Leland
This poem was a finalist in the 2006 War Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers. See the judge's comments on the winning poems from this contest.
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SPONSORS' MESSAGES
 Swallow by Jendi Reiter Reviewed in Home Planet News
Winner of the 2008 Flip Kelly Poetry Prize from Amsterdam Press, Jendi Reiter's poetry chapbook Swallow was favorably reviewed in Issue #64 of Home Planet News. Critic George Held says, "[Reiter] writes from a Christian feminist point of view, her title indicating the many unpalatable things a woman must deal with, or 'swallow'. These include wolf whistles, her body—'washing it till it smells like nobody'—and the loss of a natural world she deeply cares about... When she writes, 'No one is following me', she means both that she has no followers as a writer and no stalkers as a woman and that no one gets her drift. Her deft use of negatives gives her plain language both inventiveness and irony."
To order, visit the Amsterdam Press online store or send a check for $8.00 to Amsterdam Press, 6199 Steubenville Road SE, Amsterdam, Ohio 43903.
Enjoy this sample poem from Swallow:
Save the Trees
by Jendi Reiter
...We know that the whole creation has been
groaning as in the pains of childbirth
right up to the present time...
Romans 8:22
Pluming in brief white petals, it too
intends—slim green-patched trunk, roots veining
under bricks underfoot. City props,
round beds of welcome pansies—no,
not stage, backdrop of our rush;
see but once the upward spreading
molecular praise of wood.
When those famous apes nibbled and fell
wood fell, crone-face dried in the fruit,
man's foot on mouse's tail,
baby ants in the torn gut of the dog.
Along the sunset trail birches groan
in winter wind, doors of an empty house
swept clean to wait for—
not alone
our black traces, mud lines of wheels
like erased forbidden words.
Who the owl who in the trees
his only sermon. Now the bull speaks
in lowered horn, the sea's
dumb ardor licks the breath from our lips.
Wood is for the axe, the pen
to set aglow. Drawn round our book,
we recognize each other.
Language is our lost wood.
A headlong squirrel chitters
outside the summer heat of pews—
will the maple and the flea
be saved, but not unbelievers?
who
who
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FUNDSFORWRITERS — Grants, contests, markets and publishing calls for submissions. Over 35,000 readers. Chosen by Writer's Digest for its 101 Best Websites for Writers commendation for 2001-2010. Ten years of recognized excellence. www.fundsforwriters.com
From a grateful reader:
I'm delighted to report that the publisher I found on Funds for Writers has just released my novel. Just another example of what a wonderful resource Funds for Writers really is!
 Grayson Books Chapbook Competition
Postmark Deadline: January 15, 2011
Prize: $500, publication of chapbook and 50 copies
Reading fee: $15
Submit: 16-24 pages of poetry, two cover sheets (one with contact information and one anonymous)
SASE for results only
Simultaneous submissions are permissible if we are notified immediately upon acceptance elsewhere.
This year's judge is Jack B. Bedell, the Woman's Hospital Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Southeastern Louisiana University, where he also serves as editor of Louisiana Literature and director of Louisiana Literature Press. His most recent books are Call and Response (Texas Review Press), Come Rain, Come Shine (Texas Review Press) and French Connections: A Gathering of Franco-American Poets (LaLit Press).
Please mail your entry and fee to:
Grayson Books
P.O. Box 270549
West Hartford, CT 06127-0549
www.graysonbooks.com
 Please enjoy these poems from The Quick and the Dead by Elizabeth Harrington, the winning entry in the 2010 Grayson Books Chapbook Competition.
Relay
Last July I lost almost everything.
My small intestine
My future's future (I feared)
My donor-boy, his hands
arranged over vacancy.
O, my Minnesota-boy, my body-part, my shiny new
question: What is your name?
The moon just now is bringing us light, transplanted
from the sun.
Think not absence, think
relay team, think the passing
of a baton. Of mercy.
Now imagine the recipient—
Her breathing, her waking, the way
she lifts—as if resurrected—
her chilly hands.
Sending My Mother Home After My Surgery
My mother dreams of white horses
with red-tinted ornaments in their manes.
She can't make them stop,
she says, she can't sleep, for the sake of the horses.
Should she leave me? Is it safe?
