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Calls, Contests, & More
Here are the latest and featured calls for submissions and writing and book contests. Please note the ads featured here are paid listings. As a NewPages subscriber you receive early access to ads before they are posted to our site.
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!
Cherry Tree Now Open for Submissions!
Deadline: October 1, 2022
Cherry Tree: A National Literary Journal would like to read your fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction through October 1, 2022. All accepted work is also considered for our distinctive Literary Shade section. Contributors receive $20 and 2 copies of the issue in which their work appears. Our $3 reading fee helps us to pay contributors and 10% of those fees will be donated to Minary's Dream Alliance, a community nonprofit organization with strong mentorship programs for at-risk youth. (The editors make a matching donation.) For more about what we're looking for and to read our guidelines, please visit our website.
Qua Magazine Seeks Submissions for Fall 2022 Issue
Deadline: October 2, 2022
Qua Literary and Fine Arts Magazine is a student-run publication of the University of Michigan-Flint. Founded over 50 years ago, we invite submissions of Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Poetry, Visual Arts, and Photography from anyone living in the state of Michigan. No submission fees. For the Fall 2022 issue, all submissions must be made by October 2, 2022 here.
Sky Island Journal: Issue 22 (Fall 2022) Call for Submissions
Deadline: September 30, 2022
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 115,000 readers in 145 countries with a powerful, free-access, 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 22 before midnight on September 30th, at our website.
Plant-Human Quarterly Seeks Poems and Essays for Upcoming Issues
Deadline: Year-round
Plant-Human Quarterly reads year-round. We seek unpublished or published poetry and essays that explore the myriad ways writers manifest their relationship to the botanical world—whether through heavily researched pieces, keen observation, or more intuitive ways of knowing—that attempt to communicate across boundaries and approach a plant’s-eye-view of the world. Send no more than 5 poems or an essay of no more than 1500 words (flash essay or essay excerpt). Past contributors include Ellen Bass, Forrest Gander, Kimiko Hahn, Brenda Hillman, Jane Hirshfield, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Pattiann Rogers, Scott Russell Sanders, Arthur Sze. Submission guidelines at our website.
Atmosphere Press Reading Book Manuscripts in All Genres
Deadline: Rolling
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.
Literary Events
Affordable Poetry, Publishing, & Critique Workshops
Deadline: Year-round
Caesura Poetry Workshop aims to support, inspire, educate, and energize poets of all backgrounds through affordable monthly Zoom workshops hosted by award-winning poet, editor, and writing coach John Sibley Williams. Workshops include poem analysis, active group discussion, writing prompts, and plenty of writing time. Upcoming classes include: Writing Evocative Love Poems (September 17, 11am-1:30pm PT), Elegy: Writing Poems of Loss (October 2 & 9, 11am-1:30pm PT), two group critique classes (Fridays in October and Sundays in November), and others. Manuscript critiques and regular coaching to keep you writing and inspired also available. More information at the Caesura Poetry Workshop website.
The Forge Writing Program: 10 Months to Writing Mastery
Deadline: December 31, 2022
Event Dates: January thru October 2023; 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.
Writing & Book Contests
Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest
Deadline: September 30, 2022
20th year, sponsored by Winning Writers. Win $3,000 for a poem in any style and $3,000 for a poem that rhymes or has a traditional style. Total prizes: $8,000. The top two winners will also receive two-year gift certificates from our co-sponsor, Duotrope (a $100 value). Both published and unpublished work accepted. Winning entries published online. Submit 1-3 poems for a $20 entry fee. Length limit: 250 lines per poem. Judged by S. Mei Sheng Frazier. This contest is recommended by Reedsy. Winning Writers is one of the "101 Best Websites for Writers" (Writer's Digest, 2022). See past winners, advice from the judge, and submit online at our website.
$1,000 + Publication: New Letters Editor's Choice Award
Deadline: October 17, 2022
The New Letters’ Editor’s Choice Award is now accepting entries for experimental work that crosses the traditional boundaries of genre and form. Enter your hybrid work—your lyric essays, prose poems, short-shorts, collages, micro-memoirs. . . whatever you’re doing that’s experimental, that defies easy categorization. The maximum word count is 8,000 and entries must be previously unpublished. The winner will receive $1,000 plus publication in New Letters. Visit the New Letters website for guidelines and to enter online via Submittable.
