Looking to work on submissions over the weekend? The contests listed below have deadlines through January 15 and are open to writers of fiction and nonfiction:

Australian Book Review’s Calibre Essay Prize: A prize of AUD $5,000 (approximately $3,600) is given annually for an essay. A second-place prize of AUD $2,500 (approximately $1,800) is also given. The winners will be published in Australian Book Review. J. M. Coetzee, Anna Funder, and Peter Rose will judge. Entry fee: $18. Deadline: January 14.

Ellen Meloy Fund’s Desert Writers Award: A prize of $5,000 is given annually to enable a creative nonfiction writer “whose work reflects the spirit and passions for the desert embodied in Ellen Meloy’s writing” to spend creative time in a desert environment. Entry fee: None. Deadline: January 15.

BkMk Press’s Chandra Prize: A prize of $1,000 and publication by BkMk Press is given annually for a short story collection. Entry fee: $30. Deadline: January 15.

University of Texas in Austin’s Dobie Paisano Fellowships: Two residencies, cosponsored by the Texas Institute of Letters, at a rural retreat west of Austin are given annually to writers who are native Texans, who have lived in Texas for at least three years, or who have published significant work with a Texas subject. The six-month Jesse H. Jones Writing Fellowship is given to a writer in any stage of his or her career and includes a grant of $18,000. The four-month Ralph A. Johnston Memorial Fellowship is given to a writer who has demonstrated “publishing and critical success” and includes a grant of $25,000. Entry fee: $20; $30 to enter both competitions. Deadline: January 15.

PRISM’s Jacob Zilber Prize for Short Fiction: A prize of $1,500 CAD (approximately $1,130) and publication in PRISM is given annually for a short story. Entry fee: $40. Deadline: January 15.

Literal Latté’s K. Margaret Grossman Fiction Award: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Literal Latté is given annually for a short story. Entry fee: $10. Deadline: January 15.

Third Coast’s Fiction Contest: An award of $1,000 and publication in Third Coast is given annually for a short story. Deborah Reed will judge. Entry fee: $18. Deadline: January 15.

Visit the contest websites for complete submission details, including eligibility guidelines and length requirements. For a look at more writing contests with upcoming deadlines, visit our Grants & Awards database and submission calendar.

Poet Maggie Smith’s essay “Tracking the Demise of My Marriage on Google Maps” published in the New York Times Modern Love column, uses images of her house on Google Street View, photographed throughout a period of several years, as a means of imagining and remembering the events that occurred inside the residence. Smith reflects on the trajectory of her relationship with her husband and the gradual transformations of their family. Look up a current or former residence of yours using Google Street View. Click through photos taken over the years if available, and write a remembrance of your time spent there, focusing on your habitual movements within the home and how they have affected your relationships.

Minneapolis–based independent publisher Milkweed Editions recently announced that its Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry will continue under a new name, the Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry. The annual books prize, which is open to poets living in the upper Midwest, has also been expanded to include Michigan on its list of eligible states of residence for entrants.

Established in 2011, the prize offers $10,000 and publication by Milkweed Editions for a collection of poetry by an emerging or established poet residing in Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, or Michigan.

“This meaningful prize recognizes artistic excellence and rewards poets publicly and lucratively, and we are grateful for the vision and commitment of the Ballard Spahr Foundation to carry this prize forward in partnership with Milkweed,” said Daniel Slager, Milkweed’s publisher and CEO.

Submissions are currently open, and the deadline is February 15. Using the online submission system, submit a manuscript of at least 48 pages. There is no entry fee. Khaled Mattawa will judge.

Previous winners include Claire Wahmanholm for Wilder (2018); Caitlin Bailey for Solve for Desire (2017); Chris Santiago for Tula (2016); Jennifer Willoughby for Beautiful Zero (2015); Michael Bazzett for You Must Remember This (2014); Rebecca Dunham for Glass Armonica (2013); and Patricia Kirkpatrick for Odessa (2012).

In E. L. Konigsburg’s 1967 classic children’s book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, two young runaways hole up in New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art for some adventure, but what would happen if it were a museum of food instead of art? Browse through National Geographic’s roundup of food museums and food factory tours—including ones for bread, Coca-Cola, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, chocolate, and ramen—and write a short story in which your protagonist has a memorable experience in one of these gastronomically focused places. Does the experience leave nothing—or everything—to be desired?

Works of poetry composed of tiny glass vials, a mineral collection, a board game, lunch boxes, Rolodexes, and View-Masters? In “Authors Thinking Outside the Box” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, Adrienne Raphel takes a look at Container, a small press founded by poets Jenni B. Baker and Douglas Luman, which teams with authors to publish books in nontraditional forms, oftentimes as a modified object or series of objects. Take a look around your home, a grocery store, or a hardware store for an everyday object that sparks your interest, and compose a poem that could be printed or inscribed onto the object in some way. Take in consideration how the object and your poem relate to one another.

