Call for Nonfiction Submissions: True Story

True Story is a new home for long-form nonfiction narratives.

Published monthly by the editors of Creative Nonfiction magazine, each pocket-size issue of True Story showcases one exceptional essay by one exceptional writer. From issue to issue, this new mini-magazine features the widest possible variety of voices and styles and subjects.

Offering a vivid report from real life, each issue of True Story is a small immersion in a larger-than-life story or experience that makes us think differently about what it means to be human.

Submissions accepted year-round.

Full Guidelines/Submit.

Call for Submissions: Fifth Wednesday Journal

Fifth Wednesday Journal announces a call for submissions to a special issue in the fall of 2017. We intend to showcase writing by authors who are immigrants or children of immigrants from Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries.*

The United States is home to immigrants from almost every country and territory in the world. In fact, the great strength of this country is drawn from the labor, intellect, and creativity of immigrants and their descendants. But assimilation and inclusion are not always easy. The newcomer often finds a different language, a different culture; even the flora and fauna may seem strange and threatening. Citizens sometimes resent the appearance in their midst of a different religious practice, a different manner of dress, a different language, and other manners that are not “the way we do things here.”

We believe that the best way of demonstrating to the newcomer and the American that neither has anything to fear from the other, that each has much to learn from the other, is is to bring the immigrant experience to more American citizens by sharing through literature the wisdom, history, culture, hopes, and dreams of immigrants who come seeking a better life in an open, free, and democratic society. We will all benefit from the exchange.

We are, as always, looking for short fiction and poetry written in English and not published elsewhere prior to submission to us. We will be happy to read personal essays and creative nonfiction with literary merit. We seek writing by residents of the United States and Canada for this issue. We will consider translations only if the translator includes a letter from the author giving permission for the translation and publication in our magazine.

This call for a special issue does not exclude submissions from writers who may not fit the immigrant definition above. We will always find an outstanding poem or story worth publishing. Show us what you have and we will treat it with respect.

We welcome simultaneous submissions with the understanding that you will inform us if your work is accepted elsewhere. We recommend that writers familiarize themselves with FWJ before submitting their work.

Details on submitting are here. 

Submissions for this issue will open on April 15, 2017 and close on June 15, 2017.

 ______
* There is no standardized definition of the MENA countries. However, the following countries are often included: Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

Writing Competition: Talking Writing Prize for Personal Essay

How do you tackle life's Big Questions? This year's Talking Writing Prize spotlights essays on Writing and Faith, a popular annual theme at TW. Writers are welcome to explore a wide range of issues—mortality, belief, culture of origin, atheism—as part of a personal meditation about soul searching through words:

Talking Writing Prize for Personal Essay

Topic: Writing and Faith

Length: up to 2,000 words
Judge: TBD

Enter here.

Entry Fee: $15.00

Award: $500 and publication in Talking Writing

Submission Deadline: October 16, 2017

Poetry Competition: Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize

The annual Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize is now accepting entries. Final judge is Ellen Bass.

 

$1,000 for first place and a letterpress broadside, $500 for second, $250 for third and the top five will be published in Red Wheelbarrow.

 

Submit up to three original unpublished poems. $10 entry fee.

 

Deadline is August 15, 2017.

 

For complete guidelines, go here.

 

Co-sponsored by Poetry Center San José and Red Wheelbarrow magazine.

Fiction Competition: 2018 Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest

The 2018 Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest is underway!

Online entry form.

In its nearly two centuries of existence, The Saturday Evening Post has published short fiction by a who’s who of great American authors, including Ray Bradbury, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Louis L’Amour, Sinclair Lewis, Jack London, Joyce Carol Oates, Edgar Allan Poe, Anne Tyler, and Kurt Vonnegut, among so many others.

Now you have the opportunity to join our illustrious lineup by entering The Saturday Evening Post’s Sixth Annual Great American Fiction Contest.  

“This contest is a tribute to the Post’s legacy of featuring the most renowned American fiction writers,” says Steven Slon, editorial director and associate publisher for The Saturday Evening Post. “Our goal is to continue the tradition of finding and featuring compelling stories and the authors behind them.”

The winning story will be published in the January/February 2018 edition of The Saturday Evening Post, and the author will receive $500. Five runners-up will each receive $100 and will also have their stories featured online.

Submission Guidelines

• Stories must be between 1,500 and 5,000 words in length.

• All stories must be previously unpublished (excluding personal website and/or blog publication).

• No extreme profanity or graphic sex scenes.

• All stories must be submitted by their author in print or in Microsoft Word or PDF format with author’s name, address, telephone number, and email address on the first page.

