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.

• Quick note: The October edition of The Practicing Writer 2.0 will go out Friday (a tad earlier than usual). Which means that this weekend is an especially good time to make sure that you haven’t missed any of the opportunities included in our September issue. Many of those opportunities remain open for submissions!
• Letterpress Broadside Contest: “Denver Quarterly, in collaboration with Gazelle and Goat Studio,  invites local Colorado poets (from Front Range communities only) to submit up to three single-page poems for consideration to be published as single-sheet letterpress broadsides….The winning poets will each receive a $100 honorarium. The selected poets must be available to work in person with Rhiannon Alpers at Gazelle and Goat Studio in Denver, CO during October for an estimated 8 – 10 hours each (during two weekdays between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.) to collaborate on the design and production of their letterpress printed broadsides. The selected poets must also attend a public event (Sunday, November 19 from 1:30 – 3:30 p.m. at the University of Denver) to read their work….Selected broadsides will be printed in individual printings of 60 signed copies each. Poets will each receive 10 copies of their broadside along with the $100 honorarium.” Deadline: September 30.
• Submissions for Propel Magazine Issue Eight (Nov 2023, edited by Harry Josephine Giles, remain open until September 30. This venue welcomes poetry “from poets based in the UK or Ireland who have yet to publish their first full-length poetry collection” and pays £20/contributor.
• From Coffee House Press: “Our next open reading period begins at 9 a.m. CT on October 1, 2023, and will be limited to book-length fiction and nonfiction manuscripts. We will cap the number of submissions we accept at 200, so if you plan to send us work, please do so early.”
• From Baltimore Review: “For the fall 2023 issue, we’re including a section featuring Maryland writers. If you’re currently a Maryland resident and want to be considered for this category, this is the place to submit your poems, short fiction, or creative nonfiction.” Deadline: October 7. Per its website, this journal pays “$50 via Amazon gift certificate or $50 through PayPal, if preferred.”
• From the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP): “AWP seeks screeners for the Award Series. Those selected as screeners will be assigned up to one hundred submissions to review, of which they will select and rank the five best manuscripts. Based on screener feedback, a selection of these manuscripts will be passed along to that year’s judge for the given genre. In exchange for their work, screeners will be paid $700 upon completion of responsibilities. Screeners should be involved in the literary community and have demonstrated expertise in their selected genre. Please note that this application is open year-round, but we will reach out to applicants as needed. If we do not have an opening when you first apply, we may not contact you immediately but instead keep your application on file for a future session.”
• “The Saint Mary’s College of California (SMC) Department of Creative Writing invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Prose. This is a full-time position that will begin July 1st, 2024.” Application deadline: October 20.
• “The Writing Program in the Department of English at the University of Pittsburgh invites applications for a tenured Associate or Full Professor in African American and/or African diasporic poetry [the Toi Derricotte Chair] who will also direct the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics (CAAPP: caapp.pitt.edu) to begin in the fall semester of 2024, pending budgetary approval….In order to receive full consideration, applications must be received by November 1, 2023.”
• At Emerson College in Boston, “the Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing invites applications for an open rank tenure-line position in Creative Writing” (multi-genre). “Review of applications will begin on November 1, 2023, and priority will be given to applications submitted prior to that date..”
• Also at Emerson College in Boston, “the Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Creative Writing” (poetry). “Review of applications will begin on November 8, 2023, and priority will be given to applications submitted prior to that date.”
• In Florida, “the Department of English and Writing within the College of Arts and Letters at The University of Tampa seeks an outstanding writer and teacher of creative nonfiction for a tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor, beginning in August 2024.” The same institution “seeks an outstanding writer and teacher of poetry for a tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor, beginning in August 2024.”
• “The Creative Writing Program of the Department of English and Comparative Literature (ECL) at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill invites applications for a full-time, tenure-line Assistant Professor of Poetry, to begin in Fall 