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.

• From Longreads: “CALL FOR PITCHES: Longreads wants your words! We take essay submissions, feature pitches, reading list ideas, and other queries, and we pay competitive rates for accepted work.”
• From Catapult EiC Tajia Isen: “I’m a little short on pop-culture pitches; send me something by Tuesday, 10/11? Also open to reading more I GIVE UP pitches.” ED note: According to the document linked in the tweet, “rates start at $200, vary with length and the degree of research proposed, and are always negotiable.” Also, you can learn more about the “I Give Up” series here.
• On Twitter, TC Jewfolk has posted another call for submissions. (Since I don’t think the accompanying image has alt text, I’ll mention that they seem to be interested at the moment in the following topics: Family, Ghost Stories, Sukkot, Tikkun Olam, Shabbat Diaries, Accessibility in Jewish Spaces, Recipes and Take-Out Reviews, and Fall Colors.) Pays: “$50-100 per piece.”
• “The annual NC State Fiction Contest is a free literary competition open to all North Carolina residents” (with exceptions noted in the guidelines). A $500 prize will be awarded for an unpublished story no longer than 5,000 words; a $250 prize will be awarded for an unpublished story no longer than 1,200 words. Judge: SA Cosby. Postmark deadline: October 14.
• Residency opportunity for U.S. and international writers. The Colorado-based Green Box Artist in Residence program “offers artists of national and international stature, from diverse disciplines, and at any stage in their career the opportunity to create new works while living in and engaging with the community of Green Mountain Falls and greater Pikes Peak region.” Note: “Resident artists will be paid a stipend that will cover living expenses as well as travel and ground transportation. Living in Green Mountain Falls requires a vehicle, which an artist may choose to rent or bring their own.” The stipend for an individual artist is $9,000 for the month-long residency; note amounts for duos/groups in the application info. Deadline: October 14. (Hat tip: Kentucky Foundation for Women newsletter.)
• Wandering Waves Press has issued a call for submissions for Tumbled Tales 1: Stories that Upend Genre Conventions, “an anthology of unconventional stories,” which will close October 15. “We’re looking for genre authors who cross boundaries. Authors whose stories twist the tropes to showcase in a cross-genre anthology of stories that entertain, but read fresh and new. Send us the story that you can’t classify: a story that can’t be pigeon-holed into a single subgenre, or that pushes against your genre’s boundaries. We want to showcase authors who write uncommon fiction.” (Sample ideas are included in the guidelines. Payment: $25/accepted story.
• “The Poet-in-Residence at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a one-year position created in collaboration with the Academy of American Poets that specifically focuses on public engagement. The Poet-in-Residence will work together with the Guggenheim Education team to design and produce a suite of poetry-related programs for adult, teen, and intergenerational audiences to take place over the 2023 calendar year…..Following initial selection and planning meetings in late 2022, the residency programs will run through December 2023. The Poet-in-Residence receives a $20,000 honorarium from the Guggenheim Museum, and one or more features in the Academy of American Poets’s publications.” Be sure to consult the eligibility guidelines, including but not limited being “currently authorized to work in the U.S. for any employer” and “able to commute to the  Guggenheim Museum in New York City throughout the residency and in compliance with the Guggenheim’s health and safety protocols and applicable law in connection with COVID-19.” Deadline: October 16.
• The Evaristo Prize for African Poetry is an annual prize of USD $1,500 awarded to ten poems written by an African poet. Established first as the Brunel International African Poetry Prize  (BIAPP) in 2012 by British writer Bernardine Evaristo, who founded and  managed the prize for ten years, the Evaristo Prize was renamed and  passed on to be managed by the African Poetry Book Fund in 2022.” Consult guidelines for detailed eligibility criteria. Deadline: November 1. Judges: “In 2022-2023, the judging panel includes Gabeba Baderoon (Chair), Tjawangwa Dema, and Tsitsi Jaji.”
• Word West Press is open for book-manuscript submissions until November 1. “We like literary work that’s surprising, resonant, sad, funny, surreal—things that make us look at the world in a new way. in the words of joy williams, ‘a clean clear surface with much disturbance below.'” Note that “while we are certainly interested in writing coming out of the west, especially from perspectives not as often represented, we are not limited in any way to stories or authors specifically from the western usa.” They offer “an advance upon acceptance, 15% royalties on print sales, and 35% on ebook sales, paid out quarterly.”
• “The American Prison Writing Archive is the first fully searchable digital archive of non-fiction essays and poetry by incarcerated people writing about their experience inside U.S. prisons and jails today. The APWA welcomes applications from conscientious and compassionate applicants for a full-time, in-person Research Assistant position. This is a three year, grant-funded position. Working with a hybrid (remote/in-person) team including the APWA Program Coordinator, APWA Associate Manager, Co-Directors Doran Larson and Vesla Weaver, and Sheridan Libraries staff, the Research Assistant will serve as a crucial on-site team member for the Archive at its new institutional home at Johns Hopkins University.” Compensation: “$16.75 – $23.00/hr (Commensurate with experience).”
• In Massachusetts, “Lesley University seeks Adjunct Lecturers in the Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences MFA Program in Creative Writing to teach seminars at the Spring 2023 residency for the first week, then remote thereafter as well as courses in Creative Writing Mentorship, Craft & Reflection Mentorship and in Poetry, Stage & Screen, and Nonfiction.
• Also in Massachusetts, “Phillips Academy Andover seeks a Writer-in-Residence to fill the Roger F. Murray Chair in Creative Writing. This two-year appointment will begin in September of 2023 with the possibility of renewal for up to two more years. It is a housed faculty position. Responsibilities include teaching two senior seminar classes in creative writing per term: one in poetry and one in fiction. We seek dynamic candidates who will be active participants in our academic and residential programs.”
• In Ohio, Xavier University’s English Department “seeks a tenure-track Assistant Professor of English specializing in Creative Writing with a focus on Fiction to fill a position beginning Fall 2023.
• “The Department of English at the University of Kansas invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professorship in Creative Writing with a specialization in BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) speculative fiction, to begin August 2023.”
• “The Department of English and Bluegrass Writers Studio Low-Res MFA at Eastern Kentucky University invite applications for a tenure-track, Assistant Professor with expertise in Creative Nonfiction and a secondary expertise in one or more of the following areas: fiction, playwriting, screenwriting, hybrid forms, and/or digital writing. The successful candidate will be an emerging writer with one book with a reputable press or significant publications in literary journals and/or magazines. We are especially interested in applicants whose work addresses pressing topics: issues of racial, cultural, sexual, gendered, economic difference, and/or under-represented communities. Additionally, evidence of excellence in teaching with the ability to teach multiple genres is strongly desired.”
• In California, “the Department of English and Comparative Literature at San José State University seeks qualified candidates for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position teaching Nonfiction creative writing, with the potential to teach Digital humanities and other forms of Creative Writing to a diverse student body at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.”
• The University of North Texas is advertising for an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing (Poetry).
• In Virginia, Emory and Henry College is “seeking a tenure-track Assistant Professor to start in August 2023. Our ideal candidate will be a specialist in the American South with expertise in teaching poetry (either as a poet or scholar). We are especially interested in applicants whose work focuses on any of the following traditions: Appalachian/Affrilachian/Gullah, Native/Indigenous American, Latinx, Asian American, or African American Literature.”