April Writing Contests
On April 1, 2013 | 0 Comments



Glimmer Train Press: Fiction Contest: Family Matters

Entry Fees: $15; Please, no more than 3 submissions per contest.

Prize:    $1,500/publication in Glimmer Train Stories + 20 copies-1st place $500—2nd place (or, if accepted for publication, $700 + 10 copies) $300-3rd place (or, if accepted for publication $700 + 10 copies)

Deadline: April 30, 2013

Glimmer Train is interested in reading your original, unpublished short stories about families of all configurations. It is fine to draw heavily on real life experiences, but the work must read like fiction, and all stories accepted for publication will be presented as fiction. I would certainly recommend changing details that would allow any real-life people to say, “Hey, that character is—without a doubt—me.” (Also, sticking too tightly to “truth” can limit the larger truth that fiction is able to reveal). Give your story the leeway it needs in order to find its own life. Winners and finalists will be officially announced in the July 1 bulletin and will be contacted directly one week earlier.  Maximum word count: 12,000 words. Any shorter lengths are welcomed.  Please make your submissions at Glimmer Train’s online submission site.  We look forward to reading your work! For additional information, go to www.glimmertrain.com/familymatters.html.

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The Ledge Poetry Award for Poetry

Entry fee: $12   for the first three (3) poems; $3 for each addition poem, $20 subscription (two issues) to The Ledge gains free entry for the first three poems.

Prize:   $1,000-first place and publication in The Ledge Magazine; $250-second place and publication in The Ledge Magazine; $100 third place and publication The Ledge Magazine.

Deadline: 4/30/13 postmark

A prize of $1,000 and publication in the Ledge is given annually for a previously unpublished poem. No restrictions for form or content.  The Ledge is open to all styles and schools of poetry. Excellence is the only criterion. All poems will also be considered for publication.

Please include your name, mailing address and e-mail address with each entry. Send entries to: The Ledge 2013 Poetry Awards Competition, 40 Maple Avenue, Bellport, NY 11713.

Please click here for more information.

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Nimrod International Journal: 35th Nimrod Literary Awards for poetry and short fiction.

Entry fee: $20, each entry must be accompanied by the fee

Prize:  FIRST PLACE: $2,000 and publication; SECOND PLACE: $1,000 and publication – Winners will also be brought to Tulsa for the Awards Ceremony in October. All finalists will be considered for publication.

Deadline: April 30, 2013 postmark

Submitters must be living in the US by October of 2013 to enter the contest. Winners will be brought to Tulsa in October for awards ceremony. Make checks payable to Nimrod. $20 includes both entry fee and a one-year subscription (two issues).

  • Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry: 3-10 pages of poetry (one long poem or several short poems).
  • The Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction: 7,500 words maximum (one short story or a self-contained excerpt from a novel)

No previously published works or works accepted for publication elsewhere. Author’s name must not appear on the manuscript. Include a cover sheet containing major title and subtitles, author’s name, full address, phone & email. Manuscripts should be stapled, if possible; if not, please bind with a heavy clip. “Contest Entry” should be clearly indicated on both the outer envelope and the cover sheet.

Include SASE for results only. If no SASE is sent, no contest results will be sent; however, the results will be posted on Nimrod’s website. Manuscripts will not be returned.

Submitters must be living in the US by October of 2013 to enter the contest.

Send to:

Nimrod Journal
Literary Contest–Fiction or Poetry
The University of Tulsa
800 S. Tucker Dr.
Tulsa, OK 74104

For more information, please go to Nimrod International Journal of Prose.

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Pen Parentis: Writing Fellowship for New Parents—Fiction

Entry fee: $25

Prize: In addition to a full year of promotion, a $1,000 prize will be presented to the new Pen Parentis Fellow at a public reading of the winning work in Manhattan on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2013.

Deadline: April 17, 2013 Postmark

Entrants must be the parent of at least one child under 10 years of age, but there are no style or genre limitations on the works of fiction submitted for consideration. Entrants may be at any level of their literary careers.

Submissions call for a new, never-published fiction story—any genre, on any subject—of  up to 1,200 words (typed double-spaced on 8 ½ X 11 paper, in Times New Roman, 12 point font size, with one inch margins). Do not put author’s name on this manuscript. Do put the title of the story and the word count.

