Call for Submissions to Anthology on Theme of Faith: Without a Doubt: Poems Iluminating Faith

  

NYQ Books Seeks Submissions for a New Anthology about Faith

Deadline: February 2, 2021

NYQ Books is seeking submissions for an anthology to be titled Without a Doubt: poems illuminating faith.

Submissions will remain open until February 2, 2021, but may close early should the anthology fill.

We are seeking poems that explore faith rather than tell. We seek poems that demonstrate a new and fresh understanding of faith. Poems that rise above religion and redefine spirituality. Poets from any spiritual tradition are welcome. Nontheists and Freethinkers are encouraged to submit. Historically marginalized voices are especially welcome. We are not looking for poems that proselytize.

Please see our webpage for complete guidelines.

Writing Competition: Interim's Test Site Poetry Contest 2020

Interim Accepting Manuscripts for Test Site Poetry Contest 2020

Deadline: December 15, 2020

Entry Fee: $25.00

Submit your manuscript to Interim’s 3rd annual Test Site Poetry Contest! As our series title suggests, we’re looking for manuscripts that engage the perilous conditions of life in the 21st century, as they pertain to issues of social justice and the earth. The winning book will demonstrate an ethos that considers the human condition in inclusive love and sympathy, while offering the same in consideration of the earth. Because we believe the truth is always experimental, we’ll especially appreciate books with innovative approaches.

The winner will receive $1,000 and their book will be published by University of Nevada Press in 2021.

Call for Submissions on Theme of Baseball: The Twin Bill

The Twin Bill Seeks Baseball Essays, Fiction, and Interviews

Submissions are open for the debut issue of The Twin Bill, a literary baseball publication. We are looking for essays between 600–1,000 words, fiction up to 3,000 words, and interviews with people in and around baseball. Please send submissions and pitches to:

thetwinbillATgmailDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to . )

If you are interested in illustrating our pieces, please email us. All submissions will receive a personal response. 

There is no submission fee.

Deadline: Sep. 30, 2020

For more details, go here.

Call for Submissions on Jewish Experience: Poetica Magazine: Reflections of Jewish Thought

Poetica Magazine: Reflections of Jewish Thought

Poetica Magazine is looking for works centered on the Jewish experience—open to all writers, of any affiliation, or any level of writing. All accepted works will be published on the website with author's BIO and photo. This is an open edition until we have enough material to release a 120 page print edition.

No fee to submit.

Visit the website to submit via SUBMITTABLE form.

Writing Competition: Exposition Review's Flash 405

Flash 405 is Exposition Review‘s multi-genre short form writing competition, awarding cash prizes and online publication to the winners. You can read the full rules and find past contests and winners here. Entries for our next round will be accepted from Aug 4–Sept 5, 2020 via Submittable.

Read on to learn more about this month’s judge and theme:

– August 2020 Round –

The Judge: Rita Bullwinkel

 

Rita Bullwinkel is the author of the story collection Belly Up, which won the 2018 Believer Book Award. Bullwinkel’s writing has been published in Tin House, The White Review, Conjunctions, BOMB, Vice, NOON, and Guernica. She is a recipient of grants and fellowships from MacDowell, Brown University, Vanderbilt University, Hawthornden Castle, and The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. Both her fiction and translation have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. She is an Editor at Large for McSweeney’s and a Contributing Editor for NOON. She lives in San Francisco and teaches at the California College of the Arts.

The Theme: Invented Language

From Rita:

“Many great writers build the world of their stories through deploying invented language in their prose. Sometimes this invented language is called slang. Sometimes this invented language looks like a word we think we know, but the way the author uses the word changes the word’s meaning as we know it. I love the feeling of language shifting before my eyes, morphing into something new to me over the course of a page. Write me a story that teaches me how to use an old word in a new way. Write me a story with words I’ve never heard.”

Entry Fees & Donations

40% of all entry fees will be dedicated to a donation fund or mutual fund in support of Black lives and Black writers. (The other 60% goes directly to the contest winners.) Exposition Review will also match funds.

Entry Fee: $5.00

• 1st prize: Online publication + 40% of all entry fees.
• 2nd prize: Online publication + 20% of all entry fees.
• Honorable Mention: Online publication.
  

For anyone who donates $5 to a charity in support of social justice, we will waive the $5 entry fee and they can submit to Flash 405 for free until September 5, 2020. Please email your donation receipt and entry to:

expositionreviewATgmailDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to . ) No need to submit through Submittable.

