At the Waterstones bookstore in London, Jenny Zhang talks about several books that have significantly influenced her writing: Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint (Random House, 1969), George Saunders’s Pastoralia (Riverhead Books, 2000), and Roddy Doyle’s Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (Penguin Books, 1993). Zhang’s first short story collection, Sour Heart (Lenny, 2017), won the 2018 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction.
Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.