August 2021 Top Picks: Opportunities for Writers
The August 2021 edition of "Writing Life Essentials" is a monthly hand-curated list of contests, grants, scholarships, submissions calls, and awards. We try to prioritize opportunities that are at least one of the following: local, free to apply, and/or committed to celebrating and supporting writers from historically marginalized communities. We do the research, so you have more time for what matters: the writing. Or, drinking some homemade lemonade. That’s important, too.
Contests & Awards
Hobart and William Smith Colleges: Seneca Review | The Deborah Tall Lyric Essay Book Prize
Fee: $27; Award: $2,000; Deadline: August 1st
The Seneca Review Deborah Tall Lyric Essay Book Prize is a prize of $2,000 and publication in Seneca Review Books given annually for an exceptional and innovative essay. This season's judge is Kazim Ali. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Fee: $30; Award: $35,000; Deadline: August 6th
The Aspen Words Literary Prize is a prize of $35,000 and an all-expenses paid trip to attend the 2022 Aspen Summer Words Literary Festival in Aspen, Colorado given annually for an exceptional work of fiction. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Gival Press| Short Story Award
Fee: $25; Award: $1,000; Deadline: August 8th
The Gival Press Short Story Award is a prize of $1,000 and publication in Gival Press given annually for an exceptional work of fiction. In addition, Gival Press hopes to publish an anthology of the winners of this award along with the best short stories submitted to the contest over a period of several years in a future anthology of short stories. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Tulip Tree Publishing | Stories That Need to Be Told: The Contest
Fee: $20; Award: $1,000; Deadline: August 9th
The Tulip Tree Publishing Stories That Need to Be Told contest is a prize of $1,000 and given annually for an exceptional work of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. Five additional prizes of $200 will be given for stories that excel in the merits of Humor, Passion, Depth, and (any form of) Love.Visit the website for complete guidelines.
The Indiana Review | ½ K Prize
Fee: $20; Award: $1,000; Deadline: August 15th
The Indiana Review ½ K Prize is a prize of $1,000 given annually for an exceptional work of poetry, flash fiction, or creative nonfiction. This season's judge is Taylor Johnson. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Fee: $25; Award: $1,000; Deadline: August 15th
The Grayson Books Poetry Prize is a prize of $1,000 and publication given annually for an exceptional full work of poetry. This season's judge is Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Diode Editions | Full Length Book Contest
Fee: $20; Award: $1,000; Deadline: August 15th
The Diode Editions Full Length Book Contest is a prize of $1,000, 25 author copies, and publication in Diode Poetry Journal given annually for an exceptional full work of poetry. If the winner(s) can attend AWP, they will have an opportunity to participate in an off-site reading, and in signing sessions at the Diode Editions booth. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Omidawn Publishing | Open Book Prize
Fee: $27; Award: $3,000; Deadline: August 16th
The Omnidawn Publishing Open Book Prize is a prize of $3,000 and publication by Omnidawn given annually for an exceptional poetry collection. This season's judge is John Yau. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Kallisto Gaia Press | Julia Darling Memorial Poetry Prize
Fee: $20; Award: $1,000; Deadline: August 20th
The Kallisto Gaia Press Julia Darling Memorial Poetry Prize is a prize of $1,000 and publication in Ocatillo Review given annually for an exceptional work of poetry. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Kallisto Gaia Press | Chester B. Himes Memorial Short Fiction Prize
Fee: $20; Award: $1,000; Deadline: August 20th
The Kallisto Gaia Press Chester B. Himes Memorial Short Fiction Prize is a prize of $1,000 and publication in Ocatillo Review given annually for an exceptional work of short fiction. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
The Masters Review | Short Story Award for New Writers
Fee: $20; Award: $3,000; Deadline: August 30th
The Masters Review Short Story Award for New Writers is a prize of $3,000, publication, and agency review given annually for an exceptional work of fiction. This season's judge is author of With Teeth and Mostly Dead Things Kristen Arnett. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
The University of New Orleans Press | Lab Prize
Fee: $28; Award: $10,000; Deadline: August 31st
The University of New Orleans Press Lab Prize is a prize of $10,000 and publication in UNOP given annually for an exceptional work of fiction. The work must be previously unpublished. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Grid Books | Off the Grid Poetry Prize
Fee: $25; Award: $1,000; Deadline: August 31st
The Grid Books Off the Grid Poetry Prize is a prize of $1,000 and publication given annually for an exceptional work of poetry. This season's judge is Jimmy Santiago Baca. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
The Telluride Institute | Fischer Prize
