Submissions are currently open for the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. Twelve prizes of $2,000 each and publication in PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2018 (Catapult) are given annually for debut short stories published in the current year.

Using the online submissions manager, editors may submit up to four debut stories published in 2017 of up to 12,000 words each by Friday, November 10. There is no entry fee. Authors may not submit their own stories. Eligible publications include print magazines distributed in the United States, online magazines, and cultural websites.

The PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers aims to help launch the careers of emerging fiction writers. Visit the website for complete guidelines, or e-mail awards@pen.org.

Visit our Grants & Awards database and Submission Calendar for more upcoming contests in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.

In the New York Times Magazine’s piece “The Dinners That Shaped History,” Jessica B. Harris, Bee Wilson, and Brenda Wineapple each write about an eventful meal that changed the course of history, including Harris’s account of a rowdy dinner party in Paris hosted by Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire in 1908 which reportedly transformed Henri Rousseau from unappreciated joke into legitimate painter. Write a short story that revolves around a meal that has drastically unexpected and far-reaching results. At what point during the meal does it become evident that something extraordinary is brewing, and can any of the guests foresee the momentousness of the occasion? How does the food serve as a reflection of, or foil to, the history-making consequences of the meal?

“I did not yet consider myself a poet, but I could not forget the sensual power of her words,” writes Tina Carlson, in “5 Over 50” in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, about the experience of watching Lucille Clifton read her poem “homage to my hips” in the 1980s. Browse through other poems about the body, from Walt Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric” to Jane Hirshfield’s “A Hand,” and write a poem that focuses on the human body, perhaps incorporating themes of celebration, awe, history, intimacy, or health. How might you play with diction and repetition, line breaks, and rhythm and sounds to reflect the sensual power of the body?

Submissions are currently open for the 2018 Perugia Press Prize, an award of $1,000 and publication by Perugia Press given annually for a first or second poetry collection by a woman.

Women poets, including transgender women and female-identified individuals, who have published no more than one full-length poetry collection in English are eligible. Hybrid forms, including collaborations and manuscripts incorporating visuals, will also be considered. Using the online submission manager, submit a manuscript of 45 to 85 pages along with a $27 entry fee by November 15. Submissions are also accepted via postal mail, at Perugia Press Prize, P.O. Box 60364, Florence, MA 01062.

Established in 1997, Perugia Press seeks to support and promote women’s voices in print. Visit the website to learn more about the press, and for complete contest guidelines.

Visit our Grants & Awards database and Submission Calendar for more upcoming contests in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.

In “The Art of Reading James Baldwin: The Truth of Our Pain” in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, William Giraldi quotes Baldwin’s 1962 essay “The Creative Process”: “Societies never know it, but the war of an artist with his society is a lover’s war, and he does, at his best, what lovers do, which is to reveal the beloved to himself.” Think of a current social issue you have conflicting feelings about, and write a personal essay that approaches the issue as you might a lover’s quarrel. While sharing your own specific experiences and emotions, how might you aim to reveal a piece of society to itself in a tender and loving way? From a lover’s point of view, what kind of stipulations, exceptions, or assumptions might strengthen or weaken your argument?

“Jane Googles ‘Edward Rochester.’” In a humorous post on the New Statesman, Amelia Tait lists “how 25 of the world’s greatest tales would be destroyed by dastardly tech,” including Jane Eyre. This week, choose a scene from a classic story and write a new version in which you introduce an anachronistic piece of technology into the plotline. How does the modern invention highlight the ways in which interpersonal communication and conventions are tied to the speed and ease with which knowledge is accessed? Does something like Instagram, autocorrect, or a smartphone help, hinder, or transform your characters’ ultimate goals?

Every summer in the village of Santa Marta de Ribarteme in Spain, participants of an annual festival enact a death ritual by climbing into coffins that are then paraded by pallbearers through music-filled streets. The festival falls on the feast day of Saint Martha, and is seen as a way for devotees to express gratitude and celebrate the triumph of life and health, after having narrowly escaped death in the previous year. Write a poem that explores a time when you have felt particularly sensitive to mortality, perhaps because of a personal or loved one’s brush with serious illness or death. Instead of steering clear of the conventional words, images, symbols, and objects that are associated with death, focus on highlighting them. How might a direct confrontation of the proximity between vitality and mortality create new perspective?

Have a short story, essay, or fiction manuscript ready to submit? Don’t miss out on these prose contests offering prizes of at least $1,000 and publication—all with a deadline of November 1.

Reed Magazine Gabriele Rico Challenge in Creative Nonfiction: A prize of $1,333 and publication in Reed Magazine is given annually for an essay. Entry fee: $15

Reed Magazine John Steinbeck Fiction Award: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Reed Magazine is given annually for a short story. Entry fee: $15

Briar Cliff Review Writing Contests: Two prizes of $1,000 each and publication in Briar Cliff Review are given annually for a short story and an essay. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $20

Madison Review Fiction Prize: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Madison Review is given annually for a short story. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $10

Fiction Collective Two Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Contest: A prize of $1,500 and publication by Fiction Collective Two is given annually for a short story collection, novella, novella collection, or novel. U.S. writers who have not previously published a book with Fiction Collective Two are eligible. Noy Holland will judge. Entry fee: $25

Visit the contest websites for complete guidelines, and check out our Grants & Awards database and Submission Calendar for more upcoming contests in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.

In Edgar Allan Poe’s classic short story “The Tell-Tale Heart,” a mysterious narrator recounts committing the murder of an old man, all the while insisting on his own sanity. In order to hide the body, the narrator dismembers and buries the corpse beneath the floorboards, but continues to hear the dead man’s beating heart. The terror and madness that the increasingly loud beating wreaks on the narrator’s psyche throughout the rest of the story is seen as a manifestation of guilt. Think about a situation in the past when you have felt guilty about something you’ve said, done, or witnessed. How did the guilt manifest? Was there a secret involved? Was there an eventual confession or resolution? Write an essay about this memory, focusing on the immediate emotions and any bodily response or flights of imagination that may have resulted.