CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: SUNDOWN TOWNS ISSUE
FIYAH
INFO: FIYAH is a quarterly speculative fiction magazine that features stories by and about people of the African Diaspora. They are currently accepting submissions for their SUNDOWN TOWNS issue. Their editors expound on what they’re seeking for the theme in this post.
They are looking for brave works of speculative short fiction by authors from the African diaspora that reject regressive ideas of blackness, respectability politics, and stereotype. Please submit your bravest, blackest, most difficult to sell stories.
They are accepting submissions of short fiction 2,000 – 7,000 words and novelettes up to 15,000 words. They are only accepting submission from authors from the African diaspora, because #BlackWritersMatter. This is an intersectional definition of blackness, and they strongly encourage submissions from women, members of the LGBTQIA community, and members from other underrepresented communities within the African diaspora.
PAYMENT:
- Short stories (2,000 – 7,000 words): $150
- Novelettes (<15,000 words): $300
RIGHTS: FIYAH will publish accepted stories in a quarterly ebook magazine format, as well as archiving them on their website. Thus, FIYAH will claim first world electronic rights, nonexclusive archival rights, and nonexclusive anthology rights to your story. This means that they are buying the rights to publish your story on FIYAH’s website and in electronic issues of our magazine. This also means that you can only publish your story as a reprint after it appears in FIYAH, and it cannot appear anywhere else online or in print prior to submission, or for 180 days after they publish it. After that it can be reprinted online, in a magazine, or in an anthology.
DEADLINE: April 30, 2017
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: GLOBAL DYSTOPIAS
Boston Review
INFO: Special call from Boston Review fiction editor Junot Díaz:
Over the last decades dystopian narratives have proliferated to the point where they seem to have become our default mode for conceptualizing the future. But dystopias are not merely fantasies of a minatory future; they offer critically important reflection upon our present. If (as Tom Moylan has argued) traditional dystopias crafted cognitive maps of the terrors of the twentieth century, what cognitive maps does our current dystopian turn provide us of our turbulent global present?
Throughout 2017 BostonReview.net will feature stories, essays, and interviews on the theme of global dystopias. The project will culminate in a special print issue in the fall of 2017.
They are seeking essays, interviews, and fiction from writers around the globe that engage the theme of dystopia. Nonfiction, personal essay, genre fiction (SF, fantasy, horror, Afrofuturist, slipstream), and work that resides across/between genres are welcome.
Submissions might explore, but are not limited to:
- Inequality / precarity
- The Global South
- Climate change
- Global democracy
- Civic media and civic imaginaries
- Afrofuturism
- The War on Terror
- International politics and speculative futures
- Post-humanisms
- The future of females
- Gendered violence
- Radical futurities
SUBMISSION FEE: $3
DEADLINE: N/A
bostonreview.submittable.com/submit
2017 FAB PRIZE
Faber & Faber / Andlyn Literary Agency
INFO: Faber & Faber and the Andlyn Literary Agency launch a new prize to find Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic (BAME) writers and illustrators for children.
Faber Children’s has teamed up with the Andlyn Literary Agency to create the Faber Andlyn BAME (FAB) Prize to help discover new writers and illustrators from BAME backgrounds, and to provide a year-long mentoring scheme for one author and one illustrator.
Judging panel: Faber Children’s Publisher Leah Thaxton, Andlyn Literary Agent Davinia Andrew-Lynch, Faber Creative Director Donna Payne, Faber Children’s Art Director Emma Eldridge.
AWARDS:
- First Prize - For text: £500, plus a private consultation with Leah Thaxton and Davinia Andrew-Lynch, followed by a year of regular mentoring, plus a selection of Faber books.
- Second Prize - Consultation with Leah Thaxton, Donna Payne, Emma Eldridge and Davinia Andrew-Lynch, plus a selection of Faber books.
DEADLINE: April 6, 2017
bbc.co.uk/writersroom/opportunities/fab-prize
JOURNALISM 360 CHALLENGE
Knight Foundation / Google News Lab / Online News Association
INFO: Knight Foundation, Google News Lab and the Online News Association are partnering to launch an open call for ideas, offering up to $35,000 in funding to test, refine and build out a project.
Virtual, augmented, mixed reality and 360 video are opening new opportunities for journalists to connect with audiences. In a news environment dominated by two-dimensional digital experiences, this technology allows people to interact with their surroundings and takes them places that they would otherwise not be able to go. At the same time they raise important technical and ethical challenges that journalists need to understand and explore.