Please retype the title of the story and word count on an extra cover page along with author’s name, full contact information, and age of author’s child(ren). Financial status, prior publication, and hardship stories do not aid your application. Judging is blind. If you are submitting electronically, be sure to include this identifying cover page in the same file as your identity-stripped manuscript. (They will be separated before the judging begins, just as with mailed-in submissions).

Mail entries to:

Pen Parentis Writing Fellowship for New Parents
176 Broadway, Ste. 14F
New York, NY 10038.

You may include a self-addressed stamped postcard if you wish receipt to be acknowledged. Manuscripts will not be returned.

They now also accept online submissions; go to: www.penparentis.org/writing-fellowship.html.

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Ruminate Magazine: Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize

 Entry fee: $18 (includes a copy of the fall 2013 issue).  You may submit up to two poems per entry, no longer than 40 lines each.

Prizes: $1,500 and publication in the Fall 2013 Issue-1st place winner; $500 and publication- 2nd place. All entries will be read by a blind panel of readers who will select fifteen poems as finalists. Maurice Manning will be the finalist judge.

Deadline: May 10, 2013.

As with all our submissions, we highly recommend reading a copy of the magazine to better understand the type of poetry we are looking for. You can buy a PDF of issue 25 ($5) which features the finalist and winning poems from the 2012 Poetry Prize judged by Li-Young Lee.

We also have a PDF of issue 21 ($5) which features the finalists and winning poetry prize judged by Naomi Shihab Nye. All submissions must be previously unpublished work. Close friends and students (current and former) of this year’s judge, Maurice Manning, are not eligible to compete, nor are friends or family of the Ruminate staff. Past first place winners of the prize and past judges of the prize are also not eligible to compete.

All submissions must be submitted via the Ruminate online submission form. They do not accept mail or email submissions. Winners will be announced in the Sept 2013 issue, and they will notify everyone of their submission status by mid-July. They do not accept simultaneous submissions. Please remove your name, bio, and any contact info from the file that you submit. For the submission form, please go to: www.ruminatemagazine.com/subit/contests/poetry-prize.

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University of Pittsburgh Press: Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize

Entry fee: $25 US dollars only; made payable to University of Pittsburgh Press.

Prize: $5,000 and Publication

Deadline: Post mark by 4/25/13 to be safe; manuscript must be received by 4/30/13.

The University of Pittsburgh Press announced the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize for a first full-length book of poetry. The prize carries a cash award of $5,000 and publication by the University of Pittsburgh Press in the Pitt Poetry Series under the standard royalty contract.

The winner will be announced in the fall, no information about the winner will be released before the fall announcement. The Starrett Prize is our only venue for first-book poetry manuscripts; open to any writer in English who has not had a full-length book of poetry published previously. We define “full-length book” as a volume of 48 or more pages (but not more than 100 pages) published in an edition of 750 or more copies. Books whose publication costs have been borne by their authors are excluded from this definition.

Please send one copy of your manuscript on good quality white paper. Clean, legible photocopies are acceptable. Please also include your curriculum vitae. Mailing address: Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize
University of Pittsburgh Press
Eureka Building, Fifth Floor, 3400 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15260.

For additional information, please visit their website.

For additional questions, about the guidelines, email: press@pitt.edu.

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Writecorner Press: E. M. Koeppel Short Fiction Award

Entry fee: $15-1st story; $10 each additional story; unlimited entries by any one writer.

Deadline: April 30, 2013 POSTMARK

Prize:   $1,000 and publication-1st place;  $100 Editor’s Choice Awards

***If the winning story is by anyone attending a college, university, or a school when the story is submitted, the winner will also receive the $500 P.L. Titus Scholarship

Previously unpublished fiction in any style with any theme; maximum length: 3,000 words, Stories must be unpublished. Award-winning fiction writers are the judges. Simultaneous submissions OK as long as you notify us as soon as your work is accepted elsewhere.

The winning short story and editors’ choices are eligible to be published on www.writecorner.com and for inclusion in the permanent website writecorner.com anthology. Authors retain all rights to their works.

