University of Texas in Austin, New Writers Project
MFA Program
Poetry, Fiction
Austin, TX
Application Deadline:
Mon, 12/01/2025
Application Fee:
$65 ($90 for international applicants)
Affiliated Publications/Publishers:
Genre: Fiction
Kesey's Magic Trip
Caption:
In 1964 author Ken Kesey and his Merry Band of Pranksters set off on an LSD-fueled bus trip to the New York World's Fair. Along the way they intended to make a documentary, but the film was never finished. Directors Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood were given access to the raw footage to create Magic Trip, which is now available on iTunes and Netflix.
Aura Estrada Prize Gives Young Woman Writer Time, Money
Twenty-nine-year-old Mexico City fiction writer Majo Ramírez has been awarded the second biennial Aura Estrada Prize, an honor that affords a young Spanish-language writer money, publication, and up to eight months of time at writers colonies in Italy, Mexico, and the United States.
Named for the late Mexican writer Aura Estrada, who was a student at both Columbia University and Hunter College in New York City when she died at the age of thirty, the prize is given specifically to a woman prose writer, of either U.S. or Mexican citizenship, under thirty-five.
Ramírez receives ten thousand dollars and publication of her work in Spanish Granta, as well as invitations to four residency programs. She is offered retreats of up to two months each at Ledig House in Omi, New York; Santa Maddalena in Tuscany, Italy; Ucross in Wyoming; and Villa Guadalupe in Oaxaca, Mexico.
This year's prize jury included authors Daniel Alarcón, Jorge Luis Boone, Carmen Boullosa, and Cristina Rivera Garza. The founder of the award is Estrada's husband, the author Francisco Goldman, whose most recent novel, Say Her Name (Grove Press, 2011), centers on their marriage and the aftermath of Estrada's death.
For information on the requirements for entry into the competition, visit the Aura Estrada Prize website.
"Daily Bread" by Steve Edwards
Caption:
Electric Literature's latest Single Sentence Animation takes a hallucinatory turn as Steve Edwards writes, "The doctors say we're still functioning at the same cognitive level on mental tests, but it doesn't feel right to read a book when all you really want to do is eat it."
Genre:
Irish Novelist Takes Major Prize for Young Writers
Up against competition that included debut novels by Benjamin Hale, who recently won the Bard Fiction Prize, and Orange Prize winner Téa Obreht, Irish author Lucy Caldwell won this year's Dylan Thomas Prize for her second novel, The Meeting Point (Faber and Faber, 2011). The author, born in 1981, whose first book, Where They Were Missed (Viking, 2006), was shortlisted for the award in 2006, received a prize of thirty thousand pounds (approximately $47,700).
"The Meeting Point is a lyrical modern day parable set in Bahrain depicting the crises in the faith and marriage of an Irish woman, and her relationship with a troubled Muslim teenager," judge and prize founder Peter Stead said of Caldwell's novel, the Guardian reported. "It is a beautifully written and mature reflection on identity, loyalty, and belief in a complex world. We have no doubt that this is yet another significant step in what will undoubtedly be a striking career."
Also shortlisted for the 2011 award, given annually for a work of poetry or fiction by a writer age thirty or younger, were poet Jacob McArthur Mooney and debut novelist Annabel Pitcher. Stead was joined on the judging panel by Peter Florence, director of the Hay Festival, poets Kurt Heinzelman and Mererid Hopwood, fiction writer and inaugural Dylan Thomas Prize winner Rachel Trezise, and cultural broadcasters Kim Howells and Allison Pearson.
In the video below, Caldwell reads from her winning book at San Francisco's Litquake festival last month.
November 10
Choose a specific place and a time in the past: the North Shore of Staten Island before the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was built; the Back Bay area of Boston in the 1850s; Phoenix before air conditioning was invented; Seattle in the 1970s. Research this location, gathering as much information as you can about how it once was and how it has changed. Review public records, read newspaper articles, and peruse archival images. Local chamber of commerce sites and the Library of Congress's website are good places to start. Write a story set in the past in your chosen location, using the details you've uncovered to make it as authentic to that time as possible.
Imagining the World Without Birds
Caption:
In Fall of the Birds, a new novella available as an e-book from Open Road Media, fiction writer and Conjunctions editor Bradford Morrow tells the story of a man who tracks an inexplicable plague of bird deaths. "Thinking of a world without birds would almost be like stripping out a color from the spectrum," Morrow says in this short video.
Genre:
Bruno Littlemore Author Wins Bard Fiction Prize
Twenty-eight-year old novelist Benjamin Hale adds the Bard Fiction Prize to his list of honors. Author of The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore, the story of a self-aware and morally-engaged chimpanzee published last January by Twelve, Hale will receive thirty thousand dollars and a semester-long appointment as writer-in-residence at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.
A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Hale was awarded a provost's fellowship from the University of Iowa to complete his first novel. The manuscript was awarded a Michener-Copernicus Award, and, after publication, was selected for a number of "best of" lists including Barnes & Noble's Discover Great New Writers roundup.
Among the past winners of the Bard Fiction Prize, given annually to a fiction writer under forty, are Samantha Hunt, Fiona Maazel, Salvador Plascencia, and Peter Orner. Last year's recipient was thirty-year-old Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia! (Knopf, 2011) and St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (Knopf, 2006).
Applications for the 2013 award will be accepted until July 15, 2012. Visit the Bard website for more details.
In the video below, Hale discusses his ideal writing spaces, his unintentional pet word, and the importance of confidence for a (capital w) writer.
Organizing the Bookshelves
Caption:
In this playful video a reader transforms his alphabetically ordered bookshelves into a literary display of the color spectrum.
Deadline Extension for Women Fiction Writers
Another deadline extension came across our desks this week, for a story contest offering publication to a female-identified writer of any nationality.
Kore Press is now accepting submissions of stories, written in English and coming in at fewer than twelve thousand words, until November 30.
The winner will receive one thousand dollars and the winning work will be published as a chapbook by Kore Press, a Tucson, Arizona–based publisher of literature by women. The chapbooks are bound by hand and distributed via the press's website.
The writer who will select this year's winner has not yet been confirmed, but past judges include Tayari Jones, Antonya Nelson, and Leslie Marmon Silko.
For more information about how to submit a story, and to learn more about the mission of the press, visit the Kore website.
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