Writing Competition and Call for Submissions: Hot Metal Bridge

General Submissions 

 

Hot Metal Bridge wants your work. Send us your best fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and visual art. We’re looking for aesthetically beautiful and emotionally challenging works that search for deeper truth in the human experience. We’re looking for strong and compelling narratives. We’re looking for works that will haunt us, keep us up at night, and make us laugh – in short, something real and vital. Take risks. Surprise us. 

 

Please submit only one story or essay (6,000-word limit), up to five poems compiled in one document, or eight images at a time. 

 

Work will be accepted from January 15, 2016 through April 1, 2016. Submit here. No fee to submit.
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Spring 2016 Social Justice Writing Contest 

 

Hot Metal Bridge is accepting submissions for our social justice writing contest. Please read the genre-specific calls at our website. 

 

Entry fee: None. (Suggested $3 tip jar or donate here.) 

 

Deadline: March 25th, 2016
Prizes: Winners of each genre will receive $50 and publication in the contest section of our magazine; Runner-up will earn publication 

 

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Sara Button & Nina Sabak
Editors-in-Chief
Hot Metal Bridge

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Call for Submissions: Front Porch Journal

Submissions link. 

Front Porch Journal, the online literary journal of Texas State University’s MFA program, is celebrating its 10th anniversary.

We’re searching for your best works: stories, essays, poems, flash, artwork, and graphic narratives.

Published three times a year, each issue of Front Porch highlights the work of both emerging and established writers, alongside book reviews and interviews with authors such as recent National Book Award winners Adam Johnson and Terrance Hayes. We also feature videos from Texas State’s visiting writers series, including authors such as Jennifer Egan, Amy Hempel, Phillip Lopate, Natalie Diaz, Daniel Orozco, Margaret Atwood, Allen Ginsberg, and many more.

We accept submissions on a rolling basis and strive to keep response times short. Please spread the word to your colleagues, cohorts, and students, and send us your work!

Thanks,
Eric Blankenburg and Heather Lefebvre
Managing Editors

Call for Submissions: Phantom Drift: A Journal of New Fabulism

Phantom Drift: A Journal of New Fabulism is seeking submissions for issue #6.

 

Submission period: January 1 – March 31 for issue to be published October 1, 2016. 

 

We’re looking for flash fiction, short stories, poetry and prose poems, which readers might label as new weird, slipstream and/or fabulist/fantastic—outstanding work difficult to categorize.

 

We pay on publication ($5 per page, minimum $10). Short fiction up to 6500 words, poems up to 120 lines. Also seeking critical essays and interviews up to 5000 words focused on emerging and neglected fabulist/fantastic writers.

 

Submissions can be made through our website. There are no submission fees.

Call for Submissions from Undergraduates: Sink Hollow

Sink Hollow, the national undergraduate literary journal at Utah State University, is seeking provocative, resonant, polished pieces of undergraduate work for its debut issue to be published in spring 2016. We accept all original fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and art.

 

All students currently enrolled as undergraduates at two- and four-year colleges and universities are invited to submit! 

 

Deadline: March 1, 2016

 

Please visit our website for more information. Submit here.

Call for Submissions to Anthology: [Not] The End: Prison Stories

[Not] The End: Prison Stories

 

In Hollywood, as the cliche goes, "The End" means the bad guys go to jail and that's the end of the story. It's easy to stop thinking about the lives that go on in prison, unless of course you are the ones living there, or have loved ones who are.

 

This is a collection of stories and poems about life in and after prison, that will remind readers of the humanity of people who are incarcerated, and the fact that we really are all in this together. We are mainly looking for stories from prisoners themselves, although submissions from family members and loved ones will also be considered. 

 

All entries should have a title. Please include name and contact info on your submission.

