Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.
Find a home for your poems, stories, essays, and reviews by researching the publications vetted by our editorial staff. In the Literary Magazines database you’ll find editorial policies, submission guidelines, contact information—everything you need to know before submitting your work to the publications that share your vision for your work.
Whether you’re pursuing the publication of your first book or your fifth, use the Small Presses database to research potential publishers, including submission guidelines, tips from the editors, contact information, and more.
Research more than one hundred agents who represent poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers, plus details about the kinds of books they’re interested in representing, their clients, and the best way to contact them.
Find publishers ready to read your work now with our Open Reading Periods page, a continually updated resource listing all the literary magazines and small presses currently open for submissions.
Since our founding in 1970, Poets & Writers has served as an information clearinghouse of all matters related to writing. While the range of inquiries has been broad, common themes have emerged over time. Our Top Topics for Writers addresses the most popular and pressing issues, including literary agents, copyright, MFA programs, and self-publishing.
Our series of subject-based handbooks (PDF format; $4.99 each) provide information and advice from authors, literary agents, editors, and publishers. Now available: The Poets & Writers Guide to Publicity and Promotion, The Poets & Writers Guide to the Book Deal, The Poets & Writers Guide to Literary Agents, The Poets & Writers Guide to MFA Programs, and The Poets & Writers Guide to Writing Contests.
Poets & Writers lists readings and other literary events held online and in person. Whether you are an author on a book tour or the curator of a reading series, the Literary Events Calendar can help you find your audience.
Research newspapers, magazines, websites, and other publications that consistently publish book reviews using the Review Outlets database, which includes information about publishing schedules, submission guidelines, fees, and more.
Well over ten thousand poets and writers maintain listings in this essential resource for writers interested in connecting with their peers, as well as editors, agents, and reading series coordinators looking for authors. Apply today to join the growing community of writers who stay in touch and informed using the Poets & Writers Directory.
Since our founding in 1970, Poets & Writers has served as an information clearinghouse of all matters related to writing. While the range of inquiries has been broad, common themes have emerged over time. Our Top Topics for Writers addresses the most popular and pressing issues, including literary agents, copyright, MFA programs, and self-publishing.
Find a writers group to join or create your own with Poets & Writers Groups. Everything you need to connect, communicate, and collaborate with other poets and writers—all in one place.
Well over ten thousand poets and writers maintain listings in this essential resource for writers interested in connecting with their peers, as well as editors, agents, and reading series coordinators looking for authors. Apply today to join the growing community of writers who stay in touch and informed using the Poets & Writers Directory.
Find information about more than two hundred full- and low-residency programs in creative writing in our MFA Programs database, which includes details about deadlines, funding, class size, core faculty, and more. Also included is information about more than fifty MA and PhD programs.
Whether you are looking to meet up with fellow writers, agents, and editors, or trying to find the perfect environment to fuel your writing practice, the Conferences & Residencies is the essential resource for information about well over three hundred writing conferences, writers residencies, and literary festivals around the world.
Poets & Writers lists readings and other literary events held online and in person. Whether you are an author on a book tour or the curator of a reading series, the Literary Events Calendar can help you find your audience.
Discover historical sites, independent bookstores, literary archives, writing centers, and writers spaces in cities across the country using the Literary Places database—the best starting point for any literary journey, whether it’s for research or inspiration.
From in-person events held in cities across the country to virtual events available to all, Poets & Writers Live offers a more tangible connection to the community of writers through celebrations of authors featured in the pages of Poets & Writers Magazine, including readings and conversations with the debut authors in our annual debut poets roundup, First Fiction, The New Nonfiction, and 5 Over 50 and acclaimed authors such as Garth Greenwell, Douglas Kearney, Karen Russell, and Clint Smith.
Establish new connections and enjoy the company of your peers using our searchable databases of MFA programs and writers retreats, apply to be included in our directory of writers, and more.
Each year the Readings & Workshops program provides support to hundreds of writers participating in literary readings and conducting writing workshops. Learn more about this program, our special events, projects, and supporters, and how to contact us.
The Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award introduces emerging writers to the New York City literary community, providing them with a network for professional advancement.
Poets & Writers is pleased to provide free subscriptions to Poets & Writers Magazine to award-winning young writers and to high school creative writing teachers for use in their classrooms.
Find information about how Poets & Writers provides support to hundreds of writers participating in literary readings and conducting writing workshops.
Bring the literary world to your door—at half the newsstand price. Available in print and digital editions, Poets & Writers Magazine is a must-have for writers who are serious about their craft.
View the covers and contents of every issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, from the current edition all the way back to the first black-and-white issue in 1987.
Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.
Every day the editors of Poets & Writers Magazine scan the headlines—publishing reports, literary dispatches, academic announcements, and more—for all the news that creative writers need to know.
