Resources
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DutchCulture/TransArtists
The website TransArtists posts listings of artist-in-residence programs from around the world. There are opportunities for writers, performers, visual artists, graphic designers, fashion and applied arts practitioners, and more. It is a project of DutchCulture, an Amsterdam-based center for international cooperation.
Masters Review (The)
The Masters Review is an online and print literary journal dedicated to supporting emerging writers. They publish short fiction and nonfiction, craft essays, and interviews with established authors. Ten winners of their annual fiction contest receive cash prizes and publication in an anthology that is mailed to agents, editors, publishers, and authors nationwide. The contest has been judged by prominent writers such as A.M. Homes and Lev Grossman. Contributors to the magazine are also paid. See website for deadlines and rules.
The Weeds
By Gil Fagiani
Last of the old-time Yankees,
the Weeds never mixed
with their suburban neighbors
and kids said the younger brother was psycho,
pulling a knife on trick-or-treaters
when they knocked on the door.
A fence thick with vines and branches
blocked a view of their yard,
vibrant with snorts, grunts, moos,
clucking, cawing. I once spotted
the elder Weed driving his pick-up truck
with a live deer in the front seat.
When the peacocks came,
their piercing cries echoed
through the neighborhood
He-lp! He-lp! He-lp!
At first, thinking someone needed a hand,
I ran down and rattled the gate door,
but the younger Weed waved an ax
and scared me away.
I got used to the peacocks' cries,
saw them parading on the sidewalk
by the Weeds' house,
their upright purple plumes,
the rainbow eye
of their erect tail feathers.
One day a police car stopped
and two cops asked about reports
of a man shooting at pet dogs,
when the peacocks cried
He-lp! He-lp! He-lp!
What's that? the cops asked.
Sounds like somebody’s in trouble, I said,
pointing to the Weeds' house.
When the cops arrived,
the younger Weed cursed at them,
shotgun in hand
and, after a brief standoff,
he was taken away in handcuffs
—to the funny farm, I heard—
and never seen again.
A Letter to Grandpa
By Jackie Smith
Dear Grandpa,
You must know this.
I remember it all.
Paula was your favorite
But you taught us both to whittle
With your pocket knife.
"Don't tell Grandma," you warned.
We sharpened sticks
Bled milkweed sap onto the points
Poison darts for a game we never played.
You walked us to the drug store
Sat us at the counter with Cherry Cokes
While you went next door for a beer.
"No need to tell Grandma."
Our little secret.
Your breath smelled like beer
The night you held me on your lap.
We picked tomatoes with you
The pungent scent burning our nostrils
Hairy vines brushing our thighs
Leaving red welts like scars
Warm fruit, juice running down chin
Crimson, acid tears.
After fourth grade
I never wanted to see you again.
That last time.
You knelt before me crying
Begging forgiveness.
Writing this, you gone extinct
Me exhausted from cursing you
Is as unsettling as the kiss you
Placed on my forehead
Yet I say, "Dear Grandpa"
Because that is what good girls say.
And I am always a good girl.
Ink From the Pen
Ink From the Pen is a nonprofit website that accepts submissions of inmates' artwork and sells prints and T-shirts to benefit the prisoners and their families. Writers who work with prisoners may find this a useful resource to encourage their creativity.
Pretty Machine
By Mara Adamitz Scrupe
You had her longer, rode her
harder, she let you down at least
as often, threw a rod, staggered up mountains
and off again, pushed through deserts,
loaded up now, strapped for the drive
to Annandale, for the man with a bleeding
ulcer which is better than a heart attack,
he wants her, though if his wife were around—
but she's gone, a couple years now, he's adjusted
pretty well but the ulcer didn't come
out of nowhere, a peck and a quick goodbye—
that's how we do it, it's already afternoon,
you'll grab a sandwich on your way
back, I'll eat leftovers tonight you'll tell me
the new owner's turned his wife's house
into a shop moved in bikes in various stages
of tear-down and rebuild, Triumph triage
everywhere, work stands at eye level in the guest
room watching TV he scoots on a stool as he
works, Amal carbs line up neatly on the dining room
table, he never sits anyway but stands slouched paper
plate in one hand folded slice in the other, components
freshly painted dry on clotheslines
strung across the living room, guests sit
on the three-cushion sofa parts skimming past,
yours is the one he'll ride if all goes well
in Emergency, he's waited forty years
while you tore up gravel on the ALKAN,
while you camped the outskirts of Vegas circus,
circus! he dreamed a first kick engine, she dreamed
new floral davenports, matching brocade
drapes, you promised groceries on your way
home, your tread on the stairs pulls me
awake, you sit at the edge of the bed
beside me in the dark, your lips brush
my forehead, you reach for my hand your fingers
spreading mine apart to fit
Reprinted from Beast (NFSPS Press, 2015)
TOON Books
TOON Books publishes high-quality comic books for children, designed to teach verbal and visual literacy in a more engaging format than traditional books for first readers. Editorial Director Françoise Mouly is the Art Editor of The New Yorker magazine. Notable contributors include Art Spiegelman, Hilary Knight (creator of Eloise), and Neil Gaiman.