Here is a list of organizations that writers have donated to in the past:
Black Aids Institute
Know Your Rights Camp
Equal Justice Initiative
The Triibe, Inc.
The Color of Change
National Black Justice Coalition
The Loveland Foundation

Ready to start writing? We accept short form narratives in the genres of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, stage & screen, and experimental. Please note that all submissions are blind. Good luck!

Call for Submissions: Palaver

Palaver is extremely interested in exploring interdisciplinarity, not only in content, but also in form. We accept poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, visual art, multimedia submissions, and multimedia-text hybrids.

Prose: Please submit only one story or creative essay. Due to the volume of submissions Palaver receives, please limit your prose to thirty pages.

Poetry: You may submit up to five poems. 

Multimedia: We allow up to ten file uploads of visual art/multimedia. Our Submittable account accepts jpg, tiff, gif, png, MP4, and mov files for art submissions. 

No multiple submissions. Please wait until you have heard back from the first submission before submitting a second time.

Research-based Submissions:

Written research-based submissions should be typed, double-spaced, and follow MLA (8th edition) guidelines. Due to the volume of submissions Palaver receives, we ask that academic pieces run no longer than twenty-five pages. Palaver does not accept previously published work, be it print or online.

No self-identifying information should be present in the body of your work, due to our blind review process. The file name should only include the title of your submission. Only fill out identifying information on the form provided by Submittable.

Simultaneous submissions are encouraged. If the work is accepted elsewhere, please notify us immediately and withdraw your submission to Palaver.

If any part of your submission contains images or other elements for which you do not own the copyright, it is your responsibility to obtain formal permission to reproduce those works. If this pertains to your work, please note this in your cover letter.

Unfortunately, due to limited resources, Palaver cannot pay for accepted submissions at this time.

Submissions to Palaver are open February 15 until September 14. We publish on an annual basis in May. Palaver contacts submitters about their submission status within six months.

Questions can be addressed to:

submissionsATpalaverjournalDOTcom

Writing and Artists Residency: Jentel Artist Residency

Experience time apart from daily concerns. Experience a place where the time passes in the quiet certitude as it did 50 to 100 years ago. Experience the remarkable landscape and atmosphere of a working cattle ranch in the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains. Experience solitude balanced with the opportunity for community.

Summer/Fall Sessions
For month long residencies taking place May 15th – December 13th
Open October 1st
Close January 15th at midnight (MST)

Application Fee: $23.00

All application materials, including contact information, resume, work sample, and character statement contacts must be completed online through Submittable.

More Information?

The Jentel website offers information about all aspects of the residency.

Call for Submissions: Burningword Literary Journal

 Burningword Literary Journal accepts poetry, flash fiction, flash nonfiction, photography, and digital art submissions for publication.

Genres and Details

• Poetry in any form or style. Your poetry submission may contain up to five (5) poems, may be submitted as one file, run fewer than 10 pages in length, and must be unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are welcomed so long as you withdraw them when accepted elsewhere.

• Flash fiction (a.k.a. microfiction, short-short story, sudden fiction, etc.) submissions should aim for a word-count of 300-500 words or less per piece. You may submit up to two (2) pieces per issue, may be submitted as one file, should run fewer than 5 pages in length, and must be unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are welcomed so long as you withdraw them when accepted elsewhere.

• Flash nonfiction submissions should aim for a word-count of 300-500 words or less per piece. You may submit up to two (2) pieces per issue, may be submitted as one file, should run fewer than 5 pages in length, and must be unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are welcomed so long as you withdraw them when accepted elsewhere.

• Photography & digital art (open call). We seek original photography or 2D digital art to include in our quarterly publication. Your submission may include up to five (5) image files each in JPG format at a resolution of 1,850 pixels on the longest side and no larger than 7MB. Due to the special nature of visual arts, you may submit previously published work and may further disseminate that work as you wish.

Please keep your email address updated in Submittable because that’s how we notify you of our editorial decisions, awards notifications, and related requests and calls. We now charge a modest submission fee to help offset the cost of maintaining the manuscript system and web-hosting. Because of this change, we now encourage multiple pieces per submission, as outlined above. 

Burningword is a quarterly web, print and digital publication with issues published January 5, April 5, July 5, and October 5. The cut-off date for submissions is the 10th day of the prior month for each quarter:

• January Issue Submissions open October 1st and close December 10th
• April Issue Submissions open January 1st and close March 10th
• July Issue Submissions open April 1st and close June 10th
• October Issue Submissions open July 1st and close September 10th 

 For more information and to submit, please visit our Submittable page.

