Of a Certain Age

The Time Is Now
7.25.23

In his poem “Self-Portrait at Twenty,” Gregory Orr demonstrates the short, personal lyric he’s known for and captures a moment in time in his life. Rather than include details about what occurred when he was twenty, Orr presents a series of stark, detailed images that create a sense of foreboding for what the year had in store for him. The poem begins with the lines: “I stood inside myself / like a dead tree or a tower.” Then, later in the poem, he writes: “Because my tongue / spoke harshly, I said: / Make it dust.” Take inspiration from Orr’s poem and write a self-portrait poem that captures what you felt at a specific age. Try to avoid revealing narrative details and instead, use your sense of imagery to allow the reader in to your state of mind.

Upcoming Contest Deadlines

G&A: The Contest Blog
7.21.23

It’s too hot to do much outdoors these last days of summer. So why not stay in and submit some of the sizzling writing you’ve completed this year to contests with a deadline of July 31 or August 1? Prizes include $5,000 for a fiction, poetry, or nonfiction manuscript-in-progress; $2,500 and publication for a short story; $2,000 and publication for a collection of lyric essays; and $1,000 and publication for a poetry book. All contests offer an award of $1,000 or more, and four have no entry fee. What have you got to lose?

Connecticut Poetry Society
Experimental Poetry Contest
A prize of $1,000 and publication in Connecticut River Review is given annually for an innovative poem. Richard Deming will judge. Entry fee: $15.

Delaware Division of the Arts
Individual Artist Fellowships
Established Professional Fellowships of $6,000 each and Emerging Artist Fellowships of $3,000 each are given annually to five to eight poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers who have lived in Delaware for at least one year prior to application. Entry fee: None.

Granum Foundation
Granum Foundation Prizes
A prize of $5,000 is given annually to a poet, fiction writer, or creative nonfiction writer to support the completion of a manuscript-in-progress. Up to three finalists will be awarded at least $500. A Translation Prize of at least $1,500 is also given. Entry fee: None.

Leeway Foundation
Art and Change Grants
Project grants of up to $2,500 each are given annually to women and transgender, transsexual, genderqueer, Two-Spirit, or otherwise gender-nonconforming poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers in the Greater Philadelphia area to fund art for social change projects. Entry fee: None.

Mason Jar Press
1729 Book Prize
A prize of $1,000 and publication by Mason Jar Press will be given annually in alternating years for a book of poetry or a book of prose. The 2023 prize will be given in poetry. Semi-experimental works are encouraged, and hybrid works as well as translations (with written permission from the original author) are also eligible. Chen Chen will judge. Entry fee: None.

Munster Literature Centre
Seán Ó Faoláin International Short Story Competition
A prize of €2,000 (approximately $2,198) and publication in Southword is given annually for a short story. The winner also receives a weeklong residency at the Anam Cara Writer’s Retreat in West Cork and accommodations to give a reading at the Cork International Short Story Festival in November. Entry fee: €19 (approximately $21).

Narrative
Spring Story Contest
A prize of $2,500 and publication in Narrative is given annually for a short story, a short short story, an essay, or an excerpt from a work of fiction or creative nonfiction. A second-place prize of $1,000 is also awarded. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $27. 

New Millennium Writings
New Millennium Writing Awards
Four prizes of $1,000 each and publication in New Millennium Writings and on the journal’s website are given twice yearly for a poem, a short story, a short short story, and an essay that have not appeared in a print publication with a circulation over 5,000. Entry fee: $20.

Press 53
Award for Poetry
A prize of $1,000, publication by Press 53, and 53 author copies is given annually for a poetry collection. Tom Lombardo will judge. Entry fee: $30.

Radar Poetry
Coniston Prize
A prize of $1,000 and publication in Radar Poetry is given annually for a group of poems by a poet who identifies as a woman. Ellen Bass will judge. Entry fee: $20.

