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.

• Happy new year! If you haven’t yet caught it, our January 2022 issue of The Practicing Writer 2.0 went out to subscribers last Friday morning. Be sure to check it out soon—it’s packed with 40+ opportunities, one of which, with Tin House Books, closes today! (And, as per this tweet, another, with Shenandoah, may be closing soon.)
• January 10 is the deadline for the next Essay and Poetry Contests from the Bethesda Urban Partnership & Bethesda Magazine. For the adult category, “residents of Washington, D.C. and the select counties of Maryland (Montgomery, Prince George’s, Howard and Frederick) and Virginia (Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William) are eligible.” (There is also a high-school category with different residential criteria.)  Cash prizes and publication.
• In the same general neighborhoods, “poets who live within the D.C. Metro transit area (the Northern Virginia counties Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun and the cities Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church; the District of Columbia; and the Maryland counties Montgomery and Prince George’s) and are over 18-years old are eligible to enter” the Moving Words Adult Competition 2022, which seeks “poems of 10 lines or less that will be displayed inside ART buses between March and October, 2022. This year’s competition will be judged by Arlington poet Courtney LeBlanc! Seven poems will be selected to be printed on colorful placards and displayed prominently on area buses, enlivening the ride for thousands of commuters. Each winner will also receive a $250 honorarium. Winning poems will be posted on www.ArlingtonArts.org and will be archived on the Arlington County CommuterPage.com website.” Deadline for this one is January 15.
• Attention, Dallas-area poets (defined as people with “a residential address Dallas County or…a live or work relationship with the City of Dallas”): “To help encourage greater literacy awareness in the Dallas community, Dallas Public Library, the Office of Arts and Culture and Deep Vellum will launch a Dallas Poet Laureate program, appointing the first Poet Laureate of Dallas in April 2022.” Appointments includes an honorarium ($20,000 over a two-year term) and book publication with Deep Vellum. Deadline: January 15.
• And if you’re among  the “artist/writer residents of New York State and/or Indian Nations therein,” you may want to take note of the January 23 deadline for residency applications at the Constance Saltonstall Foundation. Check out the various residency options (including six-night residencies “specifically for artist/writer parents with at least one dependent child under the age of 18 at home” and note that residency awards also include stipends as indicated.
• In Seattle, Hugo House is hiring a part-time marketing assistant and community support specialist. Pays: $18/hr.
• “The Department of English at Colorado State University invites applications for an entry-level, tenure track Assistant Professor of English specializing in Fiction Writing.”