I know she's thinking
of her too quiet apartment, the pinch of dark, falling
from her four poster bed;
but not death, she says, it's not death
that worries her. There are worse things,
like being forgotten, smiled over
by strangers, smug and indifferent
in the event she becomes dependent
and moved to a nursing home which, she says,
would be worse than death
and don't think she doesn't mean it
and I know, I do know
I tell her as I did when my sister and I
stood in the street with her once and told her we
would never do that,
before she could be coaxed
back in the front seat of the car where she sat silent
all the way home, staring out the window
at nothing I could see. |
FISH PRIZES 2011
One-Page Prize — 1,000 Euros
Entries must be received by March 20, 2011
300-word limit
Entry fee: 14 Euros
Judge: Chris Stewart
Poetry Prize — 1,000 Euros
Entries must be received by March 30, 2011
200-word limit
Entry fee: 14 Euros
Judge: Brian Turner
The ten winners from each Fish competition will be published in the 2011 Fish Anthology. The 2010 Fish Anthology is available for 12 Euros (click for excerpts and ordering).
Full details, rules & online entry for all contests at www.fishpublishing.com
Major credit cards accepted with online entry. The translation of your entry fee into your local currency will be done automatically by your credit card company according to the current exchange rate.
Mail postal entries to: Fish Publishing, Durrus, Bantry, Co. Cork, Ireland
Questions? Please email info@fishpublishing.com
Established 1994. Honorary Patrons: Roddy Doyle, Colum McCann, Dermot Healy
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General Guidelines
Do not put your name and address on the story, but on a separate sheet.
Checks should be made out to Fish Publishing.
Stories and poems must not have been published previously.
Entry will be taken as acceptance of the rules and conditions.
Copyright reverts to the winning authors one year after publication of the Anthology.
The 2011 Fish Anthology of winning stories and poems will be published in July 2011, and launched at the West Cork Literary Festival.
Online Flash Fiction Writing Course
Ten weeks of reckless writing fun with Mary-Jane Holmes. Designed to be useful, entertaining, constructive, all for just 195 Euros including free entry to the Fish One-Page Prize.
Last Call!
11th Annual Writer's Digest Short Short Story Competition
Postmark Deadline Extended to December 8
To make a long story short, the 11th Annual Writer's Digest Short Short Story Competition is now accepting entries! We're looking for fiction that is bold, brilliant...but brief. Send us your best in 1,500 words or fewer. But don't wait too long—the deadline is December 8, 2010.
Grand-Prize winner will receive $3,000 (that's $2—or more—per word).
Click for the guidelines, prizes and to enter online.
Plus, the 1st- through 25th-place manuscripts will be printed in the 11th Annual Writer's Digest Short Short Story Competition Collection. Click to learn more about this special collection and to reserve your copy today.
Last Call!
6th Annual Writer's Digest Poetry Awards Competition
Postmark Deadline: December 15
We're pleased to announce the only Writer's Digest competition exclusively for poets! Regardless of style—rhyming, free verse, haiku and more—if your poems are 32 lines or fewer, we want them all.
PRIZES
First Place: $500 and a trip to the Writer's Digest Conference in New York City
Second Place: $250
Third Place: $100
Fourth Through Tenth Place: $25
Eleventh Through Twenty-Fifth Place: $50 gift certificate for Writer's Digest Books.
The names and poem titles of the First through Tenth-Place winners will be printed in the August 2011 Writer's Digest, and afterwards their names will appear on www.writersdigest.com. All winners will receive the 2011 Poet's Market.
Click for more information and to enter online or by mail
Closing This Month
2011 Ellen LaForge Poetry Prize
Postmark Deadline: December 31
Submissions are now being accepted for the 2011 Ellen LaForge Poetry Prize. Established in 1983 as the Grolier Poetry Prize, the Ellen LaForge Poetry Prize is open to all poets who have not yet published a book of poetry, including small press, chapbook or trade book. The winner will be awarded $1,000 and a reading at the William Joiner Center's Writers' Workshop in June 2011. Up to six poems by the winner and four by each runner-up are chosen for publication in the award anthology. All applicants will receive a copy of the award anthology. We will announce the winners on March 31, 2011.