Red Wheelbarrow
Poetry Prize
A prize of $1,000 and publication in Red Wheelbarrow is given annually for a single poem. The winner will also receive 20 copies of a letterpress broadside of the winning poem, printed by Gary Young at Greenhouse Review Press. Ellen Bass will judge. Entry fee: $15. 

Seneca Review Books
Deborah Tall Lyric Essay Book Prize
A prize of $2,000 and publication by Seneca Review Books is given biennially for a collection of lyric essays. The winner will also receive an invitation to give a reading with Hobart & William Smith Colleges. Wendy S. Walters will judge. Cross-genre, hybrid, and verse forms, as well as image and text works, and multilingual submissions in which English is the primary language are all eligible. Entry fee: $27. 

Sewanee Review
Fiction, Poetry, and Nonfiction Contest
Three prizes of $1,000 each and publication in Sewanee Review are given annually for a single poem or group of poems, a short story, and a creative nonfiction essay. Major Jackson will judge in poetry, Megan Mayhew Bergman will judge in fiction, and Alexander Chee will judge in creative nonfiction. Entry fee: $30.

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

Influential Figures

The Time Is Now
7.20.23

In her essay “On Killing Charles Dickens,” published in the New Yorker, Zadie Smith recounts her relationship with the timeless author and his influence on her historical novel, The Fraud, forthcoming from Penguin Press in September. In the essay, Smith begins by describing her resistance to writing a historical novel and discusses the unavoidable influence of Dickens on her childhood and her research. Ultimately, she concedes to his influence and tells herself: “I know he often infuriates you, but the truth is you never could have written this without him.” Consider a writer who has had a powerful influence on your writing and start an essay about your relationship. Do you find it necessary to concede to their influence?

Hottest Day of the Year

The Time Is Now
7.19.23

Record-breaking global temperatures have already been recorded this year in the first weeks of summer. In a recent CNN report, Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at Woodwell Climate Research Center, estimated that these temperatures are the warmest “probably going back at least 100,000 years.” How do you think extreme heat could affect the way we go about our daily lives and treat one another? Write a story in which a group of characters is forced to deal with a difficult decision on the hottest day of the year. Do they become more exasperated and desperate because of the heat?

In a Single Breath

The Time Is Now
7.18.23

In a recent installment of our Craft Capsules series, Megan Fernandes describes a writing exercise centered around breath that she assigns to her students. “I tell my students to take out their phones and record themselves saying ‘I love you’ over and over again in a single breath, noting the time,” she writes. By counting the number of times this phrase is said in one breath, the students can calculate how long their lines are and how many stanzas their poems will contain. This week try Fernandes’s writing exercise to find the natural line length of your own breath and write a poem guided by the capacity of your lungs.

Deadline Approaches for Mason Jar Press 1729 Book Prize

G&A: The Contest Blog
7.14.23

If you are a poet looking to place a manuscript of experimental or hybrid work, including work in translation, consider submitting to Mason Jar Press’s 1729 Book Prize. Given annually in alternating years for a book of poetry or a book of prose, this year’s contest offers a prize of $1,000 and publication by Mason Jar Press for a poetry collection that is at once “challenging” and “engaging.” Chen Chen will judge.

Using only the online submission system, submit a poetry manuscript of 50 to 75 poems or pages by July 31 (submissions will be capped at 500 entrants). There is no entry fee. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

This year, Mason Jar Press has released titles including the debut poetry collections Glazed With War by Pantea Amin Tofangchi and trans [re]incarnation by Elias Kerr, as well as its literary journal’s most recent issue, Jarnal Volume 3: Transitions (edited by Tara Campbell). Founded by Micheal B. Tager and Ian Anderson—classmates from the University of Baltimore MFA program—the independent press has published handmade, limited-run chapbooks and full-length books since 2014. The 2nd annual 1729 Book Prize, offered in partnership with The Ivy Bookshop, will run in line with the press’s mission of publishing work that “is meant to challenge status quos, both literary and culturally,” while also having “merit in both those realms.”

