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A few new paintings for part one of Johanna Stein's short story, The Iron Cross, to be published in Cricket Magazine.

Online journal Compose: A Journal of Simply Good Writing is accepting submissions of poetry, literary fiction, creative nonfiction, features, and artwork for the Fall 2016 issue. Deadline: August 15, 2016.

Short fiction and poetry entries are open for Grain Magazine’s 28th Annual Short Grain Writing Contest. First prize in each category: $1,000 ($4,500 in total prizes). Submit poetry (including prose poetry) up to 100 lines or short fiction (including postcard fiction) 2500 words max. Entry fee: $40-$60 (includes subscription). Deadline: April 1, 2016.

Online journal Praise Writers is relaunching and looking for submissions. Poems, stories, articles, devotionals and testimonies must mention “Jesus,” “God,” or “Holy Spirit.” Deadline: June 1, 2016.

New online lit mag Dulcet Quarterly seeks submissions. Looking for poetry and short fiction (3,000 words max). Kind of writing they like: “Isabel Allende mixed with Edgar Allen Poe.” Encourages submissions from POC & LGBT+ communities.

Literary and arts publication the Minetta Review (New York University) is open to submissions from “poets, writers, vagabonds, wanderers, artists, receptionists, mail men, professors, and sentient house cats” for their Spring 2016 issue. Publishes poetry, prose, and visual art from international writers/artists.
Deadline: April 1, 2016.

Print and online journal Dumas de Demain, The French Literary Magazine is accepting submissions for their Autumn 2016 issue. Accepts French poetry, fiction, essays, book reviews, art, photography and spoken word from writers under 25. Encourages all styles and genre of French writing. Deadline: Rolling.

ArtAscent invites writing by international writers on the theme of “heat.” Entries may include fiction, poetry, short stories and other written explorations (900 words max.). Selected writers will be featured in the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal, including an artist profile review. Entry fee: starting at $10. Deadline: February 29, 2016.

New online literary journal Walk Through The Fire is accepting submissions of poetry and short fiction from young and emerging writers. Looking for work that moves and surprises. Submit one story/essay (2000 words max.) or 5 poems. Not a fan of swearing. Deadline: rolling.

JONAHmagazine (Canada) seeks stories of life challenges, successes, and failures: Transitions, beginnings, endings, and bends in the road. Accepts poetry, prose, fiction, creative nonfiction, essay, memoir, and translation. Like stories that “come from the soul, or that steal it.” Submit one prose piece (2500 words or less) and/or 3 poems. Deadline: April 15, 2016.

Southword Journal Online (published twice yearly by The Munster Literature Centre) seeks poems and prose (in English and Irish) for their summer issue. Deadline: March 15, 2016. Payment for accepted pieces: €30/poem and/or €120/story.

The Turnip Truck(s) is interested in the dialectics of the human and its environment(s). Seeking submissions for their second issue and first contest, The Road. Interested in essays, poems, and stories. Welcomes work that addresses anything from a traditional hero’s journey to learning to traverse a foreign land; embraces a new perspective; or navigates the Internet super highway. Reading fee: $3. entry fee: $12. Deadline: March 1, 2016.

Soliloquies Anthology, Concordia University’s undergraduate literary journal, is accepting writing in the following genres: Poetry (max. 5 pages), fiction (max. 3500 words), and creative nonfiction (max. 3500 words). Open to emerging and established writers around the world. Deadline: February 5, 2016.

Literary magazine Lunch Ticket (Antioch University) is accepting submissions for Amuse-Bouche, an every-other-Monday feature on a single writer. Submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and translation. Deadline: January 31, 2016.

Quarter Castle Publishing is looking for short stories set in 1917 Halifax, Nova Scotia, for a short story collection to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion. Payment: $40 per accepted story. Deadline: March 31, 2017.

Stories wanted for Valvepunk – the Anthology (UK). Looking for stories that explore strange discoveries, encounters with the unknown, alternate technologies and altered histories. Length: 7500 words max. Deadline: January 1, 2016. Guidelines.

