G&A: The Contest Blog

Submissions are currently open for the Creative Nonfiction Essay Contest. An annual award of $1,000 and publication in Creative Nonfiction is given for an essay on a specified theme. This year’s theme is “The Weather.” The runner-up will receive $500. Essays should “combine a strong and compelling narrative with an informative or reflective element, and reach beyond a strictly personal experience for some universal or deeper meaning.” The editors will judge. 

Using the online submission manager, submit a previously unpublished essay of up to 4,000 words along with a $20 entry fee—or $25 to receive a four-issue Creative Nonfiction subscription—by May 11. Submissions are also accepted via postal mail to Creative Nonfiction, Attn: WEATHER, 5501 Walnut Street, Suite 202, Pittsburgh, PA 15232. All entries are considered for publication. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Founded in 1993 by Lee Gutkind, Creative Nonfiction was the first literary magazine to exclusively publish “high quality nonfiction prose,” and remains the largest literary publication in the genre. Past contributors include prize-winning authors Annie Dillard, Gordon Lish, Francine Prose, and C. K. Williams. For more information about the contest, e-mail information@creativenonfiction.org, or call (412) 688-0304.

Submissions are currently open for the inaugural Pleiades Press Editors Prize for Poetry. A prize of $2,000 and publication by Pleiades Press, with distribution by Louisiana State University Press, will be given annually for a poetry collection. The winner will also be invited to read at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg. The editors will judge.

Using the online submission manager, send a poetry manuscript of at least 48 pages with a $25 entry fee, which includes a poetry collection published by Pleiades Press, by May 4. Submissions may also be sent via postal mail to Pleiades Press, Department of English, Martin 336, University of Central Missouri, Warrensburg, MO 64093.

Established in 2000, Pleiades Press is housed at the University of Central Missouri. The press releases several poetry books each year and also publishes the literary journal Pleiades. For the past fifteen years, the press has also administered the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Prize. Recent winners include Adrian C. Louis, Katie Bichkham, Abigail Cloud, Katy Didden, Bruce Snider, and Julianna Baggott.

Submissions are currently open for the Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction, given biennially for a short story by a writer who has not yet published a full-length work of fiction. The winner will receive $1,000 Canadian (approximately $830) and publication in the Malahat Review. Elyse Friedman will judge.

Submit a story of up to 3,500 words with a $30 entry fee, which includes a subscription to the Malahat Review, by May 1 via e-mail to horizons@uvic.ca or via postal mail to the Malahat Review, University of Victoria, P.O. Box 1700, Station CSC, Victoria, B.C. V82 2Y2, Canada.

Judge Elyse Friedman has written three novels, a short story collection, and a poetry collection. In an interview with the Malahat Review, Friedman says, “I don’t think writers should ever aim for a place on any spectrum. Real writers don’t aim. They open and spill. And their words find the place where they’re supposed to be. My writing tends to be accessible and there’s usually a plot involved, often a high-concept premise, but I like to read all kinds of writing. I don’t care if there’s plot, or if the writing is difficult or the narrative is disjointed—as long as there’s truth and rhythm and talent.” Friedman cites Tobias Wolff’s “Bullet in the Brain,” J. D. Salinger’s “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut,” Vladimir Nabokov’s “Symbols and Signs,” and Steven Millhauser’s “In the Reign of Harad IV” as amongst her favorite short stories.

Established in 1967, the Malahat Review is one of Canada’s oldest literary journals. Housed at the University of Victoria, the journal publishes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and administers several annual and biennial contests. Recent winners of the Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction include Kerry-Lee Powell for her story “Palace of Brine,” and Zoey Peterson for her story “Next Year, For Sure.” The prize was first awarded in 2007.

Photo: Elyse Friedman (George Gooderham)

Submissions are currently open for two essay prizes: the Notting Hill Editions Essay Prize and the Southampton Review’s Roger Rosenblatt Comic Essay Prize. The deadline for both prizes is May 1.

The Notting Hill Editions Essay Prize is given biennially for an unpublished or published essay. The winner will receive £20,000 (approximately $30,370), and five finalists will each receive £1,000 (approximately $1,518). The winning essays will be published in an anthology to be published in October 2015. The winners and finalists are required to attend the award ceremony at Kings Place in London on October 3, 2015. Travel expenses are not covered.

