Opportunities for Writers: June and July 2016

Each month we aim to provide a helpful round-up of writing competitions, fellowships, publication opportunities and more for writers at all stages of their careers. 

For new writers, or for anyone seeking a refresher, we highly recommend reading How to Submit Your Writing to Literary Magazines.

Deadlines and details do sometimes change, so please check the relevant websites (linked in bold) for all the latest details. For more opportunities and regular updates follow Aerogramme Writers’ Studio on Facebook and Twitter.

 

Broken City
is accepting submissions for a school-themed issued titled ‘Breakfast Clubbed’. Submissions of poetry, fiction, essays, comics, illustrations and photography will all be considered. Closes 1 June.

Gladstone’s Library Writers in Residence
Built in 1902, Gladstone’s Library is the UK’s only residential library. The Library’s Writers in Residence program began in 2011. Four residencies are offered each year with each writer staying at the Library for a month. The Writers in Residence are asked to keep a blog about their stay, as well as running a creative writing workshop. Residents receive full room and board, reimbursement for travel expenses and a small stipend of £100 per week. Applications close on 1 June.

Jeff Sharlet Memorial Award for Veterans
is a creative writing contest for U.S. military veterans and active duty personnel and is hosted by The Iowa Review. Writing can be in any genre, about any subject matter and must be under 20 pages. First prize is $1000 and publication in the Spring 2017 issue of The Iowa Review and there is no entry fee. Entries close on 1 June.

Willow Springs Books
invites submissions for the 2016 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction. The winner receives US$2000 plus publication. Manuscripts should be no less than 98 pages (with no maximum page count) and include at least 3 short stories. Entries close 1 June.

Where The Stars Rise
is a new anthology of speculative fiction featuring original stories that celebrate Asian diversity, featuring an Asian main character, Asian setting and/or some amount of Asian elements, by authors with an Asian heritage/ancestry. Submissions close 1 June.

Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library
is accepting submissions for its fifth annual issue. The theme is Indiana. The journal accepts submissions of poetry, creative non-fiction, short fiction, original artwork, and/or photography related to the theme. The deadline is 1 June.

American Short Fiction Contest
is open to entries between 2000 and 6500 words. It offers a first prize of US$1000 prize and publication and all entries will be considered for publication. Closes 1 June.

NonBinary Review
is a quarterly interactive literary journal that joins many stories around each issue’s theme. The editors invite authors to explore each theme in any way that speaks to them including rewriting a familiar story from a new point of view, mashing genres together or writing a personal essay about some aspect of the selected theme. NonBinary review is currently accepting submissions for issue nine on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland close on 1 June.

Fourteen Hills
is edited by graduate students in the creative writing program at San Francisco State University. It is committed to presenting a diversity of experimental and progressive work by emerging and cross-genre writers. Submissions close 1 June.

10 Days to a Daily Habit
is a new Skillshare course taught by  novelist, essayist and bookseller Emily Gould. This self-paced creative writing challenge is aimed at helping you unlock your creativity and kickstart a daily writing habit. Enrol using the link above to access this course, and hundreds of others, for three months for just 99 cents.

Ploughshares
reopens to submissions on 1 June. Writers are asked to include a short cover letter citing major publications and awards, as well as any association or past correspondence with a guest or staff editor.

Black Warrior Review
publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and art by Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners alongside up-and-coming writers. Submissions reopen on 1 June.

Brighton Prize
is accepting international entries for the first time. The prize is for flash fiction up to 350 words and short stories of between 1000 and 2000 words. Closes 10 June.

Mslexia Women’s Pamphlet Competition
is for short collections of 20-24 pages of 18-20 poems.First prize is publication plus £250, 25 complimentary copies of the pamphlet and a 10 per cent royalty on sales. One or more poems from the pamphlet will be published in Mslexia magazine. Open to women poets worldwide. Closes 13 June.

Vermont Studio Center
is the largest international artists’ and writers’ residency program in the United States. Each month the Center hosts over 50 writers and artists from across the country and around the world. The next fellowship application deadline is 15 June.

S.D Harvey Short Story Award
is presented by the Australian Crime Writers Association and Melbourne-based literary journal Kill Your Darlings. Entries can be submitted by published and unpublished writers and can be either fiction or nonfiction stories. Closes 15 June.