Tim Weed’s Storycraft Blog
Tim Weed is an award-winning novelist, lecturer, and travel-writing program director. His "Storycraft" blog analyzes great novels and short stories from a craft perspective to help aspiring fiction writers. Featured authors include Tolkien, Hemingway, Steinbeck, James Joyce, Cormac McCarthy, Ian McEwan, Hilary Mantel, John Le Carré, Donna Tartt, Ray Bradbury, Phillip Pullman, Peter Carey, Leslie Marmon Silko, and many others. There are also more general posts on the importance of narrative in the modern age, what literature can do that film cannot, the archetypal Shadow in fiction, the art of the scene, and more.
YesYes Books
YesYes Books publishes books of innovative contemporary poetry, prose, and visual art, as well as the online journal Vinyl Poetry. See website for their Pamet River Prize, for a first or second full-length book of poetry or prose by a female-identified or genderqueer author. Writers in their catalog include Rebecca Hazelton, Danez Smith, and Ocean Vuong.
Teen-Talk Exchange
by Helene Pilibosian
took Taralee to the drawing board
pretending to be desk.
She abstracted shapes
from theorems of geometry,
held the compass point firm
and turned it like a pirouette,
its trance of triangle
touching at a sharp point
then bouncing toward a rectangle
leaning upon the balance
of a diagonal. Add thirst of line.
Then coloring in was less a fuss,
the third dimension,
the light effects of life,
the ginger stain,
the strawberry rain,
the privilege of trees,
transgressions of berries,
blood of dandelion stems,
legendary encyclopedia of plants,
red ants transporting crumbs,
Armenian blue beads or gabouyd hloun
for luck of color or lack of chance,
circumstances allowing for birds
with prancing feathers—
parrots, peacocks, love birds—
the soft eyes of deer,
mathematical monkeys jumping at trees,
fish exchanging gills like a hobby,
exotic flowers bowing to girls,
magnanimous tomatoes juiced,
oranges diced with skin,
even the slithering of snakes
through the yellowed grass,
the romance of cherry blossoms in spring,
a fling of ripened cherries
along with apples, pears, apricots
and the science of brochures
adding or subtracting every feature.
She framed the drawing with self-expression
and hung it in her room.
Aerogramme Writers’ Studio
Hosted in Melbourne, Australia, Aerogramme Writers' Studio publishes news and resources for emerging and established writers. The site features craft articles, upcoming publication opportunities, book recommendations, and literary humor. Follow them on Twitter @A_WritersStudio for timely announcements of contests and calls for submissions.
a moment
By Patricia Blanco
as I lie like a frayed baby
you balance the abstract of your bones
with one eye at my stone hand
the other sweeping the riddle of dust
dodging dog bites to his toes
our son jumps like a crimson god
gathering the cats' narrow hisses
behind shadows unsettled
a suspended tale in time
pressing each breath
neither forward nor behind
there seems to be no more else
to ease the moment
not one moment left
to meet your eyes again, yet
you take my hand
heavy and unloading
and make a moment
inescapable from flowering
Memorial
By Diana Anhalt
Massive steel slabs, like hostile vegetation,
rise twelve meters high. This monument
of rusting pages thrusts upwards, outwards.
It walls in the trees of Chapultepec Park,
and casts shadows on mourners who come
bearing words for their desaparecidos.
Armed with fistfuls of chalk, a jack knife, a car key,
people punish the pillars with prayers, imprecations:
May they drown in their victims’ blood, Dios santo.
They finger the letters: Pinche gobierno, we don’t need
a monument. What about justice? And give voice
to the slabs: They left me nothing, not even a grave.
No one signs their names. Across the face of a pillar
vertically placed vague outlines of white chalk fade
to ghostly images, come back to haunt us:
Our country has lost its way and God has lost his ears.
Blood Flower
By Pamela Uschuk. Uschuk is a shamanic poet, invoking the spirits of animals, mountains, and forests, to heal a world that humans have spoiled with war and greed. This poetry collection from Wings Press also gives a voice to her family's ghosts, starting with her Russian immigrant ancestors, and moving on to her late brother and first husband, who were permanently scarred by their service in Vietnam. Nature imagery is a great strength of Uschuk's writing. These are not stylized, sentimental birds and flowers. They are "cliff swallows taking needles of twilight/into their open beaks, stitching/sky's ripped hem." They are the "red velvet vulva of roses" and "yellow ginkgo leaves/waxy as embalmed fans warm[ing] grave stones". Their specificity helps the reader believe that these sparks of life are just as real as the scenes of atrocities that surround us in the news media. Their beauty pulls a bright thread through the darkest stories she tells.
Black Poets Speak Out
Black Poets Speak Out is a video series launched in November 2014 to protest police violence against people of color. In these videos, contemporary black poets read their own writing or that of their predecessors who have written about blackness and police brutality. Featured work includes poetry by Amiri Baraka, Lucille Clifton, Toi Derricotte, Cornelius Eady, Langston Hughes, and Audre Lorde. Follow them on Twitter at #BlackPoetsSpeakOut or subscribe to this Tumblr blog to be notified of new videos.
Submishmash Weekly
Free weekly e-newsletter from Submittable, a popular online submissions platform, contains news and opportunities for writers, artists, and filmmakers.
Orison Books
Orison Books publishes spiritually-engaged poetry, fiction, and nonfiction of exceptional literary merit. Editors say, "In our view, spiritual writing has little to do with subject matter. Rather, the kind of work we seek to publish has a transcendent aesthetic effect on the reader, and reading it can itself be a spiritual experience. We seek to be broad, inclusive, and open to perspectives spanning the spectrums of spiritual and religious thought, ethnicity, gender identity, and sexual orientation." Anthology proposals and fiction and nonfiction manuscripts are accepted year-round. There is an open reading period for poetry manuscripts in the spring and a contest in the winter with a large cash prize and prestigious judges. See website for online submission guidelines.
