Fiction and nonfiction writers, with a just over a week left in 2017, consider submitting your best stories, essays, or full-length books to the following contests. Each award offers a prize of at least $1,000 and publication, and has a deadline of December 31.

River Styx Micro-Fiction Contest: A prize of $1,500 and publication in River Styx is given annually for a short short story. Entry fee: $10

Boulevard Short Fiction Contest: A prize of $1,500 and publication in Boulevard is given annually for a short story by a writer who has not published a nationally distributed book. Entry fee: $16

Tampa Review Danahy Fiction Prize: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Tampa Review is given annually for a short story. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $20

Press 53 Award for Short Fiction: A prize of $1,000 and publication by Press 53 is given annually for a story collection. Kevin Morgan Watson will judge. Entry fee: $30

Ashland Creek Press Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature: A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a book of fiction or creative nonfiction that focuses on the environment, animal protection, ecology, or wildlife. The winner also receives a four-week residency at PLAYA, a writers retreat located on the edge of the Great Basin near Summer Lake, Oregon. Unpublished manuscripts and books published in the past five years are eligible. Jonathan Balcombe will judge. Entry fee: $18

Lascaux Review Prize in Fiction: A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a novel published in the previous two years. Entry fee: $20

Livingston Press Tartt Fiction Award: A prize of $1,000, publication by Livingston Press, and 100 author copies is given annually for a first collection of short stories by a U.S. citizen. Fiction writers who have not published a short story collection are eligible. Entry fee: $20

Visit the contest websites for complete guidelines, and check out our Grants & Awards database and Submission Calendar for more upcoming contests in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.

Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, All Hallows’ Eve. A number of holidays are celebrated on the evening before as well as the day of the holiday, including many Jewish holidays which begin at sundown on the previous day. Write a personal essay about a particularly eventful or momentous day for you this year that begins with a recounting of the evening before. What details do you decide to emphasize or omit in order to prepare or surprise your reader? Do you create a slow buildup of anticipatory progressions, or is the sense of tension suddenly dropped in by upended expectations?

The Foundation of Contemporary Arts (FCA) has announced the new C. D. Wright Award for Poetry, an annual prize of $40,000 given to a poet over the age of fifty whose work “exemplifies Wright’s vibrant lyricism, seriousness, and striking originality."

The award, made possible through a $1 million gift from artists Ellsworth Kelly and Jack Shear, honors the memory of C. D. Wright, who died in 2016 at age sixty-seven. Wright received an FCA Grant in 1999, and went on to receive a MacArthur “Genius” Award, a National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Academy of American Poets Lenore Marshall Prize, among other accolades.

Of the prize, Wright’s husband, the poet Forrest Gander, said, “I’ve known that she was of signal importance to poets around the world—the first tribute/memorial organized for C. D. was in Stockholm—but the fact of this award coming from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, an advocate for all arts, that means the most to me.”

The C. D. Wright Award will be administered through the FCA’s nomination-based Grants to Artists program, which provides unrestricted cash awards to individuals in all artistic disciplines. Experimental poet Lisa Robertson will be the recipient of the inaugural award. Poets Tonya Foster and Peter Gizzi, the 2018 poetry advisors to FCA’s selection process, noted, “[Robertson’s] poems are compelling reads and never stint on intellection. They please as they muse and weave various affective philosophical speech acts.”

Founded in 1963 by artists Jasper Johns and John Cage, the Foundation of Contemporary Arts’ mission is to “encourage, sponsor, and promote innovative work in the arts” through its seven annual grant programs for individuals, groups, and organizations. Visit the website for more information.

“I don’t believe in not believing in guilty pleasures.” This line, written by Elisa Gabbert in her essay “On the Pleasures of Front Matter” in the Paris Review, is one of Slate’s “19 Best Sentences of 2017.” Write a short story inspired by one of your favorite sentences from the year, perhaps read or heard in an essay, speech, social media post, poem, song, or work of fiction. You might decide to use it as the first or last line of the story, or allow your plotline or characterization to be more conceptually informed by your inferences of the sentence’s implications or mood.

The anthology Bullets Into Bells: Poets and Citizens Respond to Gun Violence (Beacon Press, 2017), coedited by poets Brian Clements, Alexandra Teague, and Dean Rader, was published this month coinciding with the fifth anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. In “Bullets Into Bells” by Maya Popa in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, the editors discuss the impact of having each poem paired with an essay response by an activist, politician, or survivor. Taking a cue from the anthology's structure, write a poem as a personal meditation or response to a nonfiction piece or news report covering a specific event from 2017.

