[10/31 deadline] The Helena Whitehill Book Award


The Helena Whitehill Book Award includes a cash award of $1,000 in addition to publication by Tupelo Press, a book launch, national and international distribution by the University of Chicago Press, a one-week residence at Gentle House on the Olympic Peninsula, and unlike our other prizes, open to submissions of poetry, chapbook or full length, no page limit, and also open to creative non-fiction, no page limit. Manuscripts are judged anonymously and all finalists will be considered for publication. Please read the complete guidelines before submitting your manuscript.

Deadline: October 31st, 2024
Cash Prize: $1,000
Judge: Ilya Kaminsky
Find the link to the website here: Click here to learn more & submit



[11/01 deadline] North American Review Prizes

James Hearst Poetry Prize, judged by Stephanie Burt:
The James Hearst Poetry Prize is a competition intended to recognize the finest poetry. We welcome all forms of previously unpublished poetry and up to five poems per submission. James Hearst wrote like he farmed, with an eye for clean fields and straight fences. A writing professor at the University of Northern Iowa for four decades, he also served as a contributing editor and guiding light for the North American Review. Full info: https://northamericanreview.org/james-hearst-poetry-prize

Kurt Vonnegut Speculative Fiction Prize, judged by Kevin Brockmeier:
The Kurt Vonnegut Prize is an annual fiction competition intended to recognize the finest speculative fiction, which can include, but is not limited to, work influenced by the postmodern science-fiction of Kurt Vonnegut. We love Vonnegut’s dark humor, but please avoid mere imitation. We welcome all forms of previously unpublished fiction—one story per submission. We are enthusiastic about all work painted with speculative fiction’s broad brush: fairy tale, magical realism, fabulism, the fantastic, horror, Afro-futurism, science fiction hard and soft, and everything in between. Full info: https://northamericanreview.org/kurt-vonnegut-speculative-fiction-prize



[11/01 deadline] 2025 Marvin Bell Poetry Prize Guest Judge | Nov. 1st Deadline

We’re honored to have the magnificent Maggie Smith as the judge of our 2025 contest. Maggie Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of eight books of poetry and prose, including You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Good Bones, Goldenrod, Keep Moving, and My Thoughts Have Wings, a picture book for children, illustrated by Leanne Hatch. Smith’s next book is Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life (Atria, April 2025). Her poems and essays have appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TIME, The Nation, The Atlantic, and The Best American Poetry.

Contest Details:

We will accept contest submissions through November 1, 2024.
1st Prize: $1,500 and publication
Honorable mention: $500 and publication

All finalists will be published in the Spring/Summer 2025 Awards issue. Finalists will be paid at regular contributor rates ($10/page with a $40 minimum and $200 maximum.)
Contest entry fee includes a copy of the Awards issue. Entrants from out of the country will receive a digital copy of the issue. Find the Submittable page with full guidelines here.


[11/6 deadline] Cave Canem 2025 Derricotte/Eady Prize

Application Period: October 1, 2024 – November 6, 2024
The Derricotte/Eady Prize, named after Cave Canem co-founders Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady, spotlights chapbook-length manuscripts. Awarded to one poet annually, the Derricotte/Eady Prize recipient receives a monetary prize, the publication of their manuscript through O, Miami Books, a residency at The Writer’s Room at The Betsy Hotel-South Beach, and a featured reading at the O, Miami Festival in April. Cave Canem is honored to partner with O, Miami to produce the annual Derricotte/Eady Prize in collaboration with The Writer’s Room at The Betsy Hotel-South Beach. Full info and submission guidelines: https://cavecanempoets.org/prizes/derricotte-eady-prize/


[11/07 deadline] Leonard Cohen Poetry Prize

The inaugural and first ever Leonard Cohen Poetry Prize is now officially open. We can’t wait to read your poems! The deadline to submit your work is November 7, 2024 (LC’s death anniversary). Full guidelines here: https://www.onlypoems.net/contests/leonard-cohen-poetry-prize


[11/15 deadline] Perugia Press Prize

Perugia Press, founded in 1997, is a nonprofit press that publishes one beautifully designed book each year: the winner of the Perugia Press Prize, our annual national contest for first or second books of poetry by women. Our mission is to support and promote women’s voices in print, and we aim to expand the audience for poetry by making books that welcome longtime readers of poetry and those new to poetry. The winner of the Perugia Press Prize receives: Book publication and a $2,000 prize; Twenty author copies and an ongoing discount of 50% off of the cover price for additional copies; Time to work with the editor to create a book she loves with input into book editing, design & promotion; Mentoring from the Perugia Poet Liaison during the publication and promotion of her book; Review copies and entry copies to a range of post-publication contests, provided and sent by the Press; Some book launch events planned by the Press, with a partial travel stipend and reading honorariums provided; Ongoing publicity support through our website, newsletter, and social media; Exposure through Press attendance at local and national book fairs to promote the work of Perugia poets. Full guidelines here: https://perugiapress.org/contest/


[11/15 deadline] 2024 Nightboat Poetry Prize

The Nightboat editors will select up to four manuscripts for publication. The winning poet(s) receives $1,000, a standard royalty contract, and 25 free copies of the published book. Click here for more information & to submit!


