Surreal Santa

The Time Is Now
10.13.21

The winter holidays have served as inspiration for writers across the ages, yielding stories such as “A Christmas Tree and a Wedding” by Fyodor Dostoevsky, “One Christmas Eve” by Langston Hughes, and “Santa’s Children” by Italo Calvino. In Calvino’s story a father of three children is ordered by the company that employs him to dress up as Santa Claus and deliver gifts to a town of citizens unimpressed by his costume. The satirical story concludes in a critique of the materialistic nature of the holiday, as the company’s president and head of the “Society for the Implementation of Christmas Consumption” boosts a campaign to push for “the Destructive Gift,” such as matches and hammers. Write a story set during holiday festivities in which something unexpected occurs. Perhaps you might lean into elements of satire or the surreal to explore new dimensions of this familiar territory.

Memory Letters

The Time Is Now
10.12.21

“Dear Mother, I have so many questions. What city were you born in? What was your American birthday? Your Chinese birthday? What did your mother do?” writes Victoria Chang in the first letter of her nonfiction book, Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief, published in October by Milkweed Editions. In the book, Chang writes letters to family members, teachers, and writing colleagues—to silence, to the reader, to memory itself—interspersed with collages made from family documents, relics, and mementos, including a marriage license, photographs, and a visa petition, forming an immersive collection that reckons with memory and what it dredges from the past. Using Dear Memory as inspiration, write three poems in the form of letters: one addressed to a parent, another to a grandparent, and the third to an experience or emotion, such as regret or grief. Try using family photographs or keepsakes as a way of entering the poems.

Upcoming Contest Deadlines

G&A: The Contest Blog
10.8.21

Embrace sweater weather by curling up indoors and preparing to submit to one of the following writing contests, which all close on October 31. Opportunities abound for writers in all disciplines, but especially poets. Among the poetry awards are two chapbook prizes and a prize for a female translator who has translated a collection by a female poet. All contests offer a cash prize of $1,000 or more.

American Poetry Review Honickman First Book Prize: A prize of $3,000 and publication by American Poetry Review is given annually for a first poetry collection. The winning book will be distributed by Copper Canyon Press through Consortium. Jericho Brown will judge. Entry fee: $25.

Cloudbank Books Vern Rutsala Book Prize: A prize of $1,000 and publication by Cloudbank Books is given annually for a collection of poetry, flash fiction, or a combination of the two. Doug Ramspeck will judge. Entry fee: $25.

Conduit Books & Ephemera Minds on Fire Open Book Prize: A prize of $1,500, publication by Conduit Books & Ephemera, and 30 author copies is given annually for a book of poetry. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $25.

Elixir Press Poetry Award: A prize of $2,000 and publication by Elixir Press is given annually for a poetry collection. Esther Lee will judge. All entries are considered for publication. Entry fee: $30.

Finishing Line Press Open Chapbook Competition: A prize of $1,500 and publication by Finishing Line Press is given annually for a poetry chapbook. All entries are considered for publication. Entry fee: $15.

Hidden River Arts Tamaqua Award: A prize of $1,000 and publication by Hidden River Press is given annually for an essay collection. Entry fee: $20.

PEN/Faulkner Foundation Award for Fiction: A prize of $15,000 is given annually for a book of fiction published during the current year. Four finalists will each receive $5,000. The winner and finalists will also be invited to read in Washington, D.C., in May 2022. Entry fee: none.

Persea Books Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize: A prize of $1,000 and publication by Persea Books is given annually for a first poetry collection by a writer who identifies as a woman and who is currently living in the United States. The winner also receives an optional six-week, all-expenses paid residency at the Civitella Ranieri Center in Umbria, Italy. Entry fee: $30.

Poetry Society of the United Kingdom National Poetry Competition: A prize of £5,000 (approximately $7,075) and publication on the Poetry Society of the United Kingdom website is given annually for a single poem. A second-place prize of £2,000 (approximately $2,830) and a third-place prize of £1,000 (approximately $1,415) are also given. The winners will also be published in Poetry Review. Poems written in English by poets from any country are eligible. Fiona Benson, David Constantine, and Rachel Long will judge. Entry fee: £7 (approximately $10).

Red Hen Press Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award: A prize of $3,000 and publication by Red Hen Press is given annually for a poetry collection. Major Jackson will judge. Entry fee: $25.

River Teeth Book Contest: A prize of $1,000 and publication by University of New Mexico Press is given annually for a book of creative nonfiction. Rigoberto González will judge. Entry fee: $27 (includes subscription).

Saturnalia Books Malinda A. Markham Translation Prize: A prize of $2,000 and publication by Saturnalia Books will be given annually for a translation of a poetry collection. Translators who identify as female (including those who are assigned-female-at-birth [AFAB] nonbinary, genderfluid, agender, and intersex) and who are translating the work of a woman poet (including those who are AFAB nonbinary, genderfluid, agender, and intersex) are eligible. Entry fee: $25.

Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards: Three prizes of $1,000 each are given annually for works of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. The winners will also receive scholarships to attend a workshop on the University of Arizona campus in March 2022. Entry fee: $20.

Tupelo Press Sunken Garden Chapbook Poetry Prize: A prize of $1,000, publication by Tupelo Press, and 25 author copies is given annually for a poetry chapbook. Entry fee: $25.

University of North Texas Press Vassar Miller Prize: A prize of $1,000 and publication by University of North Texas Press is given annually for a poetry collection. 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, and creative nonfiction.

Tips and Tricks

The Time Is Now
10.7.21

“I’ve attended plenty of workshops and lectures with writers I admire, only to leave with vague and puzzling advice about listening to your story’s truth,” writes Blair Hurley in the latest Craft Capsule essay “Tiny Doable Things.” “I treasured, instead, the writers who admitted that their writing was not always inspired and that their drafts were not always successful on the first try.” In the essay, Hurley compares writers with specific technical advice to “woodworkers or glassblowers who must learn the practical needs of their medium.” Write a list of practical writing advice you have received over the years, and reflect upon which practices have stuck with you and why.

Animals

The Time Is Now
10.6.21

In an article for the Guardian, children’s book author Piers Torday writes about a recent study in the journal People and Nature conducted by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research which concluded that “animals are being written out of novels at a similar rate to their extinction in the real world.” Torday notes that although there are plenty of animals in children’s literature, there is a shortage of them in novels and concludes that, “perhaps it is time for fiction authors to educate ourselves, and learn how to radically and authentically represent the non-human voice on the page.” This week, write a story with a non-human protagonist. How will you render their voice urgently real?

Origin Story

The Time Is Now
10.5.21

“I come from the cracked hands of men who used / the smoldering ends of blunts to blow shotguns,” writes Reginald Dwayne Betts, recipient of a 2021 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, in his poem “Shahid Reads His Own Palm.” Betts uses anaphora to propel the narrative forward, describing the places that have shaped and haunted him with an incantatory rhythm: “I come from ‘Swann Road’ written in a child's / slanted block letters across a playground fence.” Write a poem about your origins that repeats the words, “I come from,” throughout it. Does the repetition conjure any surprising images?

Omnidawn Fabulist Fiction Chapbook/Novelette Contest Accepting Submissions

G&A: The Contest Blog
10.1.21

Submissions are open for the annual Fabulist Fiction Chapbook /Novelette Contest sponsored by Omnidawn Publishing. The contest honors short works of fiction with fabulist elements. The winner will receive publication by the celebrated indie press, as well as a cash prize of $1,000 and 100 author copies. Theodora Ziolkowski, the author of On the Rocks (Texas A&M University Press, 2018), will judge.

Submit a manuscript of one or more stories or a novelette totaling 7,500 to 17,500 words with an $18 entry fee ($20 to receive a fiction title from the Omnidawn catalogue) by October 18. Visit the website for complete guidelines. The winning chapbook will be published in April 2022.

Omnidawn is an independent, non-profit publisher based in Redmond, California. Its titles have been recipients of or finalists for the Believer Book Award, the Lambda Literary Awards, and the National Book Awards. Previous winners of the Fabulist Fiction Chapbook/Novelette Contest include Kristin Keane, Jennifer Pullen, and David Rothman.

The Question

The Time Is Now
9.30.21

Catapult’s column “How’s the Writing Going?” by Sari Botton features writers in conversation about their process and what they’re working on, offering insight and tips for writer’s block and other challenges. The column focuses on the one question “no writer wants to be asked—but which every writer wants to ask others.” Write an essay about how your writing is going. Consider the question at large and answer it in terms of how your writing process has evolved over time. What have you learned along the way?

Breaking Form

The Time Is Now
9.29.21

In an interview for the VS podcast with hosts Franny Choi and Danez Smith, poet Cyrée Jarelle Johnson discusses the appeal of poetic forms and his relationship to breaking them. “If the form is broken, it’s broken for a reason,” says Johnson. Write a short story in which the form of a traditional narrative is somehow broken. Whether by choosing an unexpected point of view, or by defying the conventions of a particular character’s archetype, challenge the expectations of the reader and break the form, as Johnson says, “for a reason.”

Morning Routine

The Time Is Now
9.28.21

In her poem “Taking Out the Trash,” the late poet Kamilah Aisha Moon, who died at the age of forty-eight last week, takes a seemingly mundane task and makes the activity profound. Through detailed, sensory descriptions of routine movements such as “I shimmy the large kitchen bag from / the steel canister, careful not to spill / what’s inside,” Moon walks the reader through the meditative, deliberate actions of her morning routine, bringing attention to the role her body has in everyday actions and the presence of one’s mortality throughout the day. Write a poem about a daily chore or everyday task that brings attention to your body. Try, as Moon does in her poem, to take time describing the movements of your body.

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