THE COOKOUT POETRY PRIZE
Write About Now Poetry
DEADLINE: May 2, 2021
INFO: "The CookOut" is a literary magazine published out of Write About Now Poetry that encompasses the warmth and hospitality of the South, the fast-paced, forward-thinking nature of the city, and the openness and innovation fostered within a community from all over the world.
If you’re looking for a place to gather, “The CookOut” welcomes you to our table carved out of the love and creativity of Black authors who archive their existence, dreams, and ideas into the written word.
This online journal serves as a response to the call to amplify Black writers, Black voices and Black stories, as well as to invest into Black communities through supporting Black-led organizations and through The CookOut's $1000 grand prize.
We are seeking poems from Black writers that have a unique vision, a fresh perspective, and a clear passion for language and music. We love striking images and captivating narratives. Our readers have range, so ultimately, we are looking for work that moves us. Send us your best.
GUIDELINES:
Individuals must identify as Black to submit to the publication. The works submitted may include, but are not restricted to topics around Blackness.
TCO accepts simultaneous submissions; however, TCO does not accept work that has been previously published.
Please use 12 pt. font, unless the font size is a device used for the poem.
You may submit up to 3 poems. Please submit your works as one file with each poem on a separate page.
Include a cover page with your: Name, Phone Number, Mailing Address, Email and social media handles.
One poem will be selected by a committee of Black readers to win our $1,000 grand poetry prize.
These will be shut-eye submissions (readers will not see your name until after the poems are read), so please ensure that your name appears nowhere else in the submission manuscript (aside from the cover page) unless it is a part of your poem.
https://writeaboutnow.submittable.com/submit/190393/the-cookout-literary-journal-1000-poetry-prize
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MVICW POET & AUTHOR FELLOWSHIPS
Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Virtual Summer Writers' Conference
DEADLINE: May 3, 2021
ENTRY FEE: $25
INFO: MVICW is able to provide a number of need and merit-based fellowships (25-40% of registration cost) to attend our Virtual Summer Writers' Conference. Consideration is given to applicants demonstrating economic need. To apply for financial assistance to attend our MVICW Summer Writers' Conference, send a sample of your writing (3 poems or 10 pages of fiction/CNF) and a letter of interest.
Letter of Interest (approx. 750 words): Please tell us about who you are as a person and an artist. We'd like to hear about your life, your artistic career, and your creative work. If you have specific needs (financial or creative) which would be met by this award please outline them in your letter.
https://mvicw.submittable.com/submit
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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: PROSE POETRY
Stellium Literary Magazine
DEADLINE: May 3, 2021
INFO: Stellium is a literary magazine centering Black queer and trans prose writers. We still accept work from other Black and QTPOC writers. We are a bimonthly (every two months) magazine seeking to create our first two digital issues.
The literary scene is flush with racist, homophobic, transphobic, and elitist platforms that often discriminate against QTPOC writing, let alone that of Black queer and trans creators. We've noticed how we're a trend to be recognized after shootings or attacks on our communities. Rarely are we considered "legitimate" unless our creative work can generate donations for publications and institutions that stick to the status quo during the rest of the year.
At Stellium, we're setting our intentions to not just make a statement in the world of prose but to redefine the space entirely. The magazine will publish five pieces each of prose poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and art within each issue. We seek work from emerging and established writers (with an emphasis on emerging). In due time, we hope to include a number of interviews, translations, reviews, and other works relevant to the QTPOC writing scene on our website, and (eventually) in print!
We are currently curating pieces for our third and fourth issues. Here are the themes.
Issue Three - Home - Where (or who) is home? What does it mean now that you're older? What did you picture when you were young? Are you there now or arriving? How do you protect it, fill it, or renew it? Do you click your heels three times or do you simply open the door? Take us there.
Issue Four - Skepticism - What are you a skeptic of? Who deserves the most review and re-review? How have you been critiqued yourself? Why this issue in particular? Has it always been this way or did something change within? Ruin the façade.
What are we looking for?
Prose poetry - We do not accept traditional poetry. Please note this description before submitting. Prose poetry is "not broken into verse lines, [but] demonstrates other traits such as symbols, metaphors, and other figures of speech common to poetry." Write in paragraphs and with a poetic flow, and we'll want to see it. Please submit a maximum of three poems. This section is not theme-specific but you're encouraged to focus on it.
https://stelliumlit.submittable.com/submit
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Anaphora Writing Residency
DEADLINES:
Priority: May 10, 2021
Final: May 15, 2021
INFO: Anaphora Writing Residency is a ten-day program designed exclusively for writers of color. The residency offers workshops, readings, craft talks, and discussions with professionals from the literary and publishing industry. The goal of the program is to nurture emerging and established writers of color, to create opportunities for publication, and establish a wide network of support for writers of different backgrounds.
