Each month, the Ashland MFA Program receives calls for submissions and contest deadlines, which it publicizes in its monthly newsletter. Listed below are this month's calls for submissions.
Small Po[r]tions is accepting submissions for Issue 6! We aim to curate cross-genre, experimental and multi/intermedia work and hope to offer a shared space for experimental creative fiction and nonfiction, lyrical fiction, poetry, and multimedia pieces. Small Po[r]tions issues have a print component with a focus on book arts and an online component featuring selections from the print issue along with media work. You can view work from our previous issues at smallportionsjournal.com/issues. Please submit up to 1000 words [up to 5 pages] or one multimedia work.
submissions@smallportionsjournal.com
The Gordion Review is a new journal by and for MFA students and is an adjunct of Texas Review Press. We are accepting poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction works by graduate students. Submissions deadline is November 30. Submit your works at TexasReviewPress.org.
https://texasreview.submittable.com/submit
Found Polaroids is looking for flash fiction to accompany their collection of “found polaroids.” While submitted stories are unpaid writing projects, the exposure that students would gain from their stories is widespread. Found Polaroids has been featured on such news outlets as BBC World Radio, The Guardian.com, Dazed Magazine, CBC Radio 'As It Happens’, MutantSpace.com, The Plaid Zebra, and many more.
http://www.foundpolaroids.com/
Temporal Discombobulations calls for original contemporary fiction that pays homage to the Gothic with 'time' as the theme. This anthology is in conjunction with the ‘Temporal Discombobulations: Time and the Experience of the Gothic’ conference at the University of Surrey from 22-24 August 2016, and we are accepting submissions for short fiction from new writers, scholars, and seasoned authors. Deadline is February 15, 2016.
https://temporaldiscombobulations.wordpress.com/
Belmon Story Review invites submissions of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction for its premier issue, Winter 2016. To submit, send an email to BSRsubmissions@gmail.com with the genre of your work in the subject line and attach a Word document. In the body, please include a brief bio. www.belmontstoryreview.com.
Barking Sycamores, a literary journal publishing work by neurodivergent creatives, seeks poetry, short fiction (1,000 words or less), creative non-fiction (8,500 words or less), and artwork on the theme of "Reconstruction" forIssue 8 (Winter/Spring 2016). Deadline: December 19, 2015. Creatives are invited to submit works which interpret the theme as broadly or as narrowly as desired. We especially invite works which address the following: the act of rebuilding that which has been damaged or destroyed; the end product of such acts of reconstruction; a creation of a past event or artifact based on available information; the post-Civil War era of Reconstruction in United States history; social justice; works focused on social, racial, or other types of inequality; and civil rights. We also invite works which are themselves a reconstruction of the author's own work of poetry, fiction, art, or creative non-fiction which has been destroyed or damaged -- for those types of works, we also strongly suggest the inclusion of process notes along with the submitted piece(s). Please read our submission guidelines before sending any work.
https://barkingsycamores.wordpress.com/submission-guidelines/
Riprap Literary Journal is now accepting submissions for issue 38. They welcome submissions in poetry, short fiction, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, photography, and art. Submissions will close on Friday, December 4th.
https://riprapliteraryjournal.submittable.com/submit
Fiction International is accepting submissions for its annual print journal during the period October 1, 2015 - February 15, 2016. The theme this year is Taboo. Interested writers are invited to visit our submission guidelines page at: http://fictioninternational.sdsu.edu/wordpress/submit/ Fiction International publishes an award winning annual journal that encourages formal innovation and social activism. We are located on the campus of San Diego State University, and the journal is edited by Harold Jaffe. Each issue revolves around a theme and features a wide variety of fiction, nonfiction, indeterminate prose, and visuals by leading writers and artists from around the world. We generally publish between 25 to 30 texts and visuals with each journal. To get an idea of what we are looking for, please visit our catalog page for sample texts: http://fictioninternational.sdsu.edu/wordpress/catalog/
Glassworks publishes nonfiction, fiction, poetry, hybrid pieces, craft essays, new media, and art both digitally and in print. We are currently reading until December 15, 2015 for our spring and fall 2016 print issues. They also publish flash fiction, prose poetry, and micro essays in our online edition Flash Glass monthly. Submissions for Flash Glass are accepted on a year-round, rolling basis. www.rowanglassworks.org .