 

 Emailed entries can be sent to:

 

 jenniferATtuliptreepubDOTcom

 

Handwritten/mailed entries can be mailed to:

 

TulipTree Publishing 

PO Box 787 

Sterling, CO 80751 

 

Deadline: February 29, 2016

Call for Poetry Submissions to Anthology: Undead: A Poetry Anthology of Ghouls, Ghosts, and More

Apex Publications seeks submissions for Undead: A Poetry Anthology of Ghouls, Ghosts, and More.

Editors Bianca Lynne Spriggs and Katerina Stoykova-Klemer welcome your specters, apparitions, zombies, wraiths, phantoms, thought forms and anything (or anyone) animate but no longer living.

Email 1-3 poems to:

undeadpoetryanthologyATgmailDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to . )

by April 1st, 2016. Previously published work is eligible, as long as you own the rights.

Poetry Conference Scholarship: Wil Mills Scholarship for West Chester University Poetry Conference

We are proud to announce the Wil Mills Scholarship for the West Chester University Poetry Conference (June 8-11). 

To be eligible for this scholarship to the conference, applicants must have published at least one chapbook of 48 pages or less (no full-length collections). Metrical poetry is favored. The scholarship will include all fees, food and lodging, and a $200 travel allowance. 

Application deadline is March 15, and these instructions will be posted on the official conference website and on our Facebook page. 

There is no entrance fee. Please submit chapbooks and label envelope Wil Mills Scholarship. No entries will be returned.

All submissions must be submitted no later than March 15, 2016, and mailed to:

Wil Mills Scholarship
Poetry House
West Chester University
West Chester, PA 19383

Call for Submissions on "Leaving Home": Pentimento

Pentimento, a disability-related journal, welcomes writing for its seventh issue for the summer of 2016 whose theme is “Leaving Home.”

We accept writing that does not concern the theme.

Pentimento is committed to sharing deeply personal, affecting, and moving pieces concerning disability. We accept nonfiction, fiction, poetry, art, and photography. We also accept nonfiction for our column, “Readers’ Pen,” which must concern the issue’s theme as it relates to disability.

We accept work from three audiences:
>The disabled community itself
> Anyone connected to the disabled community—parent, spouse, caregiver, friend, medical, therapy, etc.
>Disabled writers under eighteen.

We do not have any specific aesthetic criteria, except to say that we seek pieces of quality that demonstrate the writer’s close attention to the piece. We publish honest writing that doesn't shrink from things that hurt, or reveal too much, or anything in between. Writers are free to submit material that addresses the topic of disability in any range—from serious to humorous, from the personal to the political, and from the private to the public.

We strongly prefer unpublished writing, although we will occasionally accept previously published work. Simultaneous submissions are fine, as long as you tell us if your piece has been accepted elsewhere. No submission fee is required. Payments are made for accepted work in most submission categories.

See our website for details.

Creative Nonficiton Competition: Learning from Nature

Deadline: February 1, 2016.

Creative Nonfiction magazine is seeking new essays for an upcoming issue dedicated to LEARNING FROM NATURE.

The natural world has long been a source of inspiration. We're interested in stories about how we learn from nature—whether it's airlines developing boarding methods based on movement in ant colonies or aviation engineers studying eagles' wings in order to build more aerodynamic planes; new-age fabric inspired by pine cones or energy-efficient skyscrapers modeled after termite mounds. We're looking for well-crafted narratives that will illuminate the relationship between humans and the environment, particularly as we face the challenges of climate change.

Submissions must be 4,000 words or fewer.

$5,000 for best essay; $1,000 for runner-up.

Guidelines at our website.

Writing Competition: New Ohio Review

New Ohio Review

Prices in Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry

Winners in each genre will receive $1000 and publication. This year’s judges are: Charles Johnson (fiction), Elena Passarello (nonfiction), and Tony Hoagland (poetry).

By April 15, submit short stories and essays of up to 25 pages or a poem or group of poems of up to six pages with a $20 entry fee, which includes a subscription to New Ohio Review.

Please visit our website for complete guidelines.