Using the online submission system, submit an essay between 2,000 to 8,000 words with a £20 (approximately $30) entry fee by May 1. Essays published in a print or online journal between January 1, 2014, and April 30, 2015, are eligible; essays published in a book are ineligible. Visit the website for complete guidelines. Eileen Battersby, Michael Ignatieff, Phillip Lopate, Adam Mars-Jones, and Raymond Tallis will judge. Watch a video of judges Ignatieff, Lopate, and Mars-Jones discussing the art of the essay at the 2015 Jewish Book Week in London.

Judge Michael Ignatieff won the inaugural prize in 2013 for his essay “Raphael Lemkin and Genocide.” The runners-up were J. T. Barbarese, Belle Boggs, Leslie Jamison, Andrew O’Hagan, and Sameer Rahim. Notting Hill Editions established the prize in honor of the English essayist William Hazlitt (1778­–1830). Devon, England­–based Notting Hill Editions exclusively publishes essays, and is committed to “the vital role essays have had in our literary, artistic, philosophical, and political cultures.”

The Roger Rosenblatt Comic Essay Prize, launched this year by the Southampton Review, will be given annually for a humorous essay. The winner will receive $1,000 and publication in the Summer 2015 issue of the Southampton Review. Patricia Marx, a former writer for the New Yorker and for Saturday Night Live, will judge.

Using the online submission system, submit an essay of up to 5,000 words with a $15 entry fee by May 1. On the journal’s website the editors write, “We won’t even try to tell you what we’re looking for. The comic impulse resists definition, and we like it that way. But if your comic muse has led you to an essay that you consider a match, throw caution to the wind and send it to us.” All entries will be considered for publication. The winner will be announced by June 15. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Published twice yearly by Stony Brook Southampton, the Southampton Review publishes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.

Nominations are currently open for the 2015 American Literary Translators Association’s National Translation Awards (NTA) in poetry and prose, and the Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize. Individual prizes of $5,000 are awarded annually to book-length works of translation published during the previous year.

For the National Translation Awards, publishers and translators are invited to nominate translations from any language into English. The Lucien Stryk prize accepts nominations of book-length translations of Asian poetry or Zen Buddhist texts into English. The NTA and Lucien Stryk prizes are sponsored by the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) to support the organization’s goal of advancing the quality and art of literary translation.

For both the NTA and Lucien Stryk awards, PDF files of translated books should be uploaded using the online submission manager by May 1. Submissions are judged according to the “literary significance of the original and the success of the translation in recreating the artistry of the original.” For complete guidelines and eligibility requirements, visit the ALTA website.

This year’s award-winning translators and finalists will be honored at the thirty-eighth annual conference of the American Literary Translators Association in Tucson, Arizona. Judges for the 2015 NTA in prose are Pamela Carmell, Jason Grunebaum, and Anne Magnan-Park. The judges in poetry are Lisa Rose Bradford, Stephen Kessler, and Diana Throw. The 2015 Lucien Stryk prize judges are Lucas Klein, Janet Poole, and Stephen Snyder.

Now in its seventeenth year, the National Translation Award is the oldest prize for a work of literary translation. This year marks the first time the prize will be given in both the poetry and prose categories. Last year, Eugene Ostashevsky and Matvei Yankelevich won for their translation of Russian poet Alexander Vvedensky’s An Invitation For Me to Think (New York Review Books, 2013).

The Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize was established in 2009 to “recognize the importance of Asian translation for international literature,” and is named for acclaimed translator of Asian poetry and Zen Buddhist Lucien Stryk. The 2014 winner was Jonathan Chaves for his book Every Rock a Universe: The Yellow Mountains and Chinese Travel Writing (Floating World Editions, 2013), which includes the first complete translation of Chinese poet Wang Hongdu’s Comprehending the Essentials of the Yellow Mountains.

ATLA will also award four to six travel fellowships of $1,000 each to emerging translators to attend the ATLA conference in Tuscon on October 28. Submissions are open until June 1. Fellowship eligibility requirements and application guidelines are available online.

