Check Out Bookstores & Opportunities for Young Writers at NewPages
NewPages Newsletter - Issue 1
Catch Up with NewPages
Welcome to the new NewPages newsletter! Don’t forget to add newpages@substack.com to your safe senders to continue seeing us in your inbox.
Have you visited your local indie bookstore lately? Now is the perfect time to support them while finding the perfect holiday gifts for your friends and family. Use the NewPages Guide to Bookstores to find a store near you. Not seeing your favorite bookstore on the list? Let us know so we can add it!
Winter break is coming up. Will you have little ones home from school? Help keep them busy with our Publications for Young Writers Guide. The publications on this page are open to a variety of ages and are great starting points for new, young writers.
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NewPages Blog
Stay caught up at our blog. There you can take in short reviews, contest & book award winners, book & literary magazine news, and cultural & political news.
Let us know what you've been reading to be included on our blog. Find out what we're looking for here, and see what others have been reading and reviewing here.
Calls, Contests, & More
Check out the latest and featured calls for submissions, writing and book contests, and more in the NewPages classifieds.
Calls for Submissions
RCC MUSE Journal – Poetry and Prose Submissions Open
MUSE is especially looking to publish work from under- or misrepresented groups, such as people of color, disabled people, LGBTQ+, present/formerly incarcerated people, and others from a culturally and linguistically diverse background. Through Dec. 15: submit one short story or CNF 1500 words max; up to three poems. Mail to RCC MUSE, Riverside City College, 4800 Magnolia Avenue, Riverside, CA 92506 or email. If email, send as attachment with “Last Name – Genre – Title of Submission” in the subject line (e.g., Smith – Prose – “In Summer”). Please include contact information. See full submission guidelines at our site. Deadline: December 15, 2021.
Atmosphere Press Reading Book Manuscripts in All Genres
Atmosphere Press currently seeks book manuscripts from diverse voices. There's no submission fee, and if your manuscript is selected, we’ll be the publisher you’ve always wanted: attentive, organized, on schedule, and professional. We use a model in which the author funds the publication of the book, but retains 100% rights, royalties, and artistic autonomy. This year Atmosphere authors have received featured reviews with Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Booklist, and have even appeared on a giant billboard in Times Square. Submit your book manuscript at our website. Deadline: Rolling.
Take The Fruit Religion Abuse Anthology Seeks Subs
Take The Fruit, Flood The Desert: A Religious Trauma Anthology is accepting submissions. Did you question church doctrine and the way leaders/family members used it to lead you? How did the threat of eternal damnation affect you? Did you experience self-loathing or an inability to make decisions? What messages did the church give you about your relationship to your body, sex, and boundaries? How have you healed and reclaimed your identity? Send up to 3 pieces of any genre (Google or Word docs) up to 2,500 words total via email, with the subject “submission, Take The Fruit.” Deadline: December 31.
Sky Island Journal: Issue 19 (Winter 2022) Call for Submissions
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 90,000 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 response detailing what we appreciated. Enjoy our previous issues, and submit to our stunning Issue 19 before midnight on December 31st, at our website.
BreakBread Magazine Seeks Young Creatives 13-25
BreakBread Magazine is a magazine for all young creatives between the ages of 13 and 25. We are always looking for vivid, timely poetry, nonfiction, short stories, comics, and visual arts (photography, illustrated narratives, and hybrid work) that explore new directions in arts and letters. Submissions are always free. Visit Submittable to send us your work. Check out our website for more information. Deadline: Rolling.
Mistake House Magazine Seeks Submissions from Graduate & Undergraduate Writers
Mistake House Magazine publishes fiction and poetry by students in graduate or undergraduate programs worldwide. We seek inventive work that speaks to the heart in a complex global context, including work expressive of documentary poetics. Submission window: October 15, 2021 to March 15, 2022. Submission fee $5. Guidelines at our website.
Heron Tree: Call for Submissions
Heron Tree is open for submissions through January 15, 2022. We will read submissions and make decisions on a rolling basis. Accepted poems will be published individually online (one poem a week beginning in February 2022) and then collected in Heron Tree volume 9, which will be available as a free downloadable ebook. This special issue will be devoted to found poetry. See our detailed submission guidelines at our website.