Online quarterly Lunaris Review, a Journal of Art and the Literary (Nigeria), publishes work that brings “together creative minds to a common platform of artistry and beauty while providing the audience a satisfying read”. Publishes fiction (flash fiction and short story), creative nonfiction, essays, and poetry. Accepts international submissions. Deadline: Rolling. Guidelines.

Chrysalis, a “quarterly-ish” print zine, seeks poetry, short fiction, and art from both established and emerging writers and artists. Theme: Distance. Deadline: November 6, 2015; however submissions of work for the blog are accepted on an ongoing basis. Send to [email protected] and include a brief bio separately from your submission document (no name on submission document). Facebook.

The Christmas holidays are most likely your best chance in the year to read. If your family or close friends aren’t as keen as you, send them off on other pursuits – the Sydney Festival if you’re in NSW (or even if not); bush walks, tennis or whitewater rafting; the beach; the movies, especially moonlit […]

The second installment of Short Fiction Snapshot (see here) is live at Strange Horizons.  This time my topic was Tori Truslow's "Boat in Shadows, Crossing" from Beneath Ceaseless Skies.  As before, you're invited to read the story and join in a discussion in the comments.

Time to get back to the old drawing board with your writing. Even if you don’t find this contest your cup of tea, at least start something new. It could be just the thing for the next contest. Maybe Barbara DiLorenza illustration below will inspire you. Barbara was featured on Illustrator Saturday on April 14th, 2012. Click Here to View.

The Elderberry Prize for Short Fiction.

Content

Short Fiction submissions may fall in any fiction genre allowed by the General Rules.  We are looking for fresh ideas, creative story lines, and interesting characters.  Authors are encouraged to express their own style and unique perspective, and to tell stories that are compelling rather than formulaic.  As always, stories should be free of spelling, grammatical and typographical errors.  Please proof-read your work before submitting.

Length

Submissions should be no longer than 5,000 words, and while there is no lower limit to the acceptable word-count we are generally expecting work in the 3,000 to 5,000 word range.  Submissions longer than 5,000 will be accepted, but no content after the 5,000th word will be considered (i.e. we will stop reading after 5,000 words).

Fee: $18

Submission Deadlines

In 2013, the Elderberry Prize for Short Fiction will be awarded in June, September and December, so submission deadlines for 2013 are May 31, August 31 and November 30.

Awards

A cash prize of $500 is awarded to the winning submission in each Elderberry Short Fiction contest.  In 2013, three such prizes will be awarded in accordance with the Prizes section of the General Contest Rules.  Additional, small cash prizes may be awarded for non-winning submissions at Scribulous’ sole discretion.  The winning entry for each contest will be published in the Winners’ Works section of the Scribulous web site for a period of one year, and will be archived in a format that can be searched and retrieved by readers in perpetuity.

Elderberry Short Fiction Rules Fiction Contest Rules

The Elderberry Prize for Biography.

Content

Each submission for the Biography contest must fit within a fairly traditional definition of biography.  It must be a non-fiction account of the life of a real person, written by someone other than the subject of the biography.  It is not necessary to cover the subject’s entire life in this format – biographies that explore a period in the subject’s life, or even a single event in the subject’s life are acceptable.  Note that autobiographies are not appropriate for this contest.

In judging biographies we will be looking for stories that communicate truths or lessons-learned that transcend the life of the subject or the author.  While the stories themselves may be very personal, they should communicate something of relevance to the reader.  A connection to a larger community, society or culture is what gives the story meaning.

Length

Submissions should be no longer than 5,000 words, and while there is no lower limit to the acceptable word-count we are generally expecting work in the 3,000 to 5,000 word range.  Submissions longer than 5,000 will be accepted, but no content after the 5,000th word will be considered (i.e. we will stop reading after 5,000 words).

Fee: $18

Submission Deadlines

The Elderberry Prize for Short Biography will be awarded in April, July and October of 2013 and January of 2014, so submission deadlines for 2013 are March 31, June 30, September 30 and December 31.

Awards

A cash prize of $500 is awarded to the winning submission in each Elderberry Biography contest.  In 2013, three such prizes will be awarded in accordance with the Prizes section of the General Contest Rules.  Additional, small cash prizes may be awarded for non-winning submissions at Scribulous’ sole discretion.  The winning entry for each contest will be published in the Winners’ Works section of the Scribulous web site for a period of one year, and will be archived in a format that can be searched and retrieved by readers in perpetuity.