Call for Submissions: SPANK the CARP

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS TO SPANK the CARP. We’re looking for flash fiction, short stories, CNF, and poetry, including shape poetry. If your work is thought-provoking, sophisticated, yet not pretentious or obscure, we’re interested.

For submission guidelines and more information, visit our website.

Writing Competition: 2020 Wilder Series Poetry Book Prize for Women Over 50

2020 WILDER SERIES POETRY BOOK PRIZE FOR WOMEN OVER 50 is now open.

 

Winner receives $1,000, book published by Two Sylvias Press, 20 copies of print book, and a vintage art nouveau pendant. All entries considered for publication.

 

Deadline: December 31.

 

Entry Fee: $20

 

Full guidelines here.

Call for Submissions by Children to Young Poets Anthology: Rattle

RATTLE SEEKS SUBMISSIONS BY CHILDREN for our annual Young Poets Anthology—poets must be age 15 or younger.

 

Deadline: November 15.

 

Children, parents, or teachers may send up to 4 poems using our online submission manager.

 

Website.

Call for Submissions: The Fourth River

The Fourth River publishes print and online issues. Submissions are accepted July 1-September 1. We will occasionally run special calls for theme issues as well.

Submissions for the web series, Tributaries, is rolling, though we will sometimes close for a short time to catch up on reading.

There is a $3 submission fee for our issues, however we will announce FREE submission days occasionally over social media, so be sure to follow us!

Submissions to Tributaries are always free.

We wish it were otherwise, but The Fourth River is not a paying market at this time. Contributors to our print issues will be offered one copy of the issue in which their work appears. Digital contributors will be offered either one back issue or a copy of the upcoming print issue.

We welcome submissions of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction and visual art, that explore the relationship between humans and their environments, both natural and built, urban, rural or wild. We are looking for writing that is richly situated at the confluence of place, space and identity—or that reflects upon or makes use of landscape and place in new ways.

Call for Submissions: Salt Hill Journal

We have two submission periods for fiction and poetry:

July 15 through September 5

December 1 through January 15

We accept nonfiction and art submissions year-round.

We hope to hold the Philip Booth Poetry Prize in Fall 2020.

Call for Submissions: Inlandia: A Literary Journey

Inlandia: A Literary Journey, the online literary journal for the Inlandia Institute and an annual online publication of works written by and for the writers and readers of the Inland Empire.

Inlandia: A Literary Journey has two submission periods. The fall/winter issue is open to all writers in English. The next submission period is June 15-September 1, 2020. The spring issue is open to teens only; our primary interest for the spring issue is Inland Empire writers between the ages of 13-19. The next submissions period for teens is October 15, 2020-January 15, 2020.

We are primarily seeking stories, poems, novel excerpts, memoir, images, etc., by writers and artists whose work is in some way grounded in the Inland Southern California region; works that will give readers around the globe a sense of the region and its people.

To give a clearer picture of where this region is located, it is in the southeastern corner of California and encompasses all of Riverside and San Bernardino counties from the heights of San Gorgonio Mountain to the lows of Death Valley, from the wineries of Temecula to the shuttered citrus packing houses of Riverside, and all points in-between.

Above all else we want fresh, compelling writing.

Writing Competition: 30 Annual Jeffrey E.Smith Editors' Prize

Enter the 30th Annual Jeffrey E. Smith Editors' Prize

Deadline: October

Winners in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction receive a $5,000 cash prize, publication, promotion, and a virtual event to be determined. Submit one piece of fiction or nonfiction up to 8,500 words or up to 10 pages of poems.

Regular entry fee: $25. All-Access entry fee: $30. Each entrant receives a one-year digital subscription to the Missouri Review (normal price $24) and the forthcoming digital short story anthology Strange Encounters, forthcoming from Missouri Review Books. (normal price $8.95). All-Access entrants receive full access to our ten-year digital archive.

All entries considered for publication.

Deadline: October 1.  

Visit our website for more information.

Call for Submissions: Hamilton Stone Review

Hamilton Stone Review is Open for Submissions

Deadline: Open 8/24/20 - 9/21/20

The Hamilton Stone Review opens for submissions for the Fall 2020 Issue #43 on August 24, 2020 and closes September 21, 2020. Submissions may close early if the issue fills.

