Genre: Poetry

Upcoming Contest Deadlines

G&A: The Contest Blog
9.15.23

Autumn begins with a bevy of contests for writers in all genres, including nineteen with a deadline of September 30. Half a dozen awards offer $5,000 or more and publication for full-length manuscripts of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and three have no entry fee. A prize of $15,000 is being offered for a book of fiction published during the current year; several prizes of $1,000 or more are offered for a single essay, story, or poem; and that’s not all! Good luck as you decide where to send your work!

Boulevard
Nonfiction Contest for Emerging Writers
A prize of $1,000 and publication in Boulevard is given annually for an essay by a writer who has not published a full-length book in any genre with a nationally distributed press. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $18.

California State University in Fresno
Philip Levine Prize for Poetry
A prize of $2,000, publication by Anhinga Press, and 25 author copies is given annually for a poetry collection. The winner will also be invited to give a public reading at California State University in Fresno. Douglas Kearney will judge. Entry fee: $25.

Connecticut Poetry Society
Vivian Shipley Poetry Award 
A prize of $1,000 and publication in Connecticut River Review and on the Connecticut Poetry Society website is given annually for a single poem. Antoinette Brim-Bell will judge. Entry fee: $15.

Dzanc Books
Short Story Collection Prize
A prize of $2,500 and publication by Dzanc Books is given annually for a story collection. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $25.

Dzanc Books
Prize for Fiction
A prize of $5,000 and publication by Dzanc Books is given annually for a novel. Mark Dunn, Alan Grostephan, and Julie Ann Stewart will judge. Entry fee: $25.

Ghost Story
Supernatural Fiction Award
A prize of $1,500 and publication on the Ghost Story website is given twice yearly for a short story with a supernatural or magic realist theme. The winning work will also be published in Volume III of the 21st Century Ghost Stories print anthology. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $20.

Hackney Literary Awards
Novel Contest
A prize of $5,000 is given annually for an unpublished novel. Entry fee: $30.

Lascaux Review
Prize in Creative Nonfiction
A prize of $1,000 is given annually for an essay. The winner and finalists will also be published on the Lascaux Review website. Previously published and unpublished essays are eligible. Entry fee: $15.

One Page
Poetry Contest
A prize of $2,000 will be given annually for a single poem. A second-place prize of $1,000 will also be given. Mark Graham, Monique Jonath, and Ann Tinkham will judge. Entry fee: $25.

PEN/Faulkner Foundation
Award for Fiction
A prize of $15,000 is given annually for a book of fiction published during the current year. Four finalists each receive $5,000. The winner and finalists will also be invited to read in Washington, D.C., in May 2024. Entry fee: $75.

The Moth
Nature Writing Prize
A prize of €1,000 (approximately $1,092) and online publication in Irish Times is given annually for a poem, a story, or an essay that features “an exploration of the writer’s relationship with the natural world.” The winner also receives a weeklong stay at the Circle of Misse artist’s retreat in Missé, France. Kathleen Jamie will judge. Entry fee: $16.

Texas Review Press: The University Press of SHSU
George Garrett Fiction Prize
A prize of $1,000, publication by Texas Review Press: The University Press of SHSU, and 20 author copies is given annually for a short story collection or novel. Entry fee: $28.

Texas Review Press: The University Press of SHSU
X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize
A prize of $10,000, publication by Texas Review Press: The University Press of SHSU, and 10 author copies is given annually for a poetry collection. Richard Blanco will judge. Entry fee: $28.

University of Arkansas Press
Miller Williams Poetry Prize
A prize of $5,000 and publication by University of Arkansas Press is given annually for a poetry collection. Patricia Smith will judge. Entry fee: $28.

University of Iowa Press
Iowa Short Fiction Award
Two prizes of publication by the University of Iowa Press are given annually for first collections of short fiction. Entry fee: None.

University of Mississippi
Willie Morris Award for Southern Nonfiction
A prize of $12,000 is given annually for a book of nonfiction published during the current year that asks readers “to engage with or reflect on the complexities of the American South.” The winner will also receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Oxford, Mississippi, for the awards ceremony in April 2024. Entry fee: None.

University of Mississippi
Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction
A prize of $12,000 is given annually for a novel published during the current year that asks readers “to engage with or reflect on the complexities of the American South.” The winner will also receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Oxford, Mississippi, for the awards ceremony in April 2024. Entry fee: None.

University of Mississippi
Willie Morris Award for Southern Poetry
A prize of $3,000 is given annually for a single poem that evokes the American South. The winner will also receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Oxford, Mississippi, for the awards ceremony in April 2024. Susan Kinsolving will judge. Entry fee: None.

Winning Writers
Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest
Two prizes of $3,000 each, two-year gift certificates for membership to the literary database Duotrope, and publication on the Winning Writers website are given annually for a poem in any style and a poem that either rhymes or is written in a traditional style. Briana Grogan, Michal “MJ” Jones, and Dare Williams will judge. Entry fee: $22.

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.

City Lights Live: Fred Moten With Douglas Kearney

Caption: 

In this virtual reading and conversation for the City Lights Live series, Douglas Kearney reads a series of poems in response to Fred Moten’s essay “Knowledge of Freedom” before introducing the poet who reads from his latest collection, Perennial Fashion Presence Falling (Wave Books, 2023).