In our weekly series of craft essays, some of the best and brightest minds in contemporary literature explore their craft in compact form, articulating their thoughts about creative obsessions and curiosities in a working notebook of lessons about the art of writing.
The Time Is Now offers weekly writing prompts in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction to help you stay committed to your writing practice throughout the year. Sign up to get The Time Is Now, as well as a weekly book recommendation for guidance and inspiration, delivered to your inbox.
Ads in Poets & Writers Magazine and on pw.org are the best ways to reach a readership of serious poets and literary prose writers. Our audience trusts our editorial content and looks to it, and to relevant advertising, for information and guidance.
Start, renew, or give a subscription to Poets & Writers Magazine; change your address; check your account; pay your bill;
report a missed issue; contact us.
Poets & Writers is pleased to provide free subscriptions to Poets & Writers Magazine to award-winning young writers and to high school creative writing teachers for use in their classrooms.
Read select articles from the award-winning magazine and consult the most comprehensive listing of literary grants and awards, deadlines, and prizewinners available in print.
The telephone was put in ten years ago–the first he’d ever allowed. A great deal of energy had been spent resisting connection with the outside world when it was not of his
choosing!Now, here he was, practically an invalid.His legs hardly worked now.The two elegant brass animal headed canes with which he used to play the Victorian ‘bon vivant’ were now unwieldy
sticks he could hardly count on.His bent height and portly but still handsome figure had become to him a Galapagos turtle-like shell serving as protection from close encounters–even as it was
A copy of Through the Looking Glass inscribed to Alice herself has sold at auction; the shipping date for new Nook orders has been pushed to February; Google Editions partners can now adjust their settings; an indie bookstore and publisher in NYC is closed until further notice; and other news.
Underwater New York, an online literary and arts anthology fascinated with the hidden treasures of New York City’s waterways, has teamed with Manhattan’s American Folk Art Museum to offer its first story prize. Stories submitted for the contest must be on the theme of a New York City shipwreck—real or imagined, though actual remnants of about one hundred seventy broken vessels inhabit the waters off the city’s coast, according to the Underwater New York Web site, which hosts a gallery of wreck paintings and photos for inspiration.
The winning work will be published in Underwater New York and the writer will be invited to present his or her story at the American Folk Art Museum on March 5, 2010, accompanied by shipwreck-themed readings and music and the exhibit Thomas Chambers (1808–1869): American Maritime and Landscape Painter. There is no cash award, but there isn’t an entry fee, either. The deadline is February 12, and full submission information is available on thepublication's contest page.
If you’re in the know about other free, place-based literary contests such as this one, drop us a comment, or e-mail us at [email protected].
In the video below, Underwater New York celebrates the launch of its Web site.
Kobo has plans for an e-reader; a campaign is underway to give Ted Hughes a place in Westminster Abbey; the new iPhone app from Opium features Jack Handey of SNL fame; the relative cheapness of books makes them Americans’ fourth-favorite entertainment; and other news.
The Poetry Foundation has compiled its 2009 best-seller list; an amateur artist is illustrating Moby-Dick, page by page; literary agents are gaining acceptance in French publishing circles; Laredo could start the new year as the nation’s largest city without a bookstore; and other news.
Earlier this week the Jentel Foundation, sponsor of the Jentel Artist Residency Program, and the Pushcart Prize announced that they have teamed up to grant three residencies to winners of the annual award, which honors poems, stories, essays, and "literary whatnot" nominated by magazines and small presses. This year's recipients of monthlong residencies in the Bighorn Mountains of Sheridan, Wyoming, are Heidi Hart of Salt Lake City and New Yorkers Beena Kamlani and Tom Sleigh.
The residents were chosen from a pool of entries sent in by thirty Pushcart winners who were invited to apply by Pushcart Press editor Bill Henderson. Jim Charleton, a member of the Pushcart board and the application panel of Jentel’s residency program, selected the winners.
The nomination period has closed for the 2009 Pushcart Prizes. The next deadline for presses and magazines to submit outstanding works—all published in 2010—is December 1 of next year.
Jentel is currently accepting applications for its May through December residencies until January 15. U.S. writers who are at least twenty-five years old are eligible for monthlong stays, which include a private room and work space. Each resident also receives a four-hundred-dollar stipend.
The room is so still, so quiet, that I can hear the katydids
far away, through the open window. My pink and yellow blanket, with the satin trim, is smooth and tucked in all around me on my parent’s big bed. My favorite cuddly doll and my brown teddy
And that bicycle was a MONARCH.No, not the butterfly, but the Cadillac of
bicycles.Even better than a
Schwinn.Beautiful color—aqua blue with
white pin striping.What a beauty she
was.
New Jersey’s largest newspaper has a new publisher; France will fund a public-private partnership to digitize its cultural archives; Borders UK is set to close next week; an independent bookstore in NYC is getting a new lease on life; and other news.