Lumen is a project for (and by!) cis women, trans-women, and non-binary people. We are interested in poetry, fiction, personal essays, and interviews that examine how we move through the world, both as complex individuals and as members of larger communities. The conversations we are interested in are those that shed light on our stories—on our struggles, our triumphs, and all the in-betweens. New reading period will start later this month. Blogs may be submitted anytime.
https://lumen.submittable.com/submit
Southern Review has reopened submissions for poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. In addition to mail submissions, we’re excited to announce that this submission period, prose writers will be able to submit fiction and nonfiction electronically.
http://thesouthernreview.org/submissions
Graduate Student Poetry Only. We invite graduate students to submit to Claremont Graduate University's Foothill: a journal of poetry. Foothill is the first and only literary journal that exclusively publishes graduate student poetry. Sign up for an online subscription at http://www.cgu.edu/pages/9078.asp.
Lunch Ticket, is "a Feast of Words and Art" published twice-yearly. The journal publishes Poetry, Fiction (and Flash), Creative Nonfiction (and Flash), Young Adult (13+), Literary Translation & Multi-Lingual Texts, and Visual Art. The reading period for the Winter/Spring Issue, published in December of each year, runs from August 1-October 31. They also host two prizes, the Diana Woods Memorial Prize in Creative Nonfiction and The Gabo Prize for Literature in Translation & Multi-Lingual Texts. Both prizes are open for submissions in February and August. Amuse-Bouche, their special features column accepts submissions during January and July.
http://lunchticket.org/
Permafrost’s New Alchemy Contest wants your experiments: with language, with plot, with format, with medium. “We’d love to read/see/hear your most exciting and daring projects, your collaborations, your darlings that don’t fit anywhere else, your basement-dwelling monsters revealed in all their grotesquery onto the medium of your choice.” So, go for it!! Deadline is January 15, 2016. All formats welcome.
permafrostmag.com
Redivider Blurred Genre Contest will open November 15 and close December 31. This new contest explores the porous genre boundaries between flash fiction, flash nonfiction, and prose poetry. In doing so, we aim to nurture and celebrate commonality, difference, and distinction in literature. Each category will produce one winning entry, announced in February.
http://www.redividerjournal.org/submit/contests/redivider-blurred-genre-contest/
Cosmonauts Avenue is holding their inaugural poetry contest, judged by Claudia Rankine. The winner will receive $500 and publication in an upcoming issue. Cosmonauts Avenue publishes poetry, fiction, non-fiction, interviews, reviews, and correspondence by emerging and established writers in English and in translation.
http://www.cosmonautsavenue.com/
Glimmer Train New Writer Award is accepting fiction from emerging writers now until November 30. Cash prizes for winner and runners-up. Open to any unpublished writer.
https://glimmertrainpressinc.submittable.com/submit
Currents announces its fourth annual Alexander and Dora Raynes Poetry Competition, this year on the theme of “Urge.” judge is the celebrated poet and critic Alicia Ostriker. First prize is 1,000, with 2 second prizes awarded as well. Thirty-six poems chosen as finalists will be published in their annual poetry anthology.The submission fee is $18, which gains entrants a one-year subscription toJewish Currents. Deadline is January 15, 2016. Poets of all ages, backgrounds, religions/non-religions, and orientations are encouraged to submit.
http://jewishcurrents.org/poetry2016-39421
QuillsEdge Press – Indispensable Poetry by Women Over 50 announces their 2nd annual chapbook competition. The contest opens November 1st, 2105, judged by Mary Ann McFadden. The 2015 theme is To Inhabit– a body, a landscape, an ecosystem, a dream, a time, a nightmare, a fantasy, a place, a past, a future.
http://quillsedgepress.com/our-2nd-competition-opens-10012015/
Blue River, Creighton University’s new literary magazine, publishes the best writing from current and recent creative writing graduate students. Their Editor Award offers $500 for the best submission in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. All entries considered for publication. Deadline: March 1, 2016; $15 fee.
https://blueriver.submittable.com/submit
Columbia: A Journal For Literature and Art is now accepting original work in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for the Issue 54 Writing Contest. One winner from each genre will receive a $500 cash prize and publication in Issue 54, due out this spring. This year’s judges for their respective genres are Fiction: Max Apple, Nonfiction: Mark Greif, Poetry: Martin Espada.All entries will be considered for online publication. There is a $15 entry fee and the entry deadline is December 31, 2015.