Poetry submissions should be emailed only to Roger Mitchell at:

hsrpoetryrogerATgmailDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to . )  

with "HSR" in the subject line.

Fiction and nonfiction submissions should be emailed only to Dorian Gossy at:

HSRProseDEG ATgmailDOTcom (Change AT to @ and DOT to .)

For more information, please see our website.

Writing Competition: Dumbo Film Festival

Dumbo Film Festival - 2020

Ends on November 23, 2020 

Entry Fees: $95.00 USD, $75.00 USD

• Submissions are accepted via electronic submission only, between May 19, 2020 and November 22, 2020.
  

• Entry fee is $95 for each feature film screenplay and $75 for each short film screenplay for the final deadline which ends on November 22, 2020.

• Optional feedback from a professional reader may be requested at the time of entry. Requests for feedback after an entry is submitted will not be accepted.

• Screenplays must be a minimum of 75 pages and a maximum of 150 pages. Short screenplays must be a minimum of 5 pages and a maximum of 35 pages.

• There is no limit to the number of projects you may submit.

• Entries must be received on or before the deadline dates by 11:59PM Central Time, and submission fee payment must be made in full at time of the submission. All entry fees are non-refundable.

• All submitted material must be original, and all rights must be wholly owned by the writer(s).

• Material must be submitted by the writer. Material written by writing teams must be submitted by one of the writers, with consent of the other(s). All writers must be credited on title page.

• If a writing team is chosen as a winner, prizes will be given to the person who submits the project. Each team is responsible for dividing or sharing the prize money.

• Substitutions of either corrected pages or new drafts of the entered material will be allowed for a limited time with resubmission through Event Horizon Films. Please proofread your script carefully before submitting.

• It is recommended that original material be registered with the WGA or The Library of Congress before submitting to any competition, however we do not require registration.

• Contact info may be included on the cover page of the screenplay, however it is not required.

• All ownership and rights to the scripts submitted to this contest remains with the original rights holders.

• All writers at least 18 years of age are eligible. However, a writer who has earned more than $50,000 (or equivalent currency) from professional writing services for film or TV in the preceding year is not. (Contest winnings not included.)

• All persons from anywhere in the world are eligible; however the material submitted must be in English (occasional dialogue in other languages is acceptable, if subtitle translation is provided).

• All material submitted to other competitions or contests are eligible for this contest.

• There are no requirements as to when the material was written.

• Screenplay and intellectual property must be wholly owned and submitted by the writer(s).

• Material should be submitted in standard screenplay format, font, spacing and margin.

• We have no preferences regarding title page content. Title and name of writer would suffice.

• Entries for this competition are managed on the submission platform Submittable.

• Adaptations are ineligible unless the underlying rights are owned by the writer or the work is in the public domain.

• The recommended length for feature film scripts is 100-120 pages. Scripts over 120 pages are fine and will be accepted, however please note that there is a small page overage charge of $1 per every page over 120 pages to compensate the judges for the extra time invested in reading longer scripts.

• Feature screenplays longer than 150 pages will not be eligible.

• All material must be submitted electronically as a PDF or it will not be eligible.

Call for Submissions: Anomaly

 

Thank you for liking us enough to submit! We’re grateful that you’re considering us as a home for your work. For our regular issue, we accept submissions through our Submittable platform only. 

General submissions in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, comics, and translation are open November 1 – March 1 and June 1 – September 1. 

For submissions to our special folios, published in and between regular issues, submissions are accepted under the terms stipulated in the folio call, determined by and at the discretion of the guest folio editor, in consultation with our staff folio editor. For current folio calls, see the bottom of this page.

To cover operational costs, we must charge a $3 fee for each submission. If, for reasons of financial hardship, you cannot afford to pay the submission fee, please send us an email at editor at anomalouspress dot org.

We strongly encourage you to take a look at our website to see previous issues and see if you think your work is a good fit.

Simultaneous submissions are fine, but we ask that you notify us immediately if the work is accepted elsewhere. You can use this handy system to withdraw, or leave a note on your submission.

We only consider previously unpublished work. That includes work published on personal blogs, sorry. We’re especially interested in work that uses the medium of the web as part of its compositional strategy.

We aim for a two-month response time, but we’re only human. Because we’re an all-volunteer organization we try our very best to offer a fair turnaround time, about three months. For any genre other than poetry please drop us a line if you haven’t heard from us within three months. For poetry submissions, we can’t respond to individual inquiries: if you haven’t heard from us yet, it’s because we’re still working on your submission. We get over 500 poetry submissions every period and are spending time reading each one carefully.

