Jump to navigation Skip to content
Checking in with Minneapolis indie bookstores after Wednesday’s riots; Kaya Press reflects on twenty-six years of publishing; Lucy Scholes highlights a queer psychosexual drama from the 1950s; and other stories.
Frankfurt Book Fair organizers adapt to the pandemic; Tim Parks proposes a new set of literary categories; Ron Charles unpacks the “summer reading” label; and other stories.
With a new month approaching, contests with a deadline of June 1 are upon us. These poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and translation awards are meant for college students, established authors, and everyone in between. All offer a cash prize of $1,000 or more. You could even win the opportunity to have a free glass of wine every day for a year!
American Short Fiction Halifax Ranch Fiction Prize: A prize of $2,500 and publication in American Short Fiction is given annually for a short story. Manuel Gonzales will judge. All entries are considered for publication. Deadline: June 1. Entry fee: $20.
Boulevard Emerging Poets Contest: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Boulevard is given annually for a group of poems by a poet who has not published a poetry collection with a nationally distributed press. The editors will judge. All entries are considered for publication. Deadline: June 1. Entry fee: $16 (subscription included).
Crook’s Corner Book Prize: A prize of $5,000 is given annually for a debut novel set in the American South. The winner will also be entitled to a complimentary glass of wine every day for a year at Crook’s Corner Café & Bar in Chapel Hill. The author may live anywhere, but eligible novels must be set primarily in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, or Washington, D.C. Monique Truong will judge. Deadline: June 1. Entry fee: $35.
McGill University Montreal International Poetry Prize: A prize of $20,000 CAD (approximately $14,500) and publication in the 2020 Global Poetry Anthology is given biennially for a poem. Yusef Komunyakaa will judge, and Jordan Abel, Kaveh Akbar, CAConrad, Wendy Cope, Susan Elmslie, Steven Heighton, John Leonard, Marilène Phipps, Sridala Swami, and Gillian Sze will serve as jurors. Deadline: June 1. Entry fee: $25 CAD (approximately $18).
PEN America PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants: Grants of $2,000 to $4,000 each are given annually to support the translation of book-length works of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction that have not previously appeared in English or have appeared only in an “outdated or otherwise flawed translation.” An additional $5,000 grant, the PEN Grant for the English Translation of Italian Literature, will be given to support the translation of a book of fiction or nonfiction from Italian into English. Manuscripts with up to two translators are eligible. Deadline: June 1. Entry fee: none.
Salamander Fiction Prize: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Salamander is given annually for a short story. Elliot Ackerman will judge. All entries are considered for publication. Deadline: June 1. Entry fee: $15.
Stony Brook Southampton Undergraduate Short Fiction Prize: A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a short story by a college student. The winner also receives a full scholarship to attend the Southampton Writers Conference in July 2021, and their winning work will be considered for publication in Southampton Review. Deadline: June 1. Entry fee: none.
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.
The Amazon Literary Partnership announces 2020 grant recipients; the Academy of American Poets awards Poetry Fund grants; Victoria Chang discusses the uglier emotions in Obit; and other stories.
Lydia Millet on the complementary powers of science and art; John Paul Brammer discusses his advice column and his forthcoming memoir; Robin Wall Kimmerer on restoring respect for nature; and other stories.
As May comes to a close and the temperature continues to rise leading into a long-awaited summer, in Michigan we are waiting to hear if stay-at-home orders will be extended beyond this month. Despite our limitations, literary events continue online and I am happy to announce that this Friday, May 29, we will be holding a panel to discuss funding opportunities from the Readings & Workshops program to help support these events.
I am excited to moderate this panel which will include Readings & Workshops program associate Ricardo Hernandez, and two guest authors, Aubri Adkins and Deonte Osayande, who will be speaking about their experiences securing funds for literary events in Detroit through the Readings & Workshops program.
Adkins is a writer and the founder of the East Side Reading Series, a Detroit literary series featuring original work from writers of all genres. I am interested to hear about her motivations behind establishing the series, and how these readings have made an impact on the literary community of the city.
Osayande is a widely published writer from Detroit, a poet recognized in many slam communities, and currently a professor of English at Wayne County Community College District. I look forward to speaking with him as he offers a variety of perspectives on intersecting literary communities.
I am looking forward to this conversation! I am expecting it to be rich with information not only about Readings & Workshops mini-grants but also about how the Detroit literary community is doing and how we can further connect with other communities.
The panel will be on Friday, May 29 at 5:00 PM EDT. Registration is required and space is limited, so register here. The meeting will also be recorded and made available to the public if you’re not able to make it, but I do hope to see you there!
Justin Rogers is the literary outreach coordinator for Poets & Writers in Detroit. Contact him at Detroit@pw.org or on Twitter, @Detroitpworg.
The author of This Is One Way to Dance considers the consonances and dissonances between dance and writing.
Michael Barron on the plight of small publishers under COVID-19; Irish officials and citizens are turning to poetry to weather the pandemic; publishing executive Charles Dorsey has died at age eighty-three; and other stories.
Sejal Shah talks language, humor, and home; Hal Foster seeks structural change; Amy Jo Burns discusses the origins of Shiner; and other stories.
“The most astonishing thing to happen in the almost 14 billion years since the birth of the cosmos is that ordinary, apparentle inert matter, has—by its self-organizing capacity (or, autopoesis)—become conscious.” Harry Dodge reads from his debut book, My Meteorite: Or, Without the Random There Can Be No New Thing (Penguin Books, 2020), and discusses its themes in a conversation with Maggie Nelson in their Los Angeles home.