DATES AND FEES: The upcoming residency will run on August 12 - 21, 2021, and will be held virtually. The program costs $2,400, and several partial fellowships are available every year, depending on funding availability. Applications must be submitted by the priority deadline to be eligible for fellowships. Our Founding Fellows and returning alumnx, will have the opportunity to attend the program at a discounted rate.
Applications are reviewed by an anonymous admission board of peers, which rotates every year. Notifications will be sent out by May 31st. A non-refundable security deposit of $150 is required within two weeks of notification; program fees must be paid entirely prior to the beginning of the residency.
WHAT TO EXPECT: The program will provide workshops in poetry and prose, craft talks, daily readings (by guests and program participants), masterclasses, generative sessions, and discussions with professionals from the industry, including literary agents, editors, and publishers.
VISITING WRITERS - 2021
Eduardo C. Corral earned degrees from Arizona State University and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. His debut collection of poetry, Slow Lightning (2012), won the Yale Younger Poets Prize, making him the first Latino recipient of the award. His second collection is Guillotine (2020). Praised for his seamless blending of English and Spanish, tender treatment of history, and careful exploration of sexuality, Corral has received numerous honors and awards, including the Discovery/The Nation Award, the J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. A CantoMundo Fellow, he has held the Olive B. O’Connor Fellowship in Creative Writing at Colgate University and was the Philip Roth Resident in Creative Writing at Bucknell University. In 2016 he won the Holmes National Poetry Prize from Princeton University. Corral teaches in the MFA program at North Carolina State University in Raleigh and is currently a Hodder Fellow at Princeton University.
Kwame Dawes has authored 36 books of poetry, fiction, criticism, and essays, including, most recently, Nebraska (UNP, 2019), Bivouac (Akashic Books, 2019), and City of Bones: A Testament (Northwestern, 2017). Speak from Here to There (Peepal Tree Press), co-written with Australian poet John Kinsella, appeared in 2016. He is Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner and Chancellor’s Professor of English at the University of Nebraska. He is also a faculty member in the Pacific MFA Program. He is Director of the African Poetry Book Fund and Artistic Director of the Calabash International Literary Festival. Dawes is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
Natashia Deón is a 2017 NAACP Image Award Nominee and author of the critically-acclaimed novel, Grace (Counterpoint Press), which was named a best book of 2016 by The New York Times, The Root, Kirkus Review, Book Riot, and Entropy Magazine, and has been featured in People Magazine, TIME Magazine, and Red Book. Grace won the 2017 American Library Association, Black Caucus Award for Best Debut Fiction. A practicing attorney, mother, and law professor, Deón is the recipient of a PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship and served as a 2017 U.S. Delegate to Armenia in partnership with the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program, for a reconciliation project involving Armenian and Turkish writers.
Born in Manila and raised in the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, Sasha Pimentel is the author of For Want of Water, selected by Gregory Pardlo as winner of the National Poetry Series and longlisted for the PEN/Open Book Award, and Insides She Swallowed, winner of the American Book Award. She has published poems and essays in The New York Times Magazine, PBS NewsHour, ESPN, The American Poetry Review, New England Review, and Literary Hub, and other literary publications. She has been a Picador Guest Professor for Literature at Universität Leipzig in Germany, an NEA fellow, and March 2021's guest editor for Poem-A-Day for the Academy of American Poets. She teaches poetry and creative nonfiction in the bilingual (Español-English) Department of Creative Writing at the University of Texas at El Paso, on the border of Ciudad Juárez, México.
Matthew Shenoda is a writer, professor, university administrator, and author and editor of several books. His poems and essays have appeared in a variety of newspapers, journals, radio programs and anthologies. His debut collection of poems, Somewhere Else (Coffee House Press), was named one of 2005's debut books of the year by Poets & Writers Magazine and was winner of a 2006 American Book Award. He is also the author of Seasons of Lotus, Seasons of Bone (BOA Editions Ltd.), editor of Duppy Conqueror: New & Selected Poems by Kwame Dawes, and most recently author of Tahrir Suite: Poems (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press), winner of the 2015 Arab American Book Award and with Kwame Dawes editor of Bearden’s Odyssey: Poets Respond to the Art of Romare Bearden (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press, 2017).