Generative Returns

The Time Is Now
7.13.23

“Oftentimes, when I would perform at poetry readings, I’d tell these little stories about what inspired a poem (such as growing up in a restaurant and being locked in the meat freezer),” says Jane Wong in an interview for PEN America’s PEN Ten series about her debut memoir, Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City (Tin House, 2023). “I started to realize that these little poem ‘intros’ were insights into much larger stories—stories that go beyond my own family, my own relationships.” This week, inspired by Wong’s generative writing practice, return to an old draft of a poem, story, or essay, and begin a new essay that looks deeper into the backstory of that work. What did you leave unsaid?

Dinner Party Stories

The Time Is Now
7.12.23

Storytelling is an art form, but there appears to be some science involved as well. In an episode for NPR’s Morning Edition news radio program, social science correspondent Shankar Vedantam reports on what Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert found when researching whether people preferred hearing stories about shared experiences or novel experiences. What Gilbert and his colleagues discovered was that people much preferred stories about familiar experiences, so much so that at your next dinner party, he recommends spending “less time talking about experiences that only you've had and more time talking about experiences that your listeners have also had.” Inspired by this behavioral research, write a story set during a dinner party in which conflicts arise from the stories shared by guests. Will an easily bothered guest become embittered by the swell of unamusing stories?

Praiseworthy

The Time Is Now
7.11.23

This week marks the birthday of the iconic Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who would have turned 119 on July 12. Known for his historical epics, political manifestos, and love poems, Neruda’s incisive and joyful odes were often dedicated to ordinary objects making them approachable yet surreal. In “Ode to My Socks,” translated from the Spanish by Robert Bly, Neruda describes his covered feet as “two fish made / of wool, / two long sharks / sea-blue.” In “Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market,” translated from the Spanish by Robert Robinson, Neruda describes a dead tuna fish as “a dark bullet / barreled / from the depths.” Inspired by Neruda’s electric, surreal images, write an ode to an ordinary object in your life. Whether it be a bookshelf, a desk, or a coat, think expansively about how to honor and describe this praiseworthy item.

Upcoming Contest Deadlines

G&A: The Contest Blog
7.7.23

Are you feeling bogged down by your pile of unfinished drafts? Don’t fret—you can prepare just one polished piece of writing and submit to any of five awards requesting a single poem, work of flash fiction, short story, novel, or essay by July 15. These contests all have a cash prize of $1,000 or more, three of them consider all entries for publication, and one offers a Reader’s Choice Award of $5,000 alongside its $15,000 first-place prize. Why not seize the opportunity to bring a project to completion and send it out into the world?

Cincinnati Review
Robert and Adele Schiff Awards
Three prizes of $1,000 each and publication in Cincinnati Review are given annually for a poem, a short story, and an essay. Rebecca Lindenberg will judge in poetry, Michael Griffith will judge in fiction, and Kristen Iversen will judge in nonfiction. All entries are considered for publication. Entry fee (includes a subscription to Cincinnati Review): $20.

Comstock Review
Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award
A prize of $1,000 and publication in Comstock Review is given annually for a single poem. Danusha Laméris will judge. All entries are considered for publication. Entry fee: $27.50 ($5 per poem via postal mail).

Ghost Story
Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition
A prize of $1,000 and publication on the Ghost Story website and in the 21st Century Ghost Stories anthology is given twice yearly for a work of flash fiction with a supernatural or magical realist theme. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $15. 

Rattle
Poetry Prize
A prize of $15,000 and publication in Rattle is given annually for a single poem. A Reader’s Choice Award of $5,000 is also given to one of 10 finalists. Work written exclusively in English or primarily in English, with portions in other languages, is eligible. All entries are considered for publication. Entry fee (includes a subscription to Rattle): $25.

Regal House Publishing
Petrichor Prize for Finely Crafted Fiction
A prize of $1,000 and publication by Regal House Publishing is given annually for a novel. Translations into English are eligible. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $25.

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

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