Earlier this year scientists published a study in the journal Nature detailing the first time genes with serious disease-causing mutations have been successfully edited in human embryos to produce healthy mutation-free embryos. Write a personal essay about the moral and ethical implications of gene-editing science as it continues to progress. In a hypothetical time when these advances might be a part of routine medical procedures, what decisions would you make for yourself and your family and loved ones? Read National Geographic’s “5 Reasons Gene Editing Is Both Terrific and Terrifying” for more insight.

If you’ve completed a full-length poetry manuscript and want to submit it to publication contests, look no further. Below you’ll find contests with deadlines in September that offer publication and a prize of at least $1,000.

California State University in Fresno Philip Levine Prize for Poetry: A prize of $2,000 and publication by Anhinga Press is given annually for a poetry collection. C. G. Hanzlicek will judge. Deadline: September 30. Entry fee: $28.

Mad Creek Books Journal/Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize: A prize of $2,500 and publication by Mad Creek Books, the literary trade imprint of Ohio State University Press, is given annually for a poetry collection. Kathy Fagan will judge. Deadline: September 30. Entry fee: $38.

New Criterion Poetry Prize: A prize of $3,000 and publication by St. Augustine’s Press is given annually for a poetry collection that pays close attention to form. Roger Kimball, Charles Martin, and David Yezzi will judge. Deadline: September 30. Entry fee: $25.

New Issues Poetry & Prose Green Rose Prize: A prize of $1,000, publication by New Issues Poetry & Prose, and a reading at Western Michigan University is given annually for a poetry collection. Poets who have published at least one full-length collection of poetry are eligible. Deadline: September 30. Entry Fee: $30.

Red Mountain Press Poetry Prize: A prize of $1,000 and publication by Red Mountain Press is given annually for a poetry collection. Irena Praitis will judge. Deadline: September 15. Entry fee: $28.

University of Arkansas Press Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize: A prize of $5,000 and publication by University of Arkansas Press is given annually for a poetry collection. Billy Collins will judge. Deadline September 30. Entry fee: $28.

University of Massachusetts Press Juniper Prizes: Two prizes of $1,000 each and publication by University of Massachusetts Press are given annually for a first poetry collection and a poetry collection. The creative writing faculty at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst will judge. Deadline: September 30. Entry Fee: $30.

University of Wisconsin Press Brittingham and Felix Pollak Prizes: Two prizes of $1,000 each and publication by University of Wisconsin Press are given annually for poetry collections. Deadline September 15. Entry fee: $28.

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

In the past fifteen years or so, dozens of lighthouses no longer needed by the United States Coast Guard have been auctioned off to the public. Buyers have found a variety of new uses for their lighthouses, such as converting them into hotels or vacation homes, or even a concert venue. Write a short story in which your main character comes into possession of a decommissioned lighthouse. Where is it located and how does she decide to make use of it? Does it end up being a blessing or a burden? How can you play with the metaphorical potential of the lighthouse in an unexpected way?

“Part of the pleasure I take in being a writer and reader of poetry is this instant intimacy. By the first page, we’re practically what one would refer to as family—at this point, I’m comfortable in my nightclothes and headscarf.” In “Vagrant & Vulnerable,” Dawn Lundy Martin’s conversation with Nicole Sealey in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, Sealey talks about feeling comfortable infusing her poems with a naked vulnerability and intimacy. What do you find yourself thinking about when the notion of outside criticism or judgment is not an issue? While envisioning your most comfortable clothing, an outfit you might wear at home with family, write a poem that embodies this level of immediate familiarity, delving into a tightly held or private subject perhaps only known by your closest loved ones. 

Fiction and nonfiction writers: The weather’s changing and hopefully stirring up creative energy for you to put towards your writing. Consider submitting to the following contests with upcoming deadlines, each offering at least $1,000 and publication.

Hippocampus Magazine Remember in November Contest: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Hippocampus Magazine is given annually for an essay. The winner will also receive free admission to the annual HippoCamp Conference for creative nonfiction writers in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in Summer 2018. Deadline: September 15. Entry fee: $12

Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction: A prize of $10,000 and publication by Dzanc Books is given annually for a novel. Lindsey Drager, Daniel A. Hoyt, and Chrissy Kolaya will judge. Deadline: September 15. Entry fee: $25

Dzanc Books Short Story Competition: A prize of $2,500 and publication by Dzanc Books is given annually for a story collection. Deadline: September 15. Entry fee: $25

Disquiet/Dzanc Books Open Borders Book Prize: A prize of $5,000 and publication by Disquiet, an imprint of Dzanc Books, will be given annually for a novel, a memoir, a collection of short stories or essays, or a cross-genre work that “exhibits a marked commitment to mutual understanding and cultural exchange across the globe.” Deadline: September 15. Entry fee: $25

TulipTree Publishing Stories That Need to Be Told Contest: A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a short story or an essay “that tells a story.” The winning work will also be published in the contest anthology, Stories That Need to Be Told. Deadline: September 16. Entry fee: $20

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

Many people associate drinking apple cider with popular fall activities in the northern and eastern United States, such as apple picking and leaf peeping, but few likely know it is New Hampshire’s official beverage. The state approved the official designation in 2010 following a petition submitted by fourth-grade students. In fact, more than half the states in this country have official beverages, a trend started by Ohio, which made tomato juice its official beverage in 1965, and followed by Massachusetts (cranberry juice) and Florida (orange juice). Many other states (Wisconsin, New York, Vermont, and Oregon among them) selected milk. Write a personal essay or manifesto under the premise of petitioning for your own beverage of choice. Support your argument with personal memories, anecdotes, and research.

The Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine have announced the recipients of the 2017 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships. The annual awards are given to five U.S. poets between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one. Each winner receives $25,800.

Ruth Lilly 2017 Fellows

(Photos from left: Fatimah Asghar, Sumita Chakraborty, Cortney Lamar Charleston, Roy G. Guzmán, Emily Jungmin Yoon)

This year’s fellows are Fatimah Asghar, Sumita Chakraborty, Cortney Lamar Charleston, Roy G. Guzmán and Emily Jungmin Yoon. Don Share, editor of Poetry magazine, said of the winners, “In a year during which some readers have asked ‘Why poetry?’ here are poets whose work not only provides a powerful answer, but demonstrates that the present—and future—of poetry have never been in such fine hands.”

Established in 1989 by Ruth Lilly, the fellowship program celebrates and encourages young poets to further their studies and writing of poetry. Visit the Poetry Foundation website for more information.

The campus novel is a work of fiction that revolves primarily around an academic campus, most often a college or university. Some fall into the category of coming-of-age stories, such as Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Marriage Plot and Elif Batuman’s The Idiot, while others are more focused on faculty, such as Mary McCarthy’s The Groves of Academe and Philip Roth’s The Human Stain. Campus novels offer the opportunity to explore characters within the hierarchical structures and pressurized environment of a closed educational system and the contrasting perspectives of teachers and students because of differences in age, power, class, and social and cultural values. Write a short story that focuses on students and/or teachers in a high school or college setting, perhaps integrating elements of comedy and satire like Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim and Jane Smiley’s Moo, science fiction like Jonathan Lethem’s As She Climbed Across the Table, murder mystery like Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, sports like Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding, or supernatural Gothic horror like Joyce Carol Oates’s The Accursed.