• Entries should be character- or plot-driven pieces in any genre of fiction.

• Think local. The Post has historically played a role in defining what it means to be an American. Your story should in some way touch upon the publication’s mission: Celebrating America — past, present, and future.

• All entries must be received electronically or be postmarked by July 1, 2017.

• There is a $10 entry fee, which helps defray a portion of the cost of operating the contest.

Poetry Competition: Two Sylvias Press 2017 Poetry Prize for Full-Length Manuscript

Two Sylvias Press 2017 Poetry Prize for Full-Length Manuscript

We are thrilled to announce our FIRST full-length manuscript prize open to ALL poets!

JUDGE: Diane Seuss

Winner receives:
$1000 and 20 author copies
Manuscript published as both print book and eBook
A vintage inkwell

Deadline: June 30, 2017

Entry Fee: $28.00

You can learn more about our press and see the books we publish here.

Full guidelines.

Some info about our 2017 Two Sylvias Press Poetry Book Prize--

Books published by Two Sylvias Press are perfect-bound with a high-quality matte finish (6" x 9" or 5" x 8").

All US and International Poets welcome to submit.

All manuscript entries will be considered for publication.

Winner will be announced by December, 2017. (Please do not email us for results or the status of your entry prior to Dec. 2017)

Also note, we do not disqualify manuscripts for errors or mistakes. We err on the side of the poet and if we have any questions about your manuscript (i.e. the formatting is displaying incorrectly, we are having trouble opening your file) or if you're missing something we need, we'll contact you.

Please address any questions regarding the contest to:  

twosylviaspressATgmailDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to .)

Thank you for your support of Two Sylvias Press.

Writing Competition: Bellevue Literary Review

BELLEVUE LITERARY REVIEW’s annual prizes recognize exceptional writing about health, healing, illness, the body, and the mind.

$1,000 Poetry Prize (Judge: Rachel Hadas), $1,000 Nonfiction Prize (Judge: Rivka Galchen), $1,000 Fiction Prize (Judge: TBA).

Deadline July 1. 

Entry fee $20 ($30 includes subscription). Submit online.

Submittable link.

Writing Competition and Writer's Seminar: Key West Literary Seminar

Key West Literary Seminar

Three Emerging Writer Awards are presented each year. 

The Marianne Russo Award, the Scotti Merrill Memorial Award, and the Cecelia Joyce Johnson Award recognize and support writers who possess exceptional talent and demonstrate potential for lasting literary careers. 

Each award is tailored to a particular literary form. The Merrill Award recognizes a poet, while fiction writers may apply for either the Johnson Award (for a short story) or the Russo Award (for a novel-in-progress). 

Winners receive full tuition support for our January Seminar and Workshop Program*, round-trip airfare, lodging, a $500 honorarium, and the opportunity to appear on stage during the Seminar. Runners-up for each award will also be offered financial assistance packages.

Please review the criteria, complete the application form, and upload the required documents via Submittable.

*Winners will be able to attend the Workshop of their choice, even if it is currently full.

Deadline:

Applications must be received by June 30, 2017 (not later than 11:59 pm EDT). Award winners will be notified by November 1.  

Eligibility:

Poets and writers of any age who live in the United States and have not yet published a book with a major publisher are eligible to apply. If you have published a book with a small press that has a print run of 500 or so copies, you are still eligible. We reserve the right to make final decisions regarding eligibility.

We will accept only one Emerging Writer Award application per person.

Call for Submissions: Blood Tree Literature

Blood Tree Literature is an up-and-coming online literary journal based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We are currently looking for lyrical and resonant works of flash fiction/nonfiction, prose, experimental, and hybrids that push the boundaries of convention and genre. We welcome both published and emerging writers.

Additionally, we are so excited to announce that we are welcoming visual artists to submit art forms including but not limited to: video essays & short films, photo series, fine art collections, graphic design, and each and every variant of these medias. Artwork will be accompanied by a biography and a link (if applicable) to the artist’s website. This is a great opportunity for those who are looking to both promote their art through a different medium and draw attention to personal portfolios.

Please send submissions to:

bloodtreelitATyahooDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to . )

to be considered for publication. All submissions must be submitted in a single Microsoft Word or PDF document with page numbers. Please include a cover page stating your name, a brief bio, and your contact information.

The launch of Blood Tree is due this summer. Submissions are rolling.

Thanks so much!


Editor at Blood Tree

Writing Competition: The Masters Review

Flash fiction contest: The Masters Review 

We're thrilled to announce that The Masters Review has partnered with PEN America and Poets & Writers for our flash fiction contest. 