The Year of Yellow Butterflies (The Blog)
This site is the blog companion to Joanna Fuhrman's book The Year of Yellow Butterflies (Hanging Loose Press, 2015), a collection of poems about fads and trends from imaginary pasts. Readers who wish to contribute their own prose-poems beginning "It was the year of..." may submit them through the blog contact form along with a short bio. Contributors to the site have included Maria Garcia Teutsch, Susan Lewis, Maureen Thorson, and a 5-year-old named Ian.
Hour of Writes
Hour of Writes is a UK-based online writing forum that hosts weekly writing contests judged by the site members. Each week, a prompt is posted on the site, and entrants have one hour (from the time they click "start") to submit a poem or short prose piece in response. Every piece is critiqued, and the winner each week receives a modest cash prize. There is a small entry fee plus the obligation to judge three other entries. The site's mission is to encourage people to devote one hour each week to working on their creative writing.
Rain Gives
By Carol Smallwood
remembrance of floating—
the illusion encouraged by people
under umbrellas, huddled in cars,
part of the whole yet separate.
Grass turns so green it hurts the eye;
sidewalk cracks fill to water weeds.
My umbrella the color of skin gives
rain a voice: thunder assures you
are not alone.
Purity and Nonsense
This two-part essay by award-winning poet Brian Brodeur discusses the prosody of nonsense verse and compares it to other types of avant-garde art. Is it aesthetically significant, as a kind of distillation of poetry to its abstract elements of sound and rhythm, purified of "meaning"? Or is it just a sophomoric prank? Read Part 1 and Part 2 on The Best American Poetry blog.
Pitch Travel Write
Full-time freelance travel writer Roy Stevenson's website gives tips on how to develop and market original ideas for travel articles, as well as practical information for planning your trips.
Beijing and I Meet for the First Time
By Meg Eden
When I first met Beijing, she said,
What're you doing here?
It's not the Olympics yet.
I tried to tell her I was here
to see her country, to get away
from my home, but she tried
to sell me bootleg plushes
of pandas, and I caved in.
When I first met Beijing,
the street was cold
and there was a boy
who had a hole in his pants
where his penis stuck out,
purple and small.
I asked her about that boy
but she said, I hear
our mall is the largest in the world—
She gave me a five star hotel room
with a waterfall in the lobby.
Every time I passed through
that lobby, I thought about the boy.
When I first met Beijing,
all she wanted to do
was practice her English.
I told her I was interested
in writing poems, but
she didn't know
what that was.
I said I wanted to hear
all about her—what she believes
in, where she goes for daily
fun, the names of her friends
and what they hope to become—
but she said there are some things
that shouldn't be talked about.
Corporal Works
By Lynn Domina. This now widely published author's debut collection from Four Way Books enters into the mysteries of love, work, and death, through small but pivotal moments between parents and children, husbands and wives. Although it moves like a family history with flashbacks, the scenes have a timeless quality because the relationship of the characters from one poem to the next is left undefined. The woman speaking in first-person could be the author, the daughter of the farming couple with the strained marriage who appear in some of the other poems, or an invented character.
My God Is This a Man
By Laura Sims. The author's third collection from Fence Books is a haunting collage of fragments from writing by and about serial killers, juxtaposed with lyric passages and stark abstract visual elements such as square frames and all-black pages. There are no gruesome details here. Sims is interested in the philosophy of self-expression through crime, an exploration that is no less chilling for being primarily cerebral. The mind-field we enter in this book is fragmented, grandiose, and claustrophobic.
Climbing PoeTree
Climbing PoeTree is a spoken-word performance duo that uses art as a force for popular education, community organizing, and personal transformation. Poets, performance artists, print makers, video and graphic designers, muralists, and new media architects, Alixa and Naima create compelling works at the service of their vision for a more just and livable world. Climbing PoeTree's award-winning performance is composed of dual-voice spoken word poetry, hip hop, and multi-media theatre that challenges its audiences to remember their humanity, dissolves apathy with hope, exposes injustice, and helps heal our inner trauma so that we may begin to cope with the issues facing our communities. Innovative educators, Alixa and Naima have lead hundreds of workshops in institutions from Columbia University to Rikers Island Prison. They are currently developing a multimedia curriculum based of their latest production, Hurricane Season, that employs art and culture to help learners analyze systems of oppression and resistance, and build new leadership essential for fundamental social change.
Blue Heron Book Works
Blue Heron Book Works is an independent small press founded by novelist Bathsheba Monk. Their main focus is literary memoirs, but they will also consider fiction if it is in a series. Books are published as e-books and print-on-demand editions. The press bears the up-front costs of editing, formatting, copyrights, and ISBN numbers, and they work with the author to create a marketing plan. Monk says they are looking for "unusual stories, or ordinary stories unusually well-told...Great story trumps stylistic virtuosity. No recovering addict stories unless the author joined the circus to recover...so to speak. No cured from cancer stories unless author went on to join a convent and feed the poor...ditto." Their catalog includes Paul Heller's Last Call, a #1 Kindle bestselling memoir about caring for a parent with dementia.