Fee: $10; Award: $1,000; Deadline: August 31st
The Telluride Institute Fischer Prize is a prize of $1,000 and five $200 finalist prizes given annually for an exceptional work of poetry. This season's judge is notable New Mexico poet, Donald Levering. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Munster Literature Center | Fool for Poetry International Chapbook Competition
Fee: €25; Award: €1,000; Deadline: August 31st
The Munster Literature Center Fool for Poetry International Chapbook Competition is a prize of €1,000 and a chapbook publication given annually for an exceptional work of poetry. The competition is open to new, emerging and established poets from any country. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Gulf Coast | Prize in Translation
Fee: $10 subscription; Award: $1,000; Deadline: August 31st
The Gulf Coast Prize in Translation is a prize of $1,000 and publication in the journal given annually for an exceptional work of translation in short prose, fiction, and nonfiction. This season's judge is Sophie Hughes. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Gulf Coast | Barthelme Prize for Short Prose
Fee: $10 subscription; Award: $1,000; Deadline: August 31st
The Gulf Coast Barthelme Prize for Short Prose is a prize of $1,000 and publication in the journal given annually for an exceptional work of flash fiction, prose poetry, and micro-essays. This season's judge is Molly McCully Brown. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Aesthetica Magazine | Creative Writing Award
Fee: €12 subscription; Award: €5,000; Deadline: August 31st
The Aesthetica Magazine Creative Writing Award is a prize of €5,000 and publication in the magazine given annually for an exceptional work of poetry or short fiction. Submissions can be on any theme, celebrating innovation in content, form and technique. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Journal of Experimental Fiction | The Kenneth Patchen Award for the Innovative Novel
Fee: $25; Award: $1,000; Deadline: August 31st
The Journal of Experimental Fiction Kenneth Patchen Award for the Innovative Novel is a prize of $1,000 and book publication given annually for an exceptional and innovative novel. This season's judge will be announced soon. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
The Ex Ophidia Press | Poetry Book Prize
Fee: $25; Award: $1,000; Deadline: August 31st
The Ex Ophidia Press Poetry Book Prize is a prize of $1,000 and publication of the winning manuscript given annually for an exceptional work of poetry. This season's judge is Kathleen Flennikin. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Black Lawrence Press | The St. Lawrence Book Award
Fee: $25; Award: $1,000; Deadline: August 31st
The Black Lawrence Press St. Lawrence Book Award is a prize of $1,000 and book publication given annually for an exceptional collection of poems or short stories. The St. Lawrence Book Award is open to any writer who has not yet published a full-length collection of short stories or poems. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Levar Burton Reads Writing Contest
Fee: $0; Award: $500; Deadline: August 31st
The LeVar Burton Reads podcast is collaborating with FIYAH Literary Magazine and Tor.com for our first-ever writing contest! Do you write speculative fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, horror)? Do you love the podcast? Have you dreamed of getting your work in front of THE LeVar Burton ever since the days of Reading Rainbow? Well, here's your shot. We are looking for one special story to be featured in Season 10 of the podcast. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Empower Her* Voice's International Writing Competition
Fee: $0; Award: £250 (~$347.91) to donate to an organization working towards an issue of your choice; Deadline: August 31st
Empower Her* Voice is looking for creative pieces under 500 words that engage with the theme Stereotypes and Perceptions. Prizes will be awarded for top pieces in poetry and prose (fiction or nonfiction). In addition to the winners and runners up, a selection of laureates will have their work featured in EH*V's upcoming Literary Magazine, Dialogue. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Fellowships & Grants
Women Write Now: A Comedic Screenwriting Fellowship for Black Women
Fee: $0; Award: $10,000; Deadline: August 5th
Laugh Out Loud's Women Write Now is a comedic writing fellowship designed to champion and elevate Black female comedy writers through mentorship, advocacy, production, and exhibition.
Developed in partnership with Sundance Institute, this immersive fellowship will support talented writers in developing short comedic scripts while being advised and mentored by some of the most influential Black women in comedy. The resulting scripts will be produced by LOL Studios, premiere at a special screening during the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, and be distributed across LOL Network. At the end of the program, the selected fellows will also receive a one-year first look deal with Laugh Out Loud. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Fee: $0; Award: One-year, full-time, salaried position (with benefits); Deadline: Their next round of fellowships begin in October 2021.
