In what circumstances are a person’s true colors revealed? Sometimes in times of chaos or upheaval, latent strengths, abilities, foibles, or idiosyncrasies come to the surface, which can be as much of a surprise to oneself as to others. This week, write a short story in which your main character learns something new about themselves during a crisis. Is there an unexpected feeling of panic, wild and unpredictable behavior, or is all eerily calm? Does your character step up to the plate or cower under pressure?

“It’s astonishing to me that there is so much in Memory, yet so much is left out: emotions, thoughts, sex, the relationship between poetry and light,” writes Bernadette Mayer in the introduction to her book Memory (Siglio Press, 2020), featured in the Written Image in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. The book presents a collection of photographs and text from 1971 when Mayer shot a roll of film every day for the month of July and wrote in a journal—a record of her consciousness. Taking inspiration from this project, jot down notes describing several images and observations each day this week. Then, write a poem that combines them into a single, sequential mass, a contemporaneous manifestation of your conscious mind.

To help writers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, we will be highlighting emergency funds available to writers. For more sources of support, read our running list of resources for writers in the time of coronavirus.

We Need Diverse Books is issuing grants of $500 to members of the children’s literature publishing community “who are experiencing dire financial need,” specifically diverse authors, illustrators, and publishing professionals whose incomes have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Writers and illustrators who have lost income due to canceled school or library visits, and who have published at least one book-length title for children or teens at a traditional publishing house, are eligible; children’s publishing professionals who have been furloughed or recently laid off from a publisher or literary agency are also eligible. All applicants must identify as people of color, as Native American, or as LGBTQIA+, or have a disability or belong to a marginalized religious or cultural minority; additionally, they must be U.S. residents and at least eighteen years of age.

Using online the online application system, submit information about personal finances, a statement of need, and a recent bank statement. Author and illustrator applicants must also list publication history and provide evidence of the cancellation of at least three school or library visits. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

We Need Diverse Books estimates that applications will be processed within two to three weeks. Applications will be capped at seventy but may be reopened after the judging committee has reviewed the first round.

We Need Diverse Books first emerged as a social media campaign and protest in 2014, which called out the publishing industry for the lack of diversity in children’s literature. We Need Diverse Books has since become a nonprofit organization with the vision to build “a world in which all children can see themselves in the pages of a book.”

Submissions are open for the 2020 Poetry London Prize. This international award, given for a single poem written in English, is run by the British literary magazine Poetry London. The winner will receive £5,000 (approximately $6,170). A second-place prize of £2,000 (approximately $2,468) and a third-place prize of £1,000 (approximately $1,234) will also given. All three winning poems will be published in the magazine’s Autumn 2020 issue and on its website.

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Using only the online submission system, submit poems of no more than 80 lines with a £8 entry fee (approximately $10) per poem, or £4 (approximately $5) per poem for Poetry London subscribers, by May 1. For low-income poets, limited free entries are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Poet, critic, and translator Ilya Kaminsky will judge. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

The winners will be notified by July 17 and will be awarded their prizes at the Poetry London Autumn 2020 issue launch reading in September. Previous first-place winners of this competition include poets Romalyn Ante, Liz Berry, and Richard Scott.

In the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, Cathy Park Hong discusses the writing process for her first nonfiction book, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning (One World, 2020), in an interview by Dana Isokawa. Hong talks about patching together “scenes, personal anecdotes, analyses of books, vents about things” and how this eventually developed into a form. “I began mixing and matching these paragraphs the way you would put together stanzas for a poem, and that’s how I arrived at a modular form.” Write a personal essay that revolves around an important belief, opinion, or question. Begin accumulating different paragraphs that contribute to your argument, and then collage them together, perhaps using other texts and facts from research. What’s your organizing principle in providing shape to this structure?

BOMB is open for submissions to its 2020 Poetry Contest. The annual award is given for a group of poems, and the winner will receive $1,000 and publication in BOMB Magazine.

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Using Submittable, submit up to five poems totaling no more than 10 pages with a $20 entry fee, which includes a yearlong subscription to BOMB Magazine, by May 3. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Poet Simone White will judge. White is the author of several books and chapbooks, most recently Dear Angel of Death (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2018); she teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. The winner will be announced on July 31.

Previous winners of the poetry contest include Savannah Cooper-Ramsey, Marwa Helal, and Daniel Poppick.

Published since 1981, BOMB Magazine features conversations between artists of all disciplines. The quarterly print publication is part of the larger nonprofit BOMB, which also produces online content.

“I had never tried to map story—the elements of narrative that move from a state of equilibrium for the protagonist to disequilibrium to equilibrium restored—onto theory. I had never interrogated that artistically. That arc is not available to blackness, there is no equilibrium to be regained,” says Frank B. Wilderson III in a New York Times interview with John Williams about writing his new book of memoir and philosophy, Afropessimism (Liveright, 2020). “What does it mean to tell the story of a sentient being who does not need to transgress to experience the violence of lynchings, of slavery, of incarceration? What does it mean to not have an arc from innocence to guilt?” Write a short story that tells the tale of a main character’s unsettling experience, one that does not follow a conventional arc but upends this narrative order. What questions or new ideas are brought up by this disruption?