Erika Dreifus

Each week in this space, Practicing Writing shares no-fee, paying markets for writers of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction: competitions, contests, and calls for submissions. These weekly posts complement monthly issues of The Practicing Writer newsletter, where you’ll always find more listings, none of them limiting eligibility to residents of a single municipality, state, or province. (But this blog does share those more localized opportunities, including jobs.)

As always, if you’d like to share a specific opportunity listed here, please credit the blog for the find. Thanks for respecting the time and effort that I put into researching, curating, and posting this information! I do notice, and I appreciate the courtesy.

• “A collaboration between Dzanc Books and the Luso-American Development Foundation (FLAD) has made possible four full fellowships for writers of Luso descent from North America to attend the ILP [International Literary Program]’s Writing the Luso Experience workshop in Lisbon in 2020. To be eligible for the fellowship, entrants must be residents of the United States or Canada who have a genealogical link to a Lusophone country. The four winners will receive accommodations, a travel stipend, and full tuition to the 2020 ILP in Lisbon to attend the multi-genre workshop “Writing the Luso Experience” (June 21-July 3) with other writers from Portugal and North America.  Runners-up will be offered partial tuition discounts.” Deadline is imminent: January 10, 2020.
• “The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is pleased to announce the 2020 Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism. This prize seeks to honor the best book-length works of criticism published in the US in the prior calendar year, including biographies, essay collections, and critical editions that consider the subject of poetry or poets. Winning book will receive a $7,500 prize.” Deadline: January 15, 2020.
• “Jaggery, a DesiLit arts and literature journal, connects South Asian diasporic writers and homeland writers; we also welcome non-South Asians with a deep and thoughtful connection to South Asian countries, who bring their own intersecting perspectives to the conversation. (By South Asia we mean Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, The Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.) Our hope with Jaggery is to create a journal that offers the best writing by and about South Asians and their diaspora. Dark, complex, intense — and totally delicious….We publish ART, ESSAYS, FICTION, POETRY, REVIEWS, and an advice column. We prefer original, previously unpublished submissions; we solicit reprints only in exceptional cases. We accept simultaneous submissions, provided you let us know immediately if it is being published elsewhere. We’re purchasing ongoing worldwide digital rights, for use in web and possible downloaded forms (ebook, PDF, etc.).  Six months after publication, you may request to have your work removed from our online archive. We follow a blind submission review process and pay $100 for fiction, $25 for nonfiction/poetry/art/reviews.” Next deadline: January 17. 
• “Held for three weeks in June, the renowned Bucknell Seminar for Undergraduate Poets provides an extended opportunity for undergraduate poets to write and to be guided by established poets. he program is modeled after artist colonies and conferences where staff and visiting poets conduct writing workshops and offer lecture/discussions, present readings of their own work, and are available for individual conferences….Applicants compete for ten places in the Seminar, all of which come with fellowships. Fellowships include tuition, housing in campus apartments, and meals. Accepted students are responsible only for their travel to Bucknell and a modest library deposit. A limited number of travel scholarships are available.” Deadline: January 31.
• February 1 is the deadline for the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize. “A $12,000 advance and publication by Graywolf Press will be awarded to the most promising and innovative literary nonfiction project by a writer not yet established in the genre. The 2020 prize will be awarded to a manuscript in progress. We request that authors send a long sample from their manuscript, as well as a description of the work….We expect that we will work with the winner of the prize and provide editorial guidance toward the completion of the project. The Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize emphasizes innovation in form, and we want to see projects that test the boundaries of literary nonfiction. We are less interested in straightforward memoirs, and we turn down a large number of them every year. Before submitting your manuscript for the prize, please look at the books previously published as winners of the prize for examples of the type of work that we are seeking. The 2020 Prize will be judged by the Graywolf Press editors. The editors reserve the right to invite submissions to the prize.” 
• A massive, heartfelt thank-you to everyone who has subscribed (or resubscribed) to the monthly Practicing Writer newsletter. If you haven’t yet caught the January issue, you’ll find there still more fee-free, paying opportunities.
• “The Cleveland State University Poetry Center is accepting applications for the Anisfield-Wolf Fellowship in Writing & Publishing, a two-year postgraduate fellowship that offers an emerging writer time to work toward a first or second book and an opportunity to gain experience in editing, publishing, literary programming, and outreach in collaboration with the staff of the CSU Poetry Center.” Payment: “The Fellow will be a two-year employee of the CSU English department. The salary is $40,000 per year with health insurance and benefits.” An MFA is required. Deadline: February 1, 2020. 
• “The Rutgers – New Brunswick [New Jersey] Office of Summer and Winter sessions seeks to hire presenters (non-credit workshops) for their Summer 2020 Writers’ Conference in various topics.” NB: The conference will take place June 5-7.
• In Colorado, Lighthouse Writers Workshop is looking for a Community Engagement Director, who will be “responsible for building literary community through the successful implementation of several programs: annual Story Fest; the Lighthouse Reading Show; Writing in Color (WIC) and the WIC Retreat; community engagement, collaborations, and meet-ups with other arts organizations across the Front Range. The overarching goal of this position is to celebrate the rich diversity of the literary community within Lighthouse and across Colorado, to create a more welcoming and engaging Lighthouse with a deep commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, all working toward making the organization a cornerstone of the state’s literary arts culture.” Salary: “Salary range is $52,000 – $58,000 commensurate with experience.” (Application deadline: January 11.)
• “Talking Writing, a digital literary magazine and nonprofit organization, seeks a responsible, detail-oriented administrative editor.” NB: “Because TW’s top editors are located in the San Francisco Bay Area, we’d also prefer somebody who lives in California, but that’s not required :-)” Hours are “flexible and variable, up to 15 hours a month. Position is on hiatus during summer months (July and August) and for most of January.” Pays: $25 an hour ($20 an hour during initial three-month trial period).
• The City University of New York’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism “seeks a Social Media Manager/Digital Writer to implement a social media strategy to promote its academic programs, events, admissions efforts, and other activities.”