Sunday, March 29, 2020

Call for Submissions on Theme of Covid-19: American Writers Review--A Literary Journal

Art in the Time of Covid-19

The world is in turmoil. Many of us are in distress about our families, our own health, our jobs, and savings.

We can't fix that. We do have a suggestion. Share your thoughts and creativity in work involving Covid-19. Are you going slowly stir crazy? Have you found a way to escape? Can you imagine a future with this new normal?

We at American Writers Review would like to encourage you to share your thoughts and your art. We will publish the best pieces in our 2020 issue. We may publish some on our web site. Let us know if you have any issues about either.

Guidelines are simple: short(ish). We will read everything, but prefer 1500 words or fewer. Any genre - prose, poetry, art, photography, flash - Any locale, any point of view.

The fee? Nada. Nothing. $0. Donations are welcome, of course, but this one's on us.

Deadline: April 15, 2020

Submit your work here.

Call for Submissions: South 85 Journal

South 85 Journal is a semi-annual online literary journal run by the Converse College Low-Residency MFA Program.  We publish fiction, non-fiction, poetry, reviews, and art by new, emerging, and well-established writers and artists.  While we consider all quality work that follow the submission guidelines, we are especially interested in pieces that demonstrate a strong voice and/or a sense of place.

So, write like mad, and if it’s good, we want to see it.

Deadline: April 15, 2020

Submissions guidelines here.

Call for Submissions: The Closed Eye Open

Submit your work to The Closed Eye Open

The Closed Eye Open is an art & literature website that was started as an exploration of consciousness. Our main goal is to feature a wide range of art forms that connect in some way with this pursuit. We welcome everyone who has an interest in this topic, from established writers & artists, to those in academic disciplines, to those who simply are fascinated with how the mind works.

We're interested in a multi-disciplinary approach to consciousness. Whether your own interest in consciousness stems from a scientific background, a spiritual tradition, a liberal arts discipline, or an intrinsic desire to investigate your own subjective world, you have a place here. We would like to explore the creative output of anyone who has spent time with the big questions--whether those questions are on the grand cosmic scale, are more focused on the human condition, or are grounded in personal and practical concerns.

Although we are emphasizing subject matter that includes "heightened" consciousness of visionary, mystical, and psychedelic states, we're very much open to work where these areas are not the primary focus. Work that engages with the consciousness in other ways is certainly welcome, whether that engagement is obvious or subtle.

We are considering all forms of visual art (drawings, painting, photography, digital, etc.) and writing (flash fiction, poetry, short fiction, creative nonfiction/essay). We will also consider hybrids that combine various forms.

See our Submittable link for submission guidelines.

Call for Submissions: The Voices Project

Call for Response Poems & Short Prose

Deadline: May 15, 2020

The Voices Project is taking submissions of poetry or prose in response to the current global health crisis. We believe self-expression can be therapeutic for many people and promote empathy during uncertain times. We are interested in hearing your perspective, your reality, and also writings of hope. What did people do to help you or others? What acts of compassion have you witnessed? Prose, no longer than 350 words. Include a short thoughtful bio (160 words or less) with your submission. Multiple submissions welcome, no more than 2. We do not take anonymous submissions.

Submit through our website.

Writing Competition: Cow Creek Poetry Chapbook Prize

Cow Creek Poetry Chapbook Prize

Deadline: May 15, 2020

Entry Fee: $15.00

The Cow Creek Chapbook Prize is a poetry chapbook contest brought to you by Pittsburg State University. We're open to all styles and subjects. As long as the poems challenge and capture the imagination, we want to see them. This year's judge is Marcus Wicker.

The winning poet will receive $1,000 and 25 author copies. The chapbook will be published as a perfect bound book and sold both online and in limited bookstores.

Guidelines and the submission portal can be found here.

Call for Submissions: Palooka

Palooka Seeks Chapbooks, Prose, Poetry, Artwork, Photography

Palooka is an international literary magazine. For a decade we've featured up-and-coming, established, and brand-new writers, artists, and photographers from all around the world. We're open to diverse forms and styles and are always seeking unique chapbooks, fiction, poetry, nonfiction, artwork, photography, graphic narratives, and comic strips. Give us your best shot!

Submissions open year-round.

Call for Submissions: The Blue Mountain Review

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We Want the Best Stories in All Genres

Submissions accepted year-round.

