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Award-Winning Poems: Summer 2011
One of the "101 Best Websites for Writers"
Writer's Digest, 2005-2011
Welcome to our Summer 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 June 15.
Lost one of our newsletters? Formatting appears odd? Too wide when viewed in email? Not to worry. All our recent newsletters are posted online at http://www.winningwriters.com/news
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FEATURED SPONSOR'S MESSAGE
Welcome to Carpe Articulum Literary Review!
This issue is a one-of-a-kind collector's issue. It features close friends and family of the late film icon, Elizabeth Taylor, special interviews and great art, guest appearances by Dr. Wilton Dillon, Senior Scholar Emeritus, Smithsonian Institution, and David Halloran, Dartmouth College, a farewell to the talented Jack Sheridan—first discovered here at CALR—the announcements of the CALR Short Fiction/Novella awards, STUNNING photography and so much more!
WE ENCOURAGE YOU TO SUBSCRIBE! Only through your support can we continue to bring these world voices! Click for a sample: ONE FREE ELECTRONIC ISSUE of our print publication! THIS IS A ONE-TIME gift of last quarter's issue featuring an exclusive interview with LORD (CHARLES) SPENCER, NINTH EARL SPENCER, about the literary festival at his ancestral home, The Althorp Estate, his favourite reads, and his sister Princess Diana's charitable legacy. (For best performance, please keep your mouse pointer off the magazine pages while they download.)
WANT TO BE A PART? Send your ideas, editorials, and questions for the editor to Editor-in-Chief@CarpeArticulum.com and you can get published in this international review! The best commentaries, articles, and questions for the editor will be included. Please register at our website, then make your submission. NO SUBMISSIONS ARE COMPLETE WITHOUT REGISTRATION, THANK YOU!
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The magazine is 150-200 pages of full-colour delight, translated into five languages. We feature short fiction, poetry, informative articles, photography, non-fiction and incredible interviews with hot up-and-coming writers as well as iconic ones such as Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, George Lucas (Star Wars, Indiana Jones), Ray Harryhausen (father of motion picture special effects), Ray Bradbury (author of Fahrenheit 451), Jodi Picoult (author of Change of Heart, Handle With Care, Nineteen Minutes, and My Sister's Keeper which was made into a major motion picture with Cameron Diaz) and Nicholas Sparks (author of Message in a Bottle, also made into a motion picture with Kevin Costner & Robin Wright Penn, as well as The Notebook, The Last Song, etc.) And that was just last October's issue!
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RECENT HONORS FOR OUR NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERS
Congratulations to Pat Valdata. Her first full-length poetry collection, Inherent Vice, was recently published by Pecan Grove Press. She kindly shares a sample poem below. Award-winning poet Barbara Crooker says of this book, "Valdata gives us a litany of things that disappear: a 1955 postcard of a one-stop shop, data from the 1930 census, a surfer facing fifty, Lot's wife, Elvis, George Harrison ('all things must pass'). And yet beauty trumps, triumphs, slaps down the final card, whether it's a glass shape blown from a molten mass, 'hope bursting like popcorn in a microwave,' or God kicking off her pumps and pouring a glass of Malbec at the end of a hard day. Graced by clean lines, sharp images, economy of words, these are poems that will linger, long after you close the covers of the book."
Congratulations to Thelma T. Reyna. Her short fiction collection, The Heavens Weep for Us and Other Stories (Outskirts Press, 2009), is currently a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award for Independent Books and the Montaigne Medal, both from Hopewell Press. The Hoffer Award, a $2,000 prize, is open to academic, independent, small press, and self-published books that were released or copyrighted in the last 2 years, including unique small print run books. The most recent deadline was January 21. All books submitted for this prize are automatically considered for the Montaigne Medal for books that either illuminate, progress, or redirect thought. Reyna's book was also a finalist for the 2011 National Indie Excellence Award. This award is open to all English-language books that are available for sale online and off, books in print, including small presses, mid-size independent publishers, university presses, and self-published authors. The 2012 contest opened June 1 and will accept entries through next April.
Congratulations to Anthony T. Lagler and Deryn Pittar. They won second and third prize, respectively, in the Spring 2011 Lucidity Poetry Journal Clarity Awards. Other Winning Writers subscribers receiving honorable mentions included Barbara Blanks, Joan L. Cannon, Debby Cooper, Julie Heckman, Marsha Howland, John Laue, and Janet Ireland Trail. This twice-yearly free contest offers prizes up to $100 for poems in any form dealing with people and interpersonal relationships. The next submission period will be July 1-September 30.
Congratulations to Ellaraine Lockie. She has several honors to report from the past few months. Her chapbook Stroking David's Leg (Foothills Publishing, 2010) was chosen as Best Individual Collection for 2010 by the UK magazine Purple Patch Poetry. Her poem "Waiting for Midnight" won the 2011 San Gabriel Valley Poetry Festival Broadside Contest and her chapbook Red for the Funeral won the 2010 chapbook contest from the same sponsor. Her poem "Crow Speaks in Africa" won the Best of Issue Contest for Minotaur, Issue 58 (2011). Her poem "Evolution" won the 2010 Oasis Journal Poetry Contest for writers over 50. Her poem "What I Carry Home to the Grandsons" won first prize in the 2010 Illinois State Poetry Society Poetry Contest. The next deadline for this $50 prize will be November 10.