For inquiries, e-mail ALTA managing director Erica Mena at erica@literarytranslators.org.

The Pulitzer Prize board announced the winners of the 2015 Pulitzer Prizes today in New York City. Of the twenty-one categories, the awards in letters are given annually for works published in the previous year by American authors.The winner in fiction is Anthony Doerr for All the Light we Cannot See (Scribner). The finalists were Richard Ford’s Let Me Be Frank With You (Ecco), Laila Lalami’s The Moor’s Account (Pantheon), and Joyce Carol Oates’s Lovely, Dark, Deep (Ecco). The winner in poetry is Gregory Pardlo for Digest (Four Way Books). The finalists were Alan Shapiro’s Reel to Reel (University of Chicago), and Arthur Sze’s Compass Rose (Copper Canyon Press).

Mike Pride, who replaced Sig Gissler as prize administrator in July, announced the winners and finalists at Columbia University. Each winner will receive an award of $10,000 at a ceremony on May 28. For a complete list of winners in each category, visit the Pulitzer Prize website.

Last year, Donna Tartt won in the fiction category for The Goldfinch (Little, Brown), and Vijay Seshadri won the poetry prize for 3 Sections (Graywolf Press).

Administered by the Columbia University School of Journalism, the Pulitzer Prizes were established in 1911 by Hungarian-American journalist and newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer. The first prizes were awarded in 1917.

To celebrate the approaching centennial of the Pulitzer Prize, the board announced a new project called the Pulitzer Prize Centennial Campfires Initiative. The project, which aims to “ignite broad engagement with the journalistic, literary and artistic values they represent,” will fund a wide range of nationwide literary events throughout 2016 that showcase Pulitzer Prize works. For inquiries about the Campfires Initiative, contact Mike Pride at cmp2208@columbia.edu.

Photos from left to right: Anthony Doerr (credit Isabelle Selby Hires), Gregordy Pardlo (credit Rachel Eliza Griffiths)

PEN American Center announced this morning the shortlist for its annual literary awards. PEN will award over $150,000 in prize money to emerging and established writers and translators. The winners will be announced on May 13 and honored in a ceremony at the New School in New York City on June 8.

The 2015 awards will be given in seventeen categories, including poetry, poetry in translation, debut fiction, biography, creative nonfiction, children’s literature, and sports writing; the shortlist and longlist of each award is available on PEN’s website. Below are the finalists for a select few prizes:

PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction ($25,000): To an author whose debut work—a first novel or collection of short stories published in 2014—represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise. The judges are Caroline Fraser, Katie Kitamura, Paul La Farge, and Victor La Valle.

Molly Antopol for The UnAmericans (Norton)
Cynthia Bond for Ruby (Hogarth)
Phil Klay for Redeployment (Penguin Press)
Jack Livings for The Dog (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Merritt Tierce for Love Me Back (Doubleday).

PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay ($10,000): For an essay collection published in 2014 that exemplifies the dignity and esteem the essay form imparts to literature. The judges are Diane Johnson, Dahlia Lithwick, Vijay Seshadri, and Mark Slouka.

David Bromwich for Moral Imagination (Princeton University Press)
Ian Buruma for Theater of Cruelty (New York Review of Books)
Charles D’Ambrosio for Loitering (Tin House Books)
Leslie Jamison for The Empathy Exams (Graywolf Press
Angela Pelster for Limber (Sarabande Books)

PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction ($10,000): To an author of a distinguished book of general nonfiction possessing notable literary merit and critical perspective and illuminating important contemporary issues which has been published in 2013 or 2014. The judges are Andrew Blechman, Paul Elie, Azadeh Moaveni, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, and Paul Reyes.

Danielle Allen for Our Declaration (Liveright)
Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru for League of Denial (Crown Archetype)
Sheri Fink for Five Days at Memorial (Crown)
Jonathan M. Katz for The Big Truck That Went By (Palgrave Macmillan)
Naomi Klein for This Changes Everything (Simon & Schuster)

PEN Open Book Award ($5,000): For an exceptional book-length work of literature by an author of color published in 2014. The judges are R. Erica Doyle, W. Ralph Eubanks, and Chinelo Okparanta.

