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Esmé Weijun Wang, a 2018 Whiting Award winner, reads from her essay “On the Ward” from The Collected Schizophrenias (Graywolf Press, 2019). Wang is featured in “Portraits of Inspiration” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“Philosophically, the New Year is a time for beginnings, a time for reflection and change. I can’t think of a better place than this vast and ruggedly beautiful continent to put things in perspective,” says traveler Chuck Ward in a recent New York Times article about celebrating New Year’s Eve in Antarctica. Write a personal essay about a particularly poignant or exciting New Year’s celebration you’ve had in the past. Describe the setting and how it influenced your mood. What made the night memorable and did you intend for your festivities to help start the year off in a certain way? How did the rest of the year measure up to your New Year’s expectations?
In the essay “The Poet’s Table,” published by the Poetry Foundation, food writer Mayukh Sen pays tribute to the late Maya Angelou for her lesser-known literary feats: her cookbooks. Angelou published two cookbooks when she was in her seventies and eighties, which offer readers more than just lists of measured ingredients and directions. The pages are filled with anecdotes and deeply personal stories touching upon cultural narratives, racial divisions, juvenile traumas, and moments of joy. “I feel cooking is a natural extension to my autobiography,” Angelou told the Guardian in 2011 regarding her cookbooks. This week, think of a recipe that contains some of your personal history within it—childhood memory, exploration of heritage, sense of place, or simply a snapshot of life. Write about the dish in detailed prose, allowing instruction to blend with your reminiscence.
Planning to write over the holidays? Finish your writing year up strong and head into 2019 resolved to send more work out into the world with the following contests in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. The twenty contests below have deadlines at the end of December or in the first days of January.
Bauhan Publishing Monadnock Essay Collection Prize: A prize of $1,000, publication by Bauhan Publishing, and 50 author copies is given annually for an essay collection. Anne Barngrover will judge. Entry fee: $25. Deadline: December 31.
Bayou Magazine Poetry and Fiction Prizes: Two prizes of $1,000 each and a subscription to Bayou Magazine are given annually for a poem and a short story. Entry fee: $20. Deadline: January 1.
Boulevard Short Fiction Contest: A prize of $1,500 and publication in Boulevard is given annually for a short story by a writer who has not published a nationally distributed book. Entry fee: $16. Deadline: December 31.
Bright Hill Press Poetry Book Competition: A prize of $1,000, publication by Bright Hill Press, and 30 author copies is given annually for a poetry collection. Entry fee: $27. Deadline: December 31.
Crosswinds Poetry Contest: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Crosswinds is given annually for a poem. Tina Cane will judge. Entry fee: $20. Deadline: December 31.
Florida Review Jeanne Leiby Memorial Chapbook Award: A prize of $1,000 and publication by Florida Review is given annually for a chapbook of short fiction, short nonfiction, or graphic narrative. Entry fee: 25. Deadline: December 31.
Gemini Magazine Poetry Contest: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Gemini Magazine is given annually for a poem. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $7. Deadline: January 2.
Glimmer Train Family Matters Contest: A prize of $2,500, publication in Glimmer Train Stories, and 20 copies of the prize issue is given annually for a short story about families of any configuration. Entry fee: $18 Deadline: January 2.
Lascaux Review Prize in Short Fiction: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Lascaux Review is given annually for a short story. Entry fee: $10. Deadline: December 31.
Mississippi Review Prize: Three prizes of $1,000 each and publication in Mississippi Review are given annually for a poem, a short story, and an essay. Entry fee: $15. Deadline: January 1.
The Moth Poetry Prize: A prize of €10,000 (approximately $12,000) and publication in the Moth is given annually for a poem. Three runner-up prizes of €1,000 (approximately $1,200) each are also given. The winners will also be invited to read at an awards ceremony at the Poetry Ireland festival in Dublin in Spring 2019. Jacob Polley will judge. Entry fee: $13. Deadline: December 31.
