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.

• Haiku contest from @WeiWeiWrites: “Submit one (1) haiku you’ve written about literally anything. I’ll pick one winner on December 30th and Venmo them $170, ten bucks for each syllable.” NB: If you post your haiku on Twitter, most places will consider it to have been “published.” Proceed with that awareness! (Found this one via @AMLeahy.)
• 105: Meadowlark Reader, “a Kansas journal of creative nonfiction,” seeks “true stories about Kansas written by Kansans” (with “Kansans” defined as current Kansas residents or those who have “lived in Kansas at some point’). For the first issue, the theme is “beginnings.” Will consider reprints. Deadline: December 31. Payment: $10 plus one contributor copy.
• The Rialto appears to be (briefly!) open for poetry submissions. Based in the U.K., The Rialto pays “£20 per poem on publication.”
• Online journal Bluestem is open for submissions of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction until January 2. Payment: “$20 per published poem and $75 for prose.”
• Coming SOON: the January 2021 issue of The Practicing Writer 2.0. It will be filled with listings of timely fee-free opportunities for writers that also pay for winning/published work. In the meantime, don’t neglect the many opportunities provided in the December issue that remain open.
• “The Girls Write Now Fellowship Program offers full-time paid fellowships to 3-5 Fellows annually. Fellowships are customized, and typically last up to one year. The program is a competitive opportunity with a leading nonprofit to get on a solid track post-graduation with intensive, on-the-ground training from Girls Write Now. Fellows emerge from the program well positioned for promotion within Girls Write Now or to be competitive candidates in any career.” Note: “Fellows work remotely until staff can safely return to the Girls Write Now midtown Manhattan headquarters.”
• “The Creative Writing Program in UNC’s Department of English and Comparative Literature seeks to bring an emerging talent to campus for a one-year teaching appointment as the Kenan Visiting Writer for the 2021-2022 academic year, beginning July 1, 2021. The Program requests applicants in FICTION . This one-year appointment carries an annual salary of $40,000. At this time, there are no benefits associated with this position. The selected candidate will teach one undergraduate creative writing course per semester, most likely at the introductory level. The selected candidate will also give one public reading and otherwise participate fully in the life of the Creative Writing Program.”
• “The Department of English at the College of the Holy Cross invites applications for a visiting part-time faculty position to teach two creative writing courses during the spring semester to begin in February 2021. We seek a candidate to teach an introduction to narrative writing course and an intermediate nonfiction workshop.”
• “The Department of English at the University of Houston-Downtown (UHD) invites applications for one or more tenure-track or tenured positions at the rank of either Assistant or Associate Professor of English (Creative Writing), to begin August 2021. Preference will be given to candidates with specialization in poetry, with an additional specialization in Latinx literature preferred. In addition to the preferred specializations, secondary sub-specializations in the following areas will be considered: literary translation, literary magazine production, screenwriting, creative nonfiction, fiction, and digital storytelling.”
• “The English department at Tennessee Technological University is seeking a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Poetry Writing to join us as a teacher, scholar, and working poet and writer/artist.”
• “The School of Arts and Humanities at The University of Texas at Dallas invites applications for a tenure-system Assistant Professor of Literature with a specialization in creative writing-fiction.”
• “The Department of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison seeks a fiction writer for a tenure-track position at the Assistant Professor level. Qualified applicants should be writers with excellent records of publication, teaching and expertise in Black/African American fiction.”
• “The Jackson Center for Creative Writing at Hollins University seeks applications for an endowed Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing position to begin July 1, 2021. This is a three-year, visiting, full-time, renewable position….Applicants should be accomplished fiction writers with several published books (at least three). Preference will be given to candidates who also have strong publications in poetry, undergraduate and graduate teaching experience, and a terminal degree in the field.”