The Blue Mountain Review launched from Athens, Georgia in 2015 with the mantra, “We’re all south of somewhere.” As a journal of culture the BMR strives to represent life through its stories. Stories are vital to our survival. Songs save the soul. Our goal is to preserve and promote lives told well through prose, poetry, music, and the visual arts. Our editors read year-round with an eye out for work with homespun and international appeal. We’ve published work with Jericho Brown, Kelli Russell Agodon, Robert Pinsky, Rising Appalachia, Nahko, Michel Stone, Genesis Greykid, Cassandra King, Melissa Studdard, and A.E. Stallings. 

Read our guidelines here.

Writing Competition: The Fiddlehead's Creative Nonfiction Contest

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Submit to The Fiddlehead's Creative Nonfiction Contest!

Deadline: June 1, 2020

Entry Fee: $30 CAD

The Fiddlehead invites submissions to its creative nonfiction contest! The contest opens on March 1 on Submittable and the deadline is June 1. One winning essay will be published in our Autumn 2020 issue and awarded $2000 CAD + publication payment. Your entry fee entitles you to a one-year subscription to The Fiddlehead, which includes a special 75th anniversary issue (that's 5 issues!).

Visit our website for more details!

Saturday, March 21, 2020

Call for Submissions on Theme of "Dark Summer": The Dark Sire

TDS wants to know what summer looks like, feels like, and tastes like for creatures of the night. What exactly is summer when you think of gothic, horror, fantasy, and psychological realism? What goes bump in the night... when the weather is scorching? We all know what scary and creepy are in October, or what fatastical and psychological are in December, but what are they in July? The genres must be represented more than just one month, right?

Submit your short fiction, poetry, and art to share your definition of a "dark summer."

Now accepting work in horror, gothic, fantasy, and psychological realism for Issue 4. Simply go to the submissions page to submit work that describes what it means to have a "Dark Summer."


To learn more about The Dark Sire, please visit our website.

Writing Competition: EVENT Magazine's 2020 Non-Fiction Contest

EVENT Magazine's 2020 Non-Fiction Contest

Deadline: October 15, 2020

EVENT: A home for writers. A destination for readers. Now in its 49th year of publication, EVENT is an award-winning, internationally recognized literary magazine that inspires and nurtures writers, showcasing the best contemporary fiction, poetry, nonfiction, notes on writing, and book reviews three times a year, with stunning cover art and illustration. We are now accepting submissions of 5,000 words or less to the annual EVENT Non-Fiction Contest.

$3,000 in prizes, plus publication. Entries must be postmarked or submitted online by October 15, 2020.

Entry Fee: $34.95

Visit our website for exclusive online content, and to learn more about our unique Reading Service for Writers.

Writing Competition: The 13th Annual Miller Audio Prize from the Missouri Review

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13th Annual Miller Audio Prize from the Missouri Review

Extended Deadline: May 1, 2020

Entry Fee: $16-$30

The Missouri Review invites audio submissions of 15 minutes or less in the categories of poetry, prose, humor, and audio documentary.

Winners in each category receive $1000, publication on our website, and promotion on our social media platforms. This year's guest judge is Alex Sujong Laughlin.

All entrants receive a free digital subscription, and the first 100 entrants will also get a free e-book of their choice from Missouri Review Books.

Deadline: May 1.

Call for Submissions: The Compassion Anthology

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The Compassion Anthology

Deadline: April 15, 2020

What is this thing, hope, the tenacious part of us that makes us rise not only to the occasion, but out of bed? Dickinson acknowledges its perseverance ("never stops at all"), but sees it as a separate entity ("Yet, never, in extremity/ it asked a crumb of me") exempt from the human element, perhaps divine.

For the spring edition of The Compassion Anthology, we are looking for work that inspires this universal and at the same time intensely personal attribute without being sentimental or cliché. Hope and the Human Spirit.

All print work must previously published. Author must obtain permission from the original publisher.

Deadline: April 15.

Details and guidelines here.

Call for Submissions to Anthology: This Is What America Looks Like

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This Is What America Looks Like—Submissions Open

Deadline: June 1, 2020

Calling poets & fiction writers from D.C., Maryland, and Virginia (and all those who have links to these areas), The Washington Writers' Publishing House's first anthology in 25 years is open for submissions—This is What America Looks Like—and we want your poetry and short fiction. We are a 47-year old nonprofit, cooperative, all-volunteer press. We are looking for new and established writers, a cross-section of diverse voices, to write on America today. Be provocative, be personal or political (or both), we are looking for writing that helps us see and reflect on this moment we are living in.

More information on our website.

Submit your work here.

Deadline: June 1.