Call for Submissions: Storm Cellar
Storm Cellar seeks new and amazing writing and art for its spring issue! We are a journal of safety and danger, in many senses, in print and ebook formats since 2011. Send secrets, codes, adventures, mad experiments, and wild things. Black, Indigenous, POC, LGBTQIA+, disabled, neurodivergent, fat, border-straddling, poor, and other marginalized authors encouraged; bonus points for a Midwest connection. Now paying; limited no-fee submissions available each month. Full guidelines and f.a.q. at our website and submit via Submittable. Deadline: Rolling.
Call for Submissions for Anthology - "letters i'll never send"
I am seeking writers who identify as women for an experimental anthology titled “letters i’ll never send”. This anthology will be a compilation of first-person accounts including letters, prosaic poems, diary entries, postcard letters, short personal essays, and other genre-bending experimental pieces. ”letters i’ll never send” is meant to serve as a sentimental linkage between the writer and the reader. It should lure the reader in emotionally, so that they can resonate in some meaningful way. Please visit my website for more information and other guidelines. Please send your pieces via email (in the body or attached). Deadline: December 31, 2021.
Chestnut Review Invites Submissions Year Round
Chestnut Review (“for stubborn artists”) invites submissions year round of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, art, and photography. We offer free submissions for poetry (3 poems), flash fiction (<1000 words), and art/photography (20 images); $5 submissions for fiction/nonfiction (<5k words), or 4-6 poems. Published artists receive $120. Notification in <30 days or submission fee refunded. We appreciate stories in every genre we publish. All issues free online which illustrates what we have liked, but we are always ready to be surprised by the new! Deadline: Rolling.
Plus more calls for submissions...
The New Verse News Seeks Current Events Poetry
Call for Submissions by Men about Men & Work :: Vineyards Press
Blink-Ink Call for Submissions on Bad Habits
MudRoom: Call for Submissions
Split Rock Review Seeks Submissions for Issue 18
Call for Submissions: Molecule - a tiny lit mag
Writing & Book Contests
Interim Test Site Poetry Series Call for Manuscripts
We’re looking for manuscripts of at least 48 pages that engage the perilous conditions of life in the 21st century, as they pertain to issues of social justice and the earth. Because we believe the truth is always experimental, we’ll especially appreciate books with innovative approaches. Beginning in 2021 and going forward, Interim will be publishing two books in their Test Site Poetry series—one title publicized as the winner of the Test Site Poetry Series and the other as the Betsy Joiner Flanagan Award in Poetry. Both winners will receive $1,000 and publication by the University of Nevada Press. Extended deadline: January 1, 2022.
2022 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing
Submissions are now being accepted for the 10th Saroyan Prize. The awards, co-sponsored by Stanford Libraries and the William Saroyan Foundation, are “intended to encourage new or emerging writers and honor the Saroyan legacy of originality, vitality, and stylistic innovation.” Two prizes of $5,000 each are given for works of fiction and nonfiction. Writers who have published four books or more are ineligible. Submit five copies of your work published between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2021, with a $50 entry fee by January 31, 2022. Visit our website for complete eligibility and submission details.
2022 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction
Press 53 Award for Short Fiction: First Prize $1,000, publication, and 50 copies (ten hardcover and 40 softcover) awarded to an unpublished collection of short stories. Press 53 Short Fiction Editor, Claire V. Foxx, will judge. Enter online through Submittable. Deadline: midnight, December 31, Eastern Time. Winner and finalists announced before May 1, 2022. Reading fee: $30. Complete information, plus a list of past winners at the Press 53 website. Questions should be directed to Kevin Morgan Watson, Publisher and Editor in Chief via email or call at 336-770-5353.