[11/28 deadline] Fan Fiction Contest: Fast Paradise

First Place $1,000
Fast Paradise is a coming of age novel set in the High Arctic. A young Inuit woman makes the traditional summer trek of Nannurmiut, People of the Bear, in the first millennium, and 1963 college archaeology students leave their dig site without approval to follow her trail of artifacts across not yet mapped Ellesmere Island. Imagine members of the 1963 Pelham College expedition returning to their campus to attend the Pelham College Lives of Consequence Alumni Award Lecture. Submit a Fan Fiction entry that takes place at Pelham College before, during and/or after the lecture involving two or more of the characters from the 1963 expedition to Ellesmere Island. New characters are permitted. Contest submissions must be entered at ericstephenmayer.com.


[11/30 deadline] BOA’s A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize

The A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize is awarded to honor a poet's first book, while also honoring the late founder of BOA Editions, Ltd., a not-for-profit publishing house of poetry and poetry in translation.

Winner Receives:

• Book publication by BOA Editions, Ltd. in spring 2026
• $1,000 honorarium

This year’s judge is Maya C. Popa. Maya C. Popa is most recently the author of Wound is the Origin of Wonder (W. W. Norton, 2022), a finalist for the 2023 Levis reading prize from VCU. Her first full-length collection, American Faith (Sarabande, 2019), was a recipient of the North American Book Prize and a runner-up in the Kathryn A. Morton Prize judged by Ocean Vuong. She holds a PhD on the role of wonder in poetry and her newsletter, Poetry Today, is one of Substack's best-selling featured publications. The Poetry Editor of Publishers Weekly, she teaches at NYU and elsewhere.

Submissions are invited only through Submittable or by post mail. We do not have the staff capacity to read or respond to manuscripts that are submitted by fax or email. *Submission fee: $30; find the website and link to submit here.


[12/31 deadline] Hollis Summers Poetry Prize

Named for the distinguished poet who taught for many years at Ohio University and made Athens, Ohio, the subject of many of his poems, this competition invites writers to submit unpublished collections of original poems.

Submissions for the prize open on April 1 and close on December 31 each year at ohiouniversitypress.submittable.com. There is a $30 entry fee.
Be sure to check out the website and guidelines before submitting: https://www.ohioswallow.com/poetry-prize/

[01/06 deadline] The DISQUIET Literary Prize

Win publication and a full tuition waiver to attend DISQUIET in 2025 by entering the DISQUIET Literary Prize! This year's contest is for writing in fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, by a writer who has not yet published a full-length book. The first prize winners in each genre will be published:

• the fiction winner in Granta.com,
• the nonfiction winner in Ninthletter.com,
• the poetry winner in The Common.

One grand prize winner will receive a full scholarship including tuition, lodging, and a $1,000 travel stipend to attend DISQUIET in Lisbon in 2025 (June 22-July 4). Genre winners will receive a tuition waiver in addition to publication.

Winners who are unable to attend the progam in Lisbon may elect to receive a $1000 cash prize in lieu of the tuition waiver.

Read the full contest guidelines or enter at Submittable.
Deadline: January 6, 2025. Reading fee: $15

[10/31 deadline] Tethered Literary Open for Contributions

The founders of Tethered Literary look forward to curating the first issue based on themes that organically rise from the submissions we receive. The expected publication will be in Winter 2025, and a second issue in Summer 2025. Creative pieces will be accepted for consideration by emailing your document to tetheredliterary@gmail.com from August 15th - October 31st, 2024. More information on contribution guidelines can be found at: https://www.tetheredliterary.com/. You can also follow Tethered Literary on Instagram at: tethered_literary.


[10/31 deadline] Seeking Writers for Paper Dragon Volume 8

Our fall issue’s theme is Halloween! We want all things spooky! Cozy horror included! We are looking for thrilling and unique writing that captures the spirit of horror. Don’t forget that the most important part of horror is the fun. For art, your work does not literally have to be scary. They can address the theme in their own way. Pieces that depict gratuitous violence, excess gore, or hateful violence targeting gender, race, sexuality, and other protected classes will not be accepted. To submit and to read through all of the guidelines, follow the link HERE.


