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.
Creative Nonfiction is seeking new essays about Learning from Nature for an upcoming issue. The Biomimicry Center at Arizona State University will award $5,000 for the best essay and Creative Nonfiction will award $1,000 to the runner-up. All submissions will be considered for publication in the magazines fall 2016 issues. Deadline is February 1, 2016.
https://creativenonfiction.submittable.com/submit/48472
Black Cat Moon Literary Journal opens in January to submissions of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry for their first quarterly issue (slated for spring 2016). Reading fees will be waived for the month of January 2016! The press is also seeking manuscripts for its Nine Lives Collection of poetry books.
http://www.blackcatmoonpress.com/submissions.html
Trigger Warning is now accepting works for its first edition. This new literary magazine will focus on works that convey what it is to overcome personal struggles and which accurately illustrate the nature of the human experience. We accept personal essays, memoir, fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry and hybrid works. We read year round and publish our journal three times per year. Reading fee is $5. Accepted writers receive $25.
http://www.triggerwarninglit.com/
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
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/
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/
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/
Belmont 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.
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 is open to submissions in 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.
The Nazim Hikmet Poetry Competition is open until January 4, 2016. Winners received $100 and read at the 8th Annual Nazim Hikmet Poetry Festival in April. Winners and honorable mentions will be included in their annual anthology as well. Submission fee is $10 for three poems
http://www.nazimhikmetpoetryfestival.org/index.php?id=4
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 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. All entries will be considered for online publication. Entry fee is $15. The deadline is December 31, 2015.
https://columbiajournal.submittable.com/submit/47335
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 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/
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/
https://www.awpwriter.org/contests/wcc_scholarships_overview
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 Baltic Writing Residency's month-long residency in Stockholm, Sweden continues to take applicants until December 31st, 2015. The BWR provides $1,000, and a cottage in Stockholm for one poet, playwright, or writer of fiction working in English. Though, neither the writer nor their project need be connected with Sweden.
http://balticwritingresidency.submittable.com/submit
Readers Wanted for the CLMP Firecracker Awards. MFA students are invited to participate as first round readers in the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses' Firecracker Awards. This award series focuses on indie publishers. Manuscript distribution will begin immediately and readers will have until mid-January to help create a longlist of twenty titles per category. Readers are needed for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. All readers names will be posted on the CLMP website. If you are interested in participating email Paul Legault, Director of Programs, plegault@clmp.org. Include your name and genre interest.
https://www.clmp.org/firecracker/
Something to add? Send it to mfa@ashland.edu. We're especially interested in opportunities that cater to new and emerging writers.
Journal Submissions
Creative Nonfiction is seeking new essays about Learning from Nature for an upcoming issue. The Biomimicry Center at Arizona State University will award $5,000 for the best essay and Creative Nonfiction will award $1,000 to the runner-up. All submissions will be considered for publication in the magazines fall 2016 issues. Deadline is February 1, 2016.
https://creativenonfiction.submittable.com/submit/48472
Black Cat Moon Literary Journal opens in January to submissions of fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry for their first quarterly issue (slated for spring 2016). Reading fees will be waived for the month of January 2016! The press is also seeking manuscripts for its Nine Lives Collection of poetry books.
http://www.blackcatmoonpress.com/submissions.html
Trigger Warning is now accepting works for its first edition. This new literary magazine will focus on works that convey what it is to overcome personal struggles and which accurately illustrate the nature of the human experience. We accept personal essays, memoir, fiction, creative non-fiction, poetry and hybrid works. We read year round and publish our journal three times per year. Reading fee is $5. Accepted writers receive $25.
http://www.triggerwarninglit.com/
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
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/
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/
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/
Belmont 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.
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 is open to submissions in 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.
Contests
The Nazim Hikmet Poetry Competition is open until January 4, 2016. Winners received $100 and read at the 8th Annual Nazim Hikmet Poetry Festival in April. Winners and honorable mentions will be included in their annual anthology as well. Submission fee is $10 for three poems
http://www.nazimhikmetpoetryfestival.org/index.php?id=4
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 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. All entries will be considered for online publication. Entry fee is $15. The deadline is December 31, 2015.
https://columbiajournal.submittable.com/submit/47335
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 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/
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/
Conferences, Workshops, and More
AWP Conference Scholarship. AWP offers three annual scholarships of $500 each to emerging writers who wish to attend a writers’ conference, center, retreat, festival, or residency. They encourage writers of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction to enter. The scholarships are applied to fees for winners who attend one of the member programs in AWP’s Directory of Conferences & Centers. Winners and six finalists also receive a one-year individual membership in AWP. Submissions accepted from December 1 through March 30.https://www.awpwriter.org/contests/wcc_scholarships_overview
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 Baltic Writing Residency's month-long residency in Stockholm, Sweden continues to take applicants until December 31st, 2015. The BWR provides $1,000, and a cottage in Stockholm for one poet, playwright, or writer of fiction working in English. Though, neither the writer nor their project need be connected with Sweden.
http://balticwritingresidency.submittable.com/submit
Readers Wanted for the CLMP Firecracker Awards. MFA students are invited to participate as first round readers in the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses' Firecracker Awards. This award series focuses on indie publishers. Manuscript distribution will begin immediately and readers will have until mid-January to help create a longlist of twenty titles per category. Readers are needed for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. All readers names will be posted on the CLMP website. If you are interested in participating email Paul Legault, Director of Programs, plegault@clmp.org. Include your name and genre interest.
https://www.clmp.org/firecracker/
Something to add? Send it to mfa@ashland.edu. We're especially interested in opportunities that cater to new and emerging writers.