News from NewPages
Besides learning about submission opportunities, new titles, and new issues of literary and alternative magazines, you can also discover brand new journals in our New Lit on the Block series from Editor Denise Hill. This month discover Yearling, a print journal from Central Kentucky published annually by Workhorse, and NĪNSHAR Arts, an open access online publication of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, paintings, drawings, etchings, photography, digital art, and sculpture images publishing on a rolling basis.
You can learn more about new journals and the latest issues from established journals on our regularly updated Magazine Stand. Recently featured find The Massachusetts Review Winter 2022 issue which is focused on “Disability Justice” and guest edited by Cyrée Jarelle Johnson and Khairani Barokka. The Malahat Review Issue 220 features the winner of the Far Horizons Award for Poetry, Meryem Yildiz, and work by Chelsea Coupal, Manahil Bandukwala, Erin Conway-Smith, Garbriel Cholette, Monica Wang, and many more.
Issue 43.4 of New England Review offers readers a Covid diary by Zoe Valery, Leath Tonino’s defense of the American Outback, a short play by British author Charlotte Turnbull, multi-page excerpts from poem sequences by Sandra Simonds and Diana Khoi Nguyen, new shorter poems by Kim Addonizio, Aumaine Rose Smith, and Josh Tvrdy, and so much more. A selection of work from this issue is available to read online. The Fall 2022 issue of The Missouri Review is themed “Deep Focus” and comes from the technique used in early film and features works by Drew Calvert, Felicia Zamora, Mako Yoshikawa, and Rohini Sunderam to name a few contributors.
Literary magazine Storm Cellar offers their issues in print or ebook formats. The Autumn 2022 issue is nicknamed “Hobby Horse” and features work by Mandy-Suzanne Wong, Carolyn Oliver, Sijia Ma, Dylan Willoughby, and cover art by Maria Svartvadet Jakobsen. South Dakota Review 57.1 features an experimental collaborative essay by Corinna Cook and Jeremy Pataky along with poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.
Superstition Review celebrates their 15th anniversary with the release of Issue 30. Enjoy art by Jenny Wu, fiction by Amy Reardon, nonfiction by Audacia Ray, poetry by Charlie Peck, and interviews with Angie Cruz, Leopoldo Gout, Manuel Muñoz, Raquel Gutierrez, and Rudy Ruiz. Coming this week to the Magazine Stand, learn more about new issues from Cleaver, Under a Warm Green Linden, Minerva Rising, The Writing Disorder, The Society of Classical Poets, and Superpresent.
If you’re looking to bulk up your reading list in 2023, check out our full list of books received for January. Don’t forget to stop by our Book Stand to learn more about several of these titles.
Howard Berk and Peter Berk’s TimeLock is currently available and is set in a crime-ridden near future where bold new tech transforms the justice system and challenges America’s moral compass. Available this month, enjoy Exquisite by September from Shayla Hawkins which chronicles the zeitgeist of the early 21st Century U.S. and her place in it as an American Black woman and Willa Schneberg’s The Naked Room which features poetry drawing on Schneberg’s experiences “as a therapist to take readers on a journey through the disturbing history of psychotherapy and the treatment of mental illness.”
Coming soon, discover A Fire in the Hills by Afaa Weaver which focuses on his ongoing project of an articulation of self in relation to the external landscape of the community and the world. Wesley G. Phelps tells the story of the “long, troubled, and ultimately hopeful road to constitutional change” in Before Lawrence V. Texas: The Making of a Queer Social Movement. Beth Bentley’s final collection of poetry Missing Addresses explores her Jewish heritage, reflects on her deep love of art and philosophy, and so much more. Brenda Cárdenas’ Trace: Poems features image-rich poetry regarding migration, transcultural identity, loss, connection, dreams, and aging.
Don’t forget to come back to our Book Stand throughout the week to find new and forthcoming titles from Dennis Hinrichsen, Kate Kort, Richard LeBlond, Buffy Aakaash, and Herman Melville.
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.
Get even more reading recommendations from our reviewers. Regular reviewer Kevin Brown tackles Claire Keegan’s Foster which is “slight in size, but not in emotional heft.” Stay tuned to the blog this week for reviews of Suzanne Frischkorn’s Fixed Star and Karen McPherson’s “To the Quick.”
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.
Below are this week’s writing contests, calls for submissions, and literary and writing events. Enjoy 25+ opportunities to get your work published or to enhance your writing craft. Paid subscribers get first and early access to these opportunities every Monday afternoon. Free subscribers receive access to these opportunities the following Monday afternoon.