Anni Liu is a poet, essayist, translator and editor. Her poetry collection Border Vista (Persea, 2022) won the 2021 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize. She was born and raised in 西安, 陕西, then later in Bowling Green, Ohio. She earned her MFA from Indiana University, where she served as poetry editor of Indiana Review. Her work is featured in Ploughshares, Ecotone, the Georgia Review, Two Lines, Hyphen, Pleiades, Quarterly West, and elsewhere, and her honors include an Undocupoets Fellowship, a Katherine Bakeless Nason Scholarship to Bread Loaf Environmental Conference, and the National Society for Arts and Letters’ Literature Award. She’s also been supported by the Mae Fellowship and awarded a residency at the Anderson Center at Tower View in Red Wing, MN. She is Associate Editor at Graywolf Press, and lives in Minneapolis with her partner and plants.
Before joining Ayesha Pande Literary, Annie Hwang began her career at Folio Literary Management where she had the pleasure of working with debut and seasoned authors alike. As a former journalist, Annie possesses a keen editorial eye which she brings to her approach to agenting, taking an active role in the careers of her clients. Annie represents voice-driven literary fiction and select nonfiction. In particular, she gravitates toward subversive and irreverent literary fiction and impactful mission-driven narrative nonfiction that grapples with the complexities of our world. A fierce champion of underrepresented voices, Annie is always on the hunt for gifted storytelling that stretches its genre to new heights.
https://www.anaphoraarts.com/anaphora-writing-residency-2021
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The Kurt Brown Prizes
AWP
DEADLINE: May 14, 2021
ENTRY FEE: $10
INFO: Each year, AWP offers three annual scholarships to emerging writers who wish to attend a writers’ conference, center, festival, retreat, or residency. The scholarships are applied to the event or workshop fees of the winners’ chosen program. Winners and six finalists also receive a one-year individual membership in AWP. Visit our website for more information and a list of past winners.
ELIGIBILITY:
Previous recipients of Kurt Brown Prizes (formerly known as WC&C scholarships), and former or current students of the judge are not eligible to submit.
Our judges this year are Erika T. Wurth for fiction, Joshunda Sanders for creative nonfiction, and Richard Terrill for poetry.
GUIDELINES:
Your name must not appear anywhere on the manuscript or it will be disqualified.
For fiction, one short story (or novel excerpt) up to 25 pages will be considered. Fiction must be double-spaced and presented in manuscript form with 12-pt font.
For poetry, up to 10 pages will be considered. Each new poem must start on a new page.
For creative nonfiction, up to 25 pages will be considered.
You may enter in more than one genre, and you may also enter multiple manuscripts in one genre, provided that each submission is accompanied by its own entry fee.
Please send us your best, unpublished work.
A $10 reading fee must accompany each submission and is not refundable.
PRIZE: All winners will be notified by email by June 11 and announced on AWP’s website and in the AWP Annual Conference & Bookfair program. Three winners will each receive a $500 scholarship to attend a WC&C member program. Winners have one year to use their prize, and funds are paid directly to the selected program. Member conferences reserve the right to determine participants in their programs; winning does not guarantee admittance to any program.
https://awp.submittable.com/submit/24932/the-kurt-brown-prizes
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EMERGING WRITER’S CONTEST
Ploughshares
DEADLINE: May 15, 2021
INFO: The Emerging Writer’s Contest recognizes work by an emerging writer in each of three genres: fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. We consider you “emerging” if you haven’t published a book. Current subscribers through our Winter 2021-2022 issue submit for free; other subscribers receive a one-year subscription to Ploughshares with their submission.
This year’s judges are Kiley Reid in fiction, Paul Lisicky in nonfiction, and Paige Lewis in poetry.
PRIZE: One winner in each genre will receive $2,000, publication in Ploughshares, and a conversation with literary agency Aevitas Creative Management.
https://www.pshares.org/submit/emerging-writers-contest/guidelines
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The Fire Inside Volume 2
Zora’s Den
DEADLINE: May 31, 2021
INFO: Zora’s Den is an online community of Black women writers started in January 2017. Our mission is to uplift their stories, thus acknowledging free agency over their experiences and voices, in their own words. Hence submissions are open for those identifying as Black women.
Submissions are open for The Fire Inside, Volume II. Following the success of Zora’s Den’s first anthology, we want your kick-ass fiction, your soulful non-fiction, and your bold poetry. Zora Neale Hurston was known for her spunk. Let’s honor that spirit with our words, in voices distinctly our own. Send us the fire inside you!
GUIDELINES:
Poetry: up to 3 poems.
Fiction: limited to 1 story, no more than 3,000 words.
Flash Fiction: limited to 2 stories, up to 1,200 words each.
Creative Nonfiction: limited to 1 essay, no more than 1,500 words.
