Genre: Creative Nonfiction

Alia Hanna Habib: Take It From Me

Caption: 

In this Green Apple Books event, literary agent Alia Hanna Habib reads from her guidebook, Take It From Me: An Agent’s Guide to Building a Nonfiction Writing Career From Scratch (Pantheon Books, 2026), and offers advice to aspiring writers in a conversation with Maia Ipp. Habib is featured in Agents & Editors in the May/June 2026 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Messy Connections

4.16.26

In “Catfishing in Academe,” part of Lucy Ives’s Negative Utopia series published in the Believer, the author writes about her experience with a student’s AI-fabricated writing assignment in an introductory creative writing course. Ives considers the ways language models “threaten worlds” in the ways they “shave language of its messy connections to community, culture, history, poetry, and living bodies.” Spend some time jotting down notes about your favorite words, phrases, slang, or types of language you use with different people in your life. Then write a personal essay that explores how your own, idiosyncratic use of language has “messy connections” to community, culture, and history. How has your use of language evolved to reflect its particular associations with your own living body and those of others around you?

Julia Alvarez: A Life Reimagined

Caption: 

In this trailer for PBS’s American Masters documentary Julia Alvarez: A Life Reimagined, the life and work of the acclaimed Dominican American poet and novelist is explored through interviews, photographs, and archives. A profile of Alvarez about her new poetry collection, Visitations (Knopf, 2026), appears in the May/June 2026 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants

PEN America
Entry Fee: 
$0
Deadline: 
June 1, 2026
Ten grants of $4,000 each are given annually to support the translation of book-length works of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction that have not previously appeared in English or have appeared only in an “outdated or otherwise flawed translation.” A grant of $5,000, called the PEN Grant for the English Translation of Italian Literature, is also given to support the translation of a book of fiction or nonfiction from Italian into English. Manuscripts with up to two translators are accepted. Using only the online submission system, submit a translation sample of 8 to 10 pages of poetry or prose, a copy of the same passage in the original language, a biography and bibliography of the translated author, a project statement, and a curriculum vitae by June 1. There is no entry fee. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

PEN/Jean Stein Grants For Literary Oral History

PEN America
Entry Fee: 
$0
Deadline: 
June 1, 2026
Two grants of $15,000 each are given annually for nonfiction works-in-progress that “use oral history to illuminate an event, individual, place, or movement.” Using only the online submission system, submit 6 to 10 pages of unedited transcribed interviews, a writing sample of 20 to 40 pages of nonfiction using the submitted project interviews, a curriculum vitae, and an outline and description of the project by June 1. There is no entry fee. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Kellman Prize for Immigrant Literature

Restless Books
Entry Fee: 
$20
Deadline: 
May 31, 2026
A prize of $10,000 and publication by Restless Books is given annually for a debut book of fiction or nonfiction by a first-generation immigrant. The winner will also receive a writing residency at Millay Arts in Austerlitz, New York. Writers who have not published a book of fiction or nonfiction in English are eligible. Using only the online submission system, submit a prose manuscript of at least 45,000 words, a curriculum vitae, and a one-page cover letter with a $20 entry fee by May 31. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Chapbook Prize

Tusculum Review
Entry Fee: 
$20
Deadline: 
June 15, 2026
A prize of $1,500 and publication in Tusculum Review is given annually for a collection of poems, a short story, or an essay in alternating years. The winner’s work is also published as a limited-​edition stand-alone chapbook with original art. This year’s prize will be awarded in poetry. Nate Marshall will judge. Submit a manuscript of 20 to 30 pages with a $20 entry fee, which includes a subscription to Tusculum Review, by June 15. All entries are considered for publication. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Literary Prizes

Washington Writers’ Publishing House
Entry Fee: 
$28
Deadline: 
June 30, 2026
Two prizes of $1,500 each, publication by Washington Writers’ Publishing House, and 25 author copies are given annually for a poetry collection and a short story collection or novel. Additionally, a prize of $1,500, publication by Washington Writers’ Publishing House, and 25 author copies is given in alternating years for a poetry collection in translation or a book of creative nonfiction. This year the prize will be awarded in creative nonfiction. Winners are also invited to participate in readings at Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C. and the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Writers who live in Washington, D.C., Maryland, or Virginia are eligible. Using only the online submission system, submit a poetry manuscript of 70 to 100 pages, a novel or story collection of 150 to 250 pages, or a work of creative nonfiction between 150 and 250 pages with a $28 entry fee by June 30. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Grants for Artist Projects

Artist Trust
Entry Fee: 
$0
Deadline: 
June 22, 2026
Grants of $2,500 each are given annually to poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers who are residents of Washington State. Students enrolled in a degree-granting program are ineligible. Using only the online submission system, submit a writing sample of up to 10 pages of poetry, prose, or hybrid-genre work with a project description, a statement about how funding will support the progress of the work, and a brief bio by June 22. There is no entry fee. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Prizes in Poetry and Prose

Bellevue Literary Review
Entry Fee: 
$20
Deadline: 
July 1, 2026
Three prizes of $1,000 each and publication in Bellevue Literary Review are given annually for a poem, a short story, and an essay about health, healing, illness, the body, or the mind. Natalie Diaz will judge in poetry, Daniel Mason will judge in fiction, and Meghan O’Rourke will judge in creative nonfiction. Using only the online submission system, submit up to three poems totaling no more than five pages or up to 5,000 words of prose with a $20 entry fee by July 1. All entries are considered for publication. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

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