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In this event celebrating Sandra Cisneros, winner of the 2023 Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation’s Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award, the author reads from her latest poetry collection, Woman Without Shame (Knopf, 2022), and speaks about her writing career with Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden.
While you’re hibernating through subzero temperatures, why not try your luck with over a dozen contests offering publication, money, travel, and even mentorship? Prizes include $5,000 and publication in Chautauqua for a work of fiction or nonfiction by an emerging writer who displays “daring formal and aesthetic innovations,” fellowships of up to $2,000 to support feminist fiction writers, and $1,500 along with a virtual five-month mentorship program for emerging poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers “from communities that are traditionally underrepresented in the publishing world.” Stay warm, folks, and send out your work!
Arts + Literature Laboratory
Edna Meudt Poetry Book Award
A prize of $1,000 will be given annually for a poetry collection published in the previous year by a writer who is a resident of Wisconsin (or who previously resided in Wisconsin for at least five years). The winner will also receive a five-day stay at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. Gabrielle Bates will judge. Entry fee: $30.
Arts + Literature Laboratory
Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award
A prize of $1,000 will be given annually for a book of fiction published in the previous year by a writer who is a resident of Wisconsin (or who previously resided in Wisconsin for at least five years). The winner will also receive a five-day stay at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. Alison Stine will judge. Entry fee: $30.
Arts + Literature Laboratory
Norbert Blei/August Derleth Nonfiction Book Award
A prize of $1,000 will be given annually for a book of nonfiction (including creative nonfiction) published in the previous year by a writer who is a resident of Wisconsin (or who previously resided in Wisconsin for at least five years). The winner will also receive a five-day stay at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. Sonya Huber will judge. Entry fee: $30.
Black Lawrence Press
Big Moose Prize
A prize of $1,000, publication by Black Lawrence Press, and 10 author copies is given annually for a novel. The contest is open to traditional novels as well as “novels-in-stories, novels-in-poems, and other hybrid forms that contain within them the spirit of a novel.” The editors will judge. Entry fee: $28.
Chautauqua Institution
Chautauqua Janus Prize
A prize of $5,000 and publication in Chautauqua is given annually for a single work of fiction or nonfiction by an emerging writer displaying “daring formal and aesthetic innovations that upset and reorder readers’ imaginations.” The winner also receives a $2,000 travel and lodging stipend to give a lecture at the Chautauqua Institution in summer 2024. Writers who have not published a book of over 15,000 words in any prose genre are eligible. Submissions may consist of unpublished work or work published no earlier than April 2023. Jimin Han will judge. Entry fee: $20.
Ghost Story
Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition
A prize of $1,000 and publication on the Ghost Story website and in the 21st Century Ghost Stories anthology is given biannually for a work of flash fiction with a supernatural or magical realist theme. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $15.
Inlandia Institute
Eliud Martínez Prize
A prize of $1,000 and publication by Inlandia Books is given annually for a book of fiction or creative nonfiction by a writer who identifies as Hispanic, Latino/a/e/x, or Chicana/o/e/x. Manuscripts must be written primarily in English. Fee waivers are available upon request. Entry fee: $15.
Iowa Review
Iowa Review Awards
Three prizes of $1,500 each and publication in Iowa Review are given annually for works of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. All entries are considered for publication. Entry fee: $20.
Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund
Individual Artist Grants for Women
Grants of up to $2,000 each are given in alternating years to feminist poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers who are citizens of the United States or Canada. This year grants will be awarded to fiction writers. English translations of works originally written in another language are accepted. A limited number of fee waivers are available upon request. Entry fee: $25.
New Millennium Writings
New Millennium Writing Awards
Four prizes of $1,000 each and publication in New Millennium Writings in print and online are given biannually for a single poem, a short story, a work of flash fiction, and a work of creative nonfiction. Previously unpublished works or works that have either appeared in a journal with a circulation under 5,000 or have been published only online are eligible. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $20.
PEN America
Emerging Voices Fellowship
Twelve fellowships of $1,500 each and participation in a virtual five-month mentorship program, which includes one-on-one mentorship with an established writer; introductions to editors, agents, and publishers; a professional headshot; and a one-year PEN America membership, are given annually to emerging poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers “from communities that are traditionally underrepresented in the publishing world.” Fellows also participate in workshops on editing, marketing, and building a professional platform. Writers who have not yet published a book and who do not hold an advanced degree in creative writing are eligible. Entry fee: $25.
Poetry Northwest
James Welch Prize for Indigenous Poets
Two prizes of $1,000 each and publication in Poetry Northwest are given annually for a single poem by an Indigenous poet. The winners also receive an all-expenses-paid trip to read with the judge at Poets House in New York City in the fall. Writers who have published no more than one full-length book and who are community-recognized members of tribal nations within the United States and its territories are eligible. A Native poet of national prominence will judge. All entries are considered for publication. Entry fee: None.
Regal House Publishing
Terry J. Cox Poetry Award
A prize of $1,000 and publication by Regal House Publishing is given annually for a poetry collection. John Warner Smith will judge. Entry fee: $25.