The winner will be awarded $2000 and published in PEN, with special recognition in Poets & Writers magazine. We're so pleased for this partnership as a way of offering an even larger platform for new writers.

Deadline May 31, 2017

Call for Full-Length Poetry Manuscripts: Sundress Publications

Sundress Publications Open for Full-Length Poetry Manuscripts

Sundress Publications is opening for submissions of full-length manuscripts. All authors are welcome to submit qualifying manuscripts during our reading period, which runs from May 1st to July 31st, 2017.

We are looking for manuscripts of forty-eight to eighty (48-80) single-spaced pages of poetry; front matter does not count toward your page count. Individual pieces or selections may have been previously published in anthologies, chapbooks, print journals, online journals, etc., but cannot have appeared in any full-length collection, including self-published collections. Single-author and collaborative author manuscripts will be considered. Manuscripts translated from another language will not be accepted. Simultaneous submissions are fine, but we ask that authors notify us immediately if their work has been accepted elsewhere.

The reading fee is $13 per manuscript, though the fee will be waived for entrants who purchase or pre-order any Sundress title. We will also accept nominations for entrants, provided the nominating person either pays the reading fee or makes a qualifying purchase. Authors may submit and/or nominate as many manuscripts as they would like, so long as each is accompanied by a separate reading fee or purchase/pre-order. Entrants and nominators can place book orders or pay submission fees at our store.

All manuscripts will be read by members of our editorial board, and we will choose at least two manuscripts for publication. We strive to further our commitment to diversity and seek to encounter as many unique and important voices as possible. We are actively seeking collections from writers of color, trans and gender-nonconforming writers, writers with disabilities, and others whose voices are underrepresented in literary publishing. Selected manuscripts will be offered a standard publication contract, which includes 25 copies of the published book, as well as any additional copies at cost.

To submit, email your Sundress store receipt for submission fee or book purchase, along with your manuscript (DOC, DOCX, or PDF), to:

sundresspublicationsATgmailDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to .)

Be sure to note both your name and the title of the manuscript in your email header. For those nominating others for our reading period, please include the name of person, as well as an email address; we will solicit the manuscript directly.

A 501(c)3 non-profit literary press collective founded in 2000, Sundress Publications is entirely volunteer-run, publishes chapbooks and full-length works in both print and digital formats, and hosts a variety of online journals. Although we are conscious of the lack of representation by women writers in literary publishing, we are a non-discriminatory publishing group focused on the creativity of all artists, regardless of race, class, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, education, etc. We are firm believers in fostering artists whose work is worthy of recognition.

To learn more about Sundress, visit our website.

Writing Competition: Crazyhorse

Deadline: July 31, 2017

From July 1st to July 31st, Crazyhorse will accept entries for our annual short-short fiction contest.

Submit 3 short-shorts of up to 500 words each through our website.

First place wins $1,000 and publication; 3 runners-up will be announced. All entries will be considered for publication; the $15 entry fee includes a one-year subscription to Crazyhorse.

More details here.

Call for Submissions: Ladybug

Deadline: June 30, 2017

Ladybug (for ages 3-6), is looking for fiction, retellings of folktales, creative nonfiction, poems, action rhymes, and proposals for short comics about our scaly, feathered, and furry friends. Send us your lively writing about wild creatures, pets, and animals seen only in your imagination.

Our readers like simple yet strong plots, memorable characters, and humor. We prefer short work for young children (stories may be up to 800 words, poetry up to 20 lines).

If submitting a retelling of a folktale or nonfiction, please include a list of sources and your credentials with your manuscript. 

Submit here. 

Call for Booklength Fiction: Milkweed Editions

Now Open:
Fiction Submissions

Submissions are open again! Send us your fiction—novels or short stories—now through May 31, 2017. Please plan to submit a query letter along with three opening chapters (of a novel) or three representative stories (of a collection) only.

Please review our complete guidelines before submitting. Browse the books to see what we've been publishing lately.

At Milkweed, we believe that literature has the potential to change the way we see the world, and we believe that bringing new voices to essential conversations is the clearest path to ensuring a vibrant, diverse, and empowered future.

We can't wait to read your work!

Sincerely,
The Editors
Milkweed Editions

Call for Creative Nonfiction on Theme of Starting Over: Creative Nonfiction

Themed Creative Nonfiction issue

Deadline for submissions: June 19, 2017

For an upcoming issue of Creative Nonfiction, we’re looking for true stories about starting over. Tell us about a time when you or someone else took a do-over, snuck a mulligan, or hit the reset button, whether by choice or not. 

