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.

• Reminder: The March issue of The Practicing Writer 2.0 went out to subscribers last Tuesday, and it’s packed with dozens fee-free and paying opportunities.
• From Cincinnati Review: “POP-UP SUBMISSION ANNOUNCEMENT: Until March 7, we are accepting LNF submissions for our print magazine. We look forward to hearing from you, and good luck!” Guidelines here. Pays: $25/page.
• March 9 is the deadline to apply for the Tulsa Artist Fellowship’s 2024-2026 award. Fellows receive “$150,000 over three award years in addition to a $12,000 yearly housing stipend, $1,200 yearly health stipend, $1,200 yearly studio assistant stipend, $1,500 relocation stipend, fully-subsidized studio spaces, and access to shared art-making facilities. Our program is integrated into a vibrant cultural district with galleries and performance venues, green space, independent retailers, and restaurants.”
• “Meanjin poetry submissions are currently open,” and will remain so until March 15. Note: “Meanjin only considers work by Australian writers and artists. (We don’t define ‘Australian’ formally as citizenship.) All work and translation published online or in print is paid on publication.” Per this page, payment appears to be $250/poem, presumably in Australian dollars.
• Also open until March 15: entries for the Waterman Fund Essay Contest for Emerging Writers: “Writers who have not published a book-length work of fiction or narrative nonfiction on topics of wilderness, wildness, or the ethics and ecology of environmental issues are eligible. The Waterman Fund provides generous prize money of $1,500 and $500 for the first- and second-place essayists.” This year, the topic is climate change. “We welcome personal, scientific, adventure, or memoir essays; fiction, poetry, or songs are not eligible for this contest.” Jointly administered with Appalachia, “the mountaineering and conservation journal published by the Appalachian Mountain Club.”
• BIPOC writers only may apply fee-free for the Another Chicago Magazine (ACM) Residency, “a free multi-week [two or three-week] residency in Belfast, Maine, which is on the coast, about two hours north of Portland and one hour southeast of Bangor.” The resident “will be a nonfiction writer whose work brings uncommon insight, incisive language, and strong storytelling to the subject at hand, which could be anything that blends the political and personal, or summons justice, or dives deep into individual experience, but always with larger contexts in mind. As for tone, ACM continues to encourage play and rage and courage.” Final judge for this opportunity is S.L. Wisenberg. Note that while the application deadline is March 17, “the portal closes at 120 applicants.” The residency may take place June – July or October 15 – December 31.
• For the remainder of March, UK-based Cipher Press is open for “book-length adult fiction and creative non-fiction submissions from both agented and unagented authors who identify as LGBTQI+. We’re open to any genre and style, as long as the work fits somewhere within the literary bracket and reflects some aspect of the queer and/or trans experience.” (Per this Twitter exchange, I’ve confirmed that they pay an advance and royalties and that they’re open to international submissions; hat tip to Sian Meades-Williams for the lead.)
• April 1 is the deadline for The Hurston/Wright Crossover Award, sponsored by ESPN’s Andscape, which “honors probing, provocative, and original new voices in literary nonfiction. Named after the most common dribbling move in basketball, the Crossover Award, aims to highlight an unconventional winner who writes across genres and can effectively crossover between writing styles and techniques. The name also speaks to the potential of the award winner to transition from obscurity to the spotlight. This award will celebrate one writer who contributes a unique perspective to the literary nonfiction landscape.” Entrants must be “unpublished, Black writers who are 18 years and older.” The prize includes $2000 to one recipient; tuition-free attendance of a 2023 Hurston/Wright summer writer’s workshop; and a complimentary ticket to the annual Legacy Awards Ceremony in October 2023. (Note that April 1 is also the deadline for the Hurston/Wright Awards for College Writers, for “emerging Black artists in fiction and poetry enrolled full-time in an undergraduate or graduate school program anywhere in the United States.” Winners here “will be invited to attend a summer workshop of their choice for free, as well as attend the Legacy Award ceremony that is hosted in October in Washington, DC.”
• April 1 is also the deadline for applications for the Maryland-based Annmarie Sculpture Garden Community Arts residency program. “Artists will be expected to actively engage the public in an exciting and compelling project. Preference will be given to projects that use some or all recycled or repurposed materials. Artist is expected to work at least 24 hours a week directly with visitors. This residency typically runs June-August.” In addition to (optional) housing, the residency provides “a modest stipend or honorarium — typically $225 per week for the longer summer residency” and “a modest project budget, typically $500-2000, depending on the project.”
• The Jewish Women’s Archive (JWA) seeks (with a “strong preference for Boston-based applicants) a full-time Manager of the Rising Voices Fellowship, “a ten-month program for young Jewish women and nonbinary individuals in 10th-12th grades who have a passion for writing, and a strong interest in feminism, Judaism, and social justice.” Salary: $50,000-$55,000.
• “The English Program of the University of the District of Columbia seeks applications for a full-time tenure-track position in Creative Writing at the level of assistant or associate professor. The faculty member will teach Creative Writing courses at the beginning and advanced levels, utilizing both workshop and lecture strategies in face-to-face, online, and hybrid formats.” Note: “Significant publication track record, including free-lance creative non-fiction work, is preferred.”
• “The English/Writing program at Eastern Oregon University (EOU) invites applications for an Assistant Professor in English/Writing, focusing in particular on creative writing.”
• New Mexico Highlands University invites applications “for a nine-month, tenure-track faculty position with a contract starting August 2023 at the main campus location in Las Vegas, New Mexico or remotely via NMHU Online, depending on negotiations with the selected candidate….Teaching responsibilities (24 credit hours annually) include undergraduate and graduate creative writing (poetry), literary publishing, technical writing, freshman composition, and other courses as assigned by the department.”
• “The English Department at Eastern Illinois University invites applications for a full-time lecturer in creative writing. Open genre, with the ability to teach in at least two genres required. (The department offers courses at both the undergraduate and MA level in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and playwriting/screenwriting.) Candidates with secondary areas of specialization in any area of English studies are welcome.”
• In Florida, “the Department of English and Writing within the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Tampa invites applications for a full-time Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing for a one-year, non-tenure track position.” They seek “a candidate who can teach in our Academic Writing program and in one or more areas of creative writing, such as (but not limited to) playwriting, genre writing, magazine writing, graphic novel and memoir writing, writing for games, hybrid writing, as well as traditional forms of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.”
• “The Creative Writing Program in the Department of English at the University of Minnesota (Twin Cities campus) invites applications for the Edelstein-Keller Writer in Residence Fellowship. This fellowship is a two-year position for 2023-2025.” Note that requirements include “a minimum of one volume of work published by a national press in literary nonfiction (a book under contract is acceptable, provided the publication date is prior to the position start date)”