RECENT HONORS FOR POETRY CONTEST INSIDER SUBSCRIBERS
Congratulations to Patricia Hawley. She won the 2010 Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival Poetry Writing Contest. This award, open to authors with no published full-length poetry books, is currently accepting entries through August 18. The prize is $1,000, a VIP All Access Pass ($500 value) for the Festival in March 2012, publication in Louisiana Cultural Vistas magazine, and a public reading at the Festival. In other news, Patricia was named a finalist in the 2011 Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry from Nimrod International Journal. This long-running, prestigious $2,000 prize accepts entries January 1-April 30 annually. She thanks Winning Writers for helping her find these opportunities.
Congratulations to Ruth Thompson. Her poetry chapbook Here Along Cazenovia Creek was recently released by Saddle Road Press. She kindly shares a sample poem below. Read more selections from the book on her website.
Congratulations to Liz Davies. Her poem "The Fox Woman" made it to the finals of a poetry slam contest in Peterborough, England. From 4,000 poems she made it into the top 50, and was invited to read her poem at an evening called Poetry Rivals. Read our critique of this poem from the February 2008 Winning Writers newsletter.
Congratulations to Ellen LaFleche. Her poem "Recurrent Daydream about my Lover's Other Lover" was the Editors' Choice winner in the 2011 Writecorner Press Annual Poetry Award. This contest offers prizes up to $500 and publication on the writers' resource website Writecorner Press. The most recent submission period was October 1-March 31.
RECENT PUBLICATION CREDITS FOR OUR SUBSCRIBERS
Winning Writers Poetry Reviewer Tracy Koretsky's poems "Hidden Behind the Middle School" and "Pieta" were published in The Poetry Ark Anthology 2011, an online collection of the top 100 poems received in their 2011 contest. From the more than 3,000 submissions they received, the site presented 358 poems through a series of rounds. The community of visitors, including 9,800 poets and readers from 96 countries, reviewed and ranked the poems, with the top-ranked poems from each round advancing to a Prize Round. There visitors made a final selection to determine the winners of three cash prizes and to choose the 100 poems featured in this digital anthology.
Roy Stevenson's e-books Marketing Your Magazine Articles: Inside Secrets of a Successful Freelance Writer and Free and Low Cost Travel: Inside Secrets of a Successful Travel Writer are available for purchase from his website. In four years as a full-time freelancer, Stevenson has published over 500 articles on a wide range of topics including travel, historical travel, culture, running and triathlon training, fitness, health, military history, communications, film festivals, classic cars, sailing, and food and wine. Marketing Your Magazine Articles is an 80-page comprehensive marketing manual on how to sell your freelance articles to magazines and newspapers. In the 35-page Free and Low Cost Travel, Stevenson shares the techniques he has used to travel for free or super low cost as a travel writer on assignments in the US and Europe.
Ruth Hill's poems about multicultural diversity, "Cultural Exchange" and "Oh, Oh, China!", were accepted for the World Poetry International Festival in Richmond, British Columbia, and her poems "Lily Moss, Lilting" and "Larch, Birch" will appear in Decanto, a British poetry magazine "for those who wish to be freed from the ties of writing in just the contemporary style". Ruth reports that she has been using Winning Writers exclusively for the last two years, and in that time, she has received over 100 publications and prizes.
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CONTESTS HOSTED AT WINNING WRITERS & OPEN NOW
Closing This Month
Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Traditional Verse
Postmark Deadline: June 30
Now in its eighth year, this contest seeks poetry in traditional verse forms such as sonnets and free verse. You may submit work that has been published or won prizes elsewhere, as long as you own the online publication rights. Prizes of $3,000, $1,000, $400 and $250 will be awarded, plus six Most Highly Commended Awards of $150 each. The entry fee is $7 for every 25 lines you submit. Submit online or by mail. Early submission encouraged. This contest is sponsored by Tom Howard Books and assisted by Winning Writers. Judges: John H. Reid and Dee C. Konrad. See the complete guidelines and past winners.
Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest
Postmark Deadline: September 30
Now in its ninth year, this contest seeks poems in any style, theme or genre. You may submit work that has been published or won prizes elsewhere, as long as you own the online publication rights. Prizes of $3,000, $1,000, $400 and $250 will be awarded, plus six Most Highly Commended Awards of $150 each. The entry fee is $7 for every 25 lines you submit. Submit online or by mail. Early submission encouraged. This contest is sponsored by Tom Howard Books and assisted by Winning Writers. Judges: John H. Reid and Dee C. Konrad. See the complete guidelines and past winners.
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HOOKER AVENUE SERENADE
by Joshua Harmon
Winner of the 2010 Akron Poetry Prize
Postmark Deadline: June 15
This competitive award for a poetry manuscript offers $1,500 and publication by the University of Akron Press. This poem from Harmon's prizewinning Le Spleen de Poughkeepsie reveals an inner-city streetscape seen through a multiplicity of portals, from security cameras to mailbox slots to the blurry window of memory.