Call for Submissions: The American Journal of Poetry

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 The American Journal of Poetry Volume 9 Call for Submissions

Deadline: Rolling

Now reading for Volume Nine. Please visit us to read our previous volumes filled with poems from poets the world over, from the first-published to the most acclaimed in literature. A unique voice is highly prized. Be bold, uncensored, take risks. Our hallmark is "STRONG Rx MEDICINE." We are the home of the long poem! No restrictions as to subject matter, style, or length. Published biannually online.

Submissions accepted through our online submission manager, Submittable; a submission fee is charged. 

Call for Submissions: Fictional Cafe

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 Fictional Café Seeks Exhilarating, Adventurous New Short Stories

Fictional Café is a highly regarded online ‘zine, seven years old with 800 Coffee Club members in 47 countries. Fiction only, please, that titillates the readers’ senses and provokes their minds. Your short story or novel excerpt should be extremely well written with engaging characters and a unique, avant-garde, or unconventional plot. Visit our site and read some recent works on the pictorial slider. Join our Coffee Club, then review our submissions guidelines. If you’re exploring fiction’s boundaries, we’re interested in reading your work.

Monday, March 16, 2020

Free Webinar on Voice in Memoir: Voice: The Most Elusive Skill Every Memoirist Can Harness to Become a Better Writer

Join memoir experts Brooke Warner and Linda Joy Myers for this free hour-long webinar about voice—an element of craft that is often little understood, and yet something that, once harnessed, is both liberating and permission-giving to writers.

FREE WEBINAR: Voice: The Most Elusive Skill Every Memoirist Can Harness to Become a Better Writer 

Monday, March 23, 2020
4pm PT | 5pm MT | 6pm CT | 7pm ET


 Reserve Your Spot 

(Note: if you can't make it at that time, sign up and you'll receive a recording of the webinar the next day.)
 

Brooke Warner and Linda Joy Myers, creators of Write Your Memoir in Six Months, teach a six-month intensive memoir course, as well as quarterly webinars on bestselling memoirs. 
 
Accessing voice and truly owning your voice brings you to the page more authentically and wholly, resulting in a more readable and engaging story for agents, editors, and readers alike. Own your voice, own your story.

In this free class, Brooke and Linda Joy will be covering: 

  • What it means when writers are praised for having a strong or unique voice, and how to think about your own writing voice on the page.

  • Where are the places from which you draw your voice—and strategies to pursue writing from that place with courage.

  • How narration intersects with voice, and what narrative techniques are available to you, offering you more permission and freedom of expression in your writing. 

  • How to transcend fear to capture the joy of writing in order to tell your story more authentically.

Writing Competition: The Arts & Letters Prize Competition

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The Arts & Letters Prize Competition is Open!

Deadline: March 31, 2020

For our 22nd annual prizes in fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction, we offer the winner in each category a $1,000 prize and publication in the next year’s Fall or Spring issue. All writers and poets writing in English are eligible to enter, excepting friends, relatives, or current and former students of the current-year judges.

All fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction prize submissions will also be considered for publication at regular payment rates. 

The submission period for our annual prizes is February 1 – March 31. The entry fee is $20. Submit now!

Call for Flash Fiction: The Absurdist

The Absurdist Wants Your Weird Ideas

Deadline: Tuesday, March 31

The Absurdist Fiction Magazine is an online publication of strange and surreal fiction, featuring a new story every week. We are looking for short fiction (750-1,250 words) that is as engaging as it is bizarre. It can be farcical, unsettling, or just a little off-center—check out previously published work to get a sense of what fits.

If you are interested in submitting, please review the guidelines and show us what goes on in there.

Call for Poetry Submissions: Speckled Trout Review

Speckled Trout Review—Call for Submissions!

Deadline: April 16, 2020

Speckled Trout Review is an independent literary magazine. We like good storytelling in poems in which every word counts. However, abstract is not our thing; neither is overt political stuff. Appalachian poets are welcome here, in addition to many other subjects and styles from poets spanning the globe. In our short time, we have published a former poet laureate, Pushcart Prize nominees, Best of the Net recipients, contributors whose work has landed in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, POETRY, Tar River Poetry, ThreePenny Review, and numerous anthologies.

Specific submission guidelines can be found at our website.

Deadline for our Spring 2020 issue is April 16.

Call for Submissions: Awakenings Review

Awakenings Review Seeks Poetry, Fiction, Nonfiction, Photography, and Art

Established in 2000, The Awakenings Review is an annual lit mag committed to publishing poetry, short story, nonfiction, photography, and art by writers, poets and artists who have a relationship with mental illness: either self, family member, or friend. Our striking hardcopy publication is one of the nation's leading journals of this genre. Creative endeavors and mental illness have long had a close association.

