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.

  • “The annual NC State Fiction Contest is a free literary competition open to all North Carolina residents. Drawing more than 300 entrants last year, it’s one of the largest free-to-enter writing contests in the South. This year’s guest judge is, Etaf Rum, author of the much-praised and New York Times best-selling debut novel,  A Woman Is No Man.” Cash prizes to the winner in fiction ($500 for a story no longer than 5,000 words); “shorter fiction” ($250 for a story no more than 1200 words); and to the author of the best story by an undergraduate ($100). Deadline: October 13, 2020 (postmarked; no emailed entries). Be sure to check the eligibility guidelines (this is not a contest for fiction writers who have published books of fiction).
  • Oregon Literary Fellowships are intended to help Oregon writers initiate, develop, or complete literary projects in poetry, fiction, literary nonfiction, drama (including scripts for television and film), and young readers literature.” NB: “All applicants for the Oregon Literary Career Fellowship of $10,000 will automatically be considered for an Oregon Literary Fellowship of $3,500. Applicants can only apply in one genre.” Writers may also indicate that they wish to be considered for a Writers of Color Fellowship, Women Writers Fellowship, and/or Swails/Monroe Fiction Fellowship.” Deadline: October 30, 2020.
  • Attention, NYC writers: “Café Royal Cultural Foundation NYC will award a publishing grant to authors of fiction/creative non-fiction, poetry and playwriting.” Grant amount may not exceed $10,000. Deadline: November 16, 2020 (9am). (Thanks to the Minorities in Publishing newsletter for the lead on this one.)
  • From SLICE magazine: “Our reading period is currently open and runs from October 1 – December 1, 2020. We will be considering work for Issue 26: Levity, which will be released fall 2021. We look for work that plays off the theme, particularly in unexpected ways.” Payment: “We offer contributors $400 for long stories and essays, $150 for flash fiction, and $100 for poems.”
  • From The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts: “Topical Thursdays.” Description: “2020 has forced us to reevaluate ourselves, our relationships, our world views; in short, everything. The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts is looking for fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry about topical issues.  We’d like to read stories that highlight the rapidly changing world; it can be forefront or background if it is present in the submission.” Pays: $50. Note that “for fiction and creative nonfiction, the word count limit is 1000 words; for poetry, please submit no more than 30 lines” and that “for the current reading period, we are looking for work from writers previously unpublished” by this journal/its press. Deadline: December 15, 2020
  • ICYMI: The October edition of The Practicing Writer 2.0 went out to subscribers midweek last week. It contains more than two dozen additional competitions/submission opportunities, all of them both fee-free and paying, and none of them limited to writers within a single city/state/province.
  • “The Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University is seeking a Communications Coordinator to market and promote events and programs through newsletters and social media, design graphics, manage the website, and more. Applicants should have a Bachelor’s degree in a related field and one year of related experience. Experience with marketing, websites, Adobe suite, and local literary and arts communities is preferred. Salary range $32,976 – $48,000 DOE.” (Position closes October 19.)
  • October 19 is also the closing date if you want to submit a proposal to teach for the Loft Literary Center’s Winter/Spring session. Though based in Minneapolis, “in response to the Covid-19 Pandemic the Loft will continue to deliver all classes virtually through May 31, 2021.”
  • “The English Department at Colorado College invites applications for a full-time tenure-track Assistant Professor with expertise in Creative Writing (Nonfiction) to begin in the fall of 2021. Applicants should be prepared to teach Introduction to Creative Writing (a multi-genre class), Beginning Creative Nonfiction Writing, and Senior Project/Workshop courses for students writing Creative Nonfiction theses.”
  • Alabama’s Auburn University at Montgomery “invites applications for a full-time, tenure-track position for an Assistant Professor of English in Creative Writing, to begin Fall 2021. We are seeking a candidate who is actively publishing in the areas of fiction and/or new media (digital narrative, game narrative). The successful candidate will offer courses in these areas, as well as our introductory course in creative writing. The ability to teach other genres depending on qualifications is also desirable. Candidates writing about any topic of contemporary significance are encouraged to apply, particularly those whose work engages with pressing issues related to racial, cultural, sexual, gendered, economic, or religious difference. The hire will serve as Coordinator of Creative Writing: they will be given the opportunity to take the lead in growing our Creative Writing Program, to develop a visiting writers series, and to revive THAT Literary Review. The faculty member will be expected to teach core literature surveys, so an ideal candidate will have graduate preparation in literary studies supplementing their creative specialization.”
  • In Tennessee, Lincoln Memorial University is advertising for an Assistant Professor. “This position is responsible mainly for creative writing, poetry, creative fiction, creative non-fiction and other literary and writing components of a liberal arts education.”
  • “Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina invites distinguished writers to apply for a non-renewable one-semester professorship, the McGee Professor of Writing, for an appointment for the spring semester 2022; genre open.”
on a tabletop: a keyboard, a mug of coffee, and a wallet with cash, plus a text label announcing Markets and Jobs for Writers