New Rivers Press Many Voices Project Competition: Two prizes of $1,000 each and publication by New Rivers Press are given annually for a poetry collection and a book of fiction or creative nonfiction by an emerging writer. Entry fee: $25. Deadline: December 31.
Nowhere Magazine Travel Writing Contest: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Nowhere Magazine is given twice yearly for a poem, a short story, or an essay that “possesses a powerful sense of place.” Porter Fox will judge. Entry fee: $20. Deadline: December 31.
Press 53 Award for Short Fiction: A prize of $1,000, publication by Press 53, and 50 author copies is given annually for a story collection. Kevin Morgan Watson will judge. Entry fee: $30. Deadline: December 31.
Quercus Review Press Poetry Book Award: A prize of $1,000, publication by Quercus Review Press, and 15 author copies is given annually for a poetry collection. Sam Pierstorff will judge. Entry fee: $25. Deadline: December 28.
River Styx Micro-Fiction Contest: A prize of $1,500 and publication in River Styx is given annually for a short short story. Entry fee: $10. Deadline: December 31.
Tampa Review Danahy Fiction Prize: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Tampa Review is given annually for a short story. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $20. Deadline: December 31.
Tampa Review Prize for Poetry: A prize of $2,000 and publication by University of Tampa Press is given annually for a poetry collection. Entry fee: $28. Deadline: December 31.
Tupelo Press Dorset Prize: A prize of $3,000 and publication by Tupelo Press is given annually for a poetry collection. The winner also receives a weeklong residency at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Entry fee: $30. Deadline: December 31.
Whitefish Review Montana Award for Fiction: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Whitefish Review is given annually for a short story. Rick Bass will judge. Entry fee: $20. Deadline: January 1.
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. Happy holidays, and happy submitting!
“This is a great one to give—it’s the sort of thing you can keep in the loo at Christmas when you’ve eaten too much food.” Jeanette Winterson reveals some of her favorite books for the holiday season, including The Trouble With Women (Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2016) by cartoonist Jacky Fleming, Tara Westover’s Educated: A Memoir (Random House, 2018), and her own collection of winter tales and festive recipes, Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days (Grove Press, 2016).
Volumes Bookcafe is an independent bookstore cafe with two locations in Chicago: Wicker Park and Gold Coast. Volumes is a family-owned business, brought to life by two Chicago-area sisters whose careers have always been intertwined with books. With heavily curated shelves of books, and a tasty menu of baked goods, quality espresso drinks and an array of local beer and wine, they aim to create a warm and inviting community space for book lovers of all ages.
What riches lie in that special space between the conscious and unconscious mind, when you’re just about to fall asleep or right as you’re waking up? In “The Hour Between Dog and Wolf: Harnessing the Power of Hypnagogia” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, Melissa Burkley writes about this mental twilight state, and the ways that these daily moments before and after sleep can be used for storytelling inspiration. Read about the hypnagogic techniques Burkley outlines in the piece and try one of her tips for harnessing these moments of creative potential. For example, use a twenty-minute nap or ease yourself out of your waking routine slowly to let your semi-conscious mind work over the ideas. Record notes on your experiences as soon as you get up, and then see how you might incorporate them into your writing.
“I come up with a form and then find a way to ‘translate’ my thoughts into the form. It wasn’t always like that, but that’s the way it is now. I used to think in lines.” —Elisa Gabbert, author of The Word Pretty
Ross Gay reads from his forthcoming essay collection, The Book of Delights (Algonquin Books, 2019), at a 2017 reading in Washington, D.C. for the Field Office. Gay is featured in “Portraits of Inspiration” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
In Amanda Hess’s New York Times essay “The End of Endings,” she writes about how in our current age of “the prequel, the reboot, the reunion, the revival, the remake, the spinoff,” the logic of the Internet contributes to a timeline where nothing ends, a time when scrolling through social media continues indefinitely, an age of never-ending online content. Whereas in the past, “we needed stories to end so we could make sense of them.” Write a personal essay that extends a previously explored subject or experience to investigate what came before or after, or that offers a different version or perspective.
