Artists' Residency: Monson Arts' Residency

Monson Arts’ residency program supports emerging and established artists and writers by providing them time and space to devote to their creative practices. During each of our 2-week and 4-week programs throughout the year, a cohort of 5 artists and 5 writers are invited to immerse themselves in small town life at the edge of Maine’s North Woods and focus intensely on their work within a creative and inspiring environment. They receive a private studio, private bedroom in shared housing, all meals, and $500 stipend ($250 for 2-week programs). The Abbott Watts Residency for Photography offers access to the photography studio and darkroom of Todd Watts in nearby Blanchard, adjacent to the former home of Berenice Abbott. Click here to read more about this unique opportunity specifically for photographers.

Applications for a residency at Monson Arts are open to anyone at any stage of their career, working in visual arts, writing, and related fields (i.e. audio, video, photography, woodworking, movement, screen and playwrights). Open calls for residency applications currently take place 3 times throughout the year with deadlines on January 15, May 15, and September 15. Each application period corresponds to specific residency offerings 3-6 months out.

Residents’ studios are located in newly renovated Main Street buildings that have been designed specifically for visual artists and writers. All of our studio spaces are outfitted to be as flexible as possible so that we can accommodate a variety of creative practices. Our visual arts studios are spacious and light-filled with large work tables and sinks. Shelving and portable storage carts are available as needed. Access is available to woodshop and metal shop facilities in nearby buildings for any fabrication needs. Our writing studios are comfortably furnished with work tables, office chairs, bookshelves, and reading chairs. For those working in time and sound based media: apply to the Writing category if quiet contemplation would be best for your project or the Visual Arts category if you need room and the opportunity to make and play sounds out loud.

Residents live in newly renovated historic homes throughout town, within walking distance to studios and everything that downtown Monson has to offer. These are mostly 3 bedroom structures that are fully furnished and comfortable all four seasons of the year. Houses all have shared kitchens, bathrooms, and common areas with laundry machines, telephone, and other amenities as well. Wifi is available in all of our buildings through high speed fiberoptic service.

Application Requirements include: 

• Up to 5 images / 5 minutes of media OR 5 pages of writing examples

• A letter of intent for your time at the residency

• C.V. or Resume (limited to 6000 characters)

• Two reference names

Spring

3/30 – 4/23 – Residency – (With Abbott Watts Resident)

4/27 – 5/21 – Residency

*5/26 – 6/5 – Residency – (With Abbott Watts Resident) 2 week residency (Tuesday start for memorial day)

Our next application period will be open December 1st – Jan 15th for residency sessions taking place in the Spring of 2026. 

More information and application portal here.

Call for Submissions: The Writing Disorder

 

The Writing Disorder 

CURRENT NEEDS:
Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction, Art, Reviews, Interviews, Comic Art and Experimental work.
We would like to see more poetry, long fiction, nonfiction, artwork, reviews and interviews.

FICTION & NONFICTION:
“Welcome all. We are open to content and subject matter. Please send us your best work. We seek traditional as well as experimental submissions. Our staff enjoys reading all kinds of work. As always, there is no limit on word count.” — C.E. Lukather, Editor

POETRY:
“A new season, a new issue, a new crop of poetry. As your poetry editor it is my pleasure to offer this harvest. This harvest which is impossible without you. Impossible without your careful crafting, grafting, sowing of words. Without your words nestled like seeds on the paper, peas on a page. So send us your free verse, your experimental, your form. Send us the flowers, the fruit, and the hay.” — Juliana Woodhead, Poetry Editor

ARTWORK:
We showcase artists and photographers as well. Features typically include 10-15 images (minimum 1200 pixels wide, 100 ppi, RGB, jpeg files) Include artist statement, bio, links to work, list of shows, and titles of art. We can also include video or audio clips.

MANUSCRIPTS:
We are currently accepting manuscripts of nonfiction work for publication: biographies, autobiographies and unusual life stories. For more information, please contact us at: 

info@thewritingdisorder.com 

FORMAT:
The Writing Disorder accepts Microsoft Word document (storytitle.doc or .docx) submissions by email. However, we can’t promise that it’s going to look exactly the way you had it (we are Mac users). Please attach it to your email.

NOTE: Please include your last name in the title of your Word document.
Send your fiction, nonfiction and artwork to:

submit@thewritingdisorder.com 

Send your poetry to:

poetry@thewritingdisorder.com 

Our Submission Policy
The Writing Disorder is published four times a year: new issues are posted at the beginning of Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.

Needs:
We seek work of the highest quality, but do not have specific guidelines for style or subject matter. Check our website before submitting for any announcements. Although we look for short stories and poetry, we also publish personal essays and memoirs. Novel excerpts are acceptable, if self-contained. Reviews, nonfiction pieces, humor, comic art, and criticism are also welcome. And we love experimental work. For poetry, please submit THREE to EIGHT poems. Also, let us know what type of work you are submitting. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell whether a piece is fiction or nonfiction.

