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THE FOURTH ANNUAL NORMAL PRIZE

IN FICTION, NONFICTION, & POETRY

It’s that time of the year: The Normal School is accepting entries for the 2013 Normal Prize until 3/15/13. We can’t wait to spend our winters, holed up in our caves, reading submissions. Every entrant gets a free two year subscription to The Normal School so, why not? Read on for our full contest guidelines, and send us your best.

Fiction Prize: $1000 & Publication in magazine

Nonfiction Prize: $1000 & Publication in magazine

Poetry Prize: $1000 & Publication in magazine

Final Judges

Fiction: PABLO MEDINA

Nonfiction: DINTY W. MOORE

Poetry: AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL

GUIDELINES

• All fiction and nonfiction submissions must be 10,087 words or less, double-spaced, 12 pt. font. Poetry submissions should not exceed five pages or five poems total. No identifying information on the manuscript.
• All submissions must be previously unpublished (print or electronic media).
• Simultaneous submissions are allowed as long as you notify editors should your piece be accepted elsewhere. Multiple submissions ARE allowed.

HOW TO SUBMIT

• All submissions must be uploaded through our online submissions manager found here.
• $20 per submission, paid through PayPal only. One story or essay, or up to five poems per entry fee.
• You will receive a confirmation email once your submission has been uploaded.
• Submissions will be read between 12/15/2012 and 3/15/2013.
• Winners will be announced Spring/Summer, 2013.

Note: Remember that you should always check out a magazine or publisher to see what type of things they like and publish. That will help you save money and give you a better chance to win.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

Brain, Child is not your typical parenting pub. It’s as much a literary mag as it is a parenting one, so it wants writers who can pen more than the usual service angle of most family mags.

The brainy book recently switched leadership, and its new editor in chief, Marcelle Soviero, said “I’m definitely keeping the major tenants of the magazine, which are that we’re a literary magazine for women and that we publish essays, short stories and a feature article in each issue.”

Soviero also said she hopes to develop a poetry section and expand the book reviews. Bonus: she loves working with new writers.  ”I’ve been that new author. I know what that’s like, and I always appreciated when magazines would take a chance on me. I like to do that for people, as well, as long as the work is excellent and meets our needs,” she said.

Read more in How To Pitch: Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers. [subscription required]

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

It's an exciting day at the library! Where to start?

1. Tonight is our literary magazine reception. The magazines turned out beautiful! If you're curious how they turned out, you can download my group's magazine as a PDF (2.7 MB), or visit my department's scrapbook page. (The image quality isn't fantastic because, uncompressed, the file clocked in at 10 megs. But it'll give you a good idea, anyway.) If you're going to read just one story, make it "Night of the Living Food," about the ingenious inventor Doctor Bob, his equally clever son Billy, and a town full of evil, mutant food. If this kid (who was incredibly prolific this summer) doesn't continue in the footsteps of Dav Pilkey, I will be very sad.
2. I don't particularly like working weekends, especially weekends when there are scheduled events to contend with. But in November I get to work the day there's an OSTRICH at the library! A live ostrich! They're going to keep him in the storage closet beforehand so he doesn't get overstimulated! I can't wait!!!
3. We got our latest shipment from the ALA Store, including Babymouse and Wimpy Kid posters and bookmarks, a Danica Patrick poster (one of my coworkers loves race cars), and a Cesar Millan poster (which that same coworker sweetly ordered with me in mind)! So now I'll have the Dog Whisperer and Daddy (Millan's tried and true rock of a pit bull) staring out from my office window.

A few months back, Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect posted a suggestion to write "colorful" poetry based on Hailstones and Halibut Bones, by Mary O'Neill. I remembered that my own third grade teacher used that very book with us way back when, and I'd written several four-line verses on different colors. But I didn't step up to the challenge until this week, when I used O'Neill's book as part of my junior literary magazine's opening exercise. If I was asking them to write a colorful poem, shouldn't I do it, too?

So, here's the first non-doggerel poem I've written in... I have no idea how long... five hundred years? It's a rather sentimental ode on summer and the color pink. You have been warned. (Thanks to Jim Danielson for the encouragement last week. Jim, for the record, this took me considerably longer than 15 minutes.)

PINK SUMMER
Dawn smears pink fingers across the dark lake.
Fifty mosquito bites itch you awake.
The day is a strawberry, poised at your lips,
a wheel of melon without any pips.
Out to pick raspberries in the cool morn,
your legs tic-tac-toed by each saber-tooth thorn.
Now run to the beach, let the sun bake you sore.
Gobble a hotdog, then gobble two more.
A peppermint ice cream cone stickies your face
as pink sun melts away and pink moon takes its place.

Catch this week's Poetry Friday round-up at The Well-Read Child!

The local rag did a nice feature on my library's summer literary magazine programs: Library publishes young writers through Lit Mag program.

I don't sound like an idiot in my quotes. Most of the facts are right (though I have 7-year-olds and 5th graders in my group), and there's only one egregious typo I can spot as of this writing. And, best of all, the kids sound enthusiastic about the program. That makes me extraordinarily happy.

Over the course of the summer so far, I've had 58 kids show up. Two thirds have been repeat participants, and more than one-third have come to at least half the meetings, ensuring their work's spot in the magazine.

We've got just one more meeting, and then I've got to bust my buns getting the print layout done for my group and the web sites together for both my group and the older group. Since I'm doing all the web stuff, I'm hoping I can foist dealing with the print shop off on my colleague...