INTERLINEAR
by Jim Glenn Thatcher
Winner of the Summer 2010 New Millennium Writings Awards
Postmark Deadline: June 17 (typically extended to July 31)
This established award series from a beautifully produced journal offers twice-yearly prizes of $1,000 for poetry, fiction, flash fiction, and essays. Thatcher's prizewinning poem is a meditation about different kinds of language; whether they are written words or the tracks of branches in the snow, communications keep happening even as time erases what has been written before.
THE EDUCATION OF A POET
by Leslie Monsour
Winner of the 2010 Finishing Line Press Open Chapbook Competition
Postmark Deadline: June 30
This long-running award offers $1,000 for a poetry chapbook manuscript, plus publication for the winner and up to 15 runners-up. Finishing Line is an independent press that welcomes emerging writers. Monsour's The House Sitter won the 2010 award. In this pithy, humorous poem, she speaks for all writers who have wondered about the usefulness of their peculiar calling.
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 - NOW PROFILING OVER 1,250 LITERARY CONTESTS
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 1,250+ active poetry and prose contest profiles. Search and sort contests by deadline, prize, fee, recommendation level and more. We don't just list contests, we point you to the ones that can benefit your career the most, whether you are just starting out or are well-established. Exclusive interviews with contest judges and editors help you understand how your submissions are evaluated.
We update Poetry Contest Insider nearly every day. Be among the first to learn about new contests and late deadline changes. 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. Learn more about Poetry Contest Insider.
"Just recently, after following one of your newsletter leads, I found that I was lucky enough to win The Tennessee Williams 25th Literary Prize for Poetry. The award included $1,000 and publication of four of my poems in Louisiana Cultural Vistas! In addition, after following another lead, I just received word that I am a finalist in the 2011 Pablo Neruda Poetry Contest sponsored by Nimrod magazine. (The winner is to be announced in mid-June.) I thank you and your staff for helping to make such good news possible for me and other poets by sorting through the plethora of sources and updating deadlines. (A truly dizzying task.)"
Patricia (Pat) Hawley, Washington
"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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2007 WAR POETRY CONTEST—HONORABLE MENTION
SESTINA: AFTER THE CRUCIFIXION
by David Lloyd
(i.m. Kosovo, 1999)
Consider that soldier tossing dice for
rags: he'd rather gamble than believe—
and who could blame him, so bred to metal
and to leather, to the phalanx, the sharpened
sword; stationed without appeal among angry
aliens at home in their own skins?
Everywhere the stench of death: the skin
breached, a limb severed. An eye gouged for
an eye. Rubicons crossed each angry
hour. In this arena, who can believe
beyond the present? who looks to the end
of the longest day? Not those crouched men, all
eyes on the roll. I'm with them too—we're all
in it above the rags, below the skin,
thorns, nails, rough-hewn wood, not far from opened
wounds, from thirst quenched with vinegar, for
these days, we find it futile to believe
in innocence or in guilt, in the angry
conscience threading its way through angry
alleys. We've learned a trick: never tell
what we know, never confess belief
in the brush of fingers, familiar skin,
the contours of a common face, for
the lesson taught here is that the end
lurks around the corner, where a man sharpens
a stolen knife. That man's feeding his anger.
And like us, he's rolling the dice, praying for
the right mix of force and gravity, that all
might go to hell but his own pocked skin.
The planets may pull his dice right: he believes
in that chance—and in the absence of belief,
in the omnipotence of the sharp end
and quick eye, the sanctity of his skin,
the endurance of an ancient anger,
the final rectitude of metal,
the triumph of chaos over form.
To him, "belief" is only this angry
hope: that a thrust of sharpened metal
will save his skin. What else could he live for?
Copyright 2007 David Lloyd
This poem won an honorable mention in the 2007 War Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers. Author David Lloyd received a $100 award. See the judge's comments on the winning poems from this contest.
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SPONSORS' MESSAGES
 Swallow by Jendi Reiter Reviewed at Ampersand Books
Winner of the 2008 Flip Kelly Poetry Prize from Amsterdam Press, Jendi Reiter's poetry chapbook Swallow was favorably reviewed on the Ampersand Books blog in December 2010. Critic Martha Rzadkowolsky-Raoli says, "Jendi Reiter created a tidy poetry book in which swallow means everything you can expect swallow to mean. She exhausts the word; its mashed remains a mix of cow meat, desire, intestines, bird. If you read the book, and you should, you'll experience the beating of the word... The relationship between premises in these poems get downright eucharistic on logic's ass."
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:
Our Story So Far
by Jendi Reiter
It snowed harder than it had in years. He hit her with his car. He apologized. She gave him her number. The damage was small. She didn't file a complaint. He called her. They fell in love. She told the children this story.
*
She fell in love. He didn't complain. She told the children a story. It snowed harder than it had in years. She called him. He apologized. The damage was small. He hid it in the car. She had his number.
*
He apologized for his car. She loved to complain. He told the children, it snowed harder than it had in years. Years without number. When they were in love. The damage was small. They were a hit. That's what she called him.