Vox Media’s one-year fellowship program trains and elevates promising talent in their industry, and develops their skills and careers. The fellowship program is intended for people early in their careers, or who are interested in transitioning into media. The fellowship provides extensive training and mentorship, intensive feedback from managers, sessions featuring leaders across Vox Media, and other professional development. They are offering fellowships in advertising/revenue, audio, design, video, and more. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Fee: $0; Award: Mentorship; Deadline: December 31st
The fellowship is funded by a grant with the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art’s (DDFIA) Building Bridges Program. The mission of the Building Bridges Program is to support national efforts, working with U.S. Muslims, to increase mutual understanding and well-being among diverse populations for the benefit of building stronger, inclusive communities. The fellowship aims to further that bridge-building mission by creating space for more diverse, authentic Muslim narratives for children and young adults, and by addressing common misperceptions of those narratives in the children’s publishing industry. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Work Experience
Volunteer Editorial Staff, The Dodge
Remote | Deadline: August 15th
The Artful Dodge, founded in 1979, will be rebooting in Fall 2021 as The Dodge, an online journal of ecofiction, translation, and writing about animals. They are currently seeking volunteer editorial staff in the following roles: nonfiction editor, assistant poetry editor, assistant fiction editor, assistant nonfiction editor, and readers. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Several Staff Positions, 826 Boston
Roxbury, MA
826 Boston is currently seeking candidates to fulfill their full- and part-time positions: Bilingual Spanish/English Program Assistant; Out-of-School Time Program Coordinator; K-12 Programs Coordinator; Writers’ Room Manager; Institutional Giving Manager; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Director; and Community Engagement Coordinator. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Editorial Assistant, Adams Media (Freelance)
Concord, MA
Simon & Schuster is currently seeking candidates to fulfill their Editorial Assistant (EA) position, which supports the entire Editorial department for Adams Media. This primarily administrative role provides the unique opportunity to observe and participate in all stages of the Editorial cycle and is an ideal entry-level position for an individual interested in Publishing. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
New York City, NY (Remote)
Kweli Journal, the premier literary online journal and community for writers of color, seeks a part-time Development Manager. The Development Manager will play a key role in generating contributed income, overseeing individual giving and an active foundation, corporate, and government grants program. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Books Editor, Words Without Borders
Remote
Words Without Borders seeks a Books Editor for its digital magazine of international literature. This remote, part-time freelance position pays $400/month and works closely with the magazine’s editors to commission and edit monthly reviews of new literature in translation, plus one additional long-form essay on a quarterly basis. This is a remote position requiring approximately 20 hours/month. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Submissions
Submissions to Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts
Fee: $5; Deadline: August 15th
Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts seeks high quality submissions from both emerging and established writers. They publish craft essays and interviews as well as fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—and they want to see your best work, regardless of form, style, or subject matter. View complete submission guidelines here.
Submissions to Sundress Publications
Fee: $13 (waived for all BIPOC writers); Deadline: August 31st
Sundress Publications is looking for poetry manuscripts of forty-eight to eighty (48-80) single-spaced pages; front matter is excluded from page count. Individual pieces or selections may have been previously published in anthologies, chapbooks, print journals, online journals, etc., but cannot have appeared in any full-length collection, including self-published collections. View complete submission guidelines here.
Fee: $3; Deadline: October 15th
Pangyrus publishes well-crafted, thought-provoking writing, comics and visual art in every genre online and in one to two print editions per year. They’ll be keeping an extra sharp eye out for pieces that reimagine our relationship to place and history and ecosystem, that challenge our ideas, that offer both warnings–and solutions. View complete submission guidelines here.
Fee: $0; Deadline: N/A
AGNI looks for writing that catches experience before the crusts of habit form—poetry and prose that resist ideas about what a certain kind of writing “should do.” They seek out writers who tell their truths in their own words and convince us as we read that we’ve found something no one else could have written. View complete submission guidelines here.
Submissions to The Los Angeles Review
Fee: $3; Deadline: Rolling
The Los Angeles Review is open for submissions year-round. All submissions will be considered for LAR Online and for the new best-of print edition to be released yearly in the Spring. View complete submission guidelines here.
Fee: $3; Deadline: Rolling
Ploughshares welcomes unsolicited submissions of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction during our regular reading period, which runs from June 1st to January 15th. The literary journal is published four times a year: mixed issues of poetry and prose in the Spring and Winter, a prose issue in the summer, and a longform prose issue in the Fall, with two of the four issues per year guest-edited by a different writer of prominence. View complete submission guidelines here.