Format:
Submit one prose piece or three to eight poems. A notation of publications and awards, if any, is helpful. Poems should be individually typed either single- or double-spaced on one side of the page. Prose should be typed double-spaced on one side and can be as many pages as you need.

Deadline:
Our reading period is all year long. Submit your work at any time during this period; if a manuscript is not timely for one issue, it may be considered for another.

Submitting Your Work:
Send only one manuscript at a time online. Do not send duplicate or multiple submissions. There is a limit of four total submissions per writer per reading period (season), regardless of genre, whether it is by mail or online. Do not send a second submission until you’ve heard about the first. We cross-reference our database periodically, and if we find more than one active submission, or a fifth submission (or more) during the reading period, all submissions will be immediately rejected unread. Simultaneous submissions to other journals are amenable as long as they are indicated as such and we are notified immediately upon acceptance elsewhere.

NOTE: We accept previously published work—as long as it is not currently available online.

Submissions by Email:

Email one file to:

submit@thewritingdisorder.com

— containing one prose piece or three to eight poems. If you have a legitimate association with a staff editor you may address that editor by name in your email. You should also include a brief citation of publications and awards (less than 50 words), if any. A longer citation of credits or a cover letter may be included as the first page of your submission document. Submissions must be sent as a Word (.doc or .docx) file. Any files that don’t adhere to our guidelines will be withdrawn from consideration. In general, you will receive a faster response by email versus by regular mail.

Call for Submissions: Prism Review

 

We are open--send great work!

Generally, all accepted authors are paid, and all non-contest submissions are considered for our $200 Staff Choice Award: an accepted submission chosen by our staff as best embodying two things we love and respect about writing: stylistic ambition and social engagement. One author each issue will receive this award, announced with the issue's release (usually in May).

As always: we hope to read your very best, we're excited to read it, and we want more, we hope for more, we quietly plead for/demand more. Simply: we love great literature, especially literature that is urgent and/or strange, and we love all voices, be they new, emerging, or established - certainly those from underrepresented groups. We always put samples from past issues on our homepage if you'd like to get a sense of our sensibilities.

Note: Submissions are being read for our spring 2026 issue. They must be previously unpublished, and simultaneous submissions are totally fine (but please withdraw accepted pieces immediately; the lack of this practice has increased far too much for us lately). Only one submission (in any genre) at a time.

Note 2.0: We generally charge a two dollar fee so that we can do something we hope all agree is a good thing: pay all our authors, at least $40 per writer; usually we have free submission windows in early Dec and May ... and during most of June and July, we're happy to provide free submissions to any authors who self-identify as being from underrepresented or minoritized communities or simply can't afford the $2 fee. Just email our editor at:

sbernard (at) laverne (dot) edu (Change (at) to @ and (dot) to . )

for more information.

-->Excepting the student contest, current students and employees of the University of La Verne are not eligible to submit. Sorry!

Note 3.0: We are not Prism International, a fantastic journal in Canada.

Submit your work here. 

Call for Submissions: Ninth Letter

Ninth Letter accepts submissions to our print issues between Sept. 1 – Feb. 28.

Genre Guidelines:

For poetry, please submit 3-5 poems (max. 8 pages) at a time.

For fiction and creative nonfiction, submit one story or essay up to 8,000 words at a time. For flash, you may submit up to 3 pieces with a total word count totaling no more than 4,000 words.

If you classify your work as “hybrid,” please submit to the genre category you feel your submission most closely applies. You are welcome to leave a note in the cover letter field with any details you think our reading team would find helpful. We will make sure your submission gets to the right team and receives the attention and consideration it deserves.

Submission Fee:

We charge a $3 reading fee. Fees are waived from December 1-31 or until we hit our cap of 300 submissions per genre.

Fee Waivers:

A limited number of fee waivers are available for writers for whom the submission fee would present undue financial hardship. Please send a short email to:

ninthletter9@gmail.com 

to request a fee waiver. No proof of income or other sensitive information is required.

Publication Terms & Payment:

Ninth Letter pays $25 per poem and $100 for prose upon publication and two complimentary copies of the issue in which the work appears. Contributors also receive an exclusive subscription discount offer at the time of acceptance. Ninth Letter acquires First North American Serial Rights (FNASR). We ask that you acknowledge Ninth Letter upon reprint of your work.

Response Time:

We strive to respond to your submission within six months. Please wait until that time has elapsed before querying about the status of your submission.

Submit your work here.

Call for Submissions: The Lemonwood Quarterly

 

What to Submit

The Lemonwood Quarterly seeks the best English language short stories and plays we can find. We do not publish poetry, flash fiction, nonfiction prose, book reviews, or interviews. We are looking for superbly written stories and play pieces between 2,000 and 10,000 words. Please submit a double-spaced Word document.

We especially seek out stories with female protagonists who are well into adulthood. There’s no minimum age requirement, but if your protagonist is not at least over thirty years old or so, it could be difficult for them to carry forward the type of stories we aim to publish. We definitely are not looking for coming-of-age stories. We are excited to showcase stories with protagonists who have already passed through those earlier milestones or hurdles and are at a different point in their life.