Poets—as 2017 comes to a close, why not end the year with a bang and submit to a poetry contest? Below is a list of contests for single poems, chapbooks, and full-length collections with deadlines during the second half of December. Each contest offers a prize of at least $1,000 and publication. Happy Submitting!

Deadline: December 20

String Poet Poetry Competition: A prize of $1,000 and publication in String Poet is given annually for a poem. The winner also receives an original music composition by a professional composer inspired by the winning poem, which will be performed at the Awards Ceremony in Spring 2018. Micheal O’Siadhail will judge. Entry fee: $18

Deadline: December 22

Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowships: Four prizes of $1,000 each and publication by the Poetry Society of America are given annually for poetry chapbooks by poets who have not published a full-length collection. Two fellowships are given to poets ages 30 and under, and two fellowships are given to poets of any age. Entry fee: $12

Poetry Society of America Robert H. Winner Memorial Award: A prize of $2,500 and publication of a poem on the Poetry Society of America website is given annually to a poet over 40 who has published no more than one book. Entry fee: $15

Deadline: December 30

New Issues Poetry & Prose Poetry Prize: A prize of $1,000 and publication by New Issues Poetry & Prose is given annually for a first poetry collection. The winner will also receive an honorarium of $500 and travel expenses to give a reading at Western Michigan University in Spring 2018. Poets who have not published a poetry collection of more than 48 pages are eligible. Cathy Park Hong will judge. Entry fee: $25

Deadline: December 31

The Moth Poetry Prize: A prize of €10,000 (approximately $12,000) and publication in the Moth is given annually for a poem. Three runner-up prizes of €1,000 (approximately $1,200) each are also given. The winners will also be invited to read at an awards ceremony in Dublin in Spring 2018. Daljit Nagra will judge. Entry fee: $13

Tampa Review Prize for Poetry: A prize of $2,000 and publication by University of Tampa Press is given annually for a poetry collection. Entry fee: $25

Tupelo Press Dorset Prize: A prize of $3,000 and publication by Tupelo Press is given annually for a poetry collection. The winner also receives a weeklong residency at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Entry fee: $30

Visit the contest websites for complete guidelines, and check out our Grants & Awards database and Submission Calendar for more upcoming contests in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.

If you’re ready to submit right now, check out these contests with deadlines TODAY (12/15/17).

In preparation for cold winter months, red-toothed shrews are able to shrink their head and brain mass by 20 percent and then regrow it as the weather warms up in spring. With this survival strategy, they expend less energy when food resources are scarce. Does your energy level or your relationship to your body change during certain seasons? Does your body feel, act, or respond differently in the winter? Write a personal essay about measures you’ve taken, whether moderate or drastic, to adjust your body to difficult times or discomfiting temperatures at various points of the year. 

The deadline is approaching for the inaugural Hub City Press C. Michael Curtis Short Story Book Prize. An award of $10,000 and publication by Hub City Press will be given annually for a debut story collection by an author living in the Southern United States. Acclaimed short fiction writer Lee K. Abbott will judge. The winning collection will be published in Spring 2019.

Writers currently residing in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, or West Virginia who have not published a full-length book are eligible. Using the online submission system, submit a manuscript of 140 to 220 pages, including at least six stories, with a $25 entry fee by January 1, 2018. Stories should not exceed 15,000 words each. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Of the new prize, Hub City Press founder and publisher Betsy Teter says, “We are thrilled to announce one of the most substantial short story prizes in North America and to honor C. Michael Curtis, who has been a great friend to Hub City Press over the years.” Established in 1995 in Spartanburg, South Carolina, Hub City Press is “committed to well-crafted and high-quality works by new and established authors from the American South.” C. Michael Curtis has been an editor of the Atlantic since 1963 and currently resides in Spartanburg.

In her story “My Wife, in Converse,” Shelly Oria delivers a narrative about a relationship in eighteen short sections, including one section that’s only nine words long. This fragmented approach allows the story to unfold and reveal so much about the characters while using a relatively small number of words. For a writer, an approach like this can be liberating: not every scene needs to be neatly explained or expanded. This week, try writing your own short story in eighteen sections, and listen for the conversation that develops between them.