SUBMISSIONS:
Fiction, Flash Fiction and Creative Nonfiction must be double-spaced and formatted in a 12-point font (preferably Times New Roman). Poetry should be single-spaced and please send multiple poems in one submission entry. Please number the pages, provide the word count and title only. Please do not add additional spaces between sentences. Accepted files for prose and poetry submissions include .doc or .pdf—use minimal document styling and do not include author identifying information on any pages of submitted document.
Submitted material must be unpublished. We will consider simultaneous submissions, but please inform us immediately if the work has been accepted by another publication. Please edit your work with care.
By sending your submission you agree to the following statements:
You are a writer or artist who identifies as a Black woman.
You have completely read and submitted within the guidelines.
https://zorasden.submittable.com/submit/190865/the-fire-inside-volume-2
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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: “COOKOUT” ISSUE
Lucky Jefferson
DEADLINE: May 31, 2021
INFO: Grab your sunglasses, sandals, and favorite dish—you’re invited to our cookout.
Send us unpublished poetry (there is no line limit but we adore shorter poems), flash fiction, and food-inspired art that describes what you would bring to our cookout.
Topics may include:
food
games / entertainment
libations
decorations
cutlery
GUIDELINES:
Send no more than 3 poems in a submission. Separate poems by page break.
No more than 1000 words for flash fiction.
Include a short and sweet cover page highlighting: your name, email address, mailing address, and bio (third-person, 50 words max).
No translations or work that has been previously published in print or online.
Please absolutely no sexually explicit poems or works highlighting extreme violence, racism, antisemitism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, insta poems or love poems. We're hopeless romantics, but we're not interested in printing romance unless it's a unique perspective.
https://luckyjefferson.submittable.com/submit/191426/issue-7-cookout-early-bird-submission
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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: AWAKE
Lucky Jefferson
DEADLINE: May 31, 2021
Lucky Jefferson's digital zine Awake seeks to amplify the experiences and perspectives of Black writers in American society.
The third issue of our digital zine will explore Black Resiliency. While the undercurrents of trauma will remain embedded in the fabric of our history, and stories, trauma is not our only defining trait.
Send poems, essays, flash fiction, and art that embrace and magnify the persistence, strength, and power of our people through text, form, and structure.
Upon acceptance, submissions will be included on our website and publicized on social media. Accepted authors will receive $15 for each accepted work.
GUIDELINES:
Send no more than three poems in a submission. Separate poems by titles or page breaks.
Essays should be no more than 1500 words.
Flash Fiction should be no more than 1000 words.
Send no more than three pieces of art. Artwork that offers social commentary on Black resiliency is highly preferred (We love comics and collage pieces!).
Include a cover page highlighting your name, email address, current address, and bio (third-person, 50 words max).
We do not accept translations or work that has been previously published in print or online.
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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
The Liminal Review
DEADLINE: May 31, 2021
INFO: We’re open to fiction, short prose, reviews, poetry, creative nonfiction, marginalia, and illustrations.
The Liminal Review was founded in December 2020 by Alix Berber and Shauna Smullen. Two queer artists looking to carve out a new space for marginalised voices in Ireland and beyond. The project emerged from a curiosity for the concept of liminal spaces, transition and temporality. Liminality is familiar to everyone, even if the word might not be. Liminality is the experience of transition, metamorphosis, of crossing the small and momentous thresholds of life and death.
Please only submit to one category (Poetry or Fiction or Nonfiction) per submission period to liminalreview [at] gmail. com
The Liminal Review is currently run without any outside funding and we are as of now unable to pay contributors. It is our explicit goal to be able to offer contributors payment in the future. Featured writers will receive a contributor copy.
Please read the following submission guidelines carefully. Submissions that fail to adhere to the guidelines will not be considered for publication. If you have any further questions please feel free to reach out via the contact form, email or our social media channels.
The Liminal Review’s stated goal is to give special consideration to emerging authors/artists regardless of their previous publishing history. BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ artists and writers, as well as those living with disabilities, are strongly encouraged to submit.
https://www.liminalreview.com/home/submit
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The 2021 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize
Wasafiri
DEADLINE: May 31, 2021
ENTRY FEE: £10 for a single entry / £16 for a double entry.
INFO: Representing more of the globe than any other prize of its kind, the Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize is opening its doors for 2021 and welcoming work in fiction, poetry, and life writing from unpublished writers around the world. The prize will remain open from 1 February to 31 May 2021.