To enter, applicants must submit, in duplicate, a typed manuscript of up to six previously unpublished poems (publication includes self-publication, website or online publishing, podcast and broadcast). The manuscript can be no more than 12 double-spaced pages. Your name must not appear on the manuscript. Include two copies of a cover sheet with your name, mailing address, and contact information, including email address and poem titles. Secure separate packets with paper clips. Do not use staples! The entry fee is $10, payable to the Ellen LaForge Memorial Poetry Foundation. Mail your entry to:
William Joiner Center
Attn: Ellen LaForge Poetry Prize
UMass Boston
100 Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, MA 02125-3393
For more information, please email joinercenter@umb.edu or visit www.joinercenter.umb.edu.
Ellen LaForge, a long-term resident of New York City, wrote poetry throughout her life. She died without seeing any of it published. Her sister, Jeanne Henle of Ann Arbor, Michigan, established the non-profit foundation as a memorial to her and as a means to support the discovery, encouragement, and education of aspiring poets.
Past Winners and Runners-Up Include: Pam Bernard, Sophie Cabot Black, Lucie Brock-Broido, Mark Conway, Debora Greger, H.L. Hix, Lynda Hull, Rudy Kikel, P.H. Liotta, Timothy Liu, Robert Louthan, Fred Marchant, Linda McCarriston, Jean Monahan, Jennifer Rose, Kate Rushin, Janet Sylvester, and Natasha Trethewey.
Closing This Month
Tupelo Press Dorset Prize
Submission Period: September 1-December 31 (postmark dates)
The annual Dorset Prize, one of the most coveted poetry prizes in America, is an open competition for a poetry manuscript. It's open to poets with or without previous book publications. Submissions are accepted from anyone writing in the English language, whether living in the United States or abroad (translations are not eligible for this prize). The final judge for this year's contest is Lynn Emanuel.
The winner receives a prize of $3,000 and publication. All entries must be postmarked or submitted electronically between September 1 and December 31, 2010. To submit your manuscript electronically and to review the complete guidelines, please visit our website:
http://www.tupelopress.org/dorset.php
You may also send your manuscript via postal mail. Please include a $25 reading fee, payable to Tupelo Press, a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) for notification, as well as a self-addressed stamped postcard (SASP) if you would like acknowledgment that we received your manuscript. Manuscripts will not be returned. You may include an acknowledgments page listing previously published poems. Make sure that you include two cover pages. One with manuscript title, your name, address, phone number and email address. One with only manuscript title. Send your manuscript to:
Tupelo Press
Attn: Dorset Prize
P.O. Box 1767
North Adams, MA 01247
Here is a poem from Rachel Contreni Flynn, who came to Tupelo through the Dorset Prize contest. This is from her book Ice, Mouth, Song (Tupelo Press, 2005).
Dam
by Rachel Contreni Flynn
I painted your name on a dam
in Maryland, and now you owe me,
and I want everything.
I ruined my hands on the dam
then went home and slept a decade.
There's your name with paint on it—
and I slept with my face
on the grate. In Maryland,
men want to own
your paint. They make everything,
then name tall structures
after themselves. I painted you
a tall structure. Now the dam
is a ruin of wanting—you owe
my hands a decade.
Everything is on the grate.
Home knows your face, my sleep
is your ruined name.
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Closing Next Month
12th Annual Northwest Perspectives Essay Contest (no fee)
Postmark Deadline: January 15, 2011
Oregon Quarterly invites entries to the 2011 Northwest Perspectives Essay Contest in both student and open categories. Entries should address ideas that affect the Northwest. The Oregon Quarterly staff will select finalists and this year's contest judge, Debra Gwartney, will choose the top three winners in each category. Past judges have been Kim Stafford, Barry Lopez, John Daniel, Karen Karbo, Brian Doyle, Lauren Kessler, Craig Lesley, Molly Gloss, Kathleen Dean Moore, Kenny Moore, and Thomas Hager.
- Prizes in the Open Category: $750, $300, $100
- Prizes in the Student Category: $500, $200, $75
- No entry fee required
- First-place essay in the open category will appear in Oregon Quarterly
- A selection of top essays will be featured in a public reading on the UO campus
- Fifteen finalists (ten in the Open Category and five students) will be announced in the Summer 2011 issue of Oregon Quarterly
- All finalists will be invited to participate in a writing workshop with the contest judge on the day of the reading
Entries should be nonfiction, should not have been previously published, and should be no more than 1,500 words in the Student Category and 2,000 words in the Open Category. The student contest is open to any student currently enrolled and pursuing a graduate or undergraduate degree at a college or university. One entry per person. Find complete guidelines at www.oregonquarterly.com (click on Essay Contest).
