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The Man Who Invented Christmas (Crown, 2008), a biography by Les Standiford focusing on the events in 1843 that inspired Charles Dickens to write A Christmas Carol, has been adapted into a feature film. Directed by Bharat Nalluri, the film stars Christopher Plummer, Jonathan Pryce, and Dan Stevens.
Dan Stevens, who stars as Charles Dickens in The Man Who Invented Christmas, talks about researching Dickens’s life and learning more about his writing process for A Christmas Carol. Directed by Bharat Nalluri and costarring Christopher Plummer and Jonathan Pryce, the film is based on Les Standiford’s 2008 Dickens biography of the same name.
Fiction and nonfiction writers, with a just over a week left in 2017, consider submitting your best stories, essays, or full-length books to the following contests. Each award offers a prize of at least $1,000 and publication, and has a deadline of December 31.
River Styx Micro-Fiction Contest: A prize of $1,500 and publication in River Styx is given annually for a short short story. Entry fee: $10
Boulevard Short Fiction Contest: A prize of $1,500 and publication in Boulevard is given annually for a short story by a writer who has not published a nationally distributed book. Entry fee: $16
Tampa Review Danahy Fiction Prize: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Tampa Review is given annually for a short story. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $20
Press 53 Award for Short Fiction: A prize of $1,000 and publication by Press 53 is given annually for a story collection. Kevin Morgan Watson will judge. Entry fee: $30
Ashland Creek Press Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature: A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a book of fiction or creative nonfiction that focuses on the environment, animal protection, ecology, or wildlife. The winner also receives a four-week residency at PLAYA, a writers retreat located on the edge of the Great Basin near Summer Lake, Oregon. Unpublished manuscripts and books published in the past five years are eligible. Jonathan Balcombe will judge. Entry fee: $18
Lascaux Review Prize in Fiction: A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a novel published in the previous two years. Entry fee: $20
Livingston Press Tartt Fiction Award: A prize of $1,000, publication by Livingston Press, and 100 author copies is given annually for a first collection of short stories by a U.S. citizen. Fiction writers who have not published a short story collection are eligible. Entry fee: $20
Visit the contest websites for complete guidelines, and check out our Grants & Awards database and Submission Calendar for more upcoming contests in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.
“We will need writers who can remember freedom.” In this video, Ursula K. Le Guin accepts the National Book Foundation’s 2014 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Le Guin’s essay collection, No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017), is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Dan Chiasson’s favorite poetry of 2017; the criticism and poetry of Fred Moten; the Christmas letters of J. R. R. Tolkein; and other news.
“I don’t believe in not believing in guilty pleasures.” This line, written by Elisa Gabbert in her essay “On the Pleasures of Front Matter” in the Paris Review, is one of Slate’s “19 Best Sentences of 2017.” Write a short story inspired by one of your favorite sentences from the year, perhaps read or heard in an essay, speech, social media post, poem, song, or work of fiction. You might decide to use it as the first or last line of the story, or allow your plotline or characterization to be more conceptually informed by your inferences of the sentence’s implications or mood.
After procrastinating and receiving wisdom from Obi Wan Cannoli, the Washington Post’s Ron Charles reveals his favorite novels of 2016 in less than two minutes, which include Annie Proulx’s Barkskins (Scribner, 2016), Imbolo Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers (Random House, 2016), and Michael Chabon’s Moonglow (HarperCollins, 2016).
James Patterson awards $350,000 in holiday bonuses to booksellers; Hanif Abdurraqib on the critic’s role; Rosmarie Waldrop closes Burning Deck press; and other news.
Best book covers of the year; women on the books that made them feminists; Bette Howland has died; and other news.
American Poetry Review editor David Bonanno has died; a new anthology of African American folktales; unpublished Zora Neale Hurston book to be released in May; and other news.