*
She called the children in from the snow. He hit it with his car. The complaint had a number. His story was that he was in love. The damage was small, he apologized. She was harder than she'd been in years.
*
The snow fell on their car. The complaint took years. They called the children for the story. No one apologized. It was harder without them. Perhaps they had hit the numbers. Perhaps they fell in love.
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Visit FanStory.com For A Listing Of Over 50 Writing Contests
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 2001-2011. Eleven years of recognized excellence. www.fundsforwriters.com
From a grateful reader:
I received an honorable mention for my screenplay from the Fort Bend Writer's Guild First 10 Screenplay competition. I was also offered a partial fellowship through the Vermont Studio Center. If it wasn't for your wonderful, informative newsletter—this wouldn't have been possible.
Last Call!
2011 Anderbo Creative Nonfiction Prize
Postmark Deadline: June 15
- Submit one entry, up to 1,500 words
- Winner receives $500 cash and publication on anderbo.com
- Judged by Elizabeth Wurtzel, assisted by Emma Stockman
Guidelines:
- The creative nonfiction piece should be typed on 8 1/2" x 11" paper with the writer's name and contact information on the upper right corner of the first page, and the writer's name on every page
- Writer must not have been previously published on anderbo.com
- Mail submissions to (new suite number!):
Anderbo Creative Nonfiction Prize
270 Lafayette Street, Suite 705
New York, NY 10012
- Enclose self-addressed stamped business envelope (SASE) to receive names of winner and honorable mentions
- All entries 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.anderbo.com/anderbo1/andernonfictionprize2011.html
Elizabeth Lee Wurtzel, an American writer and journalist, is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School. She published her groundbreaking memoir of depression, the cultural phenomenon Prozac Nation, at the tender age of 26. Already a cultural critic and literary light for The New Yorker and New York magazines, Elizabeth Wurtzel had only dared to dream when growing up of the rarefied world and success Prozac Nation opened to her. Yet, no success could staunch her continuous battle with depression. Following the success of Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel published Bitch, and after a stint in rehab, released More, Now, Again about her battle with drugs and how she overcame her addictions. She has since published two other books, The Bitch Rules, and The Secret of Life: Commonsense Advice for the Uncommon Woman. Currently she practices law and writes regularly on current culture for TheAtlanticWire.com.
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Literal Latté Anthology:
Cover Art by Johanna Lindholm |
Literal Latté Offers Five Annual Contests for Poetry and Prose
Next Postmark Deadline: June 30
In 1994, Literal Latté's first issues hit the coffeehouses of New York City. The founders knew that great writing, in a friendly and accessible format, could be as popular as cappuccino. That first year, Literal Latté won a Pushcart Prize and endless loyal readers.
The goal has never changed. Literal Latté promotes new writers and encourages a love of literature in new audiences. For ten years, 30,000 copies were distributed free of charge, in coffeehouses, bookstores and arts organizations in New York City—six times per year.
Since then, Literal Latté has expanded and is free online to the world—still caffeinating minds and stimulating careers.
In a world where it is harder than ever for new writers to get a foot in the door, Literal Latté remains committed to finding and nurturing great talents, both on its website and in its anthology.
Don't forget—enter Literal Latté’s contests to win thousands of dollars in prizes.
Contests let us give writers more financial remuneration, plus the writer is competing in a smaller pool than the general submission process, giving the writer a better chance of getting published.
So, get comfortable. Have a taste. Enjoy.
Then brew us up something special. We're hungry for great words.
Literal-Latte.com
Please enjoy "Maria", part of Adam Chambers' first-prize entry in the 2010 Literal Latté Poetry Contest.
Maria
by Adam Chambers
Much came into the clay that was not intended:
the round bottom and the quivering lip;
the hollowness of years
spent apart and wasted on paintbrushes; the
indelible kiln-fired fingerprints around the neck and
the sides which bulged outwards, but which
were still very beautiful.
Much layered the vase that was unforeseeable:
a picture of a bluebird trapped in mid-song
its black beak frozen
in the fixity of eternal about-to-be; a leaf falling
ceaselessly from a wet branch anticipating
the sound of its impact which
will be very beautiful.
But much entered once more into that breach:
daffodils which were much prettier than roses;
marbles that were painted
like glass eyes, and slips of folded paper with
words on them which are silent and have been
said billions of times before, but which
are still very beautiful. |
Closing Next Month
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.
We are proud to present this excerpt from "The Will of Quintus Kirkwood" by Leo H. Madigan of Fatima, Portugal, the first-prize short story in our Winter 2010-2011 contest:
The phone rang in the office of Saples & Saples, Solicitors, Queen Street, Auckland. Julia answered it. Her face clouded. "I'll be right over," she said.
"Who's died?" asked a colleague.
"Quintus Kirkwood. The maid found him in his kitchen. Peaceful and painless apparently."
"Wow! All that money. Is there a will?"
"It's sealed in a bank. Cancel my engagements indefinitely." She took up her briefcase and made for the door. "I'm the executor," she said.