We welcome personal stories as well as profiles, and we’re open to a very wide range of experiences and circumstances. Above all, we are looking for narratives—true stories, rich with scene, character, detail, and a distinctive voice—that offer a fresh interpretation or unique insight into the theme. 

All essays submitted will be considered for publication; this is a paying market.

Full guidelines/Submit here.

Call for Poetry Submissions on Tundras: Glass: A Journal of Poetry

Glass: A Journal of Poetry is accepting submissions for a special issue, guest edited by Rosebud Ben-Oni, called Tundras. Full details and guidelines can be found here.

About the special issue:

In a new international study, life in the Arctic is at a perilous crossroads: "Some Arctic waters are already becoming dead zones bereft of oxygen. Lakes are collapsing as permafrost beneath them melts." While the president is going after NASA's climate researchers although they continue to publish and share their findings, the current U.S. administration has also taken words like ice and voice, and maligned them with xenophobic, hateful rhetoric.

Guest editor Rosebud Ben-Oni and Glass Poetry Press invite poets to take back these words, to tell us of their sensory of snow, their winter year(s), the depths and lengths of the times they were, or had to remain, under sheets frozen and partially-obscured. Tell us what you managed to grow in your tundras, what you discovered in the days where little light reached, where light was (is) cut short. What voices you hear in the ice. How it feels to stand on ground that could so easily melt away. We invite you to interpret this any way you like.

Submissions for this special issue of Glass: A Journal of Poetry will be considered from April 7, 2017 through May 31, 2017.

Tundras is scheduled for publication in September, 2017. 

About the guest editor:

Born to a Mexican mother and Jewish father, Rosebud Ben-Oni is a recipient of the 2014 NYFA Fellowship in Poetry and a CantoMundo Fellow. She was a Rackham Merit Fellow at the University of Michigan, a Horace Goldsmith Scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a graduate of the Women's Work Lab at New Perspectives Theater in NYC. She is the author of SOLECISM (Virtual Artists Collective, 2013), a contributor to The Conversant and an Editorial Advisor for VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts. Her work appears or is forthcoming in POETRY, The American Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, Arts & Letters, The Journal, among others. She writes weekly for The Kenyon Review blog, and recently joined the Creative Writing faculty at UCLA Extension's Writers' Program. She lives in New York City with her husband.

Thanks and we look forward to reading your poetry.

Anthony Frame
editor, Glass: A Journal of Poetry

Writing Competition: Sweet: A Literary Confection

Sweet: A Literary Confection is running its first annual Flash Essay Contest. The journal is in its ninth year of publication, and our previous issues have featured nonfiction authors like Brenda Miller, Dinty Moore, and Patrick Madden.

The contest closes on June 25, 2017. The winner will receive $500, publication in Sweet 10.1, and 20 copies of their essay bound into a hand-stitched chapbook.

The entry fee is $10, and submissions are accepted through our Submittable page, where you can also find more details about the contest.

We look forward to reading your work!

Here is another excerpt from my video interview with the Author Learning Center. In this segment, I discuss researching my novel, Blood of a Stone. Enjoy!

Call for Novel Excerpts: Embark

Embark, a new literary journal designed for novelists, is seeking submissions for its inaugural issue! Giving novelists a chance to share their works-in-progress with fellow writers and readers, Embark will feature exclusively the openings of unpublished novels. Submit your first pages (2,500-4,000 words) and a brief author's statement.

To be considered for the inaugural issue, you must submit by June 15.

For more information, please see our website.

Poetry Chapbook Competition: Midwest Chapbook Contest

Midwest Chapbook Contest (through The Laurel Review/Greentower Press)
Ends on June 1, 2017 

$15.00 USD

All submissions must be received between April 1, 2017 and June 1, 2017. We are looking for a chapbook-length collection of poems: 25 – 35 pages.

Please include a cover letter with name, address, email address, and manuscript title.

Manuscripts will be read blind. Please do not include your name anywhere in the manuscript.

In addition to the publication of the chapbook, the contest winner will be invited to give a reading at Northwest Missouri State University as part of the University’s Visiting Writers Series. Travel expenses, lodging and an honorarium of $250 will be provided.

Reading fee also entitles you a one-year subscription to The Laurel Review. Subscription will be enacted for address provided in the cover letter.

Please submit manuscript via Submittable.

Writing Competition: BOA Short Fiction Prize

Since its founding in 2010, the BOA Short Fiction Prize has been awarded to six of the most exciting and unique voices in American fiction. As with all BOA fiction titles, our prize-winning short story collections are more concerned with the artfulness of writing than the twists and turns of plot. It is our belief that short story writing is a valuable and underserved literary form that we are proud to support, nurture, and celebrate.

