The Masters Review has announced the finalists and winner of their inaugural Chapbook Award judged by Steve Almond. The winning manuscript is Masterplans by Nick Almeida. His chapbook is set to be published in the fall.
Finalists were Deep Blue by Jay Allison and Oscillations by Tanya Perkins.
Don’t forget their Anthology Contest closes to entries on March 28 at midnight PST.
Literary magazine Creative Nonfiction has currently announced their Spring 2021 courses. They are offering a total of 12 to help people achieve their writing goals.
Currently available courses are the Creative Nonfiction Boot Camp (5-week or 10-week); Thirty-Minute Memoir; Advanced Historical Narratives: Crafting the Best Material; Advanced Memoir: From First Sentence to Resolution; and Advanced Personal Essay: Finding a Way Through. The advanced courses do require you meet pre-requisites before enrolling.
These classes are offered completely online and will run April 12 through June 20, 2021.
Congrats to Leaping Clear! The online lit mag is celebrating its fifth anniversary this spring.
With this special occasion, the masthead is welcoming in new editors Simon Boes and Jen Schmidt.
Readers can celebrate with the magazine by checking out their brand new Spring/Summer 2021 issue. Instead of the usual format, this issue is published as a weekly Showcase Feature which will highlight one contributor from the past five years each week until the 2021 Fall issue is released in September. This week’s showcase is “Call and Response” by author and artist Deborah Kennedy.
Literary magazine Able Muse is celebrating the release of its new print edition with a virtual reading and Q&A session with the contributors and authors of Issue Number 28.
The event is hosted by poetry associated editor Nicole Caruso Garcia and will include fellow editors Alexander Pepple, Richard Wakefield, Karen Kevorkian, and N. S. Thompson. Contributors/readers include Bruce Bennett, Anna M. Evans, Dan Campion, Estill Pollock, J.C. Scharl, John Beaton, Susan McLean, Nageen Rather, L.M. Brown (who will be reading the winning story of the 2020 Able Muse Write Prize for Fiction), and N. S. Thompson.
The launch event will take place virtually via Zoom on April 3 from 3-4PM EDT. Attendance is free and everyone is welcome to join that wishes, too. You just have to register for the event first.
Alma’s MFA in Creative Writing director Sophfronia Scott offers decision-making advice for students approaching the graduate school application season.
There’s a wonderful quote by the Scottish mountaineer William Hutchison Murray about making decisions. Specifically he’s talking about getting to that first step of a climb. The quote goes like this:
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.
Note he says “committed,” which means you have to make a firm decision before the assistance shows up. Why? [Read more…] about The Magic of Making a Decision
Online literary magazine Flash Frog delivers up one story under 1,000 words weekly with an accompanying original artwork created just for that piece.
Founded just this year, their focus is on “language that jumps off the page” and “stories that linger for days” as they like their stories as they like dart frogs: small, brightly colored, and deadly to the touch.
Recent stories include “And This is How You Fade Away” by Tyrel Klessinger; Shannon Layne’s “All the Ways We Tried to Kill My Father”; and “Man on the Moon” by Patricia Q. Bidar.
They are open to submissions year-round and do not charge a submission fee. Hop on over to their listing on NewPages to learn more.
Enter the Missouri Review’s New 2021 Perkoff PrizeExtended Deadline: March 31, 2021
New from the Missouri Review: the Perkoff Prize. The re-vamped Perkoff Prize will award $1000 and publication each to writers of the best story, set of poems, and essay that engage the themes of health and medicine in evocative ways, as judged by the editors. All entries will be considered for publication.
It’s March which means a new issue of literary magazine Ailment: Chronicles of Illness Narratives will be launching a new annual issue soon. The prompt for the 2021 issue was “Hope is…”.
Besides their annual issues and blog Telling, they have announced they will be launching a podcast in 2021 called Cellular Bodies “where voices connect around chronic illness, creativity, and healing.
The podcast is aimed at discovering the relationship in reflective contemplation of artistic works, exploring the role creativity plays in chronic illness, and examining transformation amid loss, grief, unknowing, hope, faith, and joy.
Did you know that literary magazine Silk Road is offering its issues online beginning with Issue 17? You may not find 100% of the work featured in Issues 17 through 20, but starting with Issue 21 you can view all the content online.
Check out these archives and the Spring 2020 issue and don’t forget to order a print copy or subscribe to the journal to help support them.
Silk Road is a literary magazine run by undergraduate students at Pacific University. They are now a paying market, too! Writers receive $10/page up to $250 while artists receive $30 for each piece of art featured. They are currently open to submissions through May 1. There is a $2 fee to submit.
The 15th annual Mudfish Poetry Prize was judged by Erica Jong, author of The World Began With Yes (Red Hen Press, 2019).
The grand prize winner is Mark Schimmoeller from Frankfort, Kentucky with his poem “Benediction.”
First honorable mention is Cornelia Hoogland’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” and the second honorable mentions is James Trask’s “Springtime and Single Again.”
First place winner and the two honorable mentions will be featured in Mudfish 22 which will soon be available and don’t forget to stay tuned for news announcing the 16th annual Mudfish Poetry Prize deadline and guidelines.
Finalists:
Madeline Artenberg
Kew Gardens, New York
Adrian Blevins
Waterville, Maine
Paola Bruni
Aptos, California
Cornelia Hoogland
Hornby Island, Canada
Daniel Liebert
St. Louis, Missouri
Tim Louis Macaluso
Rochester, New York
Samuel Oguntoyinbo
Solon, Ohio
Mark Schimmoeller
Frankfort, Kentucky
Don Schofield
Thessaloniki, Greece
Deborah Schupack
Croton-on-Hudson, New York
James Trask
San Marcos, Texas
Laurie Zimmerman
Los Angeles, California
The Saint Mary’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing degree program offers a campus environment that feels like a writing retreat within the San Francisco Bay Area. The two-year MFA program at Saint Mary’s offers concentrations in creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, combining a studio writing workshop component with an analytical component. SMC MFA faculty are award-winning writers, poets, and committed teachers who offer decades of experience mentoring emerging writers.
Each year the MFA program invites Visiting Writers to work with MFA students. These groundbreaking writers add to the program’s inclusive community with their diversity of experience. Recent visitors include Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Marie Mutsuki Mockett, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, Ada Limón, and Margaret Wilkerson Sexton. Learn more…