Please enjoy this excerpt from "The Ecstasy of Worms" by Gail Wells. This essay won second place in the Open Category of the 2009 contest.
It was a steamy morning in March, the sun inching toward the equinox and putting out enough heat to coax the winter's waters out of the saturated soil. As I jogged through the park I noticed worms all over the asphalt pavement, hundreds of them. I had to do little shimmy steps and quick ball-changes to avoid flattening them. They seemed to be young worms, or at least small ones, only a couple of inches long and about the thickness of a round toothpick. They were emerging from the moist grass at the edges of the pathway, hoisting themselves over the asphalt lip, and taking off...
Click to view this and all the winning essays from our tenth contest |
 Prairie Schooner Book Prizes in Poetry, Short Fiction: $3,000 Prize
Submission Period: January 15-March 15, 2011 (postmark dates)
Enter the Prairie Schooner Book Prize Series contest—now in its ninth year! Winners of the annual competition for a book of short fiction and a book of poetry receive $3,000 and publication by the University of Nebraska Press. Competition is open to new and established writers. Mail manuscripts with $25 entry fee to:
Prairie Schooner Prize Series in [specify Poetry or Short Fiction]
University of Nebraska—Lincoln
123 Andrews Hall
P.O. Box 880334
Lincoln, NE 68588-0334
Complete guidelines and information are always available at: prairieschooner.unl.edu. Click on the "Prairie Schooner Book Prizes" link. And be sure to visit our blog for updates: www.prairieschooner.typepad.com. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
From Ceiling of Sticks by Shane Book, 2009 poetry winner:
"To a Curl of Water"
Some people say what we are is representation
and that representation is a lie.
But someone touches your arm and you shiver,
snow dissolves in melted snow and both were
once there. Something happens and something else
happens, unending, I am guessing. We are made
of relations, I am guessing, the tractor-trailer's airbrakes
singe the wind and the wind feels softened, I am saying.
From Bliss, and Other Short Stories by Ted Gilley, 2009 fiction winner:
"Bliss"
All my life, I seem to have been mistaken for someone else. The other day, a woman stopped me in the produce aisle at the market and said, "Michael?" When I pick up heart pills for my dad, the pharmacist always says, "Hi, Tim." When I correct him, he smiles and says, "Good to see you." When I walk down Idle Road from my apartment to my job, or along the highway, people I don't know wave at me from cars. I wave back, it can't hurt. One day a girl leaned out of a car as it shot by and yelled, "I love you, Jamie!" I am introduced to people over and over again. "Have we met?" they say. |
 The 2011 Autumn House Poetry and Fiction Contests
Postmark Deadline: June 30, 2011
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 winners will receive book publication, a $1,000 advance against royalties, and a $1,500 travel grant to participate in the 2011 Autumn House Master Authors Series in Pittsburgh. The final judge for the 2011 Poetry Prize is Denise Duhamel; the final judge for fiction is Stewart O'Nan.
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
Electronic submission option: Manuscripts may be submitted electronically by sending poetry entries by email attachment to autumnh420(at)gmail.com and fiction entries to autumnh430(at)gmail.com. Please pay the $25 entry fee through the PayPal "Donate" button on the Autumn House homepage.
To learn more about our contests, please visit our website at www.autumnhouse.org.
The winner of the 2010 Autumn House Poetry Contest is To Make it Right by Corrinne Clegg Hales of Fresno, California. The winner of the 2010 Fiction Contest is Peter Never Came by Ashley Cowger of Athens, Ohio. Please enjoy the title poem from To Make it Right:
To Make it Right
by Corrinne Clegg Hales
Crouched low in my dank pool
of rage, I waited behind
the wooden fence until she walked
through the gate. She was
bigger than me, but slower,
and I sprang up, slamming
deep into her belly with both fists,
over and over with more force
than I believed my body
could produce. She collapsed, hard
and heavy as a wet pair of jeans
might drop from a clothesline, but she didn't
look angry or afraid. She stared at me
with what seemed like awe
before she stopped falling and began
to cry—not loudly, as I expected—
but softly, almost weeping, sitting there
in a pale clump of her mother's
spent daffodils, arms wrapped
around her knees. I could hear
a dog barking in the yard
next door, and someone's car
starting, as if nothing had happened,
and I just stood there, hands hanging
stupidly above her, trembling
with what should have been
shame, wanting her to stand,
to strike back, to make it right.