Winner Receives:
Book publication by BOA Editions in spring 2019
$1,000 honorarium

Contest Period: April 1 – May 31, 2017

*Submission fee: $25

*Please note that submission fees allow us to offer a $1,000 honorarium and also offset the cost of publishing and promoting the winning collection. As a non-profit literary publishing house, we understand that submission fees can be difficult to accommodate. Please know that 100% of your fee will go toward supporting the publication of an excellent short story collection and to supporting BOA’s mission to bring the highest quality literature into the world. All submissions will be personally read, reviewed, and considered by BOA Publisher Peter Conners, founder and sole editor of BOA’s short fiction series. Manuscripts that do not win the contest are still eligible for publication by BOA.

Submission Guidelines:
Submissions are invited only through Submittable or post mail. We do not have the staff capacity to read or respond to manuscripts that are submitted by email.

Submit one copy of the manuscript and the $25 entry fee between April 1 and May 31, 2017.

For complete submission information, go here.

Call for Submissions: cahoodaloodaling

Issue #24 – Solitude’s Spectrum
Guest Editor James H. Duncan

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.” —Hemingway

Solitude—whether alone on the road in a car, train, motel room, or a forest trail, or even secluded and tucked away in your home, whether it’s a welcomed moment of peacefulness or a lonely state of despair—times of solitude shape us, recharge us, and break us down to our essence. Sometimes we choose to step away from the world. Sometimes the world breaks us and casts us aside. In those moments alone, if we make the choice to continue and create, true artists are born. We cross a border we cannot uncross and heal through our words, finding ourselves—and sometimes finding new selves in the process. As Hemingway said, sometimes we’re strong in those broken places, and sometimes we’re not. Sometimes that jagged broken part affects us forever afterward.

This fall issue we are interested in capturing both the positive, reaffirming pieces about solitude along with those that reveal pain, heartbreak, and introspection. We seek to investigate those breaking point moments, those halting discoveries, those empowered decisions that compel us to walk away from the world and to let the silt settle in the pool of water in our soul. Whether you enjoy locking yourself away or you had to in order to save yourself from hell, we want to hear how these moments lead to creative revelations and re-energized focus, or how they still haunt you to this day.

Submissions due 9/9/17. Issue live 10/31/17. Read guidelines for submissions here.

Call for Essay Submissions on Religious Diversity: INTER

Call for Submissions: Personal Essays on Religious Diversity in America

INTER is a digital magazine of stories, ideas and art exploring unprecedented religious diversity in America. Religion is currently at the center of some of our most important public and political conversations. Admits the tumult are millions of people of every faith, tradition and worldview living and working in the U.S. We want to bring individual stories to the fore. We want to challenge stereotypes and give readers a chance to rethink their assumptions about everyone from Atheists to Mormons to Zoroastrians.

Learn more about our editorial themes and submit a 1,000 to 1,500 word personal essay here.

INTER also accepts video, photography, and art. We primarily feature Millennial and Gen Z voices, but are open to submissions from everyone. Contributors are paid. Submissions accepted year-round.


Paula Carter
Editorial Manager
Interfaith Youth Core

Call for Submissions: Overwatch Press: The Literary Journal of the Military Experience

Overwatch Press: The Literary Journal of the Military Experience is now accepting submissions 

An average of 20 veterans per day take their own lives while waiting for proper medical care. Many suffer from some form of post-traumatic stress disorder and have never been provided with a creative outlet to share their stories and stresses. If Overwatch Press can prevent just one warrior from taking their own life by providing that creative outlet, our mission will be a success.

Overwatch Press: The Literary Journal of the Military Experience is now accepting submissions in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, photography, and original art work, from both veteran and civilian writers and artists. For more information about our press or for our submission guidelines please visit our website.

Call for Submissions: Four Ties Lit Review

Deadline: June 16, 2017

Four Ties Lit Review is accepting submissions of art, poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and graphic story telling from May 5th until June 16th for Issue VI Volume I. This year’s issue has an inclusive topic (not a theme): “Work.” Send any related submission.

Four Ties Lit Review is an independent literary online magazine publishing annually. We are committed to the idea that creative writing and graphic arts are forms of expression that are essential to a thriving modern culture. We aim to publish writing and art that appeals to the widest range of readers, but is still intellectually stimulating and meaningful.

Submit your work here.

Call for Poetry Submissions to Anthology about Donuts: Terrapin Books

Call for Submissions for an anthology of donut poems is open April 1 thru May 31.

Guidelines at our website.

No fee.

Payment is one copy of book.