Call for Submissions: The Low Valley Review

The Low Valley Review is still looking for Visual Art (especially photography and graphic art that might pertain to contemporary issues), Poetry, Fiction, and Creative Nonfiction (including memoir, personal essay, personal narrative, expository essays, reviews, and literary journalism). As Wordsworth might say, send us the “breathings of your heart.”

To submit you must be a current staff member or student at a community college or technical school.

Our deadline is February 1.

As always, we very much appreciate your work on behalf of artists and writers.

Sincerely,
Stacy Pendergrast
Poetry Editor - The Low Valley Review
NorthWest Arkansas Community College

Poetry Collection Competition: 42 Miles Press Poetry Award

42 Miles Press Poetry Award

Deadline: March 1.

Indiana University South Bend's 42 Miles Press Poetry Award will be given to an emerging or established poet for a book-length manuscript of at least 48 pages.

Winner receives $1,000, 50 copies, and will be invited to give a reading in South Bend. David Dodd Lee, Series Editor, will judge.

Entry fee: $25 made payable to Indiana University. 

For complete guidelines, visit our website.

Poetry Chapbook Competition: Quills Edge Press

QuillsEdge Press: A press for women over 50—Time is running out to Enter: January 31, 2016!

Show Us What You’ve Got! We See You!

Our Judge: Mary Ann McFadden

Our Theme: To Inhabit (a body, a landscape, an ecosystem, a dream, a memory, a nightmare, a fantasy, a place, a time) competition opens November 1st, 2015 and runs through January 31st, 2016.

Enter online. 

Entry fee: $15.00

Award: 10 free copies of printed chapbook

Call for Submissions on Politics: River Styx

We just decided the topic for our next themed issue: River Styx & Politics. We’re not sure what to call it yet or what it will look like, but want the issue to come out before the elections in November. As a result of the violence just up the street in Ferguson and the subsequent protests, riots, looting, and broken windows—much on our Grand Boulevard doorstep—we’ve been more politicized and community oriented than ever.

We’re looking for work that addresses social justice issues, race and gender, gay marriage, immigration, income disparity, the corporatization of America, Citizens United, unions, and of course the upcoming presidential elections. We’re not sure what we’ll get, but please keep in mind we’re looking for politics in art, not pure politics or political rants.

We will read for this issue during the month of January 2016 only. Please send your work—whatever flavor, shape, or size—to:

River Styx Politics, Poetry, and Prose
River Styx Magazine
3139A South Grand Boulevard
Suite 203
St. Louis, MO 63118

Remember to address your submission to "River Styx: Politics, Poetry, and Prose"! We are still finding poems and stories sent for our Revenge issue, which came out months ago. We look forward to your submission!

Call for Submissions: Barely South Review

Barely South Review, the literary journal of Old Dominion University's MFA Program in Creative Writing, is now accepting submissions for our Spring 2016 Reading Period. 

Deadline: April 1, 2016. 

We welcome submissions of Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction, Art, and short essays on craft through our submissions portal at Submittable.

Short Story Collection Competition: Blue Lights Book Prize

INDIANA REVIEW and IU Press are proud to announce the inaugural Blue Light Books Prize.

Submissions are open December 1 to February 15 for short story collections; our judge is Michael Martone.

The winner will receive $2,000, publication, and will read at our Spring 2017 Blue Light Reading.

For full guidelines, visit our website.

Call for Submissions and Poetry Competition: Red Savina Review

General submissions accepted year-round. 

RSR is seeking general submissions of poetry, flash fiction, and flash creative nonfiction for our upcoming Spring 2016 issue.

Submit and read our complete guidelines here.

We believe in concepts such as existential noir, depth, and spirit.

Also seeking poetry submissions to our Denise Levertov Memorial Poetry Prize

Deadline: March 21, 2016.

Fee: Only $8.00 entry.

Entries judged by RSR Poetry Editors.

Prize: $250

More info here.

Call for Submissions: Driftwood Press

Submissions accepted year-round.

John Updike once said, "Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better." At Driftwood Press, we are actively searching for artists who care about doing it right, or better.