Send us your best, most challenging work through Submittable today.

Writing Competition: Story Foundation Prize

Our second annual Story Foundation Prize is now open for submissions! 

Please submit your finest short story (under 10,000 words) by December 15th. 

Entry fee is $25 and all entrants receive a one-year subscription to Story. 

The winner receives $1,500 and publication in our summer 2021 issue. The prize-winning story will be announced in March 2021.

Call for Submissions: Nzuri Journal of Coastline College

Call For Submissions: Fiction, Essays, Photography, Art, Poetry, Digital Storytelling

The objective of Nzuri (meaning Beautiful/ Fine in Swahili) is to promote the artistic, aesthetic, creative, and scholarly work consistent with the values and ideals of Umoja community. African American and Other Writers and Artists are urged to submit their best written or artistic work for consideration.

Check out open submission opportunities for Nzuri Journal of Coastline College here. We are now accepting submissions in all categories for the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 issues. Essays and fictional pieces should be a maximum of 4,000 words.

Call for Submissions: Light and Dark

Seeking New Short Stories for Issue 17!

Deadline: September 15, 2020

Light and Dark is an online literary magazine seeking works of short fiction by both new and established authors. We are looking for stories that grapple boldly with the dichotomous nature of existence: the light and the dark; the pain and the pleasure; the joy and the sorrow.

We pay $15 per story.

For our complete submission guidelines, head over to either our website. Or our Submission Manager at Submittable. We look forward to reading your work!

Call for Submissions: Apple Valley Review

Call for Submissions: Apple Valley Review

Deadline: September 15, 2020

Apple Valley Review is reading submissions of short fiction, personal essays, and poetry for the Fall 2020 issue (Vol. 15, No. 2). Flash fiction, prose poetry, fabulism, and translations are welcome. Pieces from the journal have later appeared as selections, finalists, and/or notable/distinguished stories in Best American Short Stories, Best American Essays, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, Best of the Net, Best of the Web, storySouth Million Writers Award, and Wigleaf's Top 50 (Very) Short Fictions. Published work is automatically considered for our annual editor's prize.

The current issue, previous issues, and complete submission guidelines are available online.

Writing Workshop: The Poetry Lab: Submit It Like You Mean It

The Poetry Lab offers Submit It Like You Mean It

Event Dates: August 27, October 8; Virtual

Deadline: Rolling

New six-week virtual seminar offered by The Poetry Lab, Submit It Like You Mean It: All You Need to Know to Successfully Submit Poetry for Publication. Reliable, effective submissions strategy with in-depth guidance on cover letters, bio statements, simultaneous submissions, where to submit, how to create a tracking sheet, and much more. Our goal is to demystify the path to publication with practical tools and insider knowledge in friendly environment.

Registration fee $85 and includes one-month subscription to Duotrope.

Scholarships are available. First session begins August 27.

Learn more here.

Call for Submissions from the Arabian Gulf: The Common

Calling All Gulfie Kids!

Did you grow up in the Arabian Gulf? If so, The Common wants your work for its Fall 2021 Issue, which will feature a portfolio on migration, disorientation, and complicated relationships to “place” in the Arabian Gulf.



What little literature is available about the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) tends to stereotype the harsh working conditions of migrant laborers, such as construction workers or house maids, and while these are realities that require immediate examination for their social-ethical urgency alone, what are often left out are the experiences of middle class itinerancy and upward social mobility that living in the Gulf makes possible. The Gulf is a transient place where fresh blood is forever flooding in and slipping out and yet, for newcomers, the leap from migrant to citizen is never made. You are likely to move and keep moving.

Rather than being divided in the classic diasporic model, caught between two distinct cultures and equally marginalized in each, the Gulf has birthed an entire generation of third-culture kids with roaming lifestyles. The Common’s Fall 2021 Gulf portfolio will examine these themes of millennial nomadism, civic detachment, pliable identities, and other themes, as made possible by the Arabian Gulf. While this issue will focus on migrants to the region, we are also accepting pieces that speak to local and indigenous perspectives. All submissions will be considered both for the special portfolio and for the magazine more broadly.*

If this speaks to you, speak to us! We’re looking for fiction, poetry, and essays in English. Submit here from July 1–November 30, 2020.