[10/31 deadline] Tupelo Press Helena Whitehill Book Award

The Helena Whitehill Book Award includes a cash award of $1,000 in addition to publication by Tupelo Press, a book launch, national and international distribution by the University of Chicago Press, a one-week residence at Gentle House on the Olympic Peninsula, and unlike our other prizes, open to submissions of poetry, chapbook or full length, no page limit, and also open to creative non-fiction, no page limit. Manuscripts are judged anonymously and all finalists will be considered for publication. Please read the complete guidelines before submitting your manuscript.

https://tupelopress.submittable.com/submit/299957/summer-open-reading-period-2024


[11/01 deadline] Library Zine! Voices Across The New York Public Library

We are asking organizations, schools, book stores, and writing circles to post our call for submissions for our 8th Volume. We are looking for creative takes on our 2024 theme, Progress is a Process. 

Nobody’s perfect. As we have seen in the past couple of months, our community and our world is still a work in progress. But that is the case with anything that requires strength and effort. We still have more work to do and that is what we are asking in our 2024 Zine Theme. What causes are important to you? What events have transpired, personally or globally, that made you take stock in what’s important to you? Did it make you grow or transform as a person? What can others gain or learn from these changes?

Answer these questions and more in our 2024 Zine theme: Progress Is A Process. This theme is centered around our world being a work in progress”. Although the past few years have been challenging for many, don’t feel limited to addressing current events. The Zine Committee is looking for creative and unique takes on how the world is growing.

There is no fee to submit, and there is no prize other than the prestige of being published. All languages are accepted. Anyone interested in submitting, viewing past volumes, and guidelines can visit our website: bit.ly/LibraryZine. Submission deadline is November 1, 2024. I’ve attached a flyer to share. If you have any questions, please reach out to us at nyplzine@nypl.org. 


[11/17 deadline] Call for Themed Submissions - Puerto del Sol

Puerto del Sol is seeking work which engages with the theme of freak. Freaking, to freak, to be freaked. A freaky thing. Freak has a past: a rotten one. Freak as a scorn, as a label tied around necks by hierarchy, ableism, transphobia, racism. Freak as pushback. Freak getting freaked the freak up. The grotesque growing despite. Revel in it. Leather-clad tunnel vision. Maximalism. That house in the woods we all want to see. Who is brave enough to look? And let me see your browser history. What are you hiding? What is it that lives behind those walls, under the skin, in the darkest corner of the attic? Are you freaked out? Are you feeling freaky? Why are we hiding? What is out there? The freak issue: unexpected, bizarre, unfolding against perceptions. We want work that grapples with the origins, adaptations, reclamations, and mutations of freak. Give us more than surface level. Take off the mask. Or put one on. Show us the layers of freakiness, the good & the bad & the nuanced. Subvert our expectations. Freak us out. Please. We're begging.

We're open to fiction, nonfiction, flash fiction, poetry, hybrid, experimental, and multimedia creative projects. Prose pieces should be no longer than 5,000 words and poetry submissions should include between 1-5 poems in a single docx or doc file.

Themed submissions close on November 17 and accepted work will appear in our Spring 2025 print issue.We hope you'll consider submitting! Click here to visit our Submittable.


[11/20 deadline] COOLEST AMERICAN STORIES

As you may know, COOLEST has published short stories by award-winning and bestselling Morgan Talty, S.A. Cosby, Frances Park, and Lee Martin. We run both previously unpublished and previously published short work, and our reader ratings for the past 3 years (averaging above 4.5 stars) have been higher than those for BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES and the O. HENRY anthologies--readers love our stories! And we pay! Submit your most interesting, boldest, funniest, saddest, longest, and/or most daring short story soon! Reading submissions until November 20th. Coolest American Stories - Home (see SUBMIT page)


[11/30 deadline] Call for Proposals: Shaped by Our Own Words: Love and Hate Letters to Writing

Editors: J. Kuntzman & C. Bazerman

Proposals of 300-500 words due November 30, 2024

Full Chapters of 4000-5000 words due June 30, 2025


How has writing changed a life you’re close to—your own life, lives you have observed, lives you've studied? In the modern world, writing is intertwined with many transitions (intellectual, emotional, political, economic, and civic) and developments: in our relationships, interests and affiliations, skills, knowledge, careers, cultures. And many of us who have been affected personally by writing feel passionate about the role that writing has taken in our lives.

