Genre: Creative Nonfiction

Submissions Open for Lambda’s Markowitz and Córdova Prizes

G&A: The Contest Blog
1.30.19

Lambda Literary is currently accepting submissions for the Judith A. Markowitz Award for Emerging LGBTQ Writers and the Jeanne Córdova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction. The annual awards are given to LGBTQ poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers.

 

The Judith A. Markowitz Award is open to emerging writers who identify as LGBTQ and have published one to two books of poetry, fiction, or nonfiction. Two winners will receive $1,000 each. Using the online application system, submit a writing sample of up to 10 pages of poetry or 20 pages of prose with a nomination statement (applicants may be self-nominated). There is no application fee.

The Jeanne Córdova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction is open to trans/gender nonconforming writers and lesbian/queer-identified women. The winner will receive $2,500. Writers must have published at least one book and should display a commitment to “nonfiction work that captures the depth and complexity of lesbian/queer life, culture and/or history.” Using the online application system, submit a writing sample of up to 20 pages from a published book, a sample or outline from a work-in-progress of no more than 10 pages, and a nomination statement (applicants may be self-nominated). There is no application fee.

The deadline for both awards is February 15. Jeanne Thornton and Mecca Jamilah Sullivan won last year’s Markowitz Award; Melissa Febos received the Jeanne Córdova Prize.

Lambda Literary Foundation, which is based in Los Angeles, has been a resource for LGBTQ writers across the country since 1987. The organization is dedicated to “nurturing and advocating for LGBTQ writers” and runs several programs, fellowships, and events. The Judith A. Markowitz Award was established in 2013, while the Jeanne Córdova Prize was established last year.

Read more about Lambda Literary in Jonathan Vatner’s article “Lambda Literary Looks to the Future” in the September/October 2018 issue of Poets & Writers.

All the Lives We Ever Lived

Caption: 

“Not only did To the Lighthouse help me to understand my own story, but my own story helped me to better understand To the Lighthouse—there’s sort of a beautiful reciprocity there.” Katharine Smyth talks with Michelle Dunton Cronauer about how Virginia Woolf’s 1927 novel led to writing her debut memoir, All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf (Crown, 2019), which is featured in Page One in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Genre: 
Creative Nonfiction
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Katharine Smyth
interview
All the Lives We Ever Lived: Seeking Solace in Virginia Woolf
2019
Crown
Virginia Woolf
Page One
January/February 2019
memoir

Reyna Grande

Caption: 

“This story is not just about an immigrant girl making her way through the world, but it’s a story of a girl who is fighting hard for her American dream.” In this video, Reyna Grande discusses her memoir A Dream Called Home (Atria Books, 2018), a sequel to her best-selling memoir The Distance Between Us, and the inspiration she hopes her books will bring to young readers.

Genre: 
Creative Nonfiction
Tags: 
Reyna Grande
Simon & Schuster
Atria Books
2018
A Dream Called Home
The Distance Between Us

PEN America Announces Finalists for 2019 Literary Awards

G&A: The Contest Blog
1.24.19

This morning PEN America announced the finalists for its 2019 Literary Awards, which showcase the best books of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and translation published in the previous year. More than $370,000 in prize money will be awarded to the winning writers, who will be announced at a ceremony in New York City on February 26. This year more than 50 percent of the finalists are debut writers and authors published by small presses.

The $75,000 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award recognizes a book-length work in any genre. The 2019 finalists are Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah for Friday Black (Mariner Books), Ada Limón for The Carrying (Milkweed Editions), José Olivarez for Citizen Illegal (Haymarket Books), Richard Powers for The Overstory (Norton), and Tara Westover for Educated (Random House).

The finalists for the PEN/Hemingway Award, which includes $25,000 and a residency at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming, are Akwaeke Emezi for Freshwater (Grove Press), Meghan Kenny for The Driest Season (Norton), Ling Ma for Severance (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Tommy Orange for There There (Knopf), and Nico Walker for Cherry (Knopf).

The PEN/Bingham Prize, which was previously awarded for a first book of fiction, will now be awarded for a debut story collection. The finalists for the $25,000 award are Chaya Bhuvaneswar for White Dancing Elephants (Dzanc Books), Jamel Brinkley for A Lucky Man (Graywolf Press), Helen DeWitt for Some Trick (New Directions), Akil Kumarasamy for Half Gods (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and Will Mackin for Bring Out the Dog (Random House).

The PEN Open Book Award, worth $5,000, will be conferred to an author of color for a book-length work of any genre. The finalists are Shauna Barbosa for Cape Verdean Blues (University of Pittsburgh Press), Tyrese Coleman for How to Sit: A Memoir in Stories and Essays (Mason Jar Press), Ángel García for Teeth Never Sleep (University of Arkansas Press), Nafissa Thompson-Spires for Heads of the Colored People (Atria), and Jenny Xie for Eye Level (Graywolf Press).

The PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay is given to a collection of essays that exemplify the form. The finalists for the $10,000 award are Jabari Asim for We Can’t Breathe: On Black Lives, White Lies, and the Art of Survival (Picador), Alexander Chee for How to Write an Autobiographical Novel (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Brian Phillips for Impossible Owls (FSG Originals), Zadie Smith for Feel Free (Penguin Press), and Michelle Tea for Against Memoir (Feminist Press).

Visit the website for a complete list of finalists, including those for PEN awards in nonfiction, biography, translation, poetry in translation, and literary science writing.

Established in 1963, the PEN America Literary Awards have honored hundreds of writers. Layli Long Soldier, Jenny Zhang, and Alexis Okeowo were among the 2018 winners.

Double Consciousness

The Time Is Now
1.24.19

Wesley Yang’s essay collection, The Souls of Yellow Folk (Norton, 2018), takes inspiration from W. E. B. Du Bois’s 1903 book, The Souls of Black Folk, which addresses the experience of double consciousness: a divided identity split between the consciousness of how one views oneself and how one is viewed by others. A number of Yang’s essays examine his role as a writer within “the peculiar burden of nonrecognition, of invisibility, that is the condition of being an Asian American man,” and circle around the frustration and isolation of attempting to reconcile or unify public opinion with one’s inner life. In your own nonfiction, have you struggled with representing yourself honestly while being conscious of how your readers might view you? Write an essay about striking a balance between writing truthfully about your interior self and considering the pressures of others’ perceptions.

Reminiscences of a Raconteur

The Time Is Now
1.17.19

In “‘I Read Morning, Night and in Between’: How One Novelist Came to Love Books” in the New York Times last month, Chigozie Obioma writes about how his journey to becoming a voracious reader was shaped by a childhood full of books and storytelling, and recounts a discovery made about the differences between stories told by his father versus those told by his mother. Write a personal essay about a storyteller who has played an important role in your life, such as a parent or guardian who animatedly read you bedtime stories, a relative whose tales are particularly exaggerated, or a friend whose sense of comedic or suspenseful timing is always just right. How has this person had an effect on your own storytelling and writing?

Yiyun Li

Caption: 

“What one carries from one point to another, geographically or temporally, is one’s self.” Yiyun Li reads from her debut memoir, Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life (Random House, 2017), in this video produced by the Office of Communications at Princeton University. Li, whose novel Where Reasons End is forthcoming from Random House in February, is featured in “Portraits of Inspiration” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Genre: 
Fiction
Creative Nonfiction
Tags: 
Yiyun Li
Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life
Where Reasons End
Random House
2017
2019
Portraits of Inspiration
January/February 2019

Upcoming Prose Contest Deadlines for Writers

G&A: The Contest Blog
1.11.19

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.

Home Street View Home

The Time Is Now
1.10.19

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.

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