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The YMCA’s Downtown Writers Center, the only community center for the literary arts in Central New York State, hosts readings by many established and emerging poets and authors each year. The series has been in operation since 2001.
Volumes Bookcafe is an independent bookstore cafe in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago. Volumes is a family-owned business, brought to life by two Chicago-area sisters whose careers have always been intertwined with books. They host monthly book clubs, open mics and comedy nights, weekly trivia, and StoryTime twice a week, along with a number of author and literary events.
StoryStudio Chicago is a growing community of writers building Chicagoland’s premier center for writing and writers. Its mission is simple: teach the art and craft of writing in a positive, open, and encouraging community where students can develop their unique voices.
The Lawndale Art Center is located within the Houston Museum District and the Midtown Cultural Arts and Entertainment District, and hosts art exhibits, musical performances, and literary discussions and readings including the Gulf Coast Reading series. The series presents readings from University of Houston Creative Writing Program graduate students and contributors to Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts. The monthly series supports the journal’s mission to spotlight the work of both esteemed and emerging writers with voices as diverse as the Gulf itself.
The Creative Writing and Poetics MFA program at Naropa University hosts numerous events and visiting faculty during the academic year, including the What Where Series, JKS Symposium, [Dis]embodied Poetics Conference, Allen Ginsberg Visiting Fellow, Leslie Scalapino Lecture in Innovative Poetics, Embodied Poetics (collaboration with MFA Theater program), Women of Naropa reading, and the 4x4 Student Reading Series.
Courtesy of Naropa University.
Open seven days a week, this location includes a café and has frequent events with authors, celebrities, and musicians. Along with a wide selection of books, there is also a department for toys and games as well as vinyl records.
Committed to local life, the Ivy Bookshop is a community space in Baltimore, anchored by a vibrant bookstore, in Baltimore’s historic Mt. Washington neighborhood. They believe in books as tools of connection between people, and they invite you to gather—whether by finding a hidden gem of a book with a bookseller in the shop, strolling through their abundant outdoor spaces with your book and a picnic, or joining them at an author event where books come alive as conversations about the things that make life meaningful.
The Arab American National Museum (AANM) is the first and only museum in the United States devoted to documenting and sharing Arab American contributions that shaped the economic, political and cultural landscapes of American life. The Museum also brings to light the shared experiences of immigrants and ethnic groups, paying tribute to the diversity of our nation. Included in the museum’s public programming are conferences, multicultural performance series, film festivals, arts collaborations with area ethnic communities, seminars, author readings, and book signings.
The MFA Reading Series brings renowned authors and poets to the University of Baltimore campus to share words and insights in an intimate setting with Creative Writing & Publishing Arts students. Q&A sessions following each reading allowing students to prod the experts for the information that matters most to them.
Give your writing a little love the day after Valentine’s Day, and submit to contests with a February 15 deadline. Prizes include $3,000 for a first or second poetry collection or a work that intersects with poetry, including hybrid text, speculative prose, and translation; $1,500 for a group of poems; and $2,000 for a work of fiction. All awards have a cash prize of $1,000 or more, and four have no entry fee. Good luck, writers!
Academy of American Poets
Ambroggio Prize
A prize of $1,000 and publication by University of Arizona Press is given annually for a poetry collection originally written in Spanish by a living writer and translated into English. Achy Obejas will judge. Entry fee: none.
Academy of American Poets
Harold Morton Landon Translation Award
A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a poetry collection translated from any language into English and published in the United States during the previous year. Anna Deeny Morales will judge. Entry fee: none.
Airlie Press
Airlie Prize
A prize of $1,000 and publication by Airlie Press is given annually for a poetry collection. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $25.
Arrowsmith Press
Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry
A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a poetry collection published in English during the previous year by a writer who is not a citizen of the United States. Poets who are living in the United States as green card holders are among those eligible. Poets whose work appears in translation into English are also eligible. Canisia Lubrin will judge. Entry fee: $20.
Center for African American Poetry and Poetics/Autumn House Press
Book Prize
A prize of $3,000 and publication by Autumn House Press is given annually for a first or second poetry collection or a work that intersects with poetry, including hybrid text, speculative prose, and translation, by a writer of African descent. Nicole Sealey will judge. Entry fee: none.
Furious Flower Poetry Center
Furious Flower Poetry Prize
A prize of $1,500 and publication in Obsidian, the literary journal of Illinois State University, is given annually for a group of poems. The winner also receives a $500 honorarium to give a reading at James Madison University (either virtually or in person, as public health guidelines allow). Poets who have published no more than one collection of poetry are eligible. Evie Shockley will judge. Entry fee: $15.
New American Press
New American Poetry Prize
A prize of $1,500, publication by New American Press, and 25 author copies is given annually for a poetry collection. Jamaica Baldwin will judge. Writers of any citizenship working anywhere in the world are eligible, though the work should presume English-language readers. Entry fee: $25.
Sarabande Books
Morton and McCarthy Prizes
Two prizes of $2,000 each and publication by Sarabande Books are given annually for collections of poetry and fiction. Entry fee: $29.
Syracuse University Press
Veterans Writing Award
A prize of $1,000 and publication by Syracuse University Press is given biennially in alternating years for either a debut fiction or a debut nonfiction manuscript written by a U.S. veteran, active-duty personnel in any branch of the U.S. military, or the immediate family member of a veteran or active-duty personnel. The 2023 award will be given in nonfiction. Anuradha Bhagwati will judge. Entry fee: none.
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.