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. Subscribers with paid subscriptions receive early access to ads before they are posted to our site.
Calls for Submissions
Our Doors are Open
Deadline: Year-round
The Blue Mountain Review launched from Athens, Georgia in 2015 with the mantra, “We’re all south of somewhere.” As a journal of culture, the BMR strives to represent all life through its stories. Stories are vital to our survival. What we sing saves the soul. Our goal is to preserve and promote lives told well through prose, poetry, music, and the visual arts. We’ve published work from and interviews with Jericho Brown, Kelli Russell Agodon, Robert Pinsky, Rising Appalachia, Turkuaz, Michel Stone, Michael Flohr, Lee Herrick, Chen Chen, Michael Cudlitz, Pat Metheny, Melissa Studdard, Lyrics Born, Terry Kay, and Christopher Moore. View full information and submit here.
Applause International Undergraduate Literary Journal Open For Submissions—Paying Venue
Deadline: February 14, 2023
Applause Issue 33: The (In)Evitable Ending. Evitable; adj. That admits of being avoided; avoidable. Applause is looking for the most interesting angles we can find as your work approaches its “evitable ending.” We begin knowing there’s an end, but the ending doesn’t have to be inevitable to satisfy the reader. Sometimes the end of “what actually happened” is really the poem, story, or essay’s beginning. Sometimes the piece decides the end. We’re looking for original poems, stories, essays, and visual art that showcases what happens when we avoid the avoidable. Imagine the ending. Avoid it. Send it to us.
Third Street Review
Deadline: Rolling
Third Street Review is a new online literary journal for flash fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, art, and photography. We are a paying market and welcome work from writers and artists from all cultural backgrounds and experience levels. For complete submission guidelines, please visit our website.
Dark Onus Press seeks Unsolicited, Micro-sized Manuscripts
Dark Onus Press is an experimental, independent publishing house which produces short volumes of poetry, short stories, flash fiction, and artwork. We are open year-round, read blindly, do not charge reading fees and do not charge you for your first batch of books if you publish with us. We are a micro-publisher of experimental work, publishing print books and ebooks. Our response time is two months. It is our mission to stay small and stay afloat for many years to come. We are self-funded and independent, intending to publish new and established authors and artists. Submissions now open. View submission guidelines.
Dark Onus Lit is seeking Submissions for Inaugural Issue
Dark Onus Lit is an experimental literary magazine which puts out micro-issues of poetry, short stories, flash fiction, audio and artwork. We are open year-round, read blindly, and do not charge reading fees. We appreciate dark-themed work. Our response time is 3 weeks. Please review our Masthead and Submission Guidelines pages for our leanings. We are looking for experimental, challenging work for our inaugural issue.
Emerald City Seeks Fiction
Emerald City, an online quarterly of fiction, seeks compelling, original stories for our upcoming spring and summer issues. Fiction can be of any genre or style; as long as the stories are character-driven and hard to put down, we want to see them. Submit anything from flash fiction to stories up to 10,000 words. Beginning in 2023, our stories will also appear in print in the form of an annual anthology and multiple stand-alone stories. For more information, visit our website.
Driftwood Press — Fiction & Poetry Contests Deadlines This Month
Driftwood Press is happy to share a plethora of submission opportunities for writers and artists! Our In-House Fiction & Poetry Contests, in which every work submitted is considered for publication as winner or runner-up, is ending soon! For our yearly print anthology, we are looking for poems, short stories, comics, and visual art that will wow our readers, accepted as both contest and normal submissions. We are a paying market, and our published writers also get to take part in bespoke interviews about their work! Driftwood is also on the hunt for amazing book-length titles to grow our catalogue, so if you have a novella, poetry collection, comic collection, or graphic novel manuscript, we would love to read it! Visit us here for our Submittable page, and we encourage you to follow us on social media (@driftwoodpress) to learn about even more submission opportunities!
Heron Tree: Call for Found Poetry Submissions
Extended Deadline: February 15, 2023
Deadline extended to 15 February 2023! We are accepting found poems composed from sources published in or before 1927. We are interested in any and all approaches to found poetry construction and erased or remixed texts. Accepted poems will be published weekly on the Heron Tree website starting in February 2023 and will be included in a free, downloadable PDF volume available later in 2023. No fee. For detailed submission guidelines, visit us at our website.