Is it your New Year’s resolution to submit more of your poetry to contests and journals? Here are several poetry contests, all of which offer a cash prize of $500 to $2,000, with upcoming deadlines.

92Y Unterberg Poetry Center Discover Poetry Prizes: Four prizes of $500 each and publication in the Paris Review Daily are given annually for a group of poems. Winners also receive lodging and travel expenses to give a reading at the 92nd Street Y in New York City in May. Poets who have not yet published a full-length poetry collection are eligible. Timothy Donnelly and Mai Der Vang will serve as preliminary judges; Daniel Borzutzky, Randall Mann, and Patricia Smith will serve as final judges. Entry fee: $15. Deadline: January 11.

Colorado Review Colorado Prize for Poetry: A prize of $2,000 and publication by the Center for Literary Publishing is given annually for a poetry collection. Kazim Ali will judge. Entry fee: $25.Deadline: January 14.

BkMk Press Ciardi Prize: A prize of $1,000 and publication by BkMk Press is given annually for a poetry collection. Entry fee: $30. Deadline: January 15. 

WOMR/WFMR Community Radio Joe Gouveia Outermost Poetry Contest: A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a poem. Marge Piercy will judge. Entry fee: $15. Deadline: January 15.

Third Coast Poetry Contest: A prize of $1,000 each and publication in Third Coast is given annually for a poem. Leila Chatti will judge. Entry fee: $18. Deadline: January 15.

Asheville Poetry Review William Matthews Poetry Prize: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Asheville Poetry Review is given annually for a poem. Dorianne Laux will judge. Entry fee: $20. Deadline: January 15.

Wells College Press Chapbook Competition: A prize of $1,000, publication by Wells College Press, and 10 author copies is given annually for a poetry chapbook. The winner will also receive room and board to attend a launch party at Wells College in Fall 2019. Dan Rosenberg will judge. Entry fee: $20. Deadline: January 15.

Visit the contest websites for complete submission details, including eligibility guidelines and length requirements. For a look at more writing contests with upcoming deadlines, visit our Grants & Awards database and submission calendar. 

“Philosophically, the New Year is a time for beginnings, a time for reflection and change. I can’t think of a better place than this vast and ruggedly beautiful continent to put things in perspective,” says traveler Chuck Ward in a recent New York Times article about celebrating New Year’s Eve in Antarctica. Write a personal essay about a particularly poignant or exciting New Year’s celebration you’ve had in the past. Describe the setting and how it influenced your mood. What made the night memorable and did you intend for your festivities to help start the year off in a certain way? How did the rest of the year measure up to your New Year’s expectations? 

“There is no market, school, doctor, or shop, and from late-autumn until mid-spring the village is inaccessible by car and uninhabited,” Alex Crevar writes in National Geographic about Lukomir, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s highest village and home to just seventeen families. Write a story set in such a place (real or imagined) that is similarly caught between modernity and the social and technological isolation of its landscape. What does living in this world do to alter the interactions and daily concerns of its inhabitants? Is there a generational shift or a longing for change?

“Whenever I find myself at a literary crossroads, I reach for my Tarot deck. In my regular life, I’m a staunch scientific materialist…but in my creative life, I’m an unqualified mystic,” writes Will Dowd in a 2017 installment of Writers Recommend. In fact, there are many writers who have found inspiration in the Tarot, including W. B. Yeats, Italo Calvino, and Charles Williams. Try your hand at choosing a card to guide you for this week’s poem. Conduct an online search for a card and allow the image to be your muse. Their names, such as Temperance, Wheel of Fortune, the Magician, and Death,­ may be enough to conjure up ideas.

In the essay “The Poet’s Table,” published by the Poetry Foundation, food writer Mayukh Sen pays tribute to the late Maya Angelou for her lesser-known literary feats: her cookbooks. Angelou published two cookbooks when she was in her seventies and eighties, which offer readers more than just lists of measured ingredients and directions. The pages are filled with anecdotes and deeply personal stories touching upon cultural narratives, racial divisions, juvenile traumas, and moments of joy. “I feel cooking is a natural extension to my autobiography,” Angelou told the Guardian in 2011 regarding her cookbooks. This week, think of a recipe that contains some of your personal history within it—childhood memory, exploration of heritage, sense of place, or simply a snapshot of life. Write about the dish in detailed prose, allowing instruction to blend with your reminiscence.