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As previously noted, our New Literary Resources and Recommended Books features now appear in our quarterly supplements, which are published on March 1, June 1, September 1, and December 1. Contest announcements and calls for submissions appear in the regular monthly newsletters.
52-250: A Year of Flash
This website launched in 2010 publishes original flash fiction up to 250 words. Each week will have a theme associated with it. Entrants have until Sunday night each week to submit a story for that particular week. Themes are announced six weeks in advance. Good variety of authors, quirky themes, handsome artwork.
Broken Pencil
Toronto-based quarterly magazine and website devoted to zine culture and the independent arts. Broken Pencil reviews the best zines, books, websites, videos, and artworks from the underground and reprints the best articles from the alternative press. They also publish original fiction and interviews.
CUE Editions
Based in Tucson, Arizona, CUE Editions is an independent micro-press that specializes in limited-edition, hand-made chapbooks by new and established poets. Authors include Stephanie Balzer and Mark Horosky. Visit website to purchase back issues of Cue: A Journal of Prose Poetry (no longer publishing).
Dark Highlands
Dark Highlands is a new biannual anthology series for horror, dark fantasy, mystery/thriller, science fiction, and the supernatural. Submissions are accepted in the genres of poetry, short fiction, single-panel comics, and artwork. Deadlines are January 31 and July 31 annually (late entries held for next reading period). All are welcome to submit, but preference is given to submissions from the Iowa-Illinois region. Editors say, "Our goal is to provide regional artists and writers with compensation for their quality published works." No reading fee. Prizes will be awarded, up to $25 for poetry and comics, $50 for stories and artwork. Dark Highlands contributes 25% of book sales profits to local visual, literary, and performing arts organizations. The press also accepts proposals for full-length manuscripts of short fiction and graphic novels.
Dream of Things
Founded in 2009, Dream of Things publishes anthologies of creative nonfiction on a variety of themes: stories of forgiveness, coffee shop stories, travel writing, life in the modern workplace, Internet dating, and others. Their first anthology was Saying Goodbye, released in October 2010. Their books seek to fill the gap between popular anthologies that publish stories that are "short and sweet" (sometimes so saccharine-sweet they are hard to swallow), and the Best American Essays series, which are typically quite a bit longer. The goal for Dream of Things anthologies is to publish writing that is not short and sweet, but short and deep. The result is stories that are easier to swallow because they are authentic, and easier to digest because they average 1,250 words in length. See website for submission guidelines and special offers. Now through January 31, 2011, get 20% off all purchases (including sale prices) with coupon code "writers".
Electronic Literature Organization
The Electronic Literature Organization facilitates and promotes the writing, publishing, and reading of literature in electronic media. The site includes listings of academic jobs and conferences, plus a growing archive of multimedia e-literature.
Ghost Town
Launched in 2010, Ghost Town is the new literary journal of the MFA program at Cal State University San Bernardino. They are looking for fearless and inventive fiction, poetry, and narrative nonfiction. Prose should be 7,500 words maximum. They are also interested in translations, letters, cryptic found writings, illustrations, and other oddments. Reading period is September 1-February 1.
IndieReader
IndieReader offers self-published authors an attractive, professional-looking portal to list and sell their books. A fun feature of the site is the Indie Book Matchmaker, for readers seeking to discover new authors. Select a type of book from their quirky dropdown menu (options include "Fantasy Romance", "Hard-Boiled", "Based on the Bible", and "About Floral Arrangement"), then select a comparable well-known title from the second menu.
James Merrill House
James Merrill was a major 20th-century American poet, whose former home in Stonington, CT is now maintained as a local literary center. The James Merrill House offers workshops for adults and youth, lectures, and a writer-in-residence program.
Macondo Foundation
Based in San Antonio, TX, this literary foundation offers a writers' workshop, the Casa Azul writer-in-residence program, and multicultural arts events. In the words of founder Sandra Cisneros, "The Macondo Foundation works with dedicated and compassionate writers who view their work and talents as part of a larger task of community-building and non-violent social change. We are poets, novelists, journalists, performance artists, and creative writers of all genres whose work is socially-engaged. What unites us is a commitment to serve our under-served communities through our writing."