3rd Annual Short Short Story Contest to Support Literacy
Ethos Literacy—a nonprofit literacy program—announces its 3rd Annual Short Short Story Contest. 100 word limit on one of these topics: chewing gum, horror movies, skyscrapers, or tubas. Cash prizes: Best in Contest: $250; Best Youth Prize (14 years or younger): $100; 4 Best of Category: $100; People's Choice $100. Publication in a digital magazine + webcast of winners reading their stories. Submission fee: $10. Proceeds support literacy programs for teens and adults. Deadline: January 31, 2022.
Acacia Fiction Prize: $1,200 + Publication
Send us your polished manuscripts of Short stories, Flash Fiction, Novellas or any combination totaling 45K to 75K words. Winner Receives $1,200, publication by Kallisto Gaia Press, and 20 copies. Runner-Up receives $100 and offer of publication under our generous contract. Gabino Iglesias is the final judge. Individual stories may be previously published. Original work. $25 to play. Submissions through Submittable only. All judging is ID concealed. See website for more info. Deadline: December 31, 2021.
$1,200 & Publication - Saguaro Poetry Prize
Send us your polished manuscripts of original contemporary poetry totaling 28 to 48 pages. Winner receives $1,200, publication by Kallisto Gaia Press, and 20 copies. Runner-Up receives $100 and offer of publication under our generous contract. Guest judge to be announced. Individual poems may be previously published. Original work. $25 to play. Submissions through Submittable only. All judging is ID concealed. See website for more info. Deadline: December 31, 2021.
The Annual Memoir Prize for Books
The second annual Memoir Prize awards Memoir and Creative Nonfiction book-length works of exceptional merit in the categories of traditional, self-published, and previously unpublished prose. Submit your full-length memoir on any subject matter for a chance to win cash and a feature in Memoir Magazine. The only contest of its kind dedicated exclusively to the Memoir genre accepts full-length books of memoir or narrative creative nonfiction, essay collections, or graphic narratives for consideration. No restrictions on length, type of publisher, or year of publication. Deadline: December 31, 2021. Enter at the Memoir Magazine website.
Win $1,000: 12th Annual Gemini Magazine Poetry Open
Winner receives $1,000 and publication for a poem of any length, subject or style. Rhyming or non-rhyming. Traditional or non-traditional. Second prize: $100. Four honorable mentions: $25 each. Entry fee: $8 for three poems. All six winners will be published online in our March/April 2022 issue. Read previous winners and enter at Gemini Magazine's website. Deadline: January 4, 2022.
New & Forthcoming Titles
Broadstone Books Presents New Poetry from David Hargreaves
Lush and allusive, tuned to a background in translating Nepal Bhasa poetry, Running Out of Words for Afterwards gives voice to cycles of desire, loss, and renewal. Like the many rivers that flow through this book, David Hargreaves’ poems, in various turns, can be urgent, expansive, unpredictable, or calm, conveying the reader through landscapes both mystical and mundane, through illusions of selfhood, and the struggles of language to accept its own limitations. "A truly exquisite book of poems."—Charlotte Pence
Workshops, Conferences, & Programs
18th Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival
18th Annual Virtual Palm Beach Poetry Festival, January 10-15, 2022. Focus on your work with America’s most engaging and award-winning poets. Workshops with Kim Addonizio, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Chard deNiord, Mark Doty, Yona Harvey, John Murillo, Matthew Olzmann, and Diane Seuss. One-On-One Conferences with Lorna Blake, Sally Bliumis Dunn, Nickole Brown, Jessica Jacobs, and Angela Narciso Torres. A special Craft Talk by Kwame Dawes, Special Guest Poet, Yusef Komunyakaa. Poet-at-Large, Aimee Nezhukumatathil. To find out more, visit our website.
The Forge Writing Program: 10 Months to Writing Mastery
Deadline: December 31, 2021. Event Dates: January - October 2022. Event Location: Virtual. At The Forge, we'll give you the creative writing tools & training to light a fire under your writing, at a much lower cost than a traditional MFA program. You bring the fire—your love of creative writing—and we’ll help shape you into the writer you want to be: confident, keen, and committed to a writing community. In biweekly meetings and through individual mentorships, we'll stock you with craft know-how, revision skills, and writerly habits so you can forge your literary dream. We got our MFAs so you don't have to. Learn more at our website. Get in touch via email.