In collaboration with guest co-editor Noor Naga.

 

Call for Submissions: Front Range Review

FRONT RANGE REVIEW is now accepting online submissions of literary short fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction for its 21st annual issue.

Our reading period is August 15–December 1.

To see guidelines and submit, visit our website.

Call for Submissions to Anthology on Dementia Caregiving: The Chrysalis Project

THE CHRYSALIS PROJECT seeks poems for an anthology about caregiving for any form of dementia. Simultaneous submissions and previously published works accepted as long as the writer holds rights. Submit up to 3 poems/5 pages of poetry.

Deadline: September 30.

For complete guidelines, visit our website.

Call for Submissions: The Moving Force Journal

We are currently reviewing fiction, non-fiction, poetry and artwork submissions for our third issue, to be released in Fall 2020. Please read our mission statement at the top of our home page as well as our prior issues to determine if your work would be a good fit for us.

Please send only previously unpublished work, meaning work that has not appeared in print or anywhere on the web (including, but not limited to blogs, personal websites, social media sites, public discussion forums, etc). Simultaneous submissions are considered; however, please notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.

For fiction, please send one short story or up to three pieces of flash fiction or three prose poems per submission (all in one document). For non-fiction, please submit one story at a time. For poetry, submit up to five poems in a single document. For artwork, send up to eight images of at least 300 dpi as .jpeg files at one time.

The Moving Force Journal will acquire First Serial Rights for accepted work as well as electronic rights to archive the work indefinitely on our website. Although we are primarily an online journal, we also acquire reprint rights should demand and funds allow us to publish a print issue and/or anthology. All other rights revert to the author. There is no compensation at this time.

Submit your work here.

COVID-19 Assistance: Artist Relief Grants for Artists

To support artists during the COVID-19 crisis, a coalition of national arts grantmakers have come together to create an emergency initiative to offer financial and informational resources to artists across the United States.

Artist Relief will distribute $5,000 grants to artists facing dire financial emergencies due to COVID-19; serve as an ongoing informational resource; and co-launch the COVID-19 Impact Survey for Artists and Creative Workers, designed by Americans for the Arts, to better identify and address the needs of artists.

To be eligible, you must be able to answer ”Yes“ to the prompts listed below. Please note that the Artist Relief coalition partners will make final eligibility determinations as needed.

• I am a practicing artist able to demonstrate a sustained commitment to my work, career, and a public audience;

• I am experiencing dire financial emergencies due to the COVID-19 pandemic;
  

• I am 18 years of age or older;

• I can provide a Social Security Number (SSN) or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) after I’ve been notified of my selection;

• I have been living and working in the U.S. for the last two years;

• I am not a full-time employee, board member, director, officer, or immediate family member of any of the coalition partners;

• I have not previously been awarded a relief grant from this fund

Learn more by reviewing this FAQ. To apply, click here.

Call for Submissions: Cherry Tree

Cherry Tree Open Reading Period

Deadline: October 1, 2020

Cherry Tree is seeking creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry for our seventh issue. We are open from August 1-October 1, 2020.

We accept simultaneous submissions and multiple submissions and charge a nominal $3 reading fee which helps us pay our authors and which benefits a local youth-advocacy group. Work from our journal has been included in Best American Poetry 2016, 2017, and 2020, and 2 pieces from our recent appear in Best Microfictions 2020.

We pay authors $20 and 2 copies. All accepted pieces are considered for our Literary Shade feature as well.

Call for Submissions on Theme of CRISIS: Speckled Trout Review

Speckled Trout Review—Calling All Poets!

Speckled Trout Review is planning a special print issue on the theme of CRISIS for its Fall 2020 (2.2) publication. In a lifetime we experience crises of the heart, the mind, and the body, as well as global crises—the present COVID-19 pandemic, racial unrest and social injustices, natural catastrophes, and many others that leave indelible impressions. We want to hear from poets whose speakers come out stronger after a crisis.

The deadline is Oct. 15.

Please read the guidelines carefully before submitting. Specific guidelines can be found here.

Writing Competition: Minds on Fire Open Book Prize

 Minds on Fire Open Book Prize—$1500 and Publication

Deadline: October 31, 2020

Entry Fee: $25.00

Our third annual open book prize is accepting manuscripts. If you have a manuscript or know someone who does, please give us a shot. Open to any poet writing in English regardless of previous publication record, the prize seeks to represent the best contemporary writing in high quality editions of enduring value. Prospective entrants are encouraged to familiarize themselves with Conduit, which champions originality, intelligence, irreverence, and humanity. Previously unpublished manuscripts of 48-90 pages should be submitted through our Submittable page or via the USPS.

