Genre: Fiction

Hemingway-Pfeiffer Writer-in-Residence Program

The Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center at Arkansas State University offers a monthlong residency in June to poets, fiction writers, creative nonfiction writers, and translators in Piggott, Arkansas. The residency includes a loft apartment on the downtown square in Piggott, a $1,000 stipend to help cover food and transportation costs, and the opportunity to write in the studio where Ernest Hemingway worked on A Farewell to Arms in 1928. The writer-in-residence will serve as a mentor for eight to ten writers in a weeklong retreat at the education center.

Type: 
RESIDENCY
Ignore Event Date Field?: 
no
Event Date: 
June 1, 2024
Rolling Admissions: 
no
Application Deadline: 
February 28, 2024
Financial Aid?: 
no
Financial Aid Application Deadline: 
March 19, 2024
Free Admission: 
yes
Contact Information: 

Hemingway-Pfeiffer Writer-in-Residence Program, 1913 Museum Row, Piggott, AR 72454. (870) 598-3487. Adam Long, Executive Director.

Adam Long
Executive Director
Contact City: 
Piggott
Contact State: 
AR
Contact Zip / Postal Code: 
72454
Country: 
US

Jennifer Croft: The Extinction of Irena Rey

Caption: 

In this New York Public Library event, Man Booker International Prize–winning translator Jennifer Croft discusses her debut novel, The Extinction of Irena Rey (Bloomsbury, 2024), in a conversation with Daniel Saldaña París. “I feel, as a translator, that I’m always on this mission of seeking an essence, a mysterious thing that can’t really be articulated...something I can capture and reconstitute in my language,” says Croft. Her novel is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Genre: 

Two Weeks Left to Enter One of Six Contests Offering Cash Prizes and Publication

Seeking the recognition you deserve—as well as a little extra cash—for an unpublished poem, story, or essay? Hoping to circumvent the tedious process of finding a publisher for a book-length manuscript? Consider submitting to one of the following six contests that offer generous cash prizes on top of publication by a highly reputed journal, press, or competition website, all with a deadline of April 1. Remember to carefully read the guidelines before you enter—and good luck!

Gemini Magazine
Short Story Contest
 
A prize of $1,000 and publication in Gemini Magazine is given annually for a short story. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $8. 

Nimrod International
Journal Nimrod Literary Awards
 
Two prizes of $2,000 each and publication in Nimrod International Journal are given annually for a poem or a group of poems and a work of fiction. A runner-up in each category receives $1,000 and publication. The winners and runners-up will also participate in a virtual awards ceremony and conference in the fall. All entries are considered for publication. Entry fee: $20 (which includes a subscription to Nimrod International Journal). 

North American Review
Terry Tempest Williams Creative Nonfiction Prize
 
A prize of $1,000 and publication in North American Review is given annually for an essay. Lyric essays, memoir-style essays, and literary journalism are eligible. All entries are considered for publication. Entry fee: $23 (which includes an issue of North American Review). 

Orison Books
Prizes in Poetry and Fiction
 
Two prizes of $1,500 each and publication by Orison Books are given annually for a poetry collection and a book of fiction. Ellen Bass will judge in poetry and Kaveh Akbar will judge in fiction. Entry fee: $25. 

Saturnalia Books
Poetry Prize
 
A prize of $1,500, publication by Saturnalia Books, and 20 author copies is given annually for a poetry collection. Carmen Giménez will judge. All entries are also considered for the Alma Book Awards, which offer two prizes of $1,000 each and publication. Entry fee: $30 entry. 

Winning Writers
Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest
 
A prize of $2,000, a gift certificate for a two-year membership to the literary database Duotrope, and publication on the Winning Writers website is given annually for a humorous poem. A second-place prize of $500 is also awarded. Jendi Reiter will judge. Unpublished and previously published works are eligible. 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.

Feeling Lucky?

3.13.24

With Saint Patrick’s Day around the corner, you might be feeling as if luck is everywhere you look: in four-leaf clovers, Shamrock Shakes, horseshoes, a rabbit’s foot, and the number seven. Or perhaps everything is just a coincidence, or predetermined by destiny. In a 2008 Guardian essay critiquing Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel, Les Misérables, Adam Thirlwell writes: “In this gargantuan novel, everything seems utterly improbable. Every plot operates through coincidence. Normally, novelists develop techniques to naturalize and hide this. Hugo, with his technique of massive length, refuses to hide it at all. In fact, he makes sure that the plot’s coincidences are exaggerated.” Thirlwell notes Hugo’s classic novel straddles the ideas of lucky coincidence and predetermination. Based on your personal beliefs about luck, coincidence, and destiny, write a story in which a plot unfolds according to a series of consequential encounters, discoveries, and mistakes. How do your own convictions about these ideas affect your characters’ decision-making and the overall philosophy of your story?

Percival Everett on James

Caption: 

“It’s an opportunity for a character, whose story could not have been told by [Mark] Twain, to have his story told.” In this short video, Percival Everett speaks about his new novel, James (Doubleday, 2024), a reimagining of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view.

Genre: 

Rebecca Makkai: I Have Some Questions for You

Caption: 

Rebecca Makkai discusses her newest novel, I Have Some Questions for You (Viking, 2023), and talks about spectacles of violence in media and what makes a good mystery in a conversation with journalist Rachael Brown for this 2023 Wheeler Centre event in Melbourne, including an introductory reading by playwright and novelist Suzie Miller.

Genre: 

Arts & Letters Prizes in Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction Are Just Around the Corner

This year’s Arts & Letters Prizes mark a quarter century for the contest in which three decorated judges select a group of poems, a short story, and an essay. The deadline for the twenty-fifth annual contest is March 31. The prize awards $1,000 and publication in Arts & Letters, a journal that has attracted both emerging and established writers such as Donald Hall, Sonja Livingston, and Xu Xi. 

Using only the online submission system, submit up to four poems of any length or up to 25 pages of prose with a $20 entry fee. All entries are considered for publication. Chelsea Rathburn will judge in poetry, Tiphanie Yanique will judge in fiction, and Beth Ann Fennelly will judge in nonfiction. Visit the website for more information.

Founded by Martin Lammon in 1999 and operating out of Georgia College & State University’s MFA program in creative writing ever since, Arts & Letters has for nearly a decade been headed by its second editor, Laura Newbern, who’s also an associate professor in English at GCSU and a recipient of the 2010 Writer’s Award from the Rona Jaffe Foundation. And for those wondering if this contest is the right fit, the editorial board welcomes both formal and experimental work—even writing that otherwise “defies classification”—so long as, in the board’s words, the submission “doesn’t try too hard to grab our attention, but rather guides it toward the human voice and its perpetual struggle into language.” If you’re still not sure, you might find inspiration in the judges’ latest book in their respective category; that is, Rathburn’s Still Life With Mother and Knife (LSU Press, 2019), Yanique’s How to Escape From a Leper Colony (Graywolf Press, 2010), and Fennelly’s Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs (Norton, 2017).

Strangers in a Strange Land

When a group of strangers gathers in one setting, whether in a horror story, mystery, or in real life, the situation makes for a great premise. In The Extinction of Irena Rey (Bloomsbury, 2024), the debut novel by author and translator Jennifer Croft, eight translators from eight different countries arrive at an author’s house located in a primeval Polish forest to begin their work when the author disappears. As they investigate the author’s whereabouts while attempting to continue their work, rivalries and paranoia begin cropping up. Write a story that revolves around a group of unacquainted people, all confined in one location. Experiment with different modes of dialogue, setting description, and point of view. How will their secrets be revealed?

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