MAYDAY Creative Nonfiction Prize
Deadline: October 1, 2022
$1,000 award and publication. Deadline: October 1, 2022. To submit, send an essay (2,000–7,500 words) exploring the theme of “Disappearance” (of people, places, things, etc.). Final judge: Darin Strauss, bestselling author of several books, including the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning memoir Half a Life and most recently the acclaimed novel The Queen of Tuesday: A Lucille Ball Story. Reading fee: $20. Online submissions only, please. Complete guidelines at the MAYDAY website.
Whitefish Review's "Montana Prize for Humor" Judged by Garrison Keillor
Deadline: September 30, 2022
Think you’re funny? Know someone else hilarious? Submit your humorous fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for a chance to win the Montana Prize for Humor and $500 in each category! Legendary writer and funny man Garrison Keillor is the final judge! Have your writing published in Whitefish Review, a nationally acclaimed journal published twice yearly from Montana to illuminate the landscape of the human condition, our connection to the natural world, and the confluence of art and science. It features distinctive voices of both well-known and emerging authors and artists. All are welcome to submit! Submissions here!
The Missouri Review's 32nd Annual Jeffrey E. Smith Editors' Prize
Deadline: October 1, 2022
The Missouri Review invites entries for its 32nd annual Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize. Winners receive $5000, publication, and promotion. Fiction or nonfiction entries up to 8,500 words, poetry entries up to 10 pages. Regular entry fee: $25. All-Access entry fee: $30. All entrants receive a 1-year digital subscription to the Missouri Review and a digital copy of Missouri Review Books’ sixth offering, Hello, I Love You, featuring previous contributors. All-Access entrants receive the same plus access to the past decade of digital issues of TMR. All entries considered for publication. Guidelines and further info here. Deadline: October 1.
2023 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction
Deadline: December 31, 2022
2023 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction is awarded to an outstanding, unpublished collection of short stories. Reading Fee: $30. Award: $1,000 cash advance, publication, and fifty copies (35 softcover/15 hardcover). Enter: Submit online with Submittable or by mail from September 1–December 31, 2022. Press 53 short fiction editor in chief Claire V. Foxx will serve as the only judge. Winner and finalists announced by May 1, 2023; advance review copies sent to major reviewers and outlets; publication in May 2024. Complete details at Press 53's website.
Fifth Annual Open Book Prize—$1,500 and Publication
Deadline: November 1, 2022
Our fifth 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.
2022 George Garrett Fiction Prize
Deadline: September 30, 2022
Established in 1998, The George Garrett Fiction Prize highlights one full-length novel or collection of short stories. Since 2019 the Prize comes with a $1,000 advance and publication. 2022 Judge is Vi Khi Nao. This contest is open to any writer in any stage of their career. Submissions are accepted through Submittable only. Deadline to submit is September 30th. Entry fee is $28. Full rules and guidelines can be found on TRP's Submittable or at the TRP website.
2022 X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize
Deadline: September 30, 2022
Established in 1998, The X. J. Kennedy Prize highlights one full-length collection of poetry per year. Since 2019 the Prize comes with a $10,000 advance and publication. 2022 Judge is Kimiko Hahn. This contest is open to any poet in any stage of their career. Submissions are accepted through Submittable only. Deadline to submit is September 30th. Entry fee is $28. Full rules and guidelines can be found on TRP’s Submittable or at the TRP website.
2023 New American Poetry Prize
Deadline: January 15, 2023
2023 NEW AMERICAN POETRY PRIZE. $1,500 and book publication. Final judge: Jamaica Baldwin, author of Bone Language (forthcoming 2023). Deadline: January 15, 2023. Minimum length: 48 pages (no maximum). Reading fee: $25. Online submissions only, please. Complete guidelines at the New American Press website.