Seeking Positive Stories of Sexual Intimacy after Abuse
Extended Deadline: February 28, 2023
Submit to submissions@celebrationsofhealing.com by February 28, 2023. Are you a writer and survivor of sexual abuse? Since you began your recovery, have you begun to experience moments of meaningful, joyful, sexual or sensual intimacy and exploration? Celebrations of Healing would love to hear your stories of sexual awakening and/or reawakening. We want to publish them to inspire other survivors and give hope to those who are just beginning their recovery journeys. All sexualities and genders are encouraged to submit. Stories can be published under pseudonyms to protect privacy. Deadline extended to February 28, 2023. For more information, see the Celebrations of Healing 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) in a single word document. 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.
Call for Submissions from Girls Worldwide
Extended Deadline: January 31, 2023
Girls Right the World is a literary journal inviting young, female-identified writers and artists, ages 14–21, to submit work for consideration for the seventh annual issue. We believe girls’ voices transform the world for the better. We accept poetry, prose, and visual art of any style or theme. We ask to be the first to publish your work in North America; after publication, the rights return to you. Send your best art and/or writing, in English or English translation, to girlsrighttheworld@gmail.com by January 31, 2023. Please include a note mentioning your age, where you’re from, and a bit about your submission.
Exploration and Catharsis: Mental Illness and The Awakenings Review
Deadline: Year-round
The Awakenings Review is an award-winning literary magazine committed to publishing poetry, short stories, nonfiction, and photography by writers, poets, and artists who have a relationship with mental illness, either self, family member, or friend. Located in the Chicago area but international in scope, our hardcopy publication, soon to be published biannually (beginning in Spring 2023), is one of the nation’s leading journals of this genre. While we are most interested in works of recovery and healing, at The Awakenings Review we are not averse to providing a forum and liberating experience of all manners of work and a vehicle of insight for our readers. Refer to our submission guidelines at our website.
Works Progress Calling for Fiction Submissions
Deadline: Year-round
We are a Substack publishing short fiction about anything bigger than yourself: stories about astronauts, ICU nurses, politics, protests, alternate histories, big-world calamities, juicy personal dramas and the people who experience them. Fiction with dynamic characters who do interesting things. We don’t think stories should be slogs. We do not publish quiet stories about divorce. We pay our writers, and have published work from writers such as Hannah Assadi, Juhea Kim, Robert Lopez and more. Submit via email (guidelines here) and visit our archives here.
Fleas on the Dog Seeking a Drama Editor
This is a temporary position. You would be responsible for selecting plays for publication and writing an introductory note for each one. You don’t have to be a playwright yourself but knowledge of theatre and drama is required and a broad acceptance of a variety of writing styles. No $ just infamy. Contact CHARLES at fleasonthedog.com for details.
Book of Matches Seeks Submissions
Deadline: April 7, 2023
In an age dominated by our worst tendencies for tribalism, it's more important than ever to celebrate the best in humanity through the very real magic of words. Book of Matches is always interested in protest—interested in protest against the unknowing alive in human existence, in protest against the knowing, too. In essence, Book of Matches celebrates what burns in the dark, and too the assurance of how little this illuminates before going out. Send your most meaningful lies, real lives, and poetry of both that we may see a bit more clearly the stormy seas around us all. View website.
Call for Submissions - Molecule: a tiny lit mag
Deadline: January 15, 2023
Submissions for Molecule: a tiny lit mag open until 1/15/2023 for Issue 8, Spring 2023. Send up to five pieces of poetry, prose (fiction and nonfiction), plays, translations, reviews, and interviews in 50 words or less (including titles except for interviews/reviews). Visual artwork of tiny things like tea bags, toothpicks, or tiny paintings also wanted. Strict word count; don’t try and trick us we have small minds. Send submissions (preferably in the body of the email) to moleculetinylitmag@gmail.com, along with a 3rd-person bio of no more than 24 words (including name). View 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
Scotland Writing Immersion in Edinburgh
Deadline: March 15, 2023
Event Dates: May 21-25, 2023. A generative and adventurous writing retreat on the Royal Mile Facilitated by memoirist-novelist Carolyn Dawn Flynn and poet-writer Jona Kottler. Let a city that loves writers embrace you as you immerse yourself in Edinburgh, Scotland, for five days and four nights of inspiring craft talks, mentored support, and a vibrant writer community. For writers of fiction, creative nonfiction, screenplays, and poetry, featuring mentored craft support and vision-making as well as Muse-dates all through the writing landscape of Edinburgh. Visit our website for more info.
