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.

• “Harbor Review publishes two issues a year. We accept original, previously unpublished submissions of poetry and visual art. We place poems in conversation with visual art. This process can take some time. We try to respond to every submission in six months. We do accept simultaneous submissions, but please notify us immediately if the work is accepted elsewhere so we can remove it from consideration.” They’re accepting submissions for their winter issue until October 31. Payment: “We pay poets $10 per published poem upon release of the issue in which the poem appears.”
• Canada-based Room is also open for submissions, of “unpublished writing on any theme,” until October 31. “Room publishes fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and art by women (cisgender and transgender), transgender men, Two-Spirit and nonbinary people. We specifically encourage writers with overlapping under-represented identities to submit their work.” Pays: “All contributors will be paid upon publication: $50 CAD for one page, $60 for two pages, $90 for three pages, $120 for four pages, $150 for five or more pages.”
• “Autumn is in the air, which means Hawkeye football, fall foliage, pumpkin spice, and so much more. Now is the time for you to channel your creativity during the University of Iowa Alumni and Friends Hawkeye Haiku Contest, which is open to alumni, faculty and staff, students, and friends of any age.” Prize: “The winner of the adult category will receive a $20 Amazon gift card and two books written by [Robert Hass], who has been a frequent visiting professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and was the 2018 Truman Capote Award winner.” Deadline: November 18 (5pm, CST).
• Until December 5, Somewhere We Are Human: An Anthology on Migration, Survival, and New Beginnings, edited by Reyna Grande and Sonia Guiñansaca, seeks “bold personal non-fiction essays and poems from migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and displaced people with experience in the United States. We are especially interested in essays and poems from those in the midwest and Border towns. We are centering and giving priority to essays and poems from Indigenous migrants, Black migrants, Asian Pacific Islanders, and Arab communities.” For this anthology, which will be published by HarperCollins in English and Spanish, “contributors will be compensated (a min. of $800).”
• Seattle Story Project, featuring “bold first-person reflections on life and resilience” for NPR member station KUOW, “is seeking stories that offer an unflinching glimpse into what it means to be human. Writers don’t have to be currently based in Seattle, but you should be linked to our Emerald City or the surrounding Puget Sound region in some meaningful way. We are especially interested in hearing from writers whose voices are underrepresented in the media such as people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, immigrants, people living with disabilities, incarcerated individuals, and writers who have experienced or are experiencing homelessness.” NB: They seek true, first-person essays that run 800-1200 words, and there’s no deadline indicated. Payment: “$450 for previously unpublished work. $200 for stories that have been posted elsewhere.”
• Thread from @CamilleBromley: “Call for pitches! @believermag is looking for feature reporting that illuminates economic insecurity in the US. More details below; my DMs are open for questions.” NB: “We are a literary magazine, so we look for stories with narrative, character, and voice.” No deadline. Pay rate: $1/word.
• “Publishers Weekly, the international news platform of the book publishing industry, is looking for experienced freelance book reviewers who can comfortably handle books” in a number of subject areas, including memoir and poetry. ” NB: “Please note that during the Covid-19 pandemic, all reviews are done using e-galleys. PW pays a modest honorarium per review.”
• By the time next Monday’s Markets and Jobs post appears, the November issue of The Practicing Writer 2.0 will have gone out to subscribers. It’s never too late to subscribe to this free newsletter! Nor is it too late to make use of the opportunities listed in the October issue.
• In Virginia, “the George Mason University Department of English invites applications for a nine-month, tenure track Assistant Professor Position in Fiction. We encourage applicants whose work explicitly engages pressing issues of racial, cultural, sexual, gendered, economic, or religious difference including African American, Latinx, Native American, Asian American, immigrant, and other marginalized voices.”
• “The Department of English and the Creative Writing Program at Stanford University are conducting a search for a poet to be appointed at the tenured level. The successful candidate will have a record of distinguished publication, including at least three books of poetry.”
• “The Department of English at the University of California, Irvine, is conducting a search for an associate professor to join the faculty of UC Irvine’s distinctive MFA Programs in Writing. Candidate must have at least one published collection of poems.”
• “The University of Connecticut is pleased to invite applications for a faculty position in the Department of English at the tenure-track rank of Assistant Professor….We invite applications from scholars and writers with expertise in a number of possible fields, such as ecocriticism, nature writing, and environmental justice; creative non-fiction; editing and publishing; and multi-modal writing.”
• In Chicago, “Malcolm X College is currently seeking part-time Faculty to teach in our English Program.”