Julia crossed town. Quintus Kirkwood's apartment was unostentatious; it had none of the extras associated with wealth. But that was in character. Quintus, for all his genius on the world's stock markets was a quiet, modest man, avuncular, even with peers. He had never married yet was always at ease with women and children. It was said that in his youth he had applied to join the Franciscan brotherhood, but there was no one to confirm that.
The body was laid out in the bedroom, a placid smile still evident around the corners of the lifeless mouth. The undertakers had left saying they would be back in an hour with transport.
Julia went directly to the cabinet in Quintus' office. There was a file marked Final Briefing, which Quintus had pointed out to her on several occasions. In it was an envelope with the words, to be opened, gently, on my demise. Julia chuckled at the word, 'gently'. Typical Quintus...
Click for the full story |
Snake Nation Press: Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry
Postmark Deadline: August 31
Now in its twenty-first year, Snake Nation Press announces the 2011 Violet Reed Haas Prize for Poetry:
• $1,000 prize and publication
• $25 entry fee must accompany the manuscript
• 50-75 page manuscript; previously published poems eligible
Please mail your entry and fee to:
Snake Nation Press
Attn: Poetry Contest
2920 North Oak Street
Valdosta, GA 31602
Snake Nation Press provides an informative, non-threatening venue for writers to submit their work in the midst of an often chaotically diverse publishing world. Over the history of the Press, the staff and volunteers have found great satisfaction in forging personalized editorial relationships with both emerging and established writers. The Snake is committed to keeping an honest and open dialogue with authors and to furthering the literary arts on a local and global scale. Many hours of volunteer labor and the electronic resources of the Web have allowed a small press to help present many new literary voices to the world-wide community.
The editors of Snake Nation Press look for manuscripts that concretely render the writer's actual and imaginative experiences. We publish writing that both newly interprets life in its everyday reality and that opens the reader's eyes to internal landscapes that have not yet been envisioned. We believe that good writing fortifies a belief in the value of human life and effort, but above all the work must connect intuition and experience to cast a spell of surprised recognition that shocks the reader with what was thought to be familiar.
Click to enjoy "Or Just Miss" by Judith Hemschemeyer, part of her winning manuscript in our 2010 contest.
Also at Snake Nation Press: Serena McDonald Kennedy Award
Postmark Deadline: August 31
Submit a novella of up to 50,000 words or a manuscript of short stories up to 200 pages long. Fiction and nonfiction accepted. Any well-written manuscript on any topic will be considered. Previously published works may be entered. An entry fee of $25 must accompany the submission. Winner receives $1,000 award and publication.
Please mail your entry and fee to:
Snake Nation Press
Attn: Serena McDonald Kennedy Award
2920 North Oak Street
Valdosta, GA 31602
 Open City's 2011 RRofihe Trophy Short Story Contest
Postmark Deadline: October 15
8th year! The RRofihe Trophy for an unpublished short story! Limit: 5,000 words. Winner receives: $500, trophy, an announcement on the Open City website, followed by publication on the anderbo.com website. Judge: Rick Rofihe, assisted by Carolyn Wilsey.
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 (new suite number!):
RRofihe
270 Lafayette Street, Suite 705
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://opencity.org/the-rrofihe-trophy
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, slushpilemag and fictionaut. His nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, The Village Voice, SPY, and The East Hampton Star, and on mrbellersneighborhood. 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 "Practice" by Karan Mahajan, published in Open City #30.
She had made it a practice to wonder when and how her husband would die. She did this not out of malice or suppressed rage or boredom, but rather because she was in remarkably better shape than him, had been ever since they had married four decades ago, and was aware that, if things continued this way—if he continued to cultivate a paunch and smoke and eat fried food—she would face a significant slice of her life alone: all her absurd fitness would be for naught. There'd be no one around to appreciate her sexagenarian glow, to keep her cutting through ribbon after ribbon of chlorinated water in the local swimming pool or smashing volleys with her swank blue tennis racquet stretched wide in its smile of guts. For years she'd quite enjoyed the mismatch in their habits and all the possibilities it presented for domestic coaxing and chiding, but now they were entering a new phase of their life: it was the day of Vinod's retirement. She herself had stopped working years before—she was laid off rather mechanically by the local pension fund during a budget crisis, and was so ashamed thereafter that she never attempted to find another job. When people asked why she had quit (she'd encouraged this misconception) she explained she wished to bring up her children; after they were brought up, she claimed she and Vinod didn't need two incomes, which was true, and also a veiled boast. She occupied herself with exercise and volunteer work and wondering when Vinod, her only love, would die.
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Our New Literary Resources and Recommended Books features appear in our quarterly special issues, which are published on March 1, June 1, September 1, and December 1. Contest announcements and calls for submissions appear in our regular monthly newsletters.
Adanna Literary Journal
Founded in 2011 by Christine Redman-Waldeyer, this annual print publication is a journal for and about women. Adanna accepts unpublished poetry, short stories, essays, and reviews of books and visual arts. Enter by email. Editors say, "Adanna, a name of Nigerian origin, pronounced a-DAN-a, is defined as 'her father's daughter'. This literary journal is titled Adanna because women over the centuries have been defined by men in politics, through marriage, and, most importantly, by the men who fathered them. Today women are still bound by complex roles in society, often needing to wear more than one hat or sacrifice one role so another may flourish. While this journal is dedicated to women, it is not exclusive, and it welcomes our counterparts and their thoughts about women today. Submissions to Adanna must reflect women's issues or topics, celebrate womanhood, and shout out in passion."