Directions of Folding
By Heather M. Browne
I saw a horrible accident
Ocean blue papered Holiday dry cleaning
Bundled tight
Not her place to cross
Not between the lines
Ignored directions
She flew
High
Confetti tossed skyward
Red, green, blue, skin
A holiday popper
So odd to see a body fly
Twist, turn
Somersault tumbling in the air
A baby doll thrown
Kaleidoscoped view
Her body forgot the order in the sky
Directions of folding
As the potpourri of cloth, paper, skin
Crumbled to the soiled ground
A towel after washing
Clothes from wearing
Napkin following a meal
Body after crash
No care of bend, fold, crease
Done with use
Discarded directions
She crumpled amongst rumpled napkin, paper, cloth
Scattered littering the road
Not along the creases
So unnatural the folding
Origami limb
Prima Facie
By Trish Hopkinson
Huddled in the corner
where only a creak of light
cast a thin line 'cross his back.
Belief's blackness pressed into his sympathy
like a fire-heated symbol meant for permanence,
meant for slavery.
Ears marked with indoctrination
and freedom castrated by abstinence,
his hands ached for resolution, for reason,
for something to clean the char
from beneath his fingernails.
His voice strained with the rasp
of each unanswered question
and his teeth bent with the burden
as his tongue tore away at vision.
He saw the brand waiting in the flame.
He saw the labels that it made.
It took him years to leave his religion.
David Biespiel: Follow Your Strengths, Manage Your Weaknesses
In this essay for the online journal The Rumpus, widely published poet and teacher David Biespiel makes a good case for playing to one's strengths as a writer and spending less time fixing weaknesses. The troubleshooting emphasis of most writing workshops, he says, leaves writers feeling demoralized, and takes energy away from turning their good skills into great ones. Instead, try to become more of what you already are, and work on what you enjoy.
Open Road Integrated Media
Open Road Integrated Media is a digital publisher and multimedia content company. Open Road creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its e-books through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media. Their mission is to give publishing's "vibrant backlist" fresh exposure in the digital marketplace. Open Road has published e-books from legendary authors including William Styron, Pat Conroy, Jack Higgins, and Virginia Hamilton, and has launched new e-stars like Mary Glickman. Their current projects include reviving out-of-print LGBT classics for e-book readers.
Playing By the Book
By S. Chris Shirley. This funny, heartfelt, and enlightening YA novel follows a Southern preacher's kid on his journey to accept his sexuality without losing his faith. When 17-year-old Jake ventures outside his Alabama small town for a summer journalism program at Columbia University in New York City, he learns that the world is more complex than he imagined, and maybe God is too. Refreshingly, he doesn't reject his family and traditions, but instead takes on the adult responsibility of teaching and transforming them.
Editing Versus Proofreading Explained
The website of The Expert Editor, an Australian vendor of editorial services for books and dissertations, offers this handy overview of the differences between proofreading and copyediting, and how to choose the level of editing that's right for you.
The Inquisitive Eater: New School Food
The Inquisitive Eater: New School Food is a project of the interdisciplinary university The New School, in New York City. The journal provides a forum for artists and academics to explore the intersections between food and family, the environment, politics, economics, social justice, and media. Submissions may be short stories, personal essays, poems, reviews of books, movies and TV, visual art, multi-media projects, or academic work. Enter via online form.
The Sports Museum
The Sports Museum is a nonprofit educational institution housed in the TD Garden in Boston, which draws on the heritage and values of the New England sporting tradition to help build character in kids. Their programs include the annual Will McDonough Sports Writing Contest for youth in 4th-12th grades.
Godot Goes to Montana
By Ellaraine Lockie
My farmer father waited to see
if crops would hail out or dry up
If coyotes would tunnel the chicken coops
If the price of grain could keep
me out of used clothes
If the bank would waive foreclosure
for another year
After hay baling and breech delivering
from sunrise to body's fall
He slept in front of the evening news
Too worn out to watch the world squirm
Too weary to hear warnings from ghost brothers
who were slain by beef, bacon and stress
Too spent to move into the next day
when he couldn't afford to forget
how Brew Wilcox lost his left arm to an auger
How the mayor's son suffocated in a silo
Too responsible to remember the bleak option
my grandfather chose for the rope
hanging over the barn rafters
Never too lonely because every farmer
had a neighbor to bullshit with
To share an early a.m. pot of Folger's
To eat fresh sourdough doughnuts
To chew the fat of their existence
Reprinted from Where the Meadowlark Sings (Encircle Publications, forthcoming 2015); first published in SLAB as the winner of the Elizabeth R. Curry Poetry Contest
A Friend in Need
By Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé
Liuling is pottering around naked because he lives between heaven and earth. He feels his house suffices in bundling him up. Da-Ren is in the house too, reshelving The Homeric Hymns under Depth Psychology. He likes the way verse translations help him hum about things he would never hum about like subway tokens and bad directions. Old journals end up in the in-tray and the dictionaries? They now line up under Creative Nonfiction. Liuling hasn't taken a bath in a long time because he perspires into no shirts that put his own dirt back on himself. "They must go back a long way," the archivist thinks to himself, reading a Thank You card that was never sent out. There are food coupons and utility bills and warranty cards strewn across the sideboard. The dishwasher is plugged into the kitchen tap where water flows in and siphons out. The computer monitor is covered with stickers like a screensaver that never blinks. "I made that myself," Liuling gesticulates towards the wind chime of cowbells, seashells and paper cranes. In his wine, Liuling sees the entire world for what it is and then tries to drink the memory.