Please visit our website for details.

Writing Competition: Gemini $1000 Flash Fiction Prize

Gemini $1,000 Flash Fiction Prize

Deadline: August 31

Got a great short-short story? Win $1,000 for a story of 1,000 words or less in the 12th annual Gemini Magazine Flash Fiction Contest. Second prize: $100. Four honorable mentions: $25 each.

Entry fee: $6.

Any subject or style. Except for the word limit, we have no rules and are open to your most creative work, whether literary, noir, historical, sci-fi or any other category. All six finalists will be published online in the October 2020 issue of Gemini. Read any of the dozens of previous winners/finalists online to see the wide variety of flash fiction we have published.

Writing Competition: 2021 Pen / Bellwether for Socially Engaged Fiction

Background:

 

The PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction is a career-founding prize, which promotes fiction that addresses issues of social justice and the impact of culture and politics on human relationships. Established by Barbara Kingsolver in 2000 and funded entirely by her, it is awarded biennially to the author of a previously unpublished novel-in-progress of high literary caliber that exemplifies the prize’s founding principles.

 

The winning novel-in-progress is chosen by a panel of three judges: Barbara Kingsolver, one editor representing Algonquin Books, and one distinguished literary author. Entries are judged blindly, to avoid any form of bias, and the identities of the authors of the submissions are not known by the judging panel until after the decision is finalized.

 

The author of the winning manuscript is awarded a prize of $25,000 and a publishing contract with Algonquin Books, as well as an additional publishing advance. The winning author can expect to work closely with an editor from Algonquin prior to publication, and will receive promotional support from PEN America and Algonquin. Winners for this award are eligible to receive PEN America’s official winner seal.

 

Submissions for the 2021 cycle will be open June 15–August 15, 2020.
Defining Socially Engaged Fiction:

 

Socially engaged fiction may describe categorical human transgressions in a way that compels readers to examine their own prejudices. It may invoke the necessity for economic and social justice for a particular ethnic or social group, or it may explicitly examine movements that have brought positive social change. Or, it may advocate the preservation of nature by describing and defining accountable relationships between people and their environment.

 

The mere description of an injustice, or of the personal predicament of an exploited person, without any clear position of social analysis invoked by the writer, does not in itself constitute socially engaged literature. “Social engagement” describes a moral obligation of individuals to engage with their communities in ways that promote a more respectful coexistence, to question and confront, to work towards betterment.

 

Politically engaged literary fiction has influenced readers and social currents of every age, from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” – —which invigorated the American movement to abolish slavery— – through 20th-c Century classics such as “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair and Toni Morrison’s “Beloved.” More contemporary contributors to this tradition include Margaret Atwood, Jesmyn Ward, Louise Erdrich, Barbara Kingsolver, Tommy Orange, Richard Powers, Valeria Luiselli, Rion Amilcar Scott, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and others.

 

Because of its inherent challenges and discomforts brought to a reader, socially engaged fiction is often undervalued in American letters, while its role and recognition in American culture is only growing. Historically, its advocacy has not fallen within the stated goals of major North American publishers, endowments, or other prizes for the arts. The PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction was conceived to address these deficiencies, with the hope of enlisting more U.S. writers, publishers, and readers to share in this crucial endeavor.

 

 Who is Eligible:

 

• An unpublished novel manuscript by a writer who has not sold more than 10,000 copies of a previously published book.

• The submission must be an original, previously unpublished novel, written by one person in English, and at least 80,000 words in length.

• The applicant’s submission may not be under consideration by any publisher during the judging period, and the work should not be submitted elsewhere during the review period for this prize.

• Authors must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

• Authors will have published at least three pieces of short fiction, poetry, or nonfiction in a literary journal, cultural website, or media outlet, which has undergone editorial review.

• Individuals who were previously finalists for the PEN/Bellwether Prize cannot submit the same work again for any future offerings of this award, unless the manuscript has undergone significant revisions. 

 
Timeline:
Applicants will be notified in early fall if their manuscript is a finalist or is no longer under consideration, at which time they should feel free to submit the work elsewhere for consideration.
Approximately ten finalists for the award will be notified in early fall, and are asked to continue to keep their manuscript under exclusive consideration of the judges until the winner announcement.
The winner announcement will be made in early 2021.

