September Top Picks: Opportunities for Writers
The September 2018 edition of "Writing Life Essentials," a monthly hand-curated list of contests, grants, scholarships, submissions calls, and awards, with a focus on 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, the taking that idyllic shot of your apple picking excursion to prove to your Insta followers that you do occasionally leave the house. That matters too.
Contests & Awards
Fee: $22; Award: $1,500 & publication; Deadline: Sept 24.
Submit up to 5,000 words: anything from flash to the long story. The New Guard does not accept novel excerpts. Judge: Rick Moody.
Fee: $30; Award: $1,000 and publication; Deadline: Sept 30.
Submit a first poetry collection, a poetry collection, a short story collection, a novella or novel, and an essay collection.
Fee: $12; Award: $500, publication, residency; Deadline: Sept 30.
Awarded annually for a poetry chapbook by a black poet. The winner will receive $500,
Fee: $20; Award: $1,500; Deadline: Oct 1.
Alexander Chee will judge. Submit a story of up to 5,000 words. Entry fee includes a copy of Boston Review's 2018 special literary supplement, Evil Empire.
Fellowships & Residencies
Fee: $0; Award: $70,000; Deadline: Sept 28.
Up to fifteen fellowships are given annually to poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers whose work will benefit directly from access to the research collections at the New York Public Library. The Fellowships run from September 2019 through May 2020.
Free application to fellowships at the American Academy in Berlin.
Fee: $0; Award: $5,000 and residency; Deadline: Oct 5.
Residential fellowships are given annually to fiction writers and creative nonfiction writers to spend an academic semester in residence at the Hans Arnhold Center at the American Academy in Berlin. Fellows receive a $5,000 monthly stipend, lodging, partial board, and round-trip airfare.
General Submissions
Fee: $0; Award: publication; Deadline: Sept 15.
Submit all formats of work that grapple with translation, multilingualism, and the blurred lines between languages and in communication.
Fee: $0; Award: publication; Deadline: Sept 15.
We are seeking submissions on any subject in all genres of creative writing, including fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction and cross-genre work, by North American Muslims for publication in an anthology.
Fee: $0; Award: cash payment; Deadline: Sept 30.
This feature welcomes submissions by all undocumented, noncitizen, and/or first-generation immigrants of color who have stories about struggling with obtaining documentation or have otherwise experienced violence under the U.S. immigration system.
Fee: $0; Award: publication; Deadline: Oct 1.
Submit works of literature, illustration, music, and other art that relate to maps and their complexities.
Colwill Brown
Colwill is an instructor and manuscript consultant at GrubStreet, an associate editor at Bat City Review, and an MFA candidate at the University of Texas at Austin. After graduating a scholarship awardee of GrubStreet’s Novel Incubator program, Colwill found representation for her first novel, Before We Tear Our Selves Apart, with Robert Guinsler of Sterling Lord Literistic, which is currently on submission to publishing houses. She is the recipient of the Wellspring House Emerging Writer Fellowship, the Henry Blackwell Essay Prize, and a Crawley-Garwood Research Grant, and has received fellowships and support from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, The University of Texas at Austin, Boston College, Kansas State University, the Anderson Center for Disciplinary Studies, and GrubStreet. She was a finalist for the 2019 Tennessee Williams Fiction Prize, the 2019 Reynolds Price Award, the 2019 Far Horizons Fiction Award, the 2019 Disquiet International Literary Prize, and the 2019 Lit Fest Emerging Writer Fellowship. Colwill’s fiction is forthcoming in Granta and is anthologized in Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet (Press 53). She has served on the editorial team for Post Road magazine, The Conium Review, Solstice Literary Magazine, and Pangyrus magazine. Colwill is a founding member of the Back Porch Collective, a Boston-based group of writers. With members connected to Cuba, India, Albania, Atlanta, Bosnia, Miami, Jamaica, and the UK, they bonded over a common passion for global narratives and literature’s potential to create empathy and understanding across all geographical, political, and cultural borders. Hailing from Yorkshire, in the north of England, Colwill is determined to introduce the word “sozzard” to the American vernacular. For a full list of publications, projects, and services, please visit colwillbrown.com.
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