Interim Poetics: The Test Site Poetry Prize
Deadline: December 15, 2022
Interim will choose two winning books for the 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 their books will be published by the University of Nevada Press. Submit by: December 15. Visit Interim Poetics website.
Find more great calls, events, and contests on our website:
ISSUED: stories by active-duty military, veterans, and family members
Book of Matches Seeks Submissions
Vilas Avenue Open for Poetry Submissions to Issue Three
The NewPages Classified section is updated throughout the week giving you news and info on the latest contest and calls.
News from NewPages
If you somehow missed it, last week the September eLitPak was emailed to all current newsletter subscribers. In it, find writing contests, book awards, calls for submissions, upcoming conferences and workshops, as well as graduate creative writing programs accepting applications.
The first day of autumn is around the corner. Grab a sweater, a warm drink, and spend the last of the mild days outside with some great literary magazines and books. Speaking of literary magazines, learn more about Gleam: Journal of the Cadralor. This journal is devoted to the Cadralor form, which was co-created by editors Christopher Cadra and Lorie Howe.
Wordrunner eChapbooks’ is a publisher that features digital anthologies and single author echapbooks. Their Summer 2022 issue features Victoria Melekian’s The Satisfaction of Longing which is a collection of seven stories and opens with a chance encounter of a woman and a man who once endured unbearable tragedy.
Issue 31 of Jewish Fiction .net is the Rosh Hashana issue which includes 18 stories originally written in Czech, Yiddish, Hebrew, and English by Eli Amir, Shira Gorshman, Jakuba Katalpa, and more. Want to see more issue announcements? Don’t forget to stop by the NewPages Magazine Stand throughout the week!
This week stay tuned for Fictive Dream’s August-September 2022 which includes work by Francesca Leader, Emily Macdonald, Joanna Theiss, and more; Allegro Poetry Magazine’s Issue 29, themed Freedom, features poetry from Ukraine and around the world; Humana Obscura’s Fall/Winter 2022 which features work by 82 new, emerging, and established contributors around the globe, including Amy Aiken, Subhaga Crystal Bacon, Elizabeth Barlow, and more; The Baltimore Review Summer 2022 which features works by Heather Bartos, Garrett Candrea, Elizabeth J. Coleman, and more; The Society of Classical Poets September 2022 which features work from Guy Warner, Stephen M. Dickey, Mike Solot, and more; The Woven Take Press September 2022 which features embroidered paintings, photo transfers, installation art, poetry, prose, and more; and Tint Journal Fall 2022 issue which had an open theme and features work in English from writers from South Africa to Germany to Japan to Cuba to Ukraine.
Love a good mystery? Coming in February 2023, find Murder in Times Square by William Baer which initiates a new series by the author of the popular Jack Colt mystery series. The book follows well-known New York fashion model Deirdre who works to unravel the death of a dress designer who fell twenty-five stories. Plus, stop by the Book Stand later this week to discover How to Cut a Woman in Half by Janis Harrington. This poetry collection was a finalist for the 2020 Able Muse Book Award and is a testament to resiliency in the throes of mounting family tragedies and trials “beyond human comprehension.”
If you are not based in New York, there’s good news if you’ve ever been interested in enjoying the Poetry Foundation Library’s events. They do offer virtual activities open to all, not just New York residents. They have two upcoming book clubs on September 30 (All the Blood Involved in Love by Maya Marshall) and October 21 (Somebody Else Sold the World by Adrian Matejka). These book clubs feature a small group discussion online with all participants residing in the US offered a complimentary copy of the book.
The 2022 National Write Out will take place October 9-23. Never heard of the Write Out? It’s a free two-week celebration of writing, making, and sharing inspired by the great outdoors. Learn more here.
NewPages Blog
Stay caught up at our blog. There you can take in short reviews, contest & book award winners, book & literary magazine news, new issues of literary magazines, new and forthcoming titles, and cultural & political news.
In reviews, Kevin Brown dives into Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin which is set in the 1990s and 2000s video game culture.
If you’re interested in seeing your own review displayed on our blog, please check out our revised guidelines and consider submitting to NewPages today. It’s free.