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.

• November is a fee-free submissions month for all at Split Lip Magazine, “a literary journal that’s totally bonkers-in-love with voice-driven writing, pop culture, and the kind of honesty that gets you right in the kidneys.” Pays (via PayPal): “$75 per author for poems, memoirs, flash, fiction, and art, and $50 for interviews/reviews for our web issues. Payment for print is $5 per page, minimum of $20, plus 2 contributor copies.” Note: “We recommend submitting early in free subs months! Sometimes we have to shut free subs early due to a rad but also overwhelming response.”
• Gateway Literary Press, which “publishes collections of short fiction exclusively, primarily those with a magic realist bent,” is open for submissions during the month of November (from US writers only). “Our press is primarily interested in surrealist, fabulist, and magic realist stories.  This does not typically include hard science fiction, high fantasy, or post-apocalypse and dystopian fiction, but collections of primarily surrealist stories with one or two of those sorts of stories are okay.  Though we are highly interested in work centered on LGBTQ+ characters or written by members of that community, we are happy to read work by and about people from all walks of life.” Pays: “a modest advance plus royalties and author copies.” Another note: “Please be aware we are on a sizable backlog for publication, and any manuscripts selected during this year’s call are likely to be published in Spring 2025.” Also: “Our Submittable account only allows us to receive a certain number of submission each year; if there are no categories open by which to submit, that means we have reached our quota and are closed at this time.
• Submissions are now open for the 2022 Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize. “Since 2015, Cave Canem has collaborated with O, Miami to spotlight exceptional chapbook-length manuscripts by Black poets. The winner of the prize receives a $1000 award, publication of their manuscript by O, Miami Books, 10 copies of the chapbook, a residency in The Writer’s Room at The Betsy Hotel in Miami, and a featured reading at the O, Miami Poetry Festival in April.” Deadline: November 14. Judge: Herman Beavers.
• For its 100th issue, The Rialto plans an issue of “Machine Poems,” to be guest-edited by Ella Frears and Will Harris. Per the guidelines, submissions for this issue are open until November 15 (note that they appear to have a Submittable cap, so if the category has closed, that may be why) . Payment: “£20 per poem on publication.”
• Two contests are currently open for entries at table/FEAST: the Rise & Shine Mini Contest, for women/womxn writers, and the Blossom Contest, for BIPOC writers. The deadline for both contests is December 1. Other specifics (including cash prize amounts) vary and are detailed on the website.
• Now open for applications: the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship, “an $8,000 unrestricted cash grant available to artists living in New York State and/or one of the Indian Nations located therein.” This cycle’s categories include poetry and nonfiction. Apply by January 25.
• In Georgia, the Emory University Creative Writing Fellowship in poetry is open for applications (I meant to post this earlier–applications are due soon: November 11). “Two-year fellowship in poetry in lively undergraduate English/Creative Writing Program, beginning Fall 2023. Load 1-2, all workshops; $45,000 salary, and health benefits. Fellow will give a public reading and have access to the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library, a 75,000-volume rare and modern poetry library housed at Emory. Required: MFA or PhD in the last five years, with undergraduate Creative Writing teaching experience. Desirable: record of periodical publications but no first book yet in print, and secondary interests such as creative nonfiction and working in archives.”
• “The Department of English in the Faculty of Arts at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University) invites applications for a tenure track position at the rank of Assistant Professor, Creative Writing, with genre specialization in Poetry, effective July 1st, 2023, subject to final budgetary approval.”
• In Pennsylvania, “the Department of English at Eastern University invites applications for a tenure-track, Assistant Professor of English, with an emphasis in fiction and creative writing, beginning August, 2023.”
• “The Department of English at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) invites applications for a full-time teaching stream appointment in Creative Writing. The appointment will be at the rank of Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream with an expected start date of July 1, 2023, or shortly thereafter.”