We are excited to receive your submissions and will diligently work to bring you the best in literary criticism, short fiction, poetry, graphic narrative, photography, art, and interviews.

Stay updated on our Facebook page.

For more information, please visit our website.

Call for Submissions: Able Muse

Able Muse is now accepting submissions for our forthcoming, summer 2016 issue.

Submit poetry, fiction, essays, book reviews, art, and photography. (Although Able Muse reads and accepts submissions year-round, be sure to submit by March 10, 2016, to be considered for next issue.)

Read our guidelines and submit online.

Writing Competition: 2016 Prime Number Magazine Awards for Poetry and Short Fiction

2016 Prime Number Magazine Awards for Poetry and Short Fiction
(Prime Number Magazine is a Press 53 publication).

 

Reading fee $15.

 

Prize: $1,000 plus publication in Prime Number Magazine for First Prize in each category

 

Poetry judged by Kelly Cherry (LSU Press); Short Fiction judged by Taylor Brown (St. Martin’s Press).

 

Deadline: April 15, 2016.  

 

Submit online through Submittable only. Complete details at our website. 

Call for Poetry Submissions: Gyroscope Review

We are now reading for the Spring issue of Gyroscope Review, due out April 1, 2016. 

Gyroscope Review is open to all genres of contemporary poetry including scifi, fantasy and horror. We are not seeing enough well done current events poems - be subtle, not preachy. Please don't send love poems at this time. Emerging and established poets welcome. Read and follow the submission guidelines. 

We do not charge a submission fee.

Our last four issues are available online.

Read, enjoy, submit!

Call for Submissions: Little Patuxent Review

Little Patuxent Review open for submissions. We are looking for ESSAYS and MEMOIR in particular for our un-themed Summer issue!

Submit up to 3000 words here. Little Patuxent Review's dedicated staff will give your work the attention it deserves.

Reading period closes March 1, 2016.

Call for Submissions on the Theme of Sports: Iron Horse Literary Review

Iron Horse Literary Review is ringing in the New Year by reading for a new issue: 18.4--The Sports Issue! This one will hit the stands just as football season kicks off--a major event for those of us living in Friday Night Lights territory--but poetry or prose relating to any sport is very welcome.

 

Whether it deals with playing, coaching, cheering, cheating, reffing, winning, losing, or any other aspect of games of skill, strength, or intellect, sprint on over to our blog to learn more or vault straight over to Submittable and read our call there. 

 

Send 3-5 poems or up to 5,500 words of prose. 

 

Generally, we pay $40 per poem and $100 per prose piece. 

 

The gates open for this one on January 1st, 2016, and you have until February 28th to send us your best, so cue the training montage and we'll prepare to be wowed!

Writing Competition: 2016 Prime Number Magazine Awards for Poetry and Short Fiction

Deadline: April 15, 2016

2016 Prime Number Magazine Awards for Poetry and Short Fiction (Prime Number Magazine is a Press 53 publication).

Reading fee $15.

Poetry judged by Kelly Cherry (LSU Press); Short Fiction judged by Taylor Brown (St. Martin’s Press). Winner in each category receives $1,000 plus publication in Prime Number Magazine.

Open January 1 through April 15, 2016.

Submit online through Submittable. Complete details at our website.

Call for Submissions: upstreet

upstreet, an award-winning literary annual, is seeking quality submissions of short fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, for its twelfth issue. The first eleven issues of upstreet featured interviews with Jim Shepard, Lydia Davis, Wally Lamb, Michael Martone, Robin Hemley, Sue William Silverman, Dani Shapiro, Douglas Glover, Emily Fragos, Robert Olen Butler, and Joan Wickersham.

Payment, upon publication, is between $50 and $150 for poems, and between $50 and $250 for short stories or essays. Each author also receives one complimentary copy. 

For sample content and to submit, please visit our website.