Adjectives That Start With...
This clever site created by Paul Aubrian features lists of adjectives that begin with a particular letter or syllable. Handy for writing acrostic poems, playing Scrabble, or completing those tricky crossword clues.
Arts Writers Grant Program
The Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program supports individual writers whose work addresses contemporary visual art through grants in the following categories: articles, blogs, books, new and alternative media, and short-form writing. Grants range from $3,000 to $50,000 depending on the needs and scope of the project. Application deadline is typically in early June.
Center for Fiction
Located at the Mercantile Library in New York City, the Center for Fiction offers workshops, grants, readings by notable authors, and a circulating library of nearly 85,000 titles. Their website features audio and video recordings of their events.
Cha: An Asian Literary Journal
This twice-yearly online journal publishes English-language creative writing and artwork from and about Asia. Their "Lost Teas" section accepts reprints of pieces that were previously published in journals/magazines that have now folded. See website for submission guidelines and issue themes. Enter by email.
Christians in the Visual Arts
CIVA's projects include SEEN Journal, a twice-yearly magazine featuring contemporary artwork and creative writing. From their mission statement: "As the world needs the salt, light, and leaven of those who follow Jesus, CIVA cultivates an incarnational presence in contemporary culture that is marked by serious art learning and practice, intellectual rigor, prophetic voice, and a spirit of hospitality."
Clockroot Books
Based in Northampton, MA, this independent press publishes literary fiction and translations, with a special interest in work from and about the Muslim world. Editors say, "We are looking for writing that confronts us, that feels urgent, disorienting, vivid. We are interested in work that makes its particular innovation in form and language palpable; we also welcome work not necessarily 'experimental' but that compels in other ways—perhaps in how it bears the traces of another place, language, politics."
Getting Along with Grief
Author and artist Ysabel de la Rosa launched this blog in 2011 to collect poetry, prose, brief essays, book reviews, and artwork on the theme of living with loss. She writes, "Grief is more a recovery process than a traditional 'healing' process. It is not something we get over, as much as it is a set of experiences and emotions that we learn to live with, as we live on in our own lives." Check website for monthly themes for submissions.
Ingrid Wendt: "The Unknown Good in Our Enemies"
This essay honoring the poet William Stafford reflects on how literature can foster mutual understanding and empathy in order to break the cycle of violence. This article appeared in the April 2011 newsletter of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).
Jendi Reiter on Twitter
Follow Winning Writers editor Jendi Reiter on Twitter for poetry videos, upcoming readings, blog posts, new book releases, and articles of interest to writers.
jubilat
Based at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the literary journal jubilat aims to publish not only the best in contemporary American poetry, but to place it alongside a varied selection of reprints, found pieces, lyric prose, art, and interviews with poets and other artists. Rather than section off these varieties of work, the magazine creates a dialogue that showcases the beauty and strangeness of the ordinary, and how experiments with language and image speak in a compelling way about who we are.
Knee-Jerk
This edgy online and print journal publishes short fiction, creative nonfiction, humorous essays, interviews, and "reviews of things" from popular culture. Submit via online form. Featured authors include Glen David Gold, Michael Martone, Lydia Millett, and Padgett Powell.
Leeway Foundation
Based in Philadelphia, the Leeway Foundation offers grants to women and transgender artists in the Delaware Valley region who are creating social change.
Maralys Wills
Writing instructor, speaker, and memoirist Maralys Wills is the author of 12 books, including the writers' manual Damn the Rejections, Full Speed Ahead. Visit her website and blog for writing advice and pithy anecdotes about juggling work and family life.
Mehadi Foundation
The Mehadi Foundation (pronounced "meh-húh-DEE") is a nonprofit foundation with two missions. The first is to serve as a support network providing assistance to United States Armed Forces Veterans who were enlisted during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Our intention is to reach out especially to veterans who suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and those who self-medicate with drugs and alcohol, or who suffer from other addictive patterns. The Mehadi foundation makes a special effort to reach out to members of the LGBTQ community who served under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" statute. The second mission is to support humanitarian efforts in Iraq: helping civilians as they attempt to rebuild in the wake of the conflict. We place special emphasis on providing wheelchairs to those in need without access to them, water purification projects for schools, and helping in any way we can, LGBTQ Iraqis who have been the targets of extreme abuse and persecution.
N-Spired Story
Share a unique story on this website, adding video, audio, or artwork, if desired, and the editors may select it for their "book of the world" project. An artist's interpretation of each selected story will be featured on a limited-edition T-shirt. Through a special smartphone app, you can take a picture of the T-shirt and watch it come to life via videos, photos, text and augmented reality. Submissions accepted in English and Spanish.