Rabih Alameddine for An Unnecessary Woman (Grove Press)
Teju Cole for Every Day Is for the Thief (Random House)
Roxane Gay for An Untamed State (Black Cat)
Claudia Rankine for Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf Press)
Samrat Upadhyay for The City Son (Soho Press)

PEN America Center has administered its literary prizes for nearly fifty years. Established in 1922, PEN works globally to defend free expression, support persecuted writers, and promote literary culture.

Submissions are currently open for the inaugural Health Affairs Narrative Matters Poetry Contest. Three prizes of $500 each and publication in Health Affairs will be given for “well-crafted poems that touch on topics related to health and health policy.” The final judges are poet Hakim Bellamy, physician and poet Serena Fox, and poet and teacher Natalie Lyalin. The winners will be announced at the end of April.

Submit up to three previously unpublished poems, each no longer than a single-spaced page, and a cover letter that includes your name, address, and a brief biography via e-mail to narrativematters@healthaffairs.org by April 22. There is no entry fee. Visit the website for complete guidelines, as well as to read poems previously published by the journal.

Established in 1981, Health Affairs is a leading peer-reviewed journal of health policy issues and research. The Narrative Matters section of Health Affairs features poetry and creative nonfiction pieces that “explore problems and concerns with health care delivery, roles of providers or patients, need for research, system redesign, and changes in public policy."

Submissions are currently open for the Mark Fischer Poetry Prize. A prize of $1,000 will be given for a single poem written by a poet residing in the western United States that “best exhibit[s] the qualities of originality, novelty, complex meaning, linguistic skill, and wit.” Jack Mueller will judge. The winner will be honored in a ceremony during the Telluride Literary Arts Festival in Telluride, Colorado, on May 16.

Submit a poem of any length with the required entry form and a $6 entry fee by April 15. E-mail submissions are preferred, but writers may submit via postal mail to Telluride Institute PO Box 1770, Telluride, CO 81435. Multiple submissions are accepted. Poems of any length, form, and content will be considered. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Now in its eighteenth year, the Mark Fischer Poetry Prize is cosponsored by San Miguel County Commissioner Elaine Fischer and San Miguel County Poet Laureate Peter Waldor. The prize pays tribute to the late Mark Fischer, a “much-loved poet, lawyer, skier, and raconteur.” The prize is hosted through a partnership with the Telluride Institute’s Talking Gourds poetry program, the Wilkinson Library, the Telluride Arts District, Ah Haa School for the Arts, and Arroyo’s Telluride. Art Goodtimes, director of Talking Gourds, said in a press release: “We’re pleased to be able to honor Mark’s memory with a contest that benefits Western poets.” For more information about the prize, e-mail Art Goodtimes.

Photo: Mark and Elaine Fischer

The PEN/Faulkner Foundation announced yesterday that Atticus Lish has won the 2015 PEN/Faulkner Award for his novel, Preparation for the Next Life (Tyrant Books, 2014). The $15,000 annual award is given for a book of fiction by an American author published in the previous year.

Judges Alexander Chee, Marc Fitten, and Dierdre McNamer chose Lish’s novel from 360 entries. “With ferocious precision, Atticus Lish scours and illuminates the vast, traumatized America that lives, works, and loves outside the castle gates," said McNamer. “The result is an incantation, a song of ourselves, a shout.”

Preparation for the Next Life, which tells the love story of a Chinese Muslim immigrant and an Iraq War veteran living in New York City, is Lish’s debut novel. The son of the renowned editor Gordon Lish, who famously edited the work of Raymond Carver, Atticus Lish spent five years quietly writing his novel before selling it to small press Tyrant Books for a modest advance of two thousand dollars.

The 2015 finalists for the prize are Jeffery Renard Allen for his novel Song of the Shank (Graywolf Press); Jennifer Clement for her novel Prayers for the Stolen (Hogarth); Emily St. John Mandel for her novel Station Eleven (Knopf); and Jenny Offill for her novel Dept. of Speculation (Knopf). Each finalist will receive $5,000.

Lish and the four finalists will be honored at the 35th annual PEN/Faulkner Awards ceremony at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C. on May 2. The event is open to the public; tickets are available online.