Winners of the prize will be announced on 14 October and will receive £1,000 each to support their work. All fifteen shortlisted writers will be offered mentoring and career guidance from partners The Literary Consultancy and The Good Literary Agency. All winners of the prize, running since 2009, remain part of the Wasafiri community, and are supported by the magazine as their careers grow. Past winners and shortlistees have gone on to score deals with major international publishing houses such as Verso, Peepal Tree Press, and HarperCollins India and to be shortlisted for and win prizes including the TS Eliot Prize, Ambit Short Fiction, and Bocas Poetry Prize, among very many others.
This year’s multiply-award-winning international judging panel comprises Tishani Doshi (Poetry), Hirsh Sawhney (Fiction), and Christie Watson (Life Writing). It will be chaired by renowned novelist and Professor of Creative Writing Andrew Cowan, who says of this role, ‘I’m thrilled to be chairing the judging for this year’s Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize. I’m looking forward to working with Tishani, Hirsh, and Christie, who are such wonderful writers. It’ll be a real pleasure, and a genuine honour.’
JUDGES:
Andrew Cowan is a novelist and Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and has taught creative writing all over the world. His first novel Pig was published in 1994 and received multiple national awards. Including a Betty Trask Award and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. It was followed by much-celebrated novels Common Ground (1996), Crustaceans (2000), What I Know (2005), and Worthless Men (2013), and Your Fault (2019). He has also written a creative writing guidebook, The Art of Writing Fiction, and he is currently completing the monograph Against Creative Writing.
Tishani Doshi is Welsh-Gujarati poet, novelist, and dancer. Her most recent books are Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods, shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Poetry Award, and a novel, Small Days and Nights, shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize and a New York Times Bestsellers Editor’s Choice. A God at the Door (Bloodaxe Books), her fourth collection of poems, is forthcoming in spring 2021. She lives in Tamil Nadu, India.
Hirsh Sawhney’s writing has appeared in international anthologies and periodicals including the Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, the Indian Express, the Financial Times, Outlook, and many more. His novel South Haven was nominated for the 2017 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and he is the editor of the fiction anthology Delhi Noir. He currently lives in New Haven, Connecticut and teaches at Wesleyan University.
Christie Watson is an award-winning and bestselling writer of fiction and non-fiction. She has been a nurse for over twenty years and is currently Professor of Medical and Health Humanities at UEA. Her work has been translated into twenty-three languages.
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-1000 Below: Flash Prose and Poetry Contest
Midway Journal
DEADLINE: June 1, 2021
FEE: $10 per entry (unlimited entries)
INFO: Enter Midway Journal’s -1000 Below: Flash Prose and Poetry Contest for a chance to win the $500 grand prize! See contest guidelines below.
You may submit an unlimited number of entries, but a new entry fee must be paid for each new submission. You may also submit to each genre. However, there is only one grand prize winner, one second prize winner and one third prize winner and not a winner in each genre.
Paste the title of your submission and your contact information (name, mailing address, telephone number, and email address) in the cover letter box. Your name and contact information must not appear anywhere on the manuscript you upload.
Previously published work will not be accepted. Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but must be withdrawn from the contest if accepted elsewhere.
Poetry: up to 2 poems per entry, up to 40 words per poem. No more than one poem per page.
Prose (Fiction and Nonfiction): 1 piece per entry, up to 1,000 words per piece.
All submissions will be considered for publication.
PRIZES:
First Prize: $500 + publication in Midway Journal
Second Prize: $250 + publication in Midway Journal
Third Prize: $50 + publication in Midway Journal
JUDGE: Tiana Clark is the author of the poetry collection, I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018), winner of the 2017 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, and Equilibrium (Bull City Press, 2016), selected by Afaa Michael Weaver for the 2016 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. Clark is a winner for the 2020 Kate Tufts Discovery Award (Claremont Graduate University), a 2019 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, a recipient of a 2019 Pushcart Prize, a winner of the 2017 Furious Flower’s Gwendolyn Brooks Centennial Poetry Prize, and the 2015 Rattle Poetry Prize. She was the 2017-2018 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing. Clark is the recipient of scholarships and fellowships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. She is a graduate of Vanderbilt University (M.F.A) and Tennessee State University (B.A.) where she studied Africana and Women’s studies. Her writing has appeared in or is forthcoming from The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, The Washington Post, VQR, Tin House Online, Kenyon Review, BuzzFeed News, American Poetry Review, New England Review, Oxford American, Best New Poets 2015, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.
JUDGING PROCESS:
The staff of Midway Journal will select a group of finalists from all the contest entries. Finalists will be chosen for strong work regardless of genre and sent to the judge by September. The finalists will be sent to judge blindly. A winner will be announced in October.