Schaffner Press
Nicholas Schaffner Award for Music in Literature
A prize of $1,000 and publication by Schaffner Press is given annually for a poetry collection, a novel, a story collection, an essay collection, or a memoir that “deals in some way with the subject of music and its influence.” English translations of works originally written in another language with the author’s permission are accepted. Entry fee: $25.
Stanford Libraries
William Saroyan International Prize for Writing
Two prizes of $5,000 each are given biennially for books of fiction and nonfiction published in the previous two years. The awards, cosponsored by the Stanford Libraries and the William Saroyan Foundation, are “intended to encourage new or emerging writers and honor the Saroyan legacy of originality, vitality, and stylistic innovation.” Writers who have published up to three books are eligible. Entry fee: $50.
swamp pink
Writing Prizes
Three prizes of $2,000 each and publication in swamp pink are given annually for a single poem, a short story, and an essay. All entries are considered for publication. Entry fee: $15.
WOMR/WFMR Community Radio
Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest
A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a single poem. Marge Piercy will judge. Entry fee: $15.
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.
In this 2023 London Review of Books event, Emily Wilson reads from and discusses her translation of The Iliad by Homer, published in September by Norton, and how she wishes to present Homer to a new generation in a conversation with classicist and historian Edith Hall. Passages from Wilson’s translation are also read by actors Tobias Menzies and Juliet Stevenson.
What’s going to be popular in 2024? Trend forecasters are busy making predictions for the fads of the near future, from what we’ll wear to what we’ll eat. The Food Network predicts the rise in popularity of white chocolate, the expansion of boba tea flavors in desserts, and sake becoming the “it” drink, while Food & Wine magazine reports on fashionable food brand-related merch, ruffle-edged Cresto di Gallo as the “pasta shape of the year,” herbal liqueurs, and sweet and sour as the reigning flavor. Write a poem about a past, current, or future food trend. Are you on board or skeptical? Have fun with food vocabulary and play around with sounds and rhythms that match your selection.
“I tend to expect the path to be straightforward. It seldom is.” —Kimberly Blaeser, author of Ancient Light
Joshua Burton reads from his debut poetry collection, Grace Engine (University of Wisconsin Press, 2023), for this Splice Poetry Series reading at the Saturn Bar in New Orleans with poet Nikki Ummel. Burton is featured in “Performing the Future: Our Nineteenth Annual Look at Debut Poets” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Emerging Latinx poets: Start the new year off ambitiously by submitting to the biennial Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize, administered by the Huizache Literary Initiative at University of California in Davis, by February 16! The winning poet receives $1,000, publication by University of Nevada Press as part of its New Oeste Series, and an invitation to give a reading with the contest judge at UC Davis.
Using only the online submission system, submit 48 to 100 pages of poetry. Latinx poets residing in the United States who have neither published, nor have committed to publish, a full-length collection are eligible. Juan Felipe Herrera will judge. There is no entry fee.
Established in 2004 by Letras Latinas at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies “at a time when publishing opportunities for Latinx poets were few,” the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize has given exposure to poets with a wide variety of backgrounds and aesthetic approaches throughout its 20-year trajectory. When he first conceived of the prize, founder Francisco Aragón drew inspiration from Montoya’s The Iceworker Sings and Other Poems (Bilingual Press, 1999), a collection of urban elegies, prayers, and letters that touch on the poet’s experience as an ice plant worker and address the precarious conditions of a modern world divided by race and class. Most recently, Jordan Pérez won the prize for Santa Tarantula (University of Notre Dame Press, 2024), selected by Alexandra Lytton Regalado and Sheila Maldonado for the ways in which the poet “assembles her poems as shadowboxes, curious collections of the natural world, bible stories, and family memories” that account for “the everyday of a Latinx life in the South.”
In this virtual reading celebrating Carolina Hotchandani’s debut collection, The Book Eaters (Perugia Press, 2023), special guest poets Jennifer K. Sweeney, Lynne Thompson, and Catherine Barnett read a selection of poems and join in on a conversation about craft and writing. Hotchandani is featured in “Performing the Future: Our Nineteenth Annual Look at Debut Poets” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Every year, Project Censored, an anti-censorship and media literacy advocacy organization, releases their State of the Free Press yearbook, highlighting the past year’s most significant independent journalism. This year’s book, published in December by Seven Stories Press, emphasizes the dangers of corporate media and the shuttering of community newspapers, which leave many communities without a reliable source of local information. Do some digging online or at a local library for a news story in your city from the past year, perhaps something that didn’t make national news. Write a poem inspired by your experience of zeroing in on the value of something small, ordinary, and regionally specific.
In this 2023 Green Apple Books event, Sally Wen Mao reads from her third poetry collection, The Kingdom of Surfaces (Graywolf Press, 2023), and discusses the history of Chinese women in America, the influence of Anne Anlin Cheng’s book Ornamentalism, and the urgent need for Asian literary imagination in a conversation with Cathy Park Hong.