Writing Always Finds Me
By Amy S. Pacini
Writing always finds me...
In the clustered cells of my restlessly racing mind
In the lonely longings and aching apprehensions of my heart
Weaving a whirling web of whimsical words and a wishful well of wisdom.
Fancily floating like a carefree cardinal red feather in the blissful breezes
On a spring Sunday afternoon looking up at the cloudless robin's egg blue sky
Pondering the purpose and meaning of life and how I fit in to the universal master plan.
Through streaming sensations, trickled thoughts, and cascading cares
Of woodland creeks, mountain lakes, and rainforest waterfalls
It percolates the perceptions, ignites burning passions, and unleashes my chambered creativity.
Writing always finds me...
In the radiant rays of sultry summer days and the witching hour of harvest moonlit nights
It never lets me down and is always there for me no matter the day or hour
It doesn't have to check its daily planner book for an opening or need to pencil me in.
It silently waits for me to open my artistic arms
To euphorically embrace its literary lines with artistic agility
When I am mentally blocked or drained, it journalistically jolts my linguistic lightning.
It allows me to completely and wholeheartedly be myself
And clearly sees the transparent totality of my intricate individuality
With its strongest sensibilities and weakest witherings.
Writing always finds me...
It speaks to me through the daily interactions of the people I meet and greet
While taking a relaxing drive through the country or exploring a new city
On cemetery epitaphs of those who are remembered for their final inspirational inscriptions.
While reading breaking news articles and controversially edgy editorials
Reading romantic love stories, suspense thriller novels, and farcical comic strips
Through biblical scripture, devotional divinity, and prayerful penitence.
It does not mock or snicker at the silly, stupid or strange things I say
It does not unjustly judge or bluntly criticize my opinions, actions, mistakes, and failures
But alternatively offers me a safe sanctuary of solitude and serenity.
Writing always finds me...
In the chaotic chasms, majestic moments, and sacred spaces of each morning sunrise
In the surreal subconsciousness of castle cloud dreams
And monster chasing nightmares of every nightfall's repose.
Between the sidewalk cracks, cobwebbed corners, masquerading mirrors and open doorways
Down familiarly traveled roads, unforeseeable twists and turns, and uncharted territories
Through rivuleted rumination, meadowed meanderings, and oceanic odysseys.
Recurrently roaming like an apparitional abstraction
In the echoing halls of home and the unoccupied rooms of chimerical childhood
Yearning for love and acceptance, understanding and respect.
Writing always finds me...
It quietly whispers in the silhouetted shadows of my melancholic moods
And patiently listens to me unveil my deepest and darkest desires, shameful and sinful secrets
On the unfilled pages of personal pain, anguish, and sorrow.
In trying times of dire desperation when I feel hopelessly hollow and forlornly fractured
It brings me to a much better place than where I originally came from
It uplifts my sinking soul and transcendentally transforms my being into a liberated literate.
Like a lost dog fervently finding his way back home again because that is what writing feels like
A pleasant place to call home and that is where I always retreat when I want to find
Calming peace, cozy comfort, Hallmark happiness, lively laughter and lavishing love.
Writing always finds me...
This poem was originally published by the TL Publishing Group in Torrid Literature Journal, Volume XII – Tension (October 2014).
Christopher Fielden’s Writing Advice and Competitions Listings
The blog of Christopher Fielden, author of the thriller Wicked Game and numerous short stories, includes several pages of useful resources for fiction writers. In addition to Fielden's writing advice and editorial services, there are links to the top English-language competitions for short stories, unpublished novels, and published and self-published books.
Manoleria
By Daniel Khalastchi. Winner of the Tupelo Press/Crazyhorse First Book Prize, this collection is a memorable addition to the literature of horror poetry, as well as the poetry of political witness. The narrator of these poems obediently submits to an endless sequence of bizarre procedures that are part surgical invasion, part public spectacle of punishment. Like someone brainwashed or anesthetized, he is quite clear about what is physically happening but has numbed out the normal reactions of fear, anger, or confusion. There is no narrative movement toward freedom or enlightenment, but a strange kind of beauty arises from the speaker's attention to detail.
Advice from the Judges of the North Street Book Prize
by Jendi Reiter and Ellen LaFleche
We started this contest for the same reason that you wrote your book: We love a good story. We believe that narrative writing, whether fiction or memoir, has a unique ability to awaken empathy and illuminate complex truths of human nature.
Rapid changes in technology and the book industry are blurring the lines between self-publishing, print-on-demand, and traditional publishing. More and more, experienced authors are choosing nontraditional routes to find readers. However, most prizes for published books still exclude the self-published, sticking them with an outdated stigma of amateurism. Through the North Street Book Prize, we hope to boost the visibility of excellent writers whose books simply didn't fit into the big conglomerates' marketing plans.
We're holding your books to the same standard as the best titles from conventional publishers: polished writing, believability, dramatic tension, a story structure that foregrounds the major plot elements, and characters worth following. "Originality" is, shall we say, not such an original thing to ask for. In any case, like happiness, it's not something you can aim at directly. That freshness we seek in a story is better described as urgency: a book that convinces us that it had to be written.
We're committed to running the most transparent and ethical contest possible. Some services marketed to self-published authors are overpriced and make inflated claims. We've carefully vetted our business partners to offer our winners a high-quality marketing support package, in addition to our sizeable cash prizes. All entrants receive a free ebook download from book publicity expert Carolyn Howard-Johnson. Unlike some contests that use anonymous "judging panels", the Winning Writers judges' names and credentials are up-front so you can make an informed decision about submitting your work.