Virginia Quarterly Review
publishes poetry, fiction and non-fiction. While they have a long history of publishing accomplished and award-winning authors, Virginia Quarterly Review also seeks and supports emerging writers and submissions from writers based anywhere in the world are welcomed. The next reading period opens on 15 June.

Norton Writer’s Prize
is awarded annually for an outstanding essay written by an undergraduate student. Literacy narratives, literary and other textual analyses, reports, profiles, evaluations, arguments, memoirs, proposals, mixed-genre pieces, and more are eligible provided they were completed for an undergraduate writing class. Entries close 15 June.

Suburban Review
is calling for submissions for After Dark, an exploration of what came before light, and what happens after the lights go out, metaphorical and physical. Flash fiction, creative non-fiction (up to 500 words), poems (up to 20 lines) and comics (up to 1 page) will be considered. Closes 15 June.

BorderSenses Literary and Arts Journal
seeks to provide a venue for emerging and established writers and artists from the U.S.-Mexico border area and beyond. They seek poetry, fiction, non-fiction and book reviews in both Spanish and English from every corner of the world. Submissions for volume 22 close on 15 June.

Curt Johnson Prose Award
is run by December magazine, a magazine whose many accomplishments include being the first to publish the work of Raymond Carver. The winner of the Curt Johnson Prose Award receives $1500 and publication in the magazine; second place receives $500 and publication. Entries close 15 June.

Fiction
is a semiannual publication established in 1972. It is looking for the best new writing available, leaning toward the unconventional, and accepts a variety of genres: experimental, satire, literary, translations, and contemporary. The current reading period closes on 15 June.

Newcastle Poetry Prize
is one of Australia’s oldest literary prizes and has an AUD$20,000 prize pool.  The entry must be a poem, or suite of poems, by a single author totalling no more than 200 lines and all entries will be considered for inclusion in an anthology. This prize is open to Australian residents only. Entries close 17 June.

Puritan: Frontiers of New English
is an online, quarterly publication based in Toronto. They publish new fiction, poetry, interviews, essays and reviews. Submissions received before 25 June will be considered for the summer issue.

Bellevue Literary Review
seeks high-caliber, unpublished work, broadly and creatively related to the themes of health, healing, illness, the mind, and the body. Submissions close on 30 June.

Creative Nonfiction
is currently seeking experimental nonfiction for the “Exploring the Boundaries” section of the magazine. Submissions may be up to 4500 in length. Closes 30 June.

Writing 101: A Poem a Day
is a ten-day course that encourages participants to unleash their inner poet, regardless of their background and level of experience in writing verse (or lack thereof). The course is free but you will need to have or create a WordPress account.

Buffalo Almanack
is an online quarterly journal of fiction, photography and literary criticism. It welcomes submissions for new and established writers. New issues are released quarterly and submissions are open throughout June.

Sir Peter Ustinov Television Scriptwriting Award
is designed to motivate non-American novice writers under the age of 30, and offer them the recognition and encouragement that might lead to a successful career in television scriptwriting. Entrants are asked to create a completed half-hour to one-hour English-language television drama script. The award winner receives $2500, a trip to New York City, and an invitation to the International Emmy® Awards Gala in November. Closes 1 July.

NANO Prize
is open to previously unpublished works of fiction of 300 words or fewer. The contest will be judged by Kellie Wells and the winner will receive publication and $1000. Entries close 1 July.

Lit POP 2016
is presented music festival POP Montreal and Matrix Magazine and offers prizes for both fiction and poetry. Winners will get their work published in Matrix with full honorarium, and receives a free round-trip ticket to POP Montreal. This contest is open to residents of Canada and the United States only and the deadline is 1 July.

Blueshift Journal
is tri-annual, international publication, with two online issues and one print issue published each year. Submissions of poetry, prose and art are open until 1 July.

Impress Prize for New Writers
aims to discover and publish new writing talent. The winner receives a publishing contract with Impress Books and the contest is open to writers worldwide. To enter writers must provide a book proposal and a sample chapter of no more than 6000 words. Entries close 1 July.

