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“Hip-hop is Ralph Ellison, who once said the blues is like running a razor blade along an open sore.” In this audio recording from the 1996 album Flippin’ the Script: Rap Meets Poetry released by Mouth Almighty Records, author and critic Greg Tate reads his poem “What Is Hip Hop?” The influential journalist and author of Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on Contemporary America (Simon & Schuster, 1992), died at the age of sixty-three on December 7, 2021.
“Traveling in this way, and trading in stories, is inevitably a journey of selection—it was not lost on me that for each voice I heard, many others would be left out,” writes Jordan Salama in Every Day the River Changes: Four Weeks Down the Magdalena (Catapult, 2021), an exhaustive travelogue in which the author follows the 950-mile length of the Magdalena River, from its source in the Andean highlands to the Caribbean coast, and recounts the legends and stories of the people he meets along the way. Write an essay about a river, or body of water, that is significant to you. How does its history intersect with your own?
“The opening and closing of windows really meant a thin line between life and death,” says Farah Bashir, author of Rumours of Spring: A Girlhood in Kashmir (HarperCollins India, 2021), in this reading and conversation with Madhuri Vijay for Champaca Books.
In Marie Howe’s 2017 poetry collection, Magdalene, she engages with the perspective of Mary Magdalene through a variety of persona poems—some closely resemble the biblical story while others are more contemporary interpretations of the figure. Through poems such as “Before the Beginning,” in which the speaker asks, “Was I ever a virgin?” or in “On Men, Their Bodies,” in which the speaker explores sexual encounters one penis at a time, there is a link between the story of Magdalene and the lives of contemporary women. This week, write an essay about a historical, religious, or mythical figure that you feel a close connection to, whether it is their story or image that inspires you.
Get into the holiday spirit and apply to the following contests, which all have deadlines of November 30 or December 1. Three of the opportunities are for poets looking to publish their debut collections. All contests offer a cash prize of $1,000 or more, and one lucky writer will have the opportunity to give a reading in Washington, D.C.!
African Poetry Book Fund Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry: A prize of $1,000 and publication by University of Nebraska Press in conjunction with Amalion Press is given annually for a debut poetry collection by an African poet. Writers who were born in Africa, are African nationals or residents, or whose parents are African are eligible. The African Poetry Book Fund editorial board will judge. Deadline: December 1. Entry fee: None.
Autumn House Press Rising Writer Prize in Poetry: A prize of $1,000 and publication by Autumn House Press is given biennially for a debut poetry collection. The winner will also receive a $500 grant for travel and book promotion. Donika Kelly will judge. All finalists will be considered for publication. Deadline: November 30. Entry fee: $25 (may be waived in cases of financial need).
BOA Editions A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize: A prize of $1,000 and publication by BOA Editions is given annually for a first book of poetry by a U.S. resident. Stephanie Burt will judge. Deadline: November 30. Entry fee: $25.
Breakwater Review Fiction Contest: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Breakwater Review is given annually for a story. All finalists are considered for publication. Deadline: December 1. Entry fee: $10.
Fish Publishing Short Story Prize: A prize of €3,000 (approximately $3,517) and publication in the annual Fish Publishing anthology is given annually for a short story. The winner will also be invited to attend a five-day short story workshop and read at the West Cork Literary Festival in July 2022. Sarah Hall will judge. All entries are considered for publication. Deadline: November 30. Entry fee: $26.
Green Linden Press Wishing Jewel Prize: A prize of $1,000 and publication by Green Linden Press will be given annually for a book of poetry “that challenges expectations of genre, form, or mode” and that “questions the boundaries of what poems and books can be.” Christopher Nelson will judge. All finalists will be considered for publication. Deadline: November 30. Entry fee: $25.
Hawai’i Council for the Humanities Tony Quagliano Poetry Award: A prize of $1,000 will be given biennially to a poet with a body of work that “pushes the boundaries of poetic craft” who also “contributes meaningfully to the literary community.” Poets who have published at least 25 poems in journals, anthologies, chapbooks, or books are eligible. The award particularly seeks to recognize poets with a connection to Hawai’i or the Pacific. Deadline: December 1. Entry fee: None.
Narrative Fall Story Contest: A prize of $2,500 and publication in Narrative is given annually for a short story, a short short story, an essay, a short graphic narrative, or an excerpt from a longer work of prose. A second-place prize of $1,000 and publication in Narrative is also awarded. The editors will judge. All entries are considered for publication. Deadline: November 30. Entry fee: $27.
Regal House Publishing W.S. Porter Prize for Short Story Collections: A prize of $1,000 and publication by Regal House Publishing will be given annually for a short story collection. The editors will judge. Deadline: December 1. Entry fee: $25.
Waywiser Press Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize: A prize of $3,000 and publication by the Waywiser Press is given annually for a poetry collection by a poet who has published no more than one previous collection. The winner will also be invited to give a reading in with the contest judge in conjunction with the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. Deadline: December 1. Entry fee: $29.
Visit the contest websites for complete guidelines, and check out the Grants & Awards database and Submission Calendar for more contests in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.
In an article for the Washington Post, Gillian Brockell writes about the recent uptick and intensity of debates surrounding banning books in schools and lists six occasions throughout history in which books were tragically burned. Dating back to the first recorded incident in 213 BCE China, the list includes Catholic colonizers burning Mayan sacred texts in the sixteenth century, Nazis burning books deemed “un-German” in the 1930s, and the U.S. military burning copies of the Bible translated into Dari and Pashto in Afghanistan in 2009. Write an essay about a favorite book of yours that has been banned, or choose from this list of recently banned books. What impact has this banning had on you and your writing?
This virtual event, hosted by Booksmith in San Francisco, celebrates the release of ZYZZYVA’s Spring 2021 Technology Issue with readings by contributors Juhea Kim, Troy Jollimore, Lee Conell, and William Brewer, and a reading by Alex Torres of a short story by the late Anthony Veasna So.
Submissions are open for the second annual The Bird in Your Hands Prize, which is administered by Thin Air Magazine and “centers and celebrates BIPOC voices.” BIPOC writers at any stage in their careers are invited to submit a short work of poetry, fiction, or nonfiction, for the opportunity to win $1,000, publication in Thin Air Magazine, an interview on Thin Air Online, and an all-expenses paid trip to read at the Northern Arizona Book Festival in April next year.
Using only the online submission system, submit a manuscript of up to 500 words by December 1. There is no entry fee. Raquel Gutiérrez will judge. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Published by the Northern Arizona University English Department, Thin Air Magazine is run by graduate students and features fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and visual arts, as well as hybrid work and work that cannot be categorized. Operating out of Flagstaff, Arizona, the nonprofit is “the highest-elevation literary journal in the country” and aims to “build and maintain a Flagstaff–based literary community that reaches across the Colorado Plateau and beyond.”
“Here is another reason to write a memoir: to utter what must not be erased.” In this 2017 PBS NewsHour video, Richard Ford speaks about his reasons for writing, Between Them: Remembering My Parents (Ecco, 2017), a memoir about his parents. “I wrote about my parents because, decades after their deaths and when I was no longer young, I realized that I plainly missed them.”