Some notes on genre and the judges' tastes
We decided to judge "commercial" and "literary" fiction separately because, by and large, these categories assign different weight to artistic considerations versus entertainment, and are working within different traditions. What is innovative in a romance novel, for instance, is measured by reference to other romances, not Finnegan's Wake.
However, we feel that the standard list of genres considered "commercial" (mystery, horror, science fiction, romance, Western) unfairly privileges the bourgeois realist novel. Is Lonesome Dove not literature because it's about cowboys? Is Romeo and Juliet just a YA teen romance? No subject matter is inherently more literary than another.
In our view, commercial fiction is characterized by an emphasis on plot and action, a greater reliance on stock characters and clearly delineated heroes/villains, an intention to follow familiar conventions (e.g. a mystery novel ends with solving the crime), and a workmanlike writing style that prioritizes accessibility over lyricism. Young Adult books may be entered in either category. Depending on the mix of entries received, the judges reserve the right to re-categorize books that seem to straddle the commercial-literary divide.
For all kinds of fiction, our judges appreciate storytelling that shows critical awareness of our current cultural prejudices. The characters may have as many flaws and blind spots as you like, but the author should demonstrate a broader understanding. For example, the 1960s businessmen in the popular TV series "Mad Men" are gleefully, obliviously sexist, but the scriptwriters expect their contemporary audience to be shocked by the difference in pre-feminist corporate culture. The male characters objectify women, but the writers re-center the female characters as subjects deserving empathy and dignity.
We would rather not read lengthy graphic descriptions of violence. (Even in the horror genre, remember Stephen King's dictum that terror-inducing writing is a higher art form than "going for the gross-out".) While we do appreciate good writing about sexuality, please remember that sexual scenes or musings—like all other scenes and musings—should enhance and be integral to the narrative. If your book includes sexual violence or nonconsensual sex, please be aware that we strongly disfavor victim-blaming and "rape culture" myths. A good list of the latter can be found at the feminist blog Shakesville.
In creative nonfiction, we seek true-life writing with a personal angle—a memoir or a collection of personal essays. We prefer nonfiction that connects the individual's story to an issue of wider cultural relevance, or gives us an inside look at an interesting subculture or historical moment. That said, remember that the heart of your narrative is the people, not the data.
See the judges' list of favorite books in your genre for examples. We look forward to discovering our next favorite—yours!
Book Recommendations By Genre
Memoir
Martha Beck, Leaving the Saints
[A good example of the memoir that's also about a wider issue, in this case the troubled history of the Mormon Church and how some aspects of its culture contribute to child abuse.]
Trevor Noah, Born a Crime
[Entertaining and educational, this TV comedian's story of his early years is a model for how to structure a memoir that hits the high points of a multi-year time span, deftly interweaving personal anecdotes with background about the injustices and absurdities of apartheid in South Africa.]
Spencer Reece, The Secret Gospel of Mark
[Award-winning poet's memoir about overcoming family patterns of alcoholism through his devotion to writing and his discovery of his vocation to be an Episcopal priest.]
Richard Rodriguez, Hunger of Memory
[Mexican-American public intellectual tells his personal story about the tradeoffs of education, assimilation, and alienation from his Spanish-speaking family.]
Jennifer Rosner, If a Tree Falls: A Family's Quest to Hear and Be Heard
[Lovely "braided" memoir structure juxtaposes the author's experience raising deaf children, her quest to uncover family medical history, and her fictionalized reconstruction of the lives of her Jewish immigrant ancestors.]
Dan Savage, The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant
[One of the first gay adoption memoirs depicts the funny and scary aspects of new parenthood in terms everyone can relate to, while also illuminating social changes in the definition of family.]
Jeannette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
[Razor-sharp writing combines fantasy sequences and realistic satire in this lesbian coming-of-age story.]
Romance
KJ Charles, The Magpie Lord
[Paranormal historical gay romance with a well-developed magical system. Charles is a successful and prolific self-published author whose books feel true to their time period.]
William J. Mann, Where the Boys Are
[A group of gay friends try to balance true love and sexual freedom, while haunted by memories of friends lost to AIDS.]
William Masswa, Toughskins
[Romance between two young wrestlers explores issues of masculinity, healing from abuse, and the ethics of professional sports.]
Courtney Milan, The Brothers Sinister
[Set in Victorian England, this informative and heartwarming series features strong female characters and good representation of neurodiversity.]
Ann Victoria Roberts, Louisa Elliott and Morning's Gate
[Two-part historical romance with a paranormal twist, bringing together the stories of star-crossed lovers in Victorian England and their modern-day descendants.]
Thriller
Megan Abbott, The Turnout
[Set at a family-run ballet school, this modern Gothic novel is tense with generational secrets and self-punishing artistic discipine that breaks into violence.]
S.A. Cosby, Razorblade Tears
[Cosby's crime novels feature rural Southern Black men who try and don't always succeed to be honest business owners and family men in a violent world.]
Peter O'Donnell, Modesty Blaise
[Witty 1960s British spy series is refreshingly free of the sexism and gratuitous violence that often plague this genre.]
Mystery
James Lee Burke, Dave Robicheaux series
[Robicheaux, an aging policeman from New Iberia, Louisiana, is a Vietnam veteran and recovering alcoholic who narrates the stories. The descriptions of the Louisiana landscaping are lyrical and memorable. While there is a certain amount of violence in the series, Robicheaux always places it in context, reflecting on it and making connections with crime and social issues.]