Post Road
publishes twice yearly and accepts unsolicited poetry, fiction, nonfiction, short plays and monologues and visual art submissions. Submissions for the Summer issue open on 1 July.

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
founded in 1949, was the original publisher of classics like Stephen King’s Dark Tower, Daniel Keyes’s Flowers for Algernon, and Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz. It features short fiction, reviews and humour pieces by writers and cartoonists. Submissions reopen 4 July.

Ledbury Poetry Festival Poetry Competition
offers a first prize of £1000 cash and a course at Ty Newydd, The National Writers’ Centre for Wales. There are also prizes on offer for children and entries are invited for local and international poets. Closes 7 July.

Mark Twain House & Museum’s Humor Writing Contest
open to writers of all ages from all corners of the globe. Entries may be up to 7000 words and previously published worked is accepted. Entries close 10 July.

Masters Review’s Short Story Award For New Writers
offers a first prize of $2000. It is only open to writers who have not published a book and submissions may be up to 6000 words. Closes 15 July.

Rattle’s Poetry Prize
will award one winner $10,000 for a single poem. The competition is open to writers worldwide and all entries must be previously unpublished. Closes 15 July.

Fairy Tale Review Awards in Poetry and Prose
are running for the third time in 2016.  The winners will receive $1000 and all submissions will also be considered for publication. Closes 15 July.

Gigantic Sequins Flash Fiction Contest
is open to pieces up to 1000 words in length. The winner receives $100 and publication. You may submit up to three pieces per $5.00 entry. Closes 15 July.

Seattle Review’s Chapbook Contest
is for work of between 20 and 30 pages. The winner receives $1000, publication and 20 copies of their chapbook. All entries will be considered for publication and all entrants receive a one-year subscription to The Seattle Review. Entries close 15 July.

Wasafiri New Writing Prize
is open to writers worldwide and accepts entries in three categories: poetry, fiction and life writing. A prize of £300 and publication is offered for each category. Entries close 15 July.

A3 Review
is seeking contributions under 150 words on the theme ‘Attics and Basements. The editors prose, poetry, graphic stories, photography, paintings, drawings, and other visual and word-based creations. Closes 23 July.

HG Well Short Story Competition
is for stories between 1500 and 5000 words. The 2016 competition theme is space. The shortlisted stories will be published in an anthology. There are prizes in three different categories including £1000 (US$1500) for the best story by a writer aged 21 or under. Entries close 17 July.

visible ink
is a yearly anthology of new writing and art based in Melbourne. It aims to showcase emerging writers and artists from all over Australia, featuring poetry, short stories, non-fiction, art, photography, comics and more. This year’s theme is Pushing Boundaries. The word limit is 2000 words. Submissions close 25 July.

National Parks Arts Foundation
is offering two artists residencies is Big Bend National Park Texas. Each resident receives $1000 towards their expenses. The residency takes place in remote location without internet access and with only intermittant cell phone reception. Applications close 25 July.

Portable Story Series
is a new writing initiative “with an audio twist”. It aims to bring stories to life through high quality recordings while supporting social causes that deserve greater visibility. The theme for the next contest is Time Travel. Entries open on 1 June and close on 29 July.

Seán Ó Faoláin International Short Story Competition
is an annual short story competition open to writers from around the world. First prize is €2000 (US$2100), publication in the literary journal Southword, and a week-long residency at Anam Cara Writer’s and Artist’s Retreat. Entries close 31 July.

William Faulkner Writing Competition
is accepting submissions in the categories of novel, short story, one-act play and poetry with prizes of up to US$2000 on offer. Deadline for novels is 15 and for other categories the deadine is 31 July.

Stereo Stories
seeking memoirs up to 800 words based around ‘a song, a place, a time’. The website advises “you can send us a story or you can send us an idea, just a few sentences. Either way, we’ll get back to you.”

Guernica Magazine
considers fiction between 1200 and 4500 words and “strongly prefers fiction with a diverse international outlook – or if it’s American, from an underrepresented or alternative perspective.” Works in translation are especially welcome.

Storychord
publishes one story, one image and a one-song soundtrack – each by a different, underexposed artist – every Monday for a collaborative, multi-media storytelling experience. Writers may submit short fiction up to 4000 words via email and should include a short bio with any recent or upcoming publication credits and your website link.

 

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