We are looking for stories that reveal how particular lives are different because writing came into them and how writing accomplished that change—what writing has done for the person. The stories may focus on how writing has shaped someone's private mind or their community relationships, saved or re-framed important memories, helped in creating styles of self-presentation or offering a pathway for participating in activities/ groups, exciting and realizing new life possibilities. But we also welcome stories about how writing can lead us down paths that we later perceive as mistakes, or how people and situations have kept us separate from the power of writing. Writing is not one thing, one simple good or evil, but can be powerful at what it does.

We seek proposals of 300-500 words (with an anticipated full manuscript of around 4000-5000 words) indicating the kind of narrative, significant elements, and origin of materials (personal experience, observations, or research). Please submit proposals and queries to the editors bazerman@education.ucsb.edu and kuntzman@ucsb.edu 


This project is contracted to be published by the WAC Clearinghouse in the Lifespan Writing Research Series.


[12/15 deadline] Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Open Call: Poetry

Editors Crisosto Apache and Julian Talamantez Brolaski are seeking poems as part of a volume of contemporary Indigenous LGBTQ2SIA+ poetry. To give a sense of the scope of two-spirit poetry, the goal is to present a mix of established and emerging writers. To create a space for young poets, unpublished poets, and represent the various regions and sovereign nations within the U.S. This collection will begin and reflect the current movement into a powerful futurity, guided by the voices of Indigenous poets whose genders and sexualities are fluid and expansive.

This book is slated to be published by Litmus Press in Spring/Summer 2025. The deadline to submit is December 15th. Here is the link to the call on the Litmus Submittable page.


[Rolling] Pacifica Literary Review

Pacifica Literary Review is now accepting submissions of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction. Prose submissions must be under 5,000 words. Flash fiction submissions must be no more than 1000 words individually. Novel excerpts are acceptable, but must be able to stand alone. For poetry, please submit no more than three poems in a single document. For flash fiction, please submit no more than three pieces in a single document. Full info: http://www.pacificareview.com/submissions/

[Rolling] Press Pause Press Open for Submissions

We aim to publish art and words for the future by artists and writers who believe they're carrying, on their hunched-over-computer shoulders, a pretty heavy yet very pretty burden—to offer us all a way into ourselves so that we may come back out with the wisdom required for positive change as individuals, and as a society. for more info on what we’re about, view our BASIC TENETS. All accepted work for our volumes will appear both online and in print.


[Rolling] Volume Poetry submissions

Online publishing journal, Volume, is open for submissions! Send up to 6 poems to  submissions@volumepoetry.com. Please include a short bio that can be published alongside your work. We are wide open in terms of the kind of poem we are looking for, so please don’t set parameters on what you might submit to Volume. However we won’t consider work that is discriminatory or defamatory or that advocates for such positions. Rolling deadline. https://volumepoetry.com/



[Rolling] Knife Room Poetry - Collaborative Poetry Projects - Call for Submissions

We are currently seeking collaborative poetry and/or pitches for conversational pieces. More about our submission guidelines and a sense of the kind of work we publish can be found on the site at https://kniferoompoetry.com.


[Rolling] The Margins Call for Submissions of Criticism

The Margins is open to pitches and submissions of critical essays on Asian American literature, film, visual art, and culture. We are open to criticism of any art form, of works from any time period, so long as the writer speaks in some way to how we live now. Critics are encouraged to foreground their own voice and style in the pursuit of this goal, but should ultimately keep focus on their chosen objects of study. Submit here.


[Rolling] The Margins Call for Submissions: Translation Column

A monthly column on Asian language, culture, and translation.

The Margins seeks work from writers for an ongoing monthly column on language, culture, and translation from Asia. We consider Asia as an umbrella term that encompasses all of its regions (South, Southeast, East, Central, and North Asia, and SWANA) and the many diaspora communities of Asians all over the world.

We welcome essays, hybrid works, translations, and translator’s notes that engage with Asia’s literature, cultures, subcultures, languages, and diasporas. We are also interested in works that grapple with the concept of the Transpacific, colonialism, history, and empire, especially as they relate to language and translation. Full info: https://aaww.org/submissions-translation-column/