NuWine Press
NuWine Press aims to provide fresh perspectives on the Christian faith without alienating any of Christ's followers because of their gender, ability, political affiliation or sexual orientation. They publish fiction, nonfiction, resource books and scholarly works. NuWine Press was founded in 2007 by Aimee Maude Sims, a multimedia reporter and music writer.
Origami Poems Project
The Origami Poems Project features instructions for creating your own mini-collection of poetry that can fit on a single sheet of paper, to be folded origami-style into book form. Participants' books, with folding instructions, are available for free download from the website. The project was founded by Rhode Island poets Lynnie Gobeille, Jan Keough, and Barbara Schweitzer, who also distribute the featured books as free gifts at local libraries, coffee shops, art centers, and bookstores.
Poetry 4 Palestine
Palestinian poet Hiyam Noir launched this website to bear witness to the suffering of Palestinians in refugee camps and work towards an end to Israeli occupation.
PoetrySuperHighway Holocaust Remembrance Day Issue 2011
PSH's 13th annual Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) issue features 23 poets from around the world. Contributors include Donal Mahoney, John Guzlowski, Jim Bennett, and David Neves.
Rock Thoughts
Rock Thoughts is an international collaborative art and storytelling project designed to empower children through creativity. Participating individuals paint "monster" rocks and hide them in public spaces for others to find. The rocks serve as plot devices for the finders who submit a story for that rock. The rock is then re-hidden for another to find and continue the narrative. Users are encouraged to submit comments, feedback and suggestions on how to further develop the story.
Safer Society Press
Founded in 1982, Safer Society Press is a nonprofit press dedicated to providing resources for the prevention and treatment of sexual abuse. Their titles include fiction for youth and adults, and memoirs by abuse survivors, as well as scholarly books and clinical pamphlets.
Saison Poetry Library
Located at the Southbank Centre, the Saison Poetry Library is the most comprehensive and accessible collection of poetry from 1912 in Britain. It is the major library for modern and contemporary poetry and is funded by the Arts Council England. Visit the Competitions page for listings of British poetry contests, updated monthly.
Spirit Streams
This website features writing about Native American and alternative spirituality, with occasional small contests and calls for anthology submissions.
St. Katherine Review
St. Katherine Review is a literary journal launched in 2011 at St. Katherine College, an Orthodox Christian university in California. Founding editors include such notable writers as Scott Cairns and Kathleen Norris. They accept poetry, short fiction, creative nonfiction, book reviews, and critical essays. Enter by email. No simultaneous submissions.
The Centrifugal Eye
Available in both print and online versions (via Issuu viewer), this bimonthly journal combines cutting-edge contemporary poetry and original artwork.
The Common
Launched in 2011, this biannual journal of literary prose, poetry and photography is subtitled "a modern sense of place". It is affiliated with Amherst College in Massachusetts. The editorial board includes well-known authors such as Richard Wilbur, Mary Jo Salter, and Honor Moore. Editors say, "The Common publishes fiction, essays, poetry, documentary vignettes, and images that embody particular times and places both real and imagined; from deserts to teeming ports; from Winnipeg to Beijing; from Earth to the Moon: literature and art powerful enough to reach from there to here."
The Drum
Published 10 times a year, The Drum is an online literary journal that features short fiction, essays, novel excerpts, and interviews, exclusively in audio form. Featured authors have included Susan Orlean and Lydia Millet.
The Louisville Review: The Children's Corner
This literary journal based at Spalding University in Louisville, KY publishes work by both children and adults. The Children's Corner feature accepts poetry submissions year-round from students in grades K-12. Editors say, "We seek writing that looks for fresh ways to recreate scenes and feelings. Honest emotion and original imagery are more important to a poem than rhyming and big topics—such as life, moralizing, and other abstractions."
Theodate
Theodate is the online literary journal of the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, CT, and is named for its founder, the early 20th-century architect and art collector Theodate Pope Riddle. The journal extends Hill-Stead's mission of supporting established and emerging poets through its summer literary festival. In addition to regular submissions of unpublished poems, they seek work for "The Daily Ekphrasis", a rolling publication of poems written in response to works of art in Hill-Stead's permanent collection. Each season, the website will feature a different Hill-Stead work as "cover art", and each day release a poem that responds to that season's selection. See website for guidelines. No simultaneous submissions.
Todd Jackson Poetry
Selections from poet Todd Jackson's collection Ouranion, which combines celestial and mythological imagery with the modern-day surreal cityscape of Las Vegas.
Words That Rhyme
Paul Aubrian created this site featuring lists of words that rhyme with a particular word or syllable. A fun way for formal poets to expand their vocabulary.
World Literature Today
Published by the University of Oklahoma, this bimonthly journal features book reviews and essays about contemporary literature from around the world.
Write Now Poetry Society
Co-founded in 2007 by actress/author Amber Tamblyn and poet Mindy Nettifee, Write Now Poetry is a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the audience for great poetry through performance, education, publishing and grant-making. Drums Inside Your Chest, their annual festival in Los Angeles, showcases the best poets writing and performing in the Unted States alongside magicians and musicians.