Story Catalyst Writing Craft Classes
Deadline: Rolling
Our writing classes are cataclysmic! We deliver classes live, virtual, and on demand, and we wrap the classes in a dynamic writer community that is intellectually rigorous, vision-powered, and emotionally supportive. All classes include a free membership in the Story Catalyst community on Mighty Networks. Access by the class or sign up for all classes in the Story Catalyst track. Membership in the Story Catalyst track includes: 10 monthly classes and First-pass access to premium classes. We don’t believe in writer’s block. We believe skills + vision = happy writers. Join our warm and welcoming community. Visit website for more info.
Writing & Book Contests
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
Extended Deadline: January 15, 2023
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: January 15. Visit Interim Poetics website.
DISQUIET Literary Prize
Extended Deadline: January 9, 2023
Submissions are now open for the DISQUIET Prize for writing in any genre. Three winners will be published in Granta.com (fiction), NinthLetter.com (nonfiction) or The Common (poetry). One grand prize winner will receive a full scholarship, accommodations, and travel stipend to attend the eleventh annual DISQUIET International Literary Program in Lisbon taking place June 25 – July 7, 2023. Runners-up and other outstanding entrants will also be considered for financial aid. Submission fee: $15. Visit website.
2023 Colorado Prize for Poetry
Deadline: January 14, 2023
$2,500 honorarium and book publication: Submit book-length collection of poems to the Colorado Prize for Poetry by January 14, 2023 (we will observe a 5-day grace period). $25 reading fee (add $3 to submit online) includes subscription to Colorado Review. Final judge is Felicia Zamora; friends and students (current or former) of the judge are not eligible to compete, nor are Colorado State University employees, students, or alumni. Complete guidelines at our website or Colorado Prize for Poetry, Center for Literary Publishing, 9105 Campus Delivery, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-9105.
Essay Collection Contest, judged by Maggie Nelson
Deadline: January 31, 2023
The 2022-2023 Fonograf Editions Essay Collection contest is for an author’s first or second essay collection. (If you have published more than one essay collection you are ineligible for this contest.) We are looking for innovative work that interrogates what an essay is or can be circa the 21st century. We like to be surprised. We like to be pleasantly stymied. We like directness and indirectness and everything in between. Maggie Nelson will be the final judge for the 2022-2023 Fonograf Editions Essay Collection contest. The winner will receive publication with Fonograf Editions, an honorarium of $1250, a standard royalty contract, and 20 author copies. We will announce our decision in mid- 2023. The winning book will be published in 2024. Visit website.
First Pages Prize Opens March 1st!
Deadline: April 10th (24th Extended)
First Pages Prize invites you to enter your first 5 pages of a longer work of fiction or creative nonfiction. Prizes in both fiction & creative nonfiction. Open to un-agented writers worldwide, the prize supports emerging writers with cash awards, developmental mentoring, & an agent consultation. Visit website.
Prime Number Magazine Awards for Poetry and Short Fiction
Deadline: March 31, 2023
$1,000 first prize in each category plus publication in Prime Number Magazine. Two Runners-up in each category also published in Prime Number Magazine. Reading fee $15. Poetry judged by Felicia Mitchell, author of Waltzing with Horses. Short Fiction judged by Dennis McFadden, author of Jimtown Road: A Novel in Stories, winner of the 2016 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction. Open January 1 to March 31. Submit online through Submittable. Details at the Press 53 website.
Etchings Press Contests for Novella, Prose Chapbook, and Poetry Chapbook
Deadline: January 31, 2023
Etchings Press, a student-run publisher at University of Indianapolis, welcomes submissions for its annual contests for chapbooks in poetry and in prose and a novella. Students are interested in editing and publishing authors in our region within 370 miles of campus. Mixed genre and multiple author manuscripts are welcome. UIndy students will serve as judges and choose the winners in each category. They will then edit, design, publish, and promote the two chapbooks and the novella by May, 2023. Check eligibility and read contest guidelines on our website. Deadline is Jan. 31, 2023.
Cleaver's Form & Form-Breaking Poetry Contest
Deadline: March 31, 2023
Judge: Diane Seuss. $500 First Prize; $250 Second Prize; $100 Third Prize. Deadline: March 31. Show us your poems that hold up the perfect iambic pentameter of a Shakespearean sonnet or crash it on the rocks of free verse. Show us a villanelle with textbook patterning or show us the villanelle who just crashed her car. The one requirement is that your work engages with a form of poetry; whether it gets married to that form or breaks up at the last couplet is up to you. Prizewinners will be published in Cleaver's Fall Issue, September 2023. Finalists may also be offered publication. Visit website for more information.
Find more great calls, events, and contests on our website.
The NewPages Classified section is updated throughout the week giving you news and info on the latest contest and calls.