 

 How to Submit:

• As one PDF document, upload a one-page synopsis of the work’s plot, as well as the manuscript. The author’s name should not appear anywhere in the synopsis and manuscript document, to ensure anonymity in the judging process. Any inclusion of the author’s name disqualifies them for the prize.

• The one-page synopsis of the work’s plot should also include how the work functions as socially engaged fiction.

• The author’s typed, double-spaced (12- point font), and paginated manuscript (at least 80,000 words in length) should include the title on every page.

• Separately, upload a résumé or curriculum vitae of three pages maximum. The author’s name and publication history should appear on this document for the Literary Awards team to review.

Each submission is $40. Should this fee prove a financial hardship for the applicant, they may request a fee waiver via awards@pen.org, no questions asked. 

 

Submit your entry here.

 

Call for Submissions: Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts

We read for our ProForma Contest every spring from March 15 - April 30 and for general submissions from May 15 - August 15. Our print issue is published annually with an accompanying online issue.

Simultaneous submissions are acceptable as long as we are immediately notified if the piece has been accepted elsewhere. We do not consider previously published work. We do not consider work from those currently or recently affiliated with the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

Please submit all work in Times New Roman, size 12 font. 

Submit your work here.

Call for Submissions: Superstition Review

Superstition Review Seeking Submissions for Issue 26

Deadline: August 31

On behalf of Arizona State University and the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts, Superstition Review is dedicating Issue 26 to work that promotes inclusion and explores new ways to dismantle racial and social inequality. We have chosen this theme in order to magnify voices that have been traditionally undermined by our histories, institutions, policies, laws, and habits of daily life.

Our submissions will be open August 1st-31st. We accept art, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. 

Call for Submissions: Sky Island Journal

Sky Island Journal: Issue 14 (Fall 2020) Call for Submissions

Deadline: Midnight (CST) September 30, 2020

Sky Island Journal is an independent, international, free-access literary journal dedicated to publishing the finest poetry, flash fiction, and creative nonfiction. We publish accomplished, well-established authors—side by side—with fresh, emerging voices. We provide over 70,000 readers in 145 countries with a powerful, focused, advertising-free literary experience that transports them: one that challenges them intellectually and moves them emotionally. We publish quarterly, and our average response time is 9 days. Every submission receives a prompt, respectful, and individualized response detailing what we appreciated.

Enjoy our previous issues, and submit for Issue 14 before midnight (CST) on September 30th here.

Writing Competition: The Coniston Prize for Women Poets

The Coniston Prize for Women Poets - $1,500 Award

Deadline: September 1

The Coniston Prize from Radar Poetry recognizes an exceptional group of poems by a woman writing in English. This year's judge is Ada Limón. The winner will receive $1,500 and publication. Up to 10 finalists will also be awarded publication in the contest issue.

Coniston Prize entries will be accepted through Submittable until the deadline of September 1, 2020.

The reading fee is $20.

Visit our website to review the guidelines and read the work of past winners.

Call for Submissions: Storm Cellar

Call for Submissions: Storm Cellar

Deadline: Rolling

Storm Cellar, a journal of safety and danger, seeks amazing, adventurous new writing, art, and photography. Indigenous, Black, POC, gender nonconforming, women, LGBTQIA+, disabled, neurodivergent, fat, poor, and border-straddling authors encouraged. Midwest connections a plus. Specific, strong, and strange voices welcome: surprise us!

Full guidelines and submission link here.

Call for Submissions: Raleigh Review

Raleigh Review Submissions Open through Halloween

Deadline: Halloween 2020 at Midnight

We with Raleigh Review believe that great literature inspires empathy by allowing us to see through the eyes of our neighbors, whether across the street or across the globe. We are currently open to general submissions for poetry and flash fiction through Halloween 2020 at Midnight. There is a small convenience fee to submit to our general submission categories as this helps to defray the costs associated with operating via the Submittable platform, a necessary resource for us as our staff is located across the country and at times the world. We encourage you to check out our free full-issue online archive to find out more about us.

Call for Submissions: Grand Little Things

Call for Submissions: Grand Little Things

Deadline: Rolling

Grand Little Things is open for submissions! Visit us at our website for more info! GLT is looking for formal poetry (think sonnets, villanelles, etc.) or blank/free verse that uses traditional poetic techniques. Open to never-been-published-writers and up and comers, as well as established writers.

No fee required.