Poet's Paradise: A Collection of Helpful Resources
Amsterdam Printing, a maker of personalized pens and similar products, maintains this link directory of literary organizations and reference sites for students and teachers of writing.
Real Combat Life
Patrick Nelson, who served as an Army paratrooper in Afghanistan and Iraq, started this blog as a place for veterans to share their personal stories, connect with others, and help the public understand what life in combat is really like.
Sketchbook Journal's "Let Us Pray" Feature
Sketchbook, an online journal of Eastern and Western short-form poetry, seeks submissions of prayer, inspiration and heartfelt encouraging poetry submissions for a new regular feature, "Let Us Pray". Send entries by email. Editors say, "Our goal is to hear from all faiths and peoples on a Global Scale. The more people who participate and read the more our hearts will become one. Surely a heart that envelops the world can make changes and differences in lives. We can make a difference and wipe away all the divisions that have arisen because of different belief systems. Let us all love and respect one another in one accord."
The Fear of Monkeys
The Fear of Monkeys is a literary e-zine for political and socially conscious writing. Editors say, "Its purpose is to provide an empty vessel into which we might pour the otherwise marginalized voices of those concerned with political and social responsibility." Previously published work accepted.
They Remember War
Writecorner Press editor Robert B. Gentry interviewed residents of the Oak Hammock retirement community at the University of Florida in Gainesville who were veterans of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Their oral histories are collected on this page on Writecorner's website.
Writer's Digest: 18 Contest Dos & Don'ts for Writers
Basic advice on contest etiquette, record-keeping, proofreading, and making your submission look professional.
See our complete directory of resources at http://www.winningwriters.com/resources/ur_web.php. This is also the gateway to our recommended books, magazines, service providers, advice for writers (with manuscript tips) and poetry critiques.
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Barely Breathing
By The Poet Spiel. Also known as the artist Tom Taylor, Spiel has written several books that provide material for this powerful collection of new and selected poems. With tough-guy bluntness, a wicked sense of humor, and a haiku-like economy of words, Spiel sketches characters so real you can smell their sweat: traumatized vets, greedy Americans, aging couples hanging on to love despite memory loss, one-night stands picked up in roughneck bars. This is queer poetry without aesthetic preciousness or airbrushed bodies.
No Loneliness
By Temple Cone. A sacred quiet permeates this debut poetry collection, winner of the 2009 FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize. Abandoned barns are Cone's churches; the steady rhythms of farm work, his liturgy. The birth of a daughter is both miracle and memento mori, a sweet paradox held together in an extended lyric poem that envisions poetry as a transmission of love across generations.
The Real Politics of Lipstick
By Mary Carroll-Hackett. Winner of the 2010 Slipstream Poetry Chapbook Competition, this collection of prose poems and flash fictions is indeed about the "realpolitik" of our sexuality as it collides with poverty and loss and makes a beautiful explosion. Dead fathers return as jaunty ghosts, budding teenagers remind mothers of the sexy stockings they renounced, tough girls find power in submission and abandonment. This is the honky-tonk woman as sacred prostitute, speaking in tongues as men "plowed away the weight of hard hurt lives" in union with her body but not, perhaps, her elusive soul. Small typeface makes the page look less inviting, but close reading will be rewarded.
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Voices from Exile
by Tendai Mwanaka
From the loneliness of this time
From yesterday, today, tomorrow
From this hour, this minute, this second
From what might have been
From gazing at dreams rotting in the sun
From the need of closure from our illegal ourselves
From time served being refugees but still unwanted
From an echo of ourselves that no longer exist.
This poem is the soft call of one lonely raven
That has lost her loved birth-ones
It is the voice of reason in times of pestilence
It is the voice of the spirit that left luggage
And bundles of bones in Limpopo River
It is the voice of flesh and blood that sustains
Fish and crocodiles in Limpopo
Year in, year out
It is the voice of the badger swallowing in grief
It is the voice of the raccoon choking in blame.
