Online literary magazine Memoir Magazine has extended the deadline for its first-ever book contest to April 30. The Memoir Prize is dedicated to memoirs and creative nonfiction of book-length works of exceptional merit. They have three categories: published, self-published, and unpublished. The grand prize winner receives $2,000. The fee to enter is $95. Results to be announced in June.
Book News
Reminder :: Sandeen Prize for Poetry Deadline is April 30
The University of Notre Dame is accepting submissions to its Sandeen Prize for Poetry through April 30. This is open to poets who have published at least one full-length collection. $15 administrative fee. First place receives $1,000 and publication by the University of Notre Dame Press. Learn more…
Contest :: KAKALAK 2020
Deadline: May 18, 2020
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES apply to both poetry and art. Anyone can enter. Goal: We’re looking for work that evokes the SPIRIT of the Carolinas from the Outer Banks and Low Country to the Piedmont and Appalachia. Submission Period: March 1—May 18, 2020. Entry fee: $12 for 1-3 poems or 1-3 images. All entries considered for publication. All contributors will receive one copy for each item selected for publication. Prize money ranges from $300 to $20. Details can be found on the Kakalak contest page of the www.MainStreetRag.com website.
Contest :: 3rd Annual Marystina Santiestevan First Book Prize
Deadline: June 30, 2020
Our third annual first book prize is open and accepting manuscripts. If you have a smoking hot manuscript or know someone who does, please give us a shot. Awarded annually to a poet writing in English who has not yet published a full-length poetry book, the Marystina Santiestevan First Book Prize champions poets who dance to their own tune not to be different but to be true. Previously unpublished manuscripts of 48-90 pages should be submitted through our Submittable page or via the USPS. Please visit www.conduit.org/book-prizes for details.
Internet Archive Launches National Emergency Library
Last week Internet Archive launched the National Emergency Library which contains 1.4 million digitized books to serve the needs of students, educators, and learners. This means that they have suspended the waitlists, at least through June 30. This allows students to have the access they need to assigned readings and other library materials.
Brewster Kahle, founder of Internet Archive, says, “Think of this as a huge experiment. In one big push, we can improve online learning and its infrastructure in a way that may otherwise have taken years. This crisis encourages universities to be bold, to make investments that ultimately may mean many more students can benefit. Perhaps 500 undergraduates can fill a hall at MIT, but how many millions can take an online MIT course, once the books, materials and lessons are online?”
The library brings together all the books from Phillips Academy Andover and Marygrove College with much of Trent University’s collections. There is also over a million other books donated by other libraries to readers worldwide. Yes, worldwide. The timeline for the waitlist is timed to the crisis in the U.S., but readers all over the world are able to utilize this collection.
This launch has met with much criticism from the publishing community and writers. In a recent NPR article, it has been revealed that many writers and publishers say that the Internet Archive has been sharing full digital copies of books without permission before the establishment of this new library. The Authors Guild, which provides legal assistance to writers, stated the Internet Archive “tramples on authors’ rights by giving away their books to the world” without permission.
They recommend utilizing your own local libraries and their own e-book lending platforms instead.
Contest :: 2021 Press 53 Award in Poetry
$1,000 and 50 copies awarded to an outstanding, unpublished 60-120 page collection of poems. Tom Lombardo, Press 53 Poetry Series Editor, will serve as judge. Press 53 will publish the winning manuscript as a Tom Lombardo Poetry Selection under a standard publishing contract; all prizes will be awarded upon publication. Deadline: Midnight EST, July 31, 2020. Winner and finalists announced on or before November 1. Reading fee: $30. Complete information at www.press53.com/award-for-poetry/.
Contest :: The Orison Chapbook Prize 2020
The 2020 Orison Chapbook Prize is open for submissions of 20–45 pages in any literary genre (poetry, fiction, nonfiction, or hybrid) from April 1–July 1. Orison Books founder and editor Luke Hankins will judge. The winner will receive $300 and publication by Orison Books. Entry fee: $12. For complete guidelines, see www.orisonbooks.submittable.com.
Reader, Writer, Editor – Driftwood Press Has You Covered
Driftwood Press has plenty on the horizon for both readers and writers.
Writers looking to hone their craft can benefit from the two seminars Driftwood Press offers—Editors & Writers: The Path to Publication, and a seminar for Erasure Poetry. These are both conducted online and have plenty of information to help guide writers and editors better their work. The deadline to apply for each of these is April 30.
Readers can now order copies of Helli Fang’s new chapbook Village of Knives from the press. Chen Chen says of the collection, “The poems here listen to immigrant life and dream, to gendered expectation and subversion, to desire, to the body’s surging, briny rhythms.”
If you’re interested in having your own poetry read by the editors, consider submitting your full-length manuscript. Submissions are currently open for the rest of the month, so act fast! If you do end up missing this submission period, there are still two contests currently open until July.
Whether you’re looking to learn, read, or submit, Driftwood Press has you covered!
Fates Intertwine in Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House
NewPages book review by Ken Brosky
Galaxy “Alex” Stern has been given a free ride to Yale, despite a shady past and nonexistent high school grades. Why? Because she can see ghosts, and one of Yale’s secret societies has use of her unique gift. If that’s not enough to get you interested, how about this: in the first 20 pages, the society Skull and Bones has already opened up a living man’s body to perform a ritual designed to pick winning stocks. That’s just a taste of the incredible creativity that awaits readers as Alex investigates the strange goings-on of the secret societies, searching for answers to a suspicious murder.
Leigh Bardugo’s writing style shifts perspective with ease, moving between two main characters whose fates are intertwined. But what sets this book apart is the incredible creativity. Each secret society in Yale practices a form of magic, with consequences that go beyond the campus. It’s difficult to come up with something new in the fantasy genre, but Bardugo’s twisted imagination succeeds so well that this book is impossible to put down.
The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. Flatiron Books, October 2019.
About the reviewer: Ken Brosky teaches English, plays guitar, and works in his woodshop when he’s not busy writing. He is short stories have been published in The Portland Review, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, among others. He’s currently represented by agent Sandra Sawicka, and they’re working on a mystery novel.
That’s Some (Weird) Pig!
Southeast Missouri State University Press may have their orders closed at the moment, but you can still learn about their forthcoming titles. In October 2020, they’ll publish Weird Pig by Robert Long Foreman, winner of the 2018 Nilsen Prize for a First Novel.
Although it’s his first novel, Foreman has made his mark by winning Pleiades Press’s Robert C. Jones Prize for Short Prize with his collection of essays Among Other Things and by winning a Pushcart Prize for fiction.
Find out more about the 2018 competition at SEMO Press’s website. And if you’re interested at trying your own luck at entering the Nilsen Prize for a First Novel, you have plenty of time—submissions close in November.
Sheila-Na-Gig Editions Announce New Titles
Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, publisher of online lit mag Sheila-Na-Gig online, is not just celebrating the release of two new titles Robert DeMott’s collection of prose poems, Up Late Reading Birds of America, and Barbara Sabol’s Imagine a Town) but also two new titles in the hopper.
First they have their first-ever fiction title. This will be a re-release of John Bullock’s novel Mark Small: This is Your Life. It was previously titled Making Faces. This is a coming-of-age story set at the British seaside.
The winner of their Spring Poetry Contest, Kari Gunter-Seymour, has agreed to let them publish her forthcoming chapbook A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen. Stay tuned for more information on these titles and grab a copy of their current releases.
Oh, and don’t forget their Poetry Manuscript Contest is open through July 1 annually.