https://columbiajournal.submittable.com/submit/47335
Poetry Society of America has a new year of awards underway. Each year from October to December the Poetry Society offers contests for poets at all stages of their careers, including Chapbook Fellowships for poets who have not yet published a full-length collection, a new first book contest, and an award for a poet over forty who has published no more than one book.http://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/awards/annual/
Permafrost's 2016 Nonfiction Book Prize competition is already underway, but there's still time to throw your work into the ring! Essay collections, memoirs, travel writing, literary journalism, theye want to read it all. Accepting submissions until December 1st. Scott Russell Sanders will be judging and the winner will receive $1,000 and publication through the University of Alaska Press. Also accepting submissions for our upcoming print issue until November 30, 2015.
http://permafrostmag.com/1st-annual-book-prize-in-nonfiction/
Lambda Literary's 2016 Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices is now accepting applications. The Retreat will be held July 24-31, 2016 on the campus of the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. Faculty include Andrew Holleran (Fiction workshop), Benjamin Alire Sáenz (Young Adult Fiction workshop), Joy Ladin (Poetry workshop), Sarah Schulman (Nonfiction workshop), and Robert O’Hara (Playwriting workshop).
http://www.lambdaliterary.org/writers-retreat/application/
The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts is accepting applicants for their 2016-17 writing fellowships in poetry and fiction. Writers who have not yet published a full-length book of creative work are welcome to apply. Fellows receive a seven-month stay (October 1 - April 30) at the Work Center and a $750 monthly stipend. Fellows do not pay or work in exchange for their Fellowships in any way. Fellows are chosen based on the excellence of their work. The deadline for the 2016-17 Writing Fellowships is December 1, 2015.
http://web.fawc.org/writers
The Baltic Writing Residency is currently accepting applications for the a month-long residency in Stockholm, Sweden. The deadline is December 15th, 2015. Applications can be sent via submishmash (http://balticwritingresidency.submittable.com/submit). The BWR provides $1,000, and a cottage in Stockholm for one poet, playwright, or writer of fiction working in English. The deadline for the BWR chapbook contest--judged by Valzhyna Mort--is February 15, 2016, the deadline for the 2 - 8 week long residency at Bernheim Arboretum & Research Forest is April 15, 2016; and the deadline for the Kentucky Writers Fellowship (for writers with KY connection) is May 15, 2016.
http://balticresidency.com/
24PearlStreet, the online writing program of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown is offering a 50% discount to all MFA students and alumni who register by December 1 for one of their classes. http://web.fawc.org/24-pearl-street/discounts.
Something to add? Send it to mfa@ashland.edu. We're especially interested in opportunities that cater to new and emerging writers.
Journal Submissions
Small Po[r]tions is accepting submissions for Issue 6! We aim to curate cross-genre, experimental and multi/intermedia work and hope to offer a shared space for experimental creative fiction and nonfiction, lyrical fiction, poetry, and multimedia pieces. Small Po[r]tions issues have a print component with a focus on book arts and an online component featuring selections from the print issue along with media work. You can view work from our previous issues at smallportionsjournal.com/issues. Please submit up to 1000 words [up to 5 pages] or one multimedia work.
submissions@smallportionsjournal.com
The Gordion Review is a new journal by and for MFA students and is an adjunct of Texas Review Press. We are accepting poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction works by graduate students. Submissions deadline is November 30. Submit your works at TexasReviewPress.org.
https://texasreview.submittable.com/submit
Found Polaroids is looking for flash fiction to accompany their collection of “found polaroids.” While submitted stories are unpaid writing projects, the exposure that students would gain from their stories is widespread. Found Polaroids has been featured on such news outlets as BBC World Radio, The Guardian.com, Dazed Magazine, CBC Radio 'As It Happens’, MutantSpace.com, The Plaid Zebra, and many more.
http://www.foundpolaroids.com/
Temporal Discombobulations calls for original contemporary fiction that pays homage to the Gothic with 'time' as the theme. This anthology is in conjunction with the ‘Temporal Discombobulations: Time and the Experience of the Gothic’ conference at the University of Surrey from 22-24 August 2016, and we are accepting submissions for short fiction from new writers, scholars, and seasoned authors. Deadline is February 15, 2016.
https://temporaldiscombobulations.wordpress.com/
Belmon Story Review invites submissions of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction for its premier issue, Winter 2016. To submit, send an email to BSRsubmissions@gmail.com with the genre of your work in the subject line and attach a Word document. In the body, please include a brief bio. www.belmontstoryreview.com.