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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The Help
By Kathryn Stockett. In 1962, the civil rights movement has barely touched the ladies of Jackson, Mississippi, who continue to treat their African-American maids like dirt—that is, until one misfit heiress with journalistic ambitions convinces the longsuffering housekeepers and nannies to share their anonymous testimonies in a book that will scandalize the community. Though the novel's neat happy ending could be considered too "Hollywood", this tale of interracial friendship is inspiring and enjoyable.
Lake Overturn
By Vestal McIntyre. This standout first novel paints a tender, comical portrait of an Idaho small town in the 1980s, where a motley collection of trailer-park residents yearn for connection (and sometimes, against all odds, find it) across the barriers of class, sexual orientation, illness, separatist piety, drug abuse, and plain old social ineptness. You'll want to linger on the luscious writing, but keep turning the pages to find out what happens to the characters who've won a place in your heart.
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Running in Place
by Pat Valdata
Some days I feel like a nuthatch
trying to get to the bottom of things.
Head-down dutiful, searching for
something to make the trip worthwhile.
Some days I feel empty as the Elk Creek
running clear and shallow between the banks,
bored, old, sloshing back and forth
from tide to tide. Then the flood
comes: nuthatches fly, squirrels flee
my water's angry white horsetails
that tumble over the creek bed until you
have to notice me. Then the rain stops.
Your feet dry. The nuthatch resumes
her monotonous hunt from the top
of the hickory trunk to the bottom,
looking, looking for it. Always looking.
Copyright 2011 by Pat Valdata
This poem is reprinted from her new collection Inherent Vice, which was recently published by Pecan Grove Press.
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Midsummer
by Ruth Thompson
i.
One day the earth is flat.
The next, it is fat with leaves.
On the third, it pours forth bodies.
ii.
Morning sun butters the siding.
Light sharp as a new green shoot
strikes through the open door.
Outside, the world is made of grass,
impossible and delicious as a painting.
iii.
Noon seeps upward
from small muddy feet of grasses
fills the garden with smoky golden waters
where white butterflies swim in flocks like fish.
iv.
At the feeder the chickadees
peck through, discard,
picky as women squeezing fruit.
Chipmunks rescue dropped seeds, scramble
to store them in my winter shoes.
v.
The wasps are at the sugar water
again, driving off the hummingbirds
and the robin is distraught, babies loose,
a thousand dangers.
vi.
Throughout the long dusk
two fawns leap-
frog in the meadow.
vii.
The maples darken, descend.
Moisture gathers in corners.
The sofa steams gently.
Damp emerges through the seats of pants
paperbacks curl from the tables
a foot's imprint on the rug
fills slowly with a film of water
viii.
Thunder splits the cracked skull of sky:
Inside, nothing but light!
ix.
We are very pregnant.
We walk with effort.
Why move?
We can feel it in our thighs and buttocks:
the downward pull, the weight.
An old sun's gravity.
x.
Lying in the sun, we remember
how we poured forth
pheromones, how we cast
beauty into the bright air of chance.
xi.
The garden sits
like a woman
with too many children.
Flower heads fold, topple
under their own weight.
In the woods,
a falling off.
xii.
One morning:
frost, raking light, sharp
shapes of leaves, shadow
of hanging hose.
xiii.
A shiver in the neck. The hairs rise.
It is not emptied yet, but soon.
xiv.
Purple asters, big-headed and little-
headed, blue stars and white stars
and tiny blue and white clouds
and the tiger colors of the maple leaves.
xv.
This morning they are calling
to one another from the pine tree.
Five repeated calls. And answers
from far away.
Copyright 2011 by Ruth Thompson
This poem is reprinted from her poetry chapbook Here Along Cazenovia Creek, recently released by Saddle Road Press.
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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.
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Advertise to 35,000 Poets and Writers
Promote your contests, websites, workshops, events, and publications in this newsletter. Reach over 35,000 poets and writers for $100. Ads may contain up to 250 words, a headline, and a graphic image. Find out more and make your reservation here:
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"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
A Special Giving Opportunity at ProLiteracy
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2009 WERGLE FLOMP HUMOR POETRY CONTEST—HONORABLE MENTION
SCORE: KIPLING 1, KEATS 0
by James K. Zimmerman
it is a thing of beauty
to see Trudy fling
the nerf football so high
in the east
a trajectory that sings out
through the trees
to the stratosphere
but here, back on earth
the truth is that Booth
awaits the falling missile
hears the whistle of it
in the west
with superhuman ears
and wrests it from the sky
high in the arc of
one parabolic leap
and perhaps Kipling was right
and east really is east
and west is west
but the twain do finally meet
in the unity of nerf football
thrower and receiver
as one sublime entity
and finally it comes to this:
Trudy is Booth, Booth Trudy—
that is all ye know on nerf
and all ye need to know
Copyright 2009 James K. Zimmerman
Sent as a joke to the International Library of Poetry, this poem won an honorable mention in the 2009 Wergle Flomp humor poetry contest sponsored by Winning Writers. Author James K. Zimmerman received a cash prize of $72.95. See the judge's comments on the winning poems from this contest.
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COMING IN OUR JUNE 15 NEWSLETTER
The Best Free Poetry Contests for June 16-July 31
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