[Rolling] Barbara J. Zitwer Agency Is Looking for New, Unpublished Authors

The Barbara J. Zitwer Agency is now open for submissions by unpublished authors. BJZ Agency is a global literary agency that has been based in New York City for over 22 years. Barbara J. Zitwer’s strength and expertise is in her ability to discover new writers and launch their international careers.  She also works with established authors in their home countries like Korea, who want to break out into the world. In the beginning, Zitwer discovered Jerry Stahl, Eric Garcia, Sharon Krum, and The Friday Night Knitting Club which was a NYTimes Bestseller for over a year, and Jeff Noon, winner of the Arthur C Clarke Award for his debut Vurt among others. She is responsible for the Korean New Wave in global publishing which won her the 2016 International Literary Agent of the Year Award and launched the careers of Shirley Jackson Prize winner Hye young Pyun’s The Hole, Booker International Prize winner Han Kang’s THE VEGETARIAN and Kyung sook Shin’s Please Look After Mom, Man Asian Prize winner and also became a NY TIMES Bestseller., Un su Kim’s international sensation The Plotters, You Jeong Jeong’s The Good Son, Seo mi-Ae’s The Only Child among many others. From Poland, our authors include Man Booker International and prize-winning poet and novelist Wioletta Greg and bestselling, award-winning, Kaja Malanowska, with her literary thriller FOG.


[Rolling] Literary Agent, Call for Submissions - Tessler Literary Agency

MICHELLE TESSLER, the founder of the independent boutique agency, Tessler Literary Agency (www.tessleragency.com), is seeking new authors of high quality literary fiction and non-fiction (including narrative, biography, popular science, memoir, history, psychology, health, business, biography, food, and travel).

Michelle represents a select number of best-selling, award-winning, and emerging writers. Clients include accomplished journalists, scientists, academics, experts in their field, as well as novelists and debut authors with unique voices and stories to tell. The agency values fresh, original writing that has a compelling point of view.

In fiction/ memoir clients include:

• Hala Alyan,  (The Arsonists’ City; Salt Houses)
• Mira Jacob, (The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing)
• Rebecca Kauffman, (Chorus, The Gunners)
• Amy Stewart, (Girl Waits with Gun; Lady Cop Makes Trouble and more)
• Amanda Eyre Ward, (The Lifeguards; The Jetsetters; The Same Sky; How to Be Lost)

Submission Guidelines

Please visit www.tessleragency.com for more information about the agency. All new writers seeking representation are encouraged to send queries via the form on her website.


[Rolling] Golden Scales Publishing Accepting Submissions

Golden Scales Publishing is an independent, women-owned publishing company dedicated to discovering and publishing works of fiction in the fantasy, romance and paranormal genres. We operate in the same manner as traditional publishing houses and offer editing, cover art, and a marketing & advertising campaign (including social media posts, securing reviews and author event coordination) at no cost to the author. We are currently accepting unagented submissions for novels or novellas in our genres, as well as applications for freelance editors, graphic designers and illustrators. Our website is here, our Instagram is here and the best contact would be info@goldenscalespublishing.com.



[Rolling] Dark Entries: A Journal of Horror

Currently seeking: The macabre. The futile. The haunted. The liminal. Dark Entries is seeking speculative and horror-themed poetry and flash fiction, with a focus on substance, atmosphere, narrative, and cinematics. Surreal, experimental, and mixed media pieces are more than welcome—encouraged, even—in addition to traditional form. Full info: https://darkentriesjournal.wixsite.com/home/submissions



[Rolling] Black Lawrence Press Immigrant Writing Series

The immigrant narrative is at the heart of the American experiment. However, despite the contributions of immigrants to the cultural, financial, scientific, and artistic makeup of the United States, there is no clear home for new immigrant writings in the United States. To remedy this, Black Lawrence Press proudly announces the Black Lawrence Immigrant Writing Series, an innovative program designed to provide a home for new immigrant writers in the United States and fill a much-needed gap in the American literary community. The Series will remain a self-standing body with complete autonomy within Black Lawrence Press, and its editorial and advisory boards will be composed of immigrant writers and/or authors whose works explore the immigrant experience. Submission guidelines here: https://blacklawrencepress.com/submissions-and-contests/immigrant-writing-series/

[Now] Call for NYC-Based Southeast Asians on Grief (Chronologues Open Call)

Seeking Southeast Asians based in NYC for Chronologues, a multimedia choreopoem series in which Southeast Asian Americans are asked to explore their relationship with grief, both current and anticipatory. Due to colonialism, state violence, migration, and socioeconomic disparity, Southeast Asians are often left with grief as a means of collecting and/or supplementing historical archives. Participants are asked to discuss a physical symbol of a grief they are currently or expecting to face, and why it is a symbol of grief for them. Visual poems and monologues will be created based on excerpts from every interview, and will be performed by various actors in a choreopoem and video installation. The purpose of the project is to showcase what is generationally passed down when in constant proximity to loss.

Interviews will take place in Mill Basin Library [2385 Ralph Ave (near Ave N) Brooklyn, NY 11234] Tuesday, October 22 4:00-6:00pm and Fort Hamilton Library [9424 Fourth Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11209] Tuesday, October 29 4:00-6:00pm. Please fill out this form if interested in participating.