Barking Sycamores, a literary journal publishing work by neurodivergent creatives, seeks poetry, short fiction (1,000 words or less), creative non-fiction (8,500 words or less), and artwork on the theme of "Reconstruction" forIssue 8 (Winter/Spring 2016). Deadline: December 19, 2015. Creatives are invited to submit works which interpret the theme as broadly or as narrowly as desired. We especially invite works which address the following: the act of rebuilding that which has been damaged or destroyed; the end product of such acts of reconstruction; a creation of a past event or artifact based on available information; the post-Civil War era of Reconstruction in United States history; social justice; works focused on social, racial, or other types of inequality; and civil rights. We also invite works which are themselves a reconstruction of the author's own work of poetry, fiction, art, or creative non-fiction which has been destroyed or damaged -- for those types of works, we also strongly suggest the inclusion of process notes along with the submitted piece(s). Please read our submission guidelines before sending any work.
https://barkingsycamores.wordpress.com/submission-guidelines/
Riprap Literary Journal is now accepting submissions for issue 38. They welcome submissions in poetry, short fiction, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, photography, and art. Submissions will close on Friday, December 4th.
https://riprapliteraryjournal.submittable.com/submit
Fiction International is accepting submissions for its annual print journal during the period October 1, 2015 - February 15, 2016. The theme this year is Taboo. Interested writers are invited to visit our submission guidelines page at: http://fictioninternational.sdsu.edu/wordpress/submit/ Fiction International publishes an award winning annual journal that encourages formal innovation and social activism. We are located on the campus of San Diego State University, and the journal is edited by Harold Jaffe. Each issue revolves around a theme and features a wide variety of fiction, nonfiction, indeterminate prose, and visuals by leading writers and artists from around the world. We generally publish between 25 to 30 texts and visuals with each journal. To get an idea of what we are looking for, please visit our catalog page for sample texts: http://fictioninternational.sdsu.edu/wordpress/catalog/
Glassworks publishes nonfiction, fiction, poetry, hybrid pieces, craft essays, new media, and art both digitally and in print. We are currently reading until December 15, 2015 for our spring and fall 2016 print issues. They also publish flash fiction, prose poetry, and micro essays in our online edition Flash Glass monthly. Submissions for Flash Glass are accepted on a year-round, rolling basis. www.rowanglassworks.org .
Lumen is a project for (and by!) cis women, trans-women, and non-binary people. We are interested in poetry, fiction, personal essays, and interviews that examine how we move through the world, both as complex individuals and as members of larger communities. The conversations we are interested in are those that shed light on our stories—on our struggles, our triumphs, and all the in-betweens. New reading period will start later this month. Blogs may be submitted anytime.
https://lumen.submittable.com/submit
Southern Review has reopened submissions for poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. In addition to mail submissions, we’re excited to announce that this submission period, prose writers will be able to submit fiction and nonfiction electronically.
http://thesouthernreview.org/submissions
Graduate Student Poetry Only. We invite graduate students to submit to Claremont Graduate University's Foothill: a journal of poetry. Foothill is the first and only literary journal that exclusively publishes graduate student poetry. Sign up for an online subscription at http://www.cgu.edu/pages/9078.asp.
Lunch Ticket, is "a Feast of Words and Art" published twice-yearly. The journal publishes Poetry, Fiction (and Flash), Creative Nonfiction (and Flash), Young Adult (13+), Literary Translation & Multi-Lingual Texts, and Visual Art. The reading period for the Winter/Spring Issue, published in December of each year, runs from August 1-October 31. They also host two prizes, the Diana Woods Memorial Prize in Creative Nonfiction and The Gabo Prize for Literature in Translation & Multi-Lingual Texts. Both prizes are open for submissions in February and August. Amuse-Bouche, their special features column accepts submissions during January and July.
http://lunchticket.org/
Contests
Permafrost’s New Alchemy Contest wants your experiments: with language, with plot, with format, with medium. “We’d love to read/see/hear your most exciting and daring projects, your collaborations, your darlings that don’t fit anywhere else, your basement-dwelling monsters revealed in all their grotesquery onto the medium of your choice.” So, go for it!! Deadline is January 15, 2016. All formats welcome.
permafrostmag.com
Redivider Blurred Genre Contest will open November 15 and close December 31. This new contest explores the porous genre boundaries between flash fiction, flash nonfiction, and prose poetry. In doing so, we aim to nurture and celebrate commonality, difference, and distinction in literature. Each category will produce one winning entry, announced in February.
http://www.redividerjournal.org/submit/contests/redivider-blurred-genre-contest/
Cosmonauts Avenue is holding their inaugural poetry contest, judged by Claudia Rankine. The winner will receive $500 and publication in an upcoming issue. Cosmonauts Avenue publishes poetry, fiction, non-fiction, interviews, reviews, and correspondence by emerging and established writers in English and in translation.