Thomas Cook, Red Leaves and Instruments of Night
[In Cook's lushly written, brooding novels, ordinary people face unthinkable choices that expose the good or evil in their hearts.]
Patricia Cornwell, Kay Scarpetta series
[Dr. Scarpetta is one of the most intelligent female characters in crime writing today. She is a lawyer as well as a skilled forensic pathologist. Cornwell not only deftly handles the complex science of forensic medicine, she provides Scarpetta's character with emotional and psychological dimensions that deepen as the series continues.]
Elizabeth Daly, Somewhere in the House and others in series
[These mysteries set in late-1940s New York have a quiet elegance and a likeable sleuth, the rare-book expert and amateur detective Henry Gamadge.]
Ruth Rendell, The Bridesmaid and Make Death Love Me
[Rendell's prolific output reached its peak in quality in the 1980s, exemplified by these suspenseful, tragic novels about love and madness.]
Minette Walters, The Shape of Snakes and others
[Gritty psychological British procedurals intersperse the narrative with "official" reports and source documents, making readers feel they are solving the crime in real time with the detectives.]
Fantasy & Sci-Fi
Nancy Kress, Beggars in Spain trilogy
[Genetic engineering and unlimited renewable energy erase some social inequalities and create new ones. A compelling thought experiment in political philosophy, with characters you care about.]
J.M. Miro, Ordinary Monsters
[Dark academia about paranormally gifted children in Victorian England.]
Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow and Children of God
[Members of a Jesuit-led expedition to another planet face the ultimate test of their faith when they encounter two intelligent alien species, one of which uses the other as both servants and prey.]
Horror
Poppy Z. Brite, Drawing Blood
[Part psychological horror, part gay romance. Sole survivor of a family massacre falls in love with computer hacker on the run from the FBI.]
Douglas Clegg, The Hour Before Dark
[When their father is murdered, three siblings return to their family home and uncover a terrible repressed memory.]
Harlan Ellison, Deathbird Stories
[Dark, erotic, and satirical modern myth-making that rages against the senseless sufferings of humanity.]
Robert Marasco, Burnt Offerings
[Haunted-house pulp classic from the 1970s depicts the power of greed to make people disregard all the red flags.]
Literary Fiction
Sally Bellerose, The Girls’ Club
[Set in Western Massachusetts, this book tackles the themes of illness, poverty, and growing up lesbian in a small working-class town. Cora Rose is witty and observant, taking us through a series of first-person coming of age adventures. Rich and revealing dialogue capture time and place to perfection.]
Tara Isabella Burton, The World Cannot Give
[A shy girl at an elite boarding school falls under the sway of a pious neo-conservative fellow student and her cultish followers.]
Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
[The golden age of superhero comics gives Chabon's characters a vehicle to process the trauma of the Holocaust and repressive postwar social mores.]
Louise Erdrich, Tracks
[The protagonist in this lyrical novel about the genocide of Native Americans is Fleur Pillager, one of the most enduring female characters of our time. The book opens with a harrowing winter scene that centers on a smallpox epidemic. The language in this novel is lush and lyrical, providing an ironic contrast to the theme of genocide and survival.]
Kathie Giorgio, The Home for Wayward Clocks
[In this lyrical, innovatively structured novel, an abused boy becomes a reclusive clock-collector whose healing journey is interwoven with short stories about the clocks' owners.]
Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
[A dangerously naive American missionary family is swept up into the turmoil of the Congo's independence from Belgium in 1960. Each of the multiple narrators speaks with a poetry all her own, and voices a different way to make sense of this clash of cultures.]
Wally Lamb, I Know This Much is True
[Dominick Birdsey is the twin brother of a schizophrenic. At once funny and sad, this epic novel explores the complex layers of family life. Set in a small town in eastern Connecticut, this novel entertains while educating readers about mental illness. The scenes between Dominick and his therapist provide well-written dialogue, emotional depth, and a back story that helps him to come to terms with his schizophrenic twin and abusive stepfather.]
Toni Morrison, Beloved
[This is Ellen's favorite novel of all time. Morrison's novel about slavery through the mythical character of Beloved is rich in symbolism and history, and it's a haunting exploration of the mother-daughter relationship.]
GennaRose Nethercott, Thistlefoot
[The American descendants of Eastern European forest witch Baba Yaga inherit her chicken-legged hut, which holds Jewish memories of the pogroms that a sinister figure is trying to rekindle.]
Wesley Stace, by George
[A shy boy delves into the secrets of his family of vaudeville performers when he finds a ventriloquist's dummy belonging to his late grandfather.]
Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch
[A perfect example of a genre-defying novel, this epic tale borrows plot elements from commercial fiction (art theft, a terrorist bombing, organized crime) and is also a beautifully written meditation on the search for meaning in the face of death.]
Graphic Novel and Memoir
Alison Bechdel, Fun Home
[Text and image work perfectly together in this tragicomic memoir of the cartoonist's childhood, focusing on how she came to understand her own queerness through her closeted father's double life and possibly self-inflicted death.]
Greg Fox, Kyle's Bed & Breakfast
[The collected volumes of this ongoing gay romance webcomic series stand out not only for their charming and amusing storylines, but for their artwork informed by classical figure-drawing training and their well-composed panels.]