Who Should Submit

We welcome and encourage submissions from writers of every gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and nationality —including writers without fancy degrees or previously published work, and whose perspectives might be underrepresented in the literary world. Please do not send us work that includes machine-generated or AI text.

How to Submit

We accept only online submissions through the link below. Please do not send us emails or hard copies of your manuscripts. An online submission fee of $4 to help cover administrative costs is required to complete your submission.

Submissions are read anonymously, so please do not include your name anywhere on the word document itself. You will provide your identifying information in the submission form.

When to Submit

Our magazine is quarterly, so we are frequently considering new submissions. Our submission period may close if we reach our submissions capacity, so submit early. Please submit only one story or play at a time and wait to hear back from us before submitting again. We aim to respond within one to six months. If your story is selected for publication, please wait until the issue with your piece has been published before submitting another story. If your story is rejected, please send us new work; do not resubmit previously rejected stories.

Simultaneous Submissions to other Publications are fine, but please indicate in your submissions form that the work has been submitted to another journal. If work that you have submitted to us is accepted elsewhere, please notify us immediately via our contact form to withdraw your submission.

All work should be previously unpublished in any form, including online, in blogs, or in print.

Translations are accepted. Translators should acquire translation rights from the copyright holder before submitting. In the submission form, in addition to your translation and your own information, you will be asked for a copy of the original work, the author’s name, the work’s original title, a note stating the original language in which it was written, as well as a short bio about the author.

Revisions

Please send us your work in its final fully edited form. We do not have the staff available to consider individual revisions. If you feel you must revise, please contact us via the contact form to withdraw your submission, and resubmit the newly edited piece. It may take several days for your withdraw request to be processed.

Refunds of the submission fee cannot be made after the piece has been submitted, even if you need to withdraw the work. If you withdraw a submission and you want to submit a different piece, you cannot swap them out; you must make a new submission.

Compensation to Authors for their Work 

• The Lemonwood Quarterly pays all of our contributors a flat rate. The current rate is $200 for every story or play published in our magazine.  

• All stories published by us in the calendar year are automatically entered for consideration for the $1000 Charlotte Ann Porter Prize for Fiction.  

• All dramatic pieces published in The Lemonwood Quarterly in a given calendar year are automatically entered in the running for the $500 Hononegah Mack Prize for the Best Play.  

• We will nominate as many pieces as we can to annual literary prizes such as The Pushcart Prize, The O. Henry Award and The Best American Short Stories.  

• Contributing authors will be featured on our website and will have the opportunity to submit an updated bio, a photo, and any links to their social media.  

• Authors will receive a contract upon acceptance and payment upon publication. The Lemonwood Quarterly’s publishing agreement includes the following rights: First worldwide electronic publication rights; non-exclusive online rights on our website, and other limited rights. Copyright is retained by the author. Authors are free to resell the work, although we do ask for a 90-day exclusive from our first publication of the work. We ask that whenever an author reprints a piece that first appeared in our magazine, The Lemonwood Quarterly is given acknowledgement as the work’s original publisher. 

Submit your work here. 

Call for Submissions on Theme of "The Great Unknown": Wild Greens

Wild Greens is looking to publish art, commentary, essays, poetry, short fiction, handmade items, and music for our January issue.

The theme is "The Great Unknown."

Grab your hat and your scarf and embark on a journey toward the inviting horizon. Does a better tomorrow await? Take the plunge into the endless possibilities of what could be.

Submissions open through December 15. 

Submit your work here. 

Writing Competition: The Richard Mathews Prize for Poetry

The Richard Mathews Prize for Poetry

Book Publication • $2,000 Award
Selected Poems published in Tampa Review

1. Manuscripts must be previously unpublished. Some or all of the poems in the collection may have appeared in periodicals, chapbooks, or anthologies, but these must be identified.

2. Manuscripts must be at least 48 typed pages; we prefer a length of 60-100 pages but will also consider submissions falling outside this range. Manuscript pages should be consecutively numbered.

3. Entries should include a separate title page with author’s name, address, phone number, and e-mail address (if available).

4. Entries must include a table of contents and a separate acknowledgments page (or pages) identifying prior publication credits.

5. Submissions are due December 31. Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but the University of Tampa Press must be notified immediately if the manuscript is accepted elsewhere.

6. A nonrefundable handling fee of $25 is required for each manuscript submitted. Submissions are not complete until this fee has been sent using any major credit card via our secure online service. (There is an additional small electronic payment processing fee.)

7. The winning entry will be announced in the subsequent fall. Online submissions will be acknowledged by email.

8. All entries receive one free issue of Tampa Review. (Mailed to any U.S. address; international subscribers will receive a digital issue.)

9. Judging is conducted in accord with the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses Contest Code of Ethics by the editors of Tampa Review. Submissions are not accepted from current faculty or students at the University of Tampa. Editors will recuse themselves from judging entries from close friends and associates to avoid conflicts of interest.

Submit your entry here.