Deadline: March 1, 2016

Call for Submissions: The Crawl Space Journal

The Crawl Space Journal, a small place for big imaginations, is looking for great writing, especially short forms: poems, prose, and flash fiction, within the realms of magical realism, fabulism, and fantasy, for our Spring Issue. We do accept novel excerpts (up to1,500 words) if they stand alone. Our readers are mainly between the ages of 11 and 14.

To submit, please send a Microsoft Word document with your name and contact information in the left hand corner to:

ThecrawlspacejournalATgmailDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to . )

Include a cover letter with a third person bio in the body of the email.

There is no fee to submit.

We are not yet a paying journal, but have plans to become one in the future. We do accept multiple submissions, but ask that you let us know if your work is accepted elsewhere. You own your work, but ask that you recognize The Crawl Space Journal in future publications. We do not take previously published work at this time. 

Closes on Feb 22, 2016.

Writing Competition: Adirondack Shakepeare Company: Plays on Theme of Mental Illness

In 2016, the Adirondack Shakespeare Company is sponsoring its first annual Dramatic Writing Competition, encouraging the development of new works for the stage that explore the broad theme of mental illness. 

The competition consists of two categories: Full-Length and Short/One-Act plays. The deadline for timely submissions is June 1, 2016. Late submissions will be accepted through July 1, 2016 but will incur an additional fee.

FULL-LENGTH
Prize: $1,000 and a staged reading of the piece by a cast of professional actors. Other finalists will receive $250 and a workshop of their piece with a producer and actors from the Company.
Recommended Length: 60-120 minutes.
Submission fee: $30 (covers a thorough and fair review of submissions by our panel of judges) Submit here.

SHORT/ONE-ACT

Prize: $500 and a staged reading of the piece by a cast of professional actors. Other finalists will receive $100 and a workshop of their piece with a producer and actors from the Company. Finalists' work may also be selected for a staged reading.
Recommended Length: 10-30 minutes.
Submission fee: $30 (covers a thorough and fair review of submissions by our panel of judges) Submit here.

All genres and styles welcome: comedy, tragedy, or otherwise. Writers at any stage of their career are welcome to submit their unproduced work for consideration. Screenplays and teleplays are eligible, but please note that winning submissions will be presented in a theatrical context, not allotted the resources to produce the work for the screen.

 ADK Shakespeare will be working with the New York chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) to present a series of workshops and discussions addressing mental health issues and the use of Theatre as a tool in dealing with them as part of its first annual Hamlet Conference in upstate New York in Autumn, 2016. The Company will produce staged readings of the competition finalists for conference attendees. In this way, we hope to accomplish some good for those suffering with mental illness and the people that care for them.

If you have any questions, please send them to:

infoATadkshakesDOTorg (Change AT to @ and DOT to . ) ATTN: Patrick Siler, Executive Director

Call for submissions: Pithead Chapel

Pithead Chapel is a monthly online journal of short fiction and nonfiction. We’re currently seeking gutsy narratives up to 4,000 words and are particularly interested in essays (personal, memoir, lyric, travel, experimental, etc.) that move.

Please visit us at our website to learn more about us and our submission guidelines.

Call for Submissions: The Vermillion Literary Project

The Vermillion Literary Project (VLP), an award-winning creative writing and literary student organization of the University of South Dakota, is accepting submissions of poetry, fiction, and B & W art for its annual literary journal.

The deadline for submission is January 15, 2016.

For guidelines and submissions, visit our Submittable page.

Writing Competition: International Literary Awards

International Literary Awards offers $1000 prizes to single pieces of work in three categories: Rita Dove Prize in Poetry, Reynolds Price Prize in Fiction, Penelope Niven Prize in Creative Nonfiction.

Poetry submissions: 3 poems
Fiction submissions: up to 5000 words
Creative Nonfiction: up to 5000 words 

Winners in each category receive $1000; $150 to Honorable Mentions

Deadline: 31 January 2016

Entry Fee: $15 

Judges: Elissa Washuta (CNF), Jacinda Townsend (Fiction), Blas Falconer (Poetry)

Submit via Submittable.

