Organizing the Bookshelves
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In this playful video a reader transforms his alphabetically ordered bookshelves into a literary display of the color spectrum.
Genre: Fiction
Deadline Extension for Women Fiction Writers
Another deadline extension came across our desks this week, for a story contest offering publication to a female-identified writer of any nationality.
Kore Press is now accepting submissions of stories, written in English and coming in at fewer than twelve thousand words, until November 30.
The winner will receive one thousand dollars and the winning work will be published as a chapbook by Kore Press, a Tucson, Arizona–based publisher of literature by women. The chapbooks are bound by hand and distributed via the press's website.
The writer who will select this year's winner has not yet been confirmed, but past judges include Tayari Jones, Antonya Nelson, and Leslie Marmon Silko.
For more information about how to submit a story, and to learn more about the mission of the press, visit the Kore website.
Moby-Dick in Pictures
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Inspired by Herman Melville's masterpiece, Ohio artist Matt Kish crafted an original piece of art for each page of Moby-Dick. The resulting collection was published in October by Tin House Books. Take a closer look at Kish's work in this issue's installment of The Written Image as well as the related slideshow, which features eleven images from Moby-Dick in Pictures.
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November 3
Write a story based on the following line: “I have bad news for you. You’ve been kidnapped.” Be sure to incorporate the line into the dialogue of the story.
Self-Publishing Forum Hosts Poetry and Fiction Contests
Celebrating the kickoff of National Novel Writing Month, the website HubPages, a sort of micro-blogging community, is holding a no-fee writing contest—for poets as well as fiction writers. Prizes of five hundred dollars, one hundred dollars, and fifty dollars will be given to writers in both genres, and one overall winner will be offered publication of a poetry or story collection via self-publishing outfit Smashwords (though editing of the manuscript is not part of the prize).
Writers are invited to create a HubPages login and then publish the works they wish to enter as "hubs," or short posts that are housed on the website under a variety of topic headings: poems and poetry, creative writing, and so on. Every post must be accompanied by a photo (a separate photo competition is also being held in conjunction with the writing contests).
The winners, to be announced on December 2, will be selected by judging panels made up of staff members and HubPages users pulled from the more than two-hundred-thousand registered with the site. Entries may be posted (with the tag "contest") until November 22.
Complete guidelines, including links to the profiles of each panelist, are available on the Hub Patron of the Arts web page.
Character Counts in Translated Fiction
Despite the average wired American’s tendency to downsize their character counts, the page counts of newly published books of translated fiction show that the rest of the global literary community may be beefing up.
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A Story Grows in Brooklyn
This fall the Brooklyn Film and Arts Festival is sponsoring a contest for stories and essays centered on the most populous borough of New York City. The organization is looking for "compelling Brooklyn stories from writers with a broad range of backgrounds and ages, who can render Brooklyn's rich soul and intangible qualities" using their actual experiences in Kings County as inspiration.
One prose writer, selected by a panel of Brooklyn authors, will receive a prize of four hundred dollars, and the winning piece will be published on the festival website. The winner will also be invited to give a reading at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights, near the borough's downtown area.
Story and essay entries, which should range from four to ten pages (up to twenty-five hundred words), should be submitted via e-mail by November 25. There is no entry fee. For more information, visit the Brooklyn Film and Arts Festival blog.
The video below is a trailer for some of last year's festival offerings, featuring shots of Brooklyn past and present.
How to Identify a First Edition
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Learn how to decipher the sometimes arcane methods that publishers use to label first editions (the language and lines of numbers on copyright pages) in this incredibly helpful video from AbeBooks.
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ReLit Awards Honor Canada's Indie Press Authors
The 2011 ReLit Awards, celebrating books of poetry and fiction by Canadian authors published with Canadian small presses, were announced last night at the Ottawa International Writers Festival. Presented along with signature rings featuring movable dials of type—a gift that almost didn't come to pass this year due to funding shortages—the awards' focus is on "ideas, not money" (no prize purse accompanies the honor).
The 2011 awards went to poet Dani Couture for Sweet and Craig Francis Power for his novel, Blood Relatives, both published by Toronto-based Pedlar Press. Tony Burgess won for his short story collection Ravenna Gets, from Anvil Press in Vancouver. The winning books were all published in 2010.
There is no entry fee for presses to submit books, which are due at the end of January each year. Visit the ReLit website for submission guidelines.
In the video below, Couture reads three poems from her winning book, including the title piece.
Zombies Attack Random House!
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The folks at Random House and its many imprints, including Knopf, Doubleday, Crown, and Vintage Books, have a little fun promoting Colson Whitehead's latest book, Zone One, a literary zombie novel published last week by Doubleday.
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