Send one (1) typed, double-spaced copy of the story with two (2) title pages. Only the title may appear on the first title page. No other kinds of identification may appear on this title page or on the manuscript which will be used for the judging. On the second title page, write: the title of the story, the author’s name, address, phone number, include a short bio—about 4 lines (required) and the total number of words in the story. E-mail address is optional. No e-mail entries accepted.

* To qualify for this contest, follow ALL of the guidelines.

Mail submissions with a check (no cash) made out to Koeppel Contest. If sent from outside the USA, send a money order in US funds (no cash or foreign funds) to:

Koeppel Contest
P.O. Box 140310
Gainesville, FL 32614

For additional information and full guidelines, see www.writecorner.com/award_guidelines.asp.

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Tom Howard/John H. Reid Short Story Contest

Entry fee:The reading fee is $16 per entry. This covers your submission of one short story or prose work of up to 5,000 words. Contestants may submit as many entries as they like. Please note: Generally entry fees are not refundable. However, if you believe you have an exceptional circumstance, please contact Winning Writers within one year of your entry.

Prizes:  First prize: $3,000. Second prize: $1,000. Third prize: $400. Fourth prize: $250. There will also be six Most Highly Commended Awards of $150 each. The top 10 entries will be published on the Winning Writers website (over one million page views per year) and announced in Tom Howard Contest News and the Winning Writers Newsletter, a combined audience of over 40,000 readers.

Deadline:  April 30, 2013. Your entry must be postmarked or submitted online by this date.

What to Submit
Short stories, essays or other works of prose, up to 5,000 words each. There are no restrictions on style or theme. Each entry should be your own original work. You may submit the same work simultaneously to this contest and to others, and you may submit works that have been published or won prizes elsewhere, as long as you own the online publication rights. See Winning Writers FAQ for additional details.

How To Submit
Click here to submit online (credit and debit cards)
Click here to submit by mail (checks and money orders)
Click here to submit via PayPal

Announcement of Results
Read the winning entries from the 20th contest here. The winners of the 21st contest will be announced on September 15, 2013. Entrants with valid email addresses will receive an email notification.

English Language
Writers of all nations may enter. However, the works you submit should be in English. If you have written a work in another language, you may submit an English translation. You may also submit a translation of a work that is in the public domain.

Privacy
Your privacy is assured. Neither Winning Writers nor Tom Howard Books will rent your information to third parties. Winning Writers processes entries and fees for this contest as a service to Tom Howard Books. Winning Writers is not a sponsor and does not judge the entries.

Copyright
If your entry wins any cash prize, you agree to give both John H. Reid and Winning Writers a nonexclusive license to publish your work online. From time to time, selected winning entries may also be published in printed collections (for example, Watching Time). If you win a prize, we may ask you for permission to include your entry in one of these books. You may accept or decline this invitation as you choose. Your choice won’t affect your prize status. Your entry will not be published in print without your consent, and you retain all other rights. You are free, for example, to publish your work in print or online elsewhere, and to enter it into other contests, whether or not you win a prize in this contest.

Judges
Final judge John Howard Reid has won first prizes and other awards in prestigious literary events. A former journalist and magazine editor, he has published several historical novels, a collection of poetry, a guide to winning literary contests, and over fifty books of film criticism and movie history. See his work at Lulu. He lives in Wyong, Australia. Mr. Reid is assisted in the judging by Dee C. Konrad. A leading educator and published author, Mrs. Konrad was Associate Professor in the English faculty of Barat College of DePaul University, and served as Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences for the year 2000-2001.

About Winning Writers
Winning Writers finds and creates quality resources for poets and writers. Our expert online literary contest guide, Literary Contest Insider, profiles over 1,250 poetry and prose contests. We directly sponsor the Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest and the Sports Fiction & Essay Contest. We also assist the Tom Howard/John H. Reid Short Story Contest and the Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. Winning Writers is proud to be one of “101 Best Writing Websites” (Writer’s Digest, 2005-2012) and a recipient of the Truly Useful Site Award (Preditors & Editors, March 2006).

Questions about this contest?

Please see the Frequently Asked Questions or click here to send a note to the contest administrator.