It maybe is too late for us
To start our own definition
This is not the life we dreamt of
But it is the life we have
For life at this place is called
Everyone's life is a burden
And the raven has left us to our disastrous methods
No one ever listens to us
So give me all your fears
Let me hold all your sorrows in my heart
This poem is yours
To harvest that which has been lost
To smell the heat still rising in our birth place
We are the way to the way it used to be
Foreigners in a new place, still waiting
Waiting for light, space and time
I know you are a whisper, a word, a song
Thrumming in the heartbeat of your own heart
Laughter shouting red blossoms into the wind
Greeting the sun, the moon, the stars
Resounding like ram's horns in the synagogues of our souls
Melodies bridging over the abyss of this suffering
Let's dream together like two wings of the same bird
Being carried away on the shoulder of these notes
Here is my voice that cannot sing to you.
Copyright 2010 by Tendai Mwanaka
This poem is reprinted from his collection Voices from Exile, which was released this month by Lapwing Publications.
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You Don't See It
by Nicole Nicholson
You don't see it, but some days
I drag moonlit danger behind me like a veil of milky dust
casting itself off of my crown. I balance
armies of fire on the backs of my arms and
use them for wings. I hear
the stars rubbing their legs together for the want of music
and hanging gold fiddled notes on Venus' earlobes. They
chime, making love in the solar wind.
I strap bass lines onto my back;
wrap chain mail angels around my chest;
strap thunderclouds to the soles of my feet;
and I dance.
You wouldn't know it,
but I have a thousand Heavens
and just as many Hells burning inside. You see
the computer mind, but not the
glass shatter heart. I sometimes wonder
if I am a transparent kachina in your line of sight, if you can
already see how much I burn; but you
always prove me wrong. You
try to unzip me, and see my eyes fleeing away from you
like startled ponies. Do you really
know me? If you did, you would know that
if I look at you too long, I might burst.
But you don't know. And how can I tell you?
I consult the dictionary of human behavior every day.
I had to load it into my brain and make it learn
that you open doors with hello and
that you close them with goodbye. I had to learn
the mechanics of when to smile, when to laugh.
If I like you, I tear encyclopedia pages and pictures from off my walls
to give to you as gifts. And if I were to love you, I might
serenade you with music channeled from the
stereo installed into my brain that I first noticed
when I was ten.
But small talk still feels like grease on my
fingertips. And some days, I hear
my own voice rendered in Greek and wonder
when I will speak my own tongue again.
So I will speak my own dialect of
encyclopedia notes, photographs, trivia bank entries,
badly sung covers of the originals, words shaped
like arrows. There may be no smiles, no
dance of our eyes, no oil between us to make things
easier. That's not how I work, and I am
not ashamed of this. And maybe some day, you will
see me dance.
Copyright 2010 by Nicole Nicholson
Originally published on her website Raven's Wing Poetry, this poem was included in her nine-poem suite "Novena", which received a 2010 Naturally Autistic Award in the Adult International Literary category from the ANCA Foundation.
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2011 Poet's Market
Published each August by Writer's Digest, this is the best annual directory of journals, magazines, book publishers, chapbook publishers, websites, grants, conferences, workshops and contests. Helps you find publishers who are looking for your kind of work.
2011 Writer's Market
Annual directory for prose writers from Writer's Digest offers over 3,500 listings of book publishers, magazines, trade publications and literary agents. Helpful articles cover topics such as using social media and how much to charge for your work. "The most valuable of tools for the writer new to the marketplace," says Stephen King in On Writing, "If you're really poor, ask someone to give it to you for Christmas."
2011 Novel & Short Story Writer's Market
Annual directory for fiction writers from Writer's Digest includes over 1,100 listings of magazines, book publishers, literary agents and contests, plus interviews with authors, agents, and other publishing professionals.
Publish Your Book From Your Computer for as Little as $2.00 Each
InstantPublisher.com will take your manuscript over the Internet as a PDF or from MS Word and other popular programs. Publish a book in trade quality from 25 to 5,000 copies in as few as 7-10 days. Ideal when you want to publish books to give as gifts, sell at events and readings, or sell from your website. Specify the kind of book you want to print and get an instant price quote. Customers say, "the published book is exactly what I had envisioned. And the cost was so reasonable, I'd recommend InstantPublisher.com to anyone." "I experimented with several different short-run and POD printers during my 90-day adventure from self-published to major book deal, and I have to say that the quality of your books was BY FAR the best. When sending press kits to the media, and anyone we wanted to impress, we'd always send your books, which we affectionately referred to as 'The GOOD books'."
http://www.instantpublisher.com/default.asp?afcc=1393
Office Depot Coupon (expires December 31, 2010)
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Advertise to 30,000 Poets and Writers
Promote your contests, websites, events, and publications in this newsletter. Reach over 30,000 poets and writers for $80. Ads may contain up to 250 words, a headline, and a graphic image. Reserve your 2011 ads now at our 2010 rates! Find out more and make your reservation here:
http://www.winningwriters.com/advertisers.php
"The results were great for the money—a good value."