http://www.cosmonautsavenue.com/
Glimmer Train New Writer Award is accepting fiction from emerging writers now until November 30. Cash prizes for winner and runners-up. Open to any unpublished writer.
https://glimmertrainpressinc.submittable.com/submit
Currents announces its fourth annual Alexander and Dora Raynes Poetry Competition, this year on the theme of “Urge.” judge is the celebrated poet and critic Alicia Ostriker. First prize is 1,000, with 2 second prizes awarded as well. Thirty-six poems chosen as finalists will be published in their annual poetry anthology.The submission fee is $18, which gains entrants a one-year subscription toJewish Currents. Deadline is January 15, 2016. Poets of all ages, backgrounds, religions/non-religions, and orientations are encouraged to submit.
http://jewishcurrents.org/poetry2016-39421
QuillsEdge Press – Indispensable Poetry by Women Over 50 announces their 2nd annual chapbook competition. The contest opens November 1st, 2105, judged by Mary Ann McFadden. The 2015 theme is To Inhabit– a body, a landscape, an ecosystem, a dream, a time, a nightmare, a fantasy, a place, a past, a future.
http://quillsedgepress.com/our-2nd-competition-opens-10012015/
Blue River, Creighton University’s new literary magazine, publishes the best writing from current and recent creative writing graduate students. Their Editor Award offers $500 for the best submission in fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. All entries considered for publication. Deadline: March 1, 2016; $15 fee.
https://blueriver.submittable.com/submit
Columbia: A Journal For Literature and Art is now accepting original work in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for the Issue 54 Writing Contest. One winner from each genre will receive a $500 cash prize and publication in Issue 54, due out this spring. This year’s judges for their respective genres are Fiction: Max Apple, Nonfiction: Mark Greif, Poetry: Martin Espada.All entries will be considered for online publication. There is a $15 entry fee and the entry deadline is December 31, 2015.
https://columbiajournal.submittable.com/submit/47335
Poetry Society of America has a new year of awards underway. Each year from October to December the Poetry Society offers contests for poets at all stages of their careers, including Chapbook Fellowships for poets who have not yet published a full-length collection, a new first book contest, and an award for a poet over forty who has published no more than one book.http://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/awards/annual/
Permafrost's 2016 Nonfiction Book Prize competition is already underway, but there's still time to throw your work into the ring! Essay collections, memoirs, travel writing, literary journalism, theye want to read it all. Accepting submissions until December 1st. Scott Russell Sanders will be judging and the winner will receive $1,000 and publication through the University of Alaska Press. Also accepting submissions for our upcoming print issue until November 30, 2015.
http://permafrostmag.com/1st-annual-book-prize-in-nonfiction/
Conferences, Residencies, and More
Lambda Literary's 2016 Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices is now accepting applications. The Retreat will be held July 24-31, 2016 on the campus of the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles. Faculty include Andrew Holleran (Fiction workshop), Benjamin Alire Sáenz (Young Adult Fiction workshop), Joy Ladin (Poetry workshop), Sarah Schulman (Nonfiction workshop), and Robert O’Hara (Playwriting workshop).
http://www.lambdaliterary.org/writers-retreat/application/
The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts is accepting applicants for their 2016-17 writing fellowships in poetry and fiction. Writers who have not yet published a full-length book of creative work are welcome to apply. Fellows receive a seven-month stay (October 1 - April 30) at the Work Center and a $750 monthly stipend. Fellows do not pay or work in exchange for their Fellowships in any way. Fellows are chosen based on the excellence of their work. The deadline for the 2016-17 Writing Fellowships is December 1, 2015.
http://web.fawc.org/writers
The Baltic Writing Residency is currently accepting applications for the a month-long residency in Stockholm, Sweden. The deadline is December 15th, 2015. Applications can be sent via submishmash (http://balticwritingresidency.submittable.com/submit). The BWR provides $1,000, and a cottage in Stockholm for one poet, playwright, or writer of fiction working in English. The deadline for the BWR chapbook contest--judged by Valzhyna Mort--is February 15, 2016, the deadline for the 2 - 8 week long residency at Bernheim Arboretum & Research Forest is April 15, 2016; and the deadline for the Kentucky Writers Fellowship (for writers with KY connection) is May 15, 2016.
http://balticresidency.com/
24PearlStreet, the online writing program of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown is offering a 50% discount to all MFA students and alumni who register by December 1 for one of their classes. http://web.fawc.org/24-pearl-street/discounts.
Something to add? Send it to mfa@ashland.edu. We're especially interested in opportunities that cater to new and emerging writers.