The Awakenings Review publishes works derived from artists', writers’, and poets’ experiences with mental illness, though mental illness need not be the subject of your work. Visit our website for submission guidelines.

Call for Women's Stories During Coronavirus Pandemic: Adanna Literary Journal

ADANNA Seeks Women’s Stories during the Pandemic of Coronavirus Outbreak

Deadline: Friday, May 15

Adanna Literary Journal is a women focused print publication. We are seeking essay, poetry, and creative nonfiction that speaks towards the experience of mothering in a time of crisis—caring for children, especially those with children in college returning from affected areas, those with younger children exposed to media and the anxiety of school shut-downs, as well as women who are caring for elderly relatives or those in the medical profession.

To submit, please go here. The subject line should read “Special Issue” to distinguish this from our annual issue.

Call for Submissions on Theme of China: Brush Talks

Call for Submissions: Nonfiction, Poetry, Photos about China

Brush Talks is a journal of creative nonfiction, photography, and poetry related to China. We are currently seeking submissions for our next issue, to be published in the summer of 2020. This can take many forms: general essays, travel essays, profiles, memoir, and narrative nonfiction. We seek submissions about places, people, history, culture, the arts, science and technology—anything related to China that is well written, creative, and true (we do not publish fiction).

No submission fee. Please visit our website for more information and read the guidelines before submitting.

Call for Submissions on Theme of Dreams: Chicken Soup for the Soul

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Chicken Soup for the Soul Wants Your Story!

New Deadline: April 3, 2020

We want to know about your dreams! What have you learned from your dreams? Did you listen? Did any of your dreams come true? Did a dream strengthen your faith or help you change the direction your life was headed in? Did some miraculous insight serve as a warning about something that was going to happen? Stories and poems need to be true and should be no longer than 1,200 words.

If we publish your story, you will be paid $200 and you will receive ten free copies of the book your story or poem appears in. Visit our website for more information and to submit.

Writing Competition: Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry

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Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry $1000

Deadline: April 15, 2020

Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry: A poetry manuscript contest sponsored by The University of Utah Press and the University of Utah Department of English.

$1000 cash prize plus publication for your poetry manuscript. Prize includes an additional $500 payment for travel and a reading in the University of Utah’s Guest Writers Series.

Entry Fee: $25.00

See our website for more details.

Saturday, March 7, 2020

Call for Submissions to Anthology: Clockwork, Curses, and Coal: Steampunk and Gaslamp Fairy Tales

CLOCKWORK, CURSES, AND COAL: Steampunk and Gaslamp Fairy Tales
Anthologist: Rhonda Parrish
Open for Submissions: February 1 - March 31, 2020
Expected Publication: early 2021
Story Length: up to 7,500 words
Payment: $0.01 per word + contributor copy


Steampunk’s core is a re-imagined 1800s using steam-powered technology so it is all about gears, goggles and gaslamps. And corsets and courtship and exploration (often in the form of colonialism). I want the bustles, parasols, high tea and airships, of course, but I also welcome stories which confront the darker, problematic side of Victorian sensibilities and attitudes. Plus fairy tales.

For example: What if a shoemaker was visited at night by tiny automatons? What if the little mermaid didn’t have to escape the ocean to be with her prince, but instead her social class? What if a woman’s upper class family was embarrassed by her scientific endeavors so they locked her in a tower… or tried to, anyway? Or a mechanized cat discovers a pair of fantastic boots? Or an explorer climbed a giant beanstalk and found a whole new, forgotten world?

Original fairy tales are welcome, as are retellings. If you choose to retell a familiar favourite, make sure your story offers something new and interesting. I’d rather see stories that reflect the long history of fairy tales as social commentary than those which simply tell the same story with a different setting.

Although steampunk tends to be focused in the American ‘wild west’ or Victorian England, this anthology needn’t be. I am open to stories set all over the world, and would love to see ‘Own Voices’ stories. As with the first book in the Punked Up Fairy Tales series, Grimm, Grit and Gasoline, I would love to see a diverse collection when it comes to which fairy tales are represented but also the races, genders and sexualities of the characters within them.

Simultaneous submissions = okay. Multiple submissions = no.

Submit your work here.

Call for Submissions to Anthology: HUMANS IN THE WILD: Reactions to a Gun Loving Country

Deadline: March 25th, 2020

Payment: $50

Theme: Poetry, Short Essays, Fiction, and Art by those affected by gun violence.

Swallow Publishing, in association with Mythic Picnic, is soliciting works for HUMANS IN THE WILD: Reactions to a Gun Loving Country.