David Dodd Lee, judge of the Lester M. Wolfson Poetry Award sponsored by 42 Miles Press
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PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
Become a Member of ProLiteracy Worldwide
It doesn't matter if you're a teacher in an adult basic literacy or English-as-a-second-language classroom, a volunteer tutor working one-on-one with an adult student, a district supervisor of an ABE program, or an administrator of a community-based literacy organization—ProLiteracy membership can benefit you!
INDIVIDUAL MEMBERSHIP: $29/year
FREE
- National and International Advocacy for public policies and legislation that benefit adult learners and the people and programs that serve them
- Instructor's Notebook—16 pages of practical and proven instructional techniques you can use right away, plus online expansion activity materials. Three issues per year. A $50 value!
- Exclusive access to the Member Resources section of our Web site
- Access to Connect, our Members-Only listserv
- Public policy updates, email alerts on literacy-related legislative issues
- Network News, our monthly email newsletter that lets you know where to find grants, free resources for administrators and instructors, and professional development opportunities
DISCOUNTS
- 25% discount on your registration to our annual conference
- 15% discount on our professional development services
- $30 off a one-year subscription to the Adult Basic Education & Literacy Journal. Three issues per year. Member price: $35; List price: $65
- Special Pricing or FREE webinars on "hot topics"
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Become a member today, and learn about organizational memberships.
 ProLiteracy supports adults and young people in the U.S. and internationally who are learning to read, write, and do basic math by training instructors, publishing instructional materials, and advocating for resources and public policies that support them.
Support ProLiteracy's vital mission. Click
here to learn more. Click to contribute.
Send this newsletter to a friend and we'll donate 15 cents to ProLiteracy for each friend you refer.
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2008 WERGLE FLOMP HUMOR POETRY CONTEST—FINALIST
O, STUBING! MY CAPTAIN!
by William Schroeder
O, Stubing! My Captain!
Our season finale is nearly done.
The Pacific Princess has weather'd every tacky plot,
The ratings we sought are won.
The port is near, the boat horn I hear,
The special guest stars all debarking,
While my captain's eyes follow Charo's aft,
For whom love was a'sparking.
But O broken heart! Broken heart!
O the rising socks of white,
Where on the Promenade deck my Captain waves
Till she kootchie kootchies out of sight.
O Stubing! My Captain! Cheer up and move on.
Cheer up, for next week's previews have not yet come.
For you a Barbi Benton tryst may arrive,
Or, perhaps, Bea Arthur is the one.
For you the passenger list is brimming,
With you they dine, the B-list masses,
Their eager agents are a'calling,
Begging for those network boarding passes.
Ahoy Captain! Paging Dear Merrill!
That shimmering special effect in the air,
It is some dream sequence on the viewing deck,
You've stumbled over a cabana chair.
My Captain does not answer the page.
His sideburns, long and gray,
Merrill feels his tow-line slipping,
For he is no Isaac nor Gopher in age.
His dinghy, overboard and sinking,
Its sailing days are nearly done,
As Doctor Bricker rushes to his side,
His stethoscope a'dangling.
But toss your confetti, O shuffleboarders,
And sing, O Mandrell Sisters!
Behind that blue screen horizon
Something new and exciting lingers
Love won't hurt anymore,
For my Captain, now forever duty-free,
Has set his final course—for adventure.
Copyright 2008 William Schroeder
Sent as a joke to Famous Poets Society, this poem was a finalist in the 2008 Wergle Flomp humor poetry contest sponsored by Winning Writers. See the judge's comments on the winning poems from this contest.
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COMING IN OUR DECEMBER 15 NEWSLETTER
Winners Announced for the Seventh Annual Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Traditional Verse
Ninth Annual Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest Opens
The Best Free Poetry Contests for December 16-January 31
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