Genre: 
Poetry
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Fred Moten
Perennial Fashion Presence Falling
Wave Books
Douglas Kearney
City Lights Bookstore
City Lights Live
2023
reading

Terrance Hayes in Conversation With Mary Karr

Caption: 

In this event recorded at the Brooklyn Heights Public Library and hosted by Books Are Magic, Terrance Hayes discusses his new poetry collection, So to Speak (Penguin Books, 2023), and his new essay collection, Watch Your Language: Visual and Literary Reflections on a Century of American Poetry (Penguin Books, 2023), with poet and memoirist Mary Karr.

Genre: 
Poetry
Creative Nonfiction
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Terrance Hayes
Mary Karr
Brooklyn Public Library
Books Are Magic
2023
So to Speak
Watch Your Language
Penguin Books
Page One
July/August 2023

Local News

The Time Is Now
9.12.23

In “Tenants,” the opening poem of Hannah Sullivan’s hybrid collection Was It for This (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023), the British poet contends with nursing a new baby a mile away from the Grenfell Tower in West London, a high-rise public housing building that tragically caught fire. The poem combines various viewpoints to address how local, public tragedies can affect private lives, such as accounts from firefighters, research from news reports, and descriptions of the building’s “crinkled, corrugated, lacy” façade. This week, research the local news of your city and write a poem centered around a recent headline. How does this news story affect your personal life? Does this exercise help you feel more connected to your community?

Rowan Ricardo Phillips on Altered States

Caption: 

“Poetry is the tempo of one’s temperament.” In this 2015 event for the House of SpeakEasy’s “Seriously Entertaining” series, Rowan Ricardo Phillips talks to a live audience about the nature of poetry and his memories of the 1980 film Altered States. Phillips discusses his role as editor of the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets in a Q&A in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Genre: 
Poetry
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Rowan Ricardo Phillips
House of SpeakEasy
2015
September/October 2023

Watchfulness

The Time Is Now
9.5.23

“Everybody looks at him playing / the machine hour after hour, / but he hardly raises his gold lashes,” writes Thom Gunn in his poem “Bally Power Play,” which appears in his collection The Passages of Joy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982). In the poem, an unnamed speaker describes the movements of a pinball player in a bar with a sense of close watchfulness and adoration. “He is / the cool source of all that hurry / and desperate activity, in control, / legs apart, braced arms apart, / seeming alive only at the ends,” writes Gunn. This week, write a poem that captures a scene in which your speaker is observing someone closely. Consider, as in Gunn’s poem, how descriptive language can create and match the rhythm of a subject’s movements. For more inspiration, read C. K. Williams’s poem “From My Window.”

Advice From Arthur Sze

Caption: 

“When you think you’re getting good, be humble. There’s no end to the learning.” In this video, Arthur Sze visits his high school, the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey, and offers advice from his years of experience as a poet. Sze is the recipient of the 2013 Jackson Poetry Prize and won the 2019 National Book Award in poetry for his collection Sight Lines (Copper Canyon Press, 2019).

Genre: 
Poetry
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Arthur Sze
writing advice
National Book Award
2019
Jackson Poetry Prize
2013

Upcoming Contest Deadlines

G&A: The Contest Blog
9.1.23

Are you an established writer developing a major creative project? Or perhaps an emerging or debut poet seeking to place your chapbook or full-length collection? Read on to learn about two prestigious fellowships and three poetry contests with application deadlines between September 14 and September 19. Both fellowships are open to poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers and offer $50,000 or more with no entry fee. All prizes awarded for poetry collections offer publication and $1,000 or more. We hope you share your work!

Harvard University
Radcliffe Institute Fellowships
Fellowships of $78,000 each, office space at the Radcliffe Institute, and access to the libraries at Harvard University are given annually to poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers to allow them to pursue creative projects. Fellows, who are expected to reside in Boston during the fellowship period, which lasts from September through May, also receive $5,000 to cover project expenses. Poets who have published a full-length collection or at least 20 poems in magazines or anthologies in the last five years and who are in the process of completing a manuscript are eligible. Fiction and creative nonfiction writers who have published one or more books, who have a book-length manuscript under contract for publication, or who have published at least three shorter works are eligible. Writers who are graduate students at the time of application are not eligible. Deadline: September 14. Entry fee: None.

Lightscatter Press
Poetry Prize
A prize of $1,000, 25 author copies, and multimodal publication by Lightscatter Press is given annually for a poetry collection written by an emerging writer. Hybrid works and multilingual texts that combine English with another language are eligible. Eduardo C. Corral will judge. Deadline: September 15. Entry fee: $30.

Finishing Line Press
New Women’s Voices Chapbook Competition  
A prize of $1,500 and publication by Finishing Line Press is given annually for a poetry chapbook by a writer who identifies as a woman and has not yet published a full-length collection. English translations of poems originally written in another language are accepted. Leah Huete de Maines will judge. Deadline: September 15. Entry fee: $20.

University of Wisconsin Press
Brittingham and Felix Pollak Prizes
Two prizes of $1,500 each and publication by University of Wisconsin Press are given annually for poetry collections. Additional finalists will be published in the press’s Wisconsin Poetry series. Deadline: September 15. Entry fee: $28.

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
Writing Fellowships
Fellowships of approximately $50,000 each are awarded annually to poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers on the basis of “exceptional creative ability.” Citizens and permanent residents of the United States and Canada with a “significant and appropriate record” of publication are eligible. Deadline: September 19. 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.

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