The anthology features Kathy Fish, author of Collective Nouns for Humans in the Wild, and we will choose approximately 30 additional works from other authors, artists, and people at large.

Submissions must be original, but may be previously published works, and should be no more than 2,500 words in length.

Selected authors will be paid $50.

The anthology will be sold in print and eBook. We will be donating a percentage of net proceeds from sales to charity, and encourage you to donate to a charity of your choice as well.

If you choose to donate your $50, please tell us about your chosen charity and why you choose to donate.

Though the editors of HUMANS IN THE WILD prefer donations to anti-gun violence charitable organizations, we understand there are many problems in the 21st century that may be nearer to your heart. And if you’ve lost faith in charities, you can tell us about that if you want to as well.

An index at the back of the anthology will include a bio on each contributor, including your explanation of where the $50 is going and why, but only if you wish to include that information.

Paste your submission into the body of the email, or attach as a PDF/Docx/JPG.

Include your contact information in the body of your email, your bio, and remember to tell us about your preferred charity, your reason for donating, or your reason for choosing not to donate.

Donation, and explaining your donation, is totally optional and is not a requirement for acceptance.

Please send submissions to:


jenATrrussonDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to . )

The last day for submissions is March 25, 2020.

We hope to notify selected contributors via email by April 1, 2020.

Call for Essays from Women of Faith: HerStry

Women haven't always been welcomed as leaders in religion. In many religions and denominations women still aren't allowed in places of power. But that is changing and we're looking for the stories that prove it. We're looking for stories from women in every religion who are in positions of power and leadership, whether it is formally recognized or not.
 
The Rules:
 
All stories should be true and about you.
 
Stories should stay between 500-3,000 words.
 
Writers must submit an author photo and short third person bio.
 
Stories must be submitted in some type of word document. We will not consider PDFs.
 
Simultaneous submissions welcome. Please make sure to withdraw your essay should it get published elsewhere.
 
Stories due by March 19th

Women of color and LGBTQIA writers encouraged to submit.
PAYMENT:
 
All accepted stories will receive a $20 payment.
 
Submit here.

Call for Submissions: Transference

Transference Seeks Submissions of Poetry in Translation

Deadline: April 30, 2020

Transference is now accepting submissions of poems translated from—or inspired by—poetry originally written in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Latin and Classical Greek, with accompanying commentary. Submissions relating to the theme of vision/seeing are especially welcome. For this issue, we also welcome essays on the translation of poetry.

Read current and past issues online and submit here.

Transference is peer-edited in a blind submission process. Published by the Department of World Languages and Literatures at Western Michigan University.

Call for Submissions: The Red Wheelbarrow (formerly Red Savina Review)

The Red Wheelbarrow Review Seeks Submissions for the Summer 2020 Issue

The Red Wheelbarrow Review, formerly Red Savina Review (est. 2013), is open for submissions. The editors have a fresh focus in line with poet Rich Murphy’s concern that literature is in need of “prophetic voices now.” We seek poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction where word meets spirit in a commingling of the sacred and mundane. We have published writers such as Sharman Apt Russell, winner of the John Burroughs Medal; Rich Murphy, winner of the Gival Press Poetry Prize; Khanh Ha, winner of the Robert Watson Literary Prize; bestselling memoirist Gleah Powers; and many others.

Submission guidelines at our website.

Writing Competition: Storm Cellar's Force Majeure Flash Contest

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FORCE MAJEURE Flash Contest

Deadline: April 30, 2020

Force Majeure: a great and unexpected power. We want the best small things: any form, any content, any fine & wonderful creation!

$500 in prizes (300/100/100). All entries considered for publication, all entrants receive prize issue.

Flash is: fewer than 1000 words, shorter than 5 pages, and may contain nonfiction, fiction, marks, or images in any combination. Send shorts, vignettes, hybrids, experiments, wild things!

Enter any number of times, one for $5 or three for $12; no-fee option available.

We encourage BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, border-straddling, fat, neurodivergent, disabled, poor, women & gender nonbinary, and other under-represented authors to enter.

Guidelines.

Writing Competition: Puerto del Sol Prose and Poetry Contests

Puerto del Sol Prose and Poetry Contests

Puerto Del Sol will be accepting entries to our annual poetry and prose contests from January 1 to April 1, 2020. Poetry Contest Judge: Rodney Gomez. Prose Contest Judge: Vi Khi Nao.

Winners receive $500 and publication.

$9 entry fee includes a one-year subscription. All entries considered for publication. Go to our website for complete guidelines.