Markets & Jobs for Writers

Background of a keyboard, mug of coffee, and wallet on a tabletop; text label indicating "Markets and Jobs for Writers: No fees to submit work/apply. Paying gigs only."

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.

  • “Submissions are now open for The Sunday Times/University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award 2020….The Award is given for a full-length published or self-published (in book or ebook formats) work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, by an author aged 18 – 35 years. The winner receives £5,000, as well as a ten-week residency at the University of Warwick and a one-year membership of the London Library. There are three prizes of £500 each for runners-up….Submissions close on Friday 22 June, 2020. To be eligible books must have been first published in the UK and/or the Republic of Ireland, in the English language, between 15 June 2019 and 22 June 2020.  The author must be aged between 18 and 35 on 31st December 2020.”  
  • Poets & Writers has issued a call for submissions from “writers of the Black literary community,” of letters, “addressed to any person or group—to writers, to a friend, to a family member, to fellow Black writers, to the publishing community, to us,” in which writers “speak about whatever you wish as it loosely pertains to you as a writer. It could be a reflection or a call to action or an anecdote or a meditation—we welcome both formal and personal approaches to letters.”  Payment will range “between $60 and $300, depending on length, for both print rights and online rights. While we are currently looking for letter submissions by June 25 to publish in our September/October print issue, we are eager to hear from you whether it’s this week or next year.” (Since this call specifically references and links to another feature to model the endeavor that’s envisioned, I’m re-upping my own response to that earlier project.)
  • From the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference (MCWC): “On June 13, 2020, the MCWC Board approved two new scholarships for Black writers to attend MCWC 2020.” Registration closes June 30 for this conference, which will take place online July 30-August 1.
  • FIYAH, “a quarterly speculative fiction magazine that features stories by and about Black people of the African Diaspora,” is open for prose and poetry submissions for its “Joy”-themed issue until June 30. Per a Twitter update, payment for this issue will be Shorts (<7k [words]): $600, Novelettes (<15k): $1200; Poetry: $100.
  • Mud Season Review, which seeks “deeply human work that will teach us something about life, but also about the craft of writing or visual art; work that is original in its approach and that in some way moves us,” is open for submissions for the rest of the month. (NB: “We may close the reading period early by genre if volume demands.“) Pays: “We pay authors and featured artists $50 for their work. Artists whose images we select to pair with writing receive $15.”
  • Under the Gum Tree, in partnership with Stories On Stage Davis, invites you to submit today to the Northern California Writers Creative Nonfiction Contest. Winners will be featured at Stories on Stage Davis on Saturday, October 10, 2020, have their stories published in the ninth anniversary issue of Under the Gum Tree in October 2020, and win a $100 cash prize.” Deadline: June 30, 2020. 
  • Applications for 2021 Bitch Media Fellowships for Writers are now open. This “series of three-month intensive writing fellowships” aims “to develop, support, and amplify emerging voices in feminist media. All fellows will work under the guidance of Bitch cofounder Andi Zeisler.” Fellows will work in one of these four areas: sexual politics, pop-culture criticism, technology, and global feminism. Each fellowship confers a $2,000 stipend. Apply through June 30.
  • High Country News‘s Maya L. Kapoor “seeks reviews of books from or about the Western U.S, fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, publishing in Oct or later. $400/approx 800 words. I’m especially interested in underrepresented authors and reviewers.” (As always, be sure to read the full thread; h/t @weischoice.)
  • “The Pulitzer Center is seeking to expand our talented editorial team with an experienced, high-energy, creative Senior Editor. You will recruit and review proposals, select the most promising stories, and help take charge of editorial project management for an award-winning, innovative non-profit news organization recognized as a leader in independent funding  of ambitious global reporting.” Apply by June 21. NB: “Please note that due to the COVID-19 crisis, the Pulitzer Center is currently working remotely. Candidates should have stable high-speed internet access and a laptop or desktop computer with a webcam and microphone. We anticipate returning to the office at least part of the work week once Washington, D.C. safely reopens.”
  • In St. Louis, Missouri, “the English Department at Webster University invites applications for a Visiting Assistant Professor of English, specializing in poetry writing, beginning Fall 2020.”
on a tabletop: a keyboard, a mug of coffee, and a wallet with cash, plus a text label announcing Markets and Jobs for Writers

2 thoughts on “Markets & Jobs for Writers

  1. S. Fambul says:

    Thanks for all you do, Erika! I’m sure I’m far from the only one who looks forward to this one constant, your newsletters, when everything else feels so untethered.

    1. Erika Dreifus says:

      That’s very kind–especially since it’s this one constant that’s helping ME maintain any sense of being tethered, myself.

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