Joe Sacco, Palestine
[Reporter's illustrated interviews from the Occupied Territories in the 1990s tell disquieting stories of Israeli police brutality and economic apartheid.]
Bryan Talbot, The Tale of One Bad Rat
[Graphic novel effectively uses the framework of a Beatrix Potter book to tell a moving story about a girl's healing from child abuse.]
Middle Grade
John Bellairs, The House with a Clock in Its Walls
[Bellairs wrote many antiquarian ghost stories for tweens, all featuring bookish young people who team up with elderly neighbors to solve mysteries involving haunted artifacts.]
Russell Hoban, The Mouse and His Boy
[Damaged toys go on a quest to become self-winding and reunite with their found family from the toy shop, in this emotionally gripping novel that includes intelligent political satire for adults.]
Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief
[Prolific middle-grade author's "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series is action-packed and full of wry updates of Greek myths, featuring demigod teenagers who get caught up in battles between good and evil deities.]
Children's Picture Book
J.J. Austrian and Mike Curato, Worm Loves Worm
[Critters plan a gender-inclusive wedding.]
DuBose Heyward, The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes
[A hard-working bunny mom overcomes racism and sexism to become the Easter Bunny in this 1939 classic with quaint illustrations by Marjorie Flack.]
Adam Rubin and Daniel Salmieri, Robo-Sauce
[Inventive book design enhances this funny story about coping with big feelings by indulging your superpower fantasies.]
Dawn Drums
By Robert Walton. Set in 1864, this historical novel tells the story of the bloodiest year of the American Civil War, brought to life with a chorus of voices both real and fictional. The cast of narrators includes President Lincoln, American Red Cross founder Clara Barton, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and the women and escaped slaves who fought for the Union and cared for the wounded in field hospitals. This book would be a good addition to a history curriculum for young adults.
Last Rites
By Roberta Beary
chest pains
breathing in
the sunset
hospice bed
the get-well roses
stunted bloom
thin sunlight
eyelids flutter
in morphine sleep
deathwatch
the arrival of fresh
coffee
day moon
we windowshop
caskets
day of the obit
inside his wallet
me at eleven
This poem is reprinted from her chapbook Deflection (Accents Publishing, forthcoming 2015).
Sibling Rivalry Press
Founded in 2010 in Little Rock, Arkansas, Sibling Rivalry Press is a well-regarded independent publisher of poetry and literary fiction. In addition to publishing award-winning poetry collections, SRP is home to Assaracus, a journal of poetry by gay men; Jonathan, a journal of gay fiction, and Adrienne, a journal of poetry by queer women. Writers of all identities are welcome to submit to the press. Authors in their catalog include Wendy Chin-Tanner, Collin Kelley, Megan Volpert, and Julie R. Enszer.
Fig Tree Books
Launched in 2014, Fig Tree Books publishes and promotes high-quality, commercially viable literary works that chronicle and enlighten the American Jewish Experience. They encourage submissions from both new and established writers. Fig Tree Books will also be re-publishing works that have fallen out of print or were not previously available as e-books. The press began with a focus on literary novels; as of 2015, they are also open to memoirs, graphic novels, and young adult literature.
Welcome Table Press
Welcome Table Press publishes anthologies of contemporary and classic literary essays, and the periodical pamphlet series Occasional Papers on Practice & Form, which features transcripts of lectures on writing and teaching the essay form. See website for free downloads of excerpts from these publications, as well as an annual contest judged by Robert Atwan, series editor of The Best American Essays.
Thirst
By Tricia McCallum
The sun was hotter.
You can tell.
Look at us squinting against it in photos then.
Everything washed out by the glare,
cheekbones, jawlines,
all detail surrendered.
Dazzled,
we could be anybody.
The gardens, look, they're parched.
It hurt to walk on the grass.
We lay in scorched backyards
slathering butter on our chests,
chain-smoking, eating fluorescent cheesies,
swilling bright red soda.
Everyone burned raw.
And we knew
nothing could go wrong.
Our lives lay ahead of us.
Men were above us,
landing on the moon.
This poem is reprinted from The Music of Leaving (Demeter Press, 2014). It was first published at Goodreads.com as the winner of their December 2011 poetry contest.
Amorak Huey on Writing Funny
In this essay on the blog of Sundress Publications, an innovative small press, poet and writing teacher Amorak Huey surveys the work of some contemporary poets who use humor effectively, and reflects on the overlap between these genres. "Humor and poetry both rely on verbal surprise, the pairing of the unexpected. Humor in poetry works best when it's juxtaposed against some other mode: anger, insight, sadness, tenderness. Poetry happens when a poet presses up against the limits of language when it comes to capturing the human condition. Poetry is utterance, is act, is disruption, is the reaching for that which is understood but previously unarticulated. Humor is these things as well...Humor, like poetry, is how we cope with the fact of our aloneness in this world."
Algonkian Writer Conferences
Algonkian Writer Conferences bring together authors, agents, and editors in different locations across the US to help emerging novelists create marketable commercial fiction. Their workshops cover the elements of successful fiction and how to revise and pitch a manuscript. The faculty has included notable authors such as Robert Bausch and Robert Olen Butler.
Necessary Fiction
Necessary Fiction is an online journal publishing original short stories, book reviews, and essays on writing. In their "Research Notes" column, published authors share informative and quirky stories about doing research for their recent books. Writers in the "Translation Notes" column describe the process of bringing a recent book of fiction into English.