For this open call, we want to discover ideas that grow immersive storytelling to advance the field of journalism—that inform and encourage news organizations to innovate, experiment and learn. We believe that developing lessons around this emerging area can help journalists extend and deepen their impact.
They want projects that use immersive storytelling to fuel innovation and new ideas, while addressing the many open questions facing this nascent industry. They’re not prescriptive in what your project should be. They welcome all kinds of ideas, from new ways to produce and apply the technology, to the workflows, roles and skills required to create better journalism and enhanced storytelling techniques, to promoting ethics, transparency and accountability. They encourage collaboration on projects that will help advance the field. Their focus is not on funding content. They are primarily looking for projects that will yield lessons and “how-tos” for the field of journalism and encourage reporters and editors to think differently.
This challenge is open to anyone, from journalists, technologists, entrepreneurs, gamers, software developers and academics, to news organizations, startups, established businesses, nonprofits and individuals. Focused on early-stage ideas, the challenge encourages building fast, failing fast and learning from the journey.
AWARD: $250,000
DEADLINE: April 10, 2017
knight.submittable.com/submit/f0fdf327-5b86-4a8a-ad22-1fd5b17cd134/journalism-360-challenge
KUNDIMAN MENTORSHIP 2017
Kundiman
INFO: Kundiman is partnering with the Asian American Literary Review and the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center to offer a mentorship program to emerging Asian American writers!
Mentees receive a two month long mentorship, $1000 honorarium, plus travel, lodging, and being a featured reader at the first-ever Asian American Literature Festival. They will also have their exchange published in the Asian American Literary Review.
During a two month long letter writing exchange, mentors and mentees will share work, exchange ideas about writing process, craft and practice, the writing life, Asian American history, and personal reflections about the world around them. The exchange will begin and end with a Skype conversation with mentors. The mentorship will culminate in a reading at the Asian American Literature Festival, July 27–July 29th in Washington, D.C., where mentees will meet with their mentor for lunch and participate in a featured reading.
Any writer who self-identifies as Asian American who has not published a full length book by the date of the festival. Writers must be in the United States at the time of the literary festival.
DEADLINE: April 15, 2017
kundiman.submittable.com/submit
2017 RED HEN PRESS NONFICTION AWARD
INFO: Established in 2015, the Red Hen Nonfiction Award seeks to recognize the art of true story-telling through literary craft. The awarded manuscript is selected through an annual submission process which is open to all authors.
AWARD: $1,000 and publication of the awarded manuscript by Red Hen Press
ENTRY FEE: $20
DEADLINE: April 30, 2017
redhen.org/awards-2/red-hen-press-nonfiction-award/
WRITING RETREAT FOR WOMEN OF COLOR
Jack Jones Literary Arts
INFO: Jack Jones Literary Arts is hosting its first annual writing retreat at the Writer's Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs, AR. This two-week retreat will be held October 16–30, 2017, and is open exclusively to women of color. National Book Award finalist, Angela Flournoy, author of The Turner House, is joining us as our Writer-in-Residence for week one, and Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellow and NEA award winner, Angel Nafis, author of BlackGirl Mansion, will join us as Writer-in-Residence for week two.
As part of the retreat experience, Jack Jones is featuring daily one hour Skype master classes with agents, editors and acclaimed women in publishing to promote networking, learning and engagement. These sessions are totally optional for retreat participants.
The retreat rate is $1050.00 for the two weeks and includes individual writing suites with bedroom, private bath, writing area, wifi, air conditioning, mini fridges, coffee makers, and all meals are provided.
Professional and emerging women writers of color at work on book projects are eligible for residencies. Students who are enrolled in a degree program are ineligible for a residency. Unfortunately, the Dairy Hollow grounds do not support wheelchairs or walkers. We are making every effort to secure a location for 2018 that is both cost-effective and accessible.
To apply to the Jack Jones Literary Arts writing retreat, please fill out our online application. The application includes a project proposal, a reference and the writing sample.
They will offer nine fully-funded scholarship opportunities, a travel stipend and admissions fee reimbursements. Supporting documentation will need to be submitted at the time of application.
APPLICATION FEE: $25
IMPORTANT DATES:
- Deadline: May 1, 2017
- Notification: Mailed out on June 1, 2017
- Retreat: October 16 - 30, 2017