Fee: $0; Deadline: Rolling
The Puritan seeks submissions all year round, from anywhere in the world. Regular submissions to the magazine are free of charge and should fall under one of four categories: fiction, essays, poetry, and reviews. Unless we are soliciting your work, all submissions must be previously unpublished (this includes self-publishing, publishing on blogs, and in chapbook format). View complete submission guidelines here.
Submissions to Embark Literary Journal
Fee: $0; Deadline: Rolling
Embark accepts submissions from all over the world and have no geographical constraints. However, all submissions must be written in English (or translated into English from another language, in which case both the author and the translator must be credited). They do NOT accept submissions of memoirs or other nonfiction works. Only the openings of novels (works of fiction 50,000 words or longer) will be considered. View complete submission guidelines here.
Submissions to Frontier Poetry
Fee: $0; Award: $50 per poem, up to $150; Deadline: Rolling
Submissions for Frontier Poetry’s New Voices poetry category are open year round to any new and emerging poet who has not published more than one full-length collection of poetry. View complete submission guidelines here.
Fee: $0; Award: $200 per accepted story; Deadline: Rolling
Voyage YA simply aims to publish good work and provide a space for new and established voices. To get an idea of what they publish, please read their archives. General submissions are open year-round and there is no fee to submit to their general categories. New work is published weekly. View complete submission guidelines here.
Submissions to So to Speak Blog
Fee: $0; Deadline: Rolling
The So to Speak Blog is unique in that it opens itself up to multiple forms of storytelling. Hybrid works, reviews, interviews, and visual art are welcomed submissions. View complete submission guidelines here.
Fee: $0; Award: $100-$2,000; Deadline: Rolling
The Sun publishes personal essays, fiction, and poetry. Personal stories that touch on political and cultural issues are welcome. They encourage submissions from writers of color. View more submission guidelines here.
Submissions to Hippocampus Magazine
Fee: $3; Award: $40; Deadline: Rolling
Looking for a literary magazine that accepts personal essays? Hippocampus Magazine enthusiastically considers unsolicited, previously unpublished creative nonfiction submissions in the following categories: memoir excerpt, personal essay, flash creative nonfiction, and more. View complete submission guidelines here.
Submissions to Solstice Magazine’s Features Blog: Anti-Oppression Theme
Fee: $0; Deadline: Rolling
Solstice Magazine is looking to feature the voices of previously unheard and also established writers who write to make us see, to clarify injustice, and to move us to action. View complete submission guidelines here.
Fee: $0 - $3; Deadline: Rolling
Redivider seeks previously unpublished works from emerging and established writers. They welcome general submissions year-round. View complete submission guidelines here.
Submissions to Boston Accent Lit
Fee: $0; Deadline: Rolling
Submissions to Boston Accent Lit are always open on a rolling basis. They accept works in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and art. Issues are published six times per year online. View complete submission guidelines here.
Submissions to Boston Poetry Magazine
Fee: $0; Deadline: Rolling
Boston Poetry Magazine accepts submissions year-round. They accept both previously published material and simultaneous submissions. View complete submission guidelines here.
Submissions to Raising Mothers
Fee: $2; Deadline: Rolling
Raising Mothers celebrates and examines the realities of parenthood for Black and brown mothers. Raising Mothers publishes experimental and traditional pieces of fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, interviews, book reviews, photo essays, comic and graphic narratives that explore what it means to identify and coexist as a parent on the margins. View complete submission guidelines here.
Submissions to PoArtMo Anthology (Volume 2)
Fee: $6 – $15; Deadline: Rolling
The PoArtMo Anthology (Volume 2) celebrates the most positive / inspirational art created in 2019-2021. Types of art: six word stories, essays, flash fiction, short stories, photography, paintings, drawings, and poetry. Ages 17 and over. Submission fee: $6 per piece or $15 for 3 pieces. Payment: ongoing royalties + complimentary PDF copy of anthology. Deadline: December 31, 2021. View complete submission guidelines here.
Submissions to Written in a Flash Anthology: A Collection of Positive Stories
Fee: $6 – $15; Deadline: Rolling
Written in a Flash Anthology: A Collection of Positive Stories is a new project that seeks to highlight the most inspirational / positive short stories and flash fiction pieces created in 2019-2021. Genres accepted: thriller, mystery, fantasy, science-fiction, historical fiction, contemporary fiction, young adult, humor, and nonfiction. Ages 17 and over. Submission fee: $6 per piece or $15 for 3 pieces. Payment: ongoing royalties + complimentary PDF copy of anthology. Deadline: December 31, 2021. View complete submission guidelines here.
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