To submit via snail mail, check out the website for info.

Additional queries? Contact:

cwwATsalemDOTedu (Change AT to @ and DOT to . )

Poetry Competition: 2016 Frost Farm Prize for Metrical Poetry

The 2016 Frost Farm Prize for Metrical Poetry

The Trustees of the Robert Frost Farm in Derry, NH, and the Hyla Brook Poets invite submissions for the 6th Annual Frost Farm Prize for metrical poetry.

Deadline is April 1, 2016.

The winner receives $1,000, publication in Evansville Review and an invitation, with honorarium, to read in June 2016 as part of The Hyla Brook Reading Series at the Robert Frost Farm. The reading opens the Frost Farm Poetry Conference, which is devoted to metrical poetry. The winner also receives a scholarship to attend the conference.

This year’s judge is David J. Rothman.

Submission guidelines and online entry are available here.

Call for Submissions to Anthology About Zombies: Dead Inside: Poems and Essays about Zombies

Foiled Crown Books is seeking submissions for a collection called Dead Inside: Poems and Essay about Zombies. Contributors will receive a free copy of the anthology. Previously published and simultaneous submissions are okay.

Here is information from our website:

Poetry and creative nonfiction essays are being sought for a literary collection on the popularization of zombies, in general, and The Walking Dead, in particular. Your poems or essays should explore what this zombie phenomenon means in popular culture, in your family, in your romantic/personal/professional life, in our government, etc. While contemplating the undead, your zombie writing should say something about what it is to be a live human.

We hope this collection will explore this trend as a compelling metaphor for our historical era or for various contemporary lifestyles. We are not looking for zombie fan fiction, dry academic treatises, or superficial movie reviews. We prefer reflective/personal narratives, lyrical, voice-driven, and image-centered pieces.

Please submit your work with a short bio to:

editorATfoiledcrownbooksDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to . )

by March 15th, 2016.

Fiction Competition: 2016 Norton Girault Prize in Fiction

Barely South Review, the online literary journal of Old Dominion University's MFA program, is open for submissions for the 2016 Norton Girault Prize in Fiction judged by our very own John McManus.

The entry fee is $10. The winner receives $500 and publication in our Fall 2016 Issue. One runner up will receive publication. The deadline for submissions is April 15, 2016.

Please visit our submissions page and (scroll down) for more information on the contest.

Call for Submissions: Masque & Spectacle

Masque & Spectacle is now reading for our next two issues.

Issue 7 to be published on March 1 is a general issue. We are looking for short stories, essays, poems, plays, photography, video, and music.

Issue 8 (June 2016) is a special PICTURES + WORDS ISSUE. We are looking for all kinds of work that combines pictures and words. We’d love to see graphic stories and essays, and poems; comics; video poems and essays; & collaborations between visual artists and writers. We’d also love to see creative interpretations of “PICTURES + WORDS.”

PLEASE READ THE GENERAL SUBMISSION GUIDELINES BELOW AND SEND ALL QUERIES AND SUBMISSIONS TO:

masqueandspectacleATgmailDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to . )

Submissions Guidelines.

Masque & Spectacle takes rolling submissions for its quarterly issues.

Writing

• We publish all forms of creative writing, including essays, plays, and hybrid formats. Longer works, up to 10,000 words, will be read with delight; however, we’re not ready for your novella, not just yet.

• Please attach written submissions in a single Word doc or docx file.

• Include your last name in the file name and the email subject line.

Visual Art

• Attach JPGs with an edge of at least 2000 px.

• Please include captions with titles, materials, canvas size, names of performers, etc. in email.

• Include your last name in the file name and in the email subject line.

Video

• For initial consideration, please send a YouTube or Vimeo link to your video.

• Please include your last name in the email subject line.

Music & Sound Installation

• Please attach all MP3 files with titles and your last name in the file title.

• Include your last name in the email subject line.