Elderberry Short Biography Rules Biography Contest Rules

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

This week on Strange Horizons, we're launching a new reviews department feature: Short Fiction Snapshot, where every other month we'll be dedicating a full-length review to a piece of short fiction.  Here is my editorial explaining my goals and hopes for this project, and here is the first installment, discussing Charlie Jane Anders's "Intestate," from Tor.com.  One of my hopes for this project

Well, what a time that took! Hope you were not holding your breath waiting for my review of Jennifer Mills' rich and rewarding story collection, released in June last year.

Many things got in the way, including another delayed review...

But, here it is, at The Ember.

This excellent book, The Rest Is Weight, provoked an interesting observation from Peter Pierce at the Sydney Morning Herald:

Maybe the short story, not the novel, is the mainstream of Australian fiction. There are echoes of Lawson and Baynton here, as well as Carey. Mills is aware of the tradition to which she is indebted and in which she works adroitly and imaginatively. If the stories can feel like self-imposed tests of what Mills can do, they are also daring, unsettling and assured.

 

The only sad thing about this substantial and beautiful collection is that now we have to wait till Jennifer writes some more. So. Please Consider.

(Crossblogged at Mulberry Road.)

A busy time of year chez nous. And I am not blogging much, more's the pity.

However I do have a review of Josephine Rowe's new story collection from UQP, Tarcutta Wake, up at The Ember. Here is a taster:

I think when Josephine Rowe is older, we will be approaching these early collections as extended prose poems, reaching into each other. Reflecting on her second collection of stories, How A Moth Becomes A Boat, words like ‘painterly’, ‘highly visual’, and ‘cinematic’ spring readily to mind. Even on a repeat reading, where one is more receptive to small nuances, three stories is all it takes before you are seized once more by the urge to swallow that book whole.

Perhaps there are already academics out there sharpening their pencils at the prospect of tracking plot devices and mood shifts, shadows and shapes, as they roam through Rowe’s early works, including this latest collection, Tarcutta Wake. Rowe is that rare thing, a poet completely at home in prose which asks to be read aloud (like poetry should be). While facing down cliché, Rowe is capable of compounding an astringent and powerful vocalism from closely observed moments and often percussive sounds:

It is understood that a second key will not be cut, just as it is understood that you will not be staying long enough for it to matter. But three weeks now, most of February, and you’re wearing his clothes, smoking his cigarettes, sharing his bed and his razors. From his kitchen window you watch the freight trains thunder past, headed west. By the time you’ve eaten and dressed it will be twelve or one, hot as hell. You’ll listen to the telephones ringing out over the loudspeakers of the factories and Joe’s Storage from across the highway and, grinding your first cigarette of the day into his stainless steel sink, you will not understand why the sound of the freight trains breaks your fucking heart. ‘Stay’ - How a Moth Becomes A Boat

Read More

For more than twenty-five years the Drue Heinz Literature Prize has recognized and supported writers of short fiction and made their work available to readers around the world. The contest, which includes a $15,000 prize and publication, is open to writers who have published a book-length collection of fiction or at least three short stories or novellas in commercial magazines or literary journals.

The Drue Heinz Literature Prize Call for Submissions 2012

The Drue Heinz Literature Prize recognizes and supports writers of short fiction and makes their work available to readers around the world. The award is open to writers who have published a book-length collection of fiction or at least three short stories or novellas in commercial magazines or literary journals.

Manuscripts are judged anonymously by nationally known writers; past judges have included Robert Penn Warren, Joyce Carol Oates, Raymond Carver, Margaret Atwood, Russell Banks, Rick Moody and Joan Didion. The prize carries a cash award of $15,000 and publication by the University of Pittsburgh Press under its standard contract.

The winner will be announced by the University Press in January. No information about the winner will be released before the official announcement. The volume of manuscripts prevents the Press from offering critiques or entering into communication or correspondence about manuscripts. Please do not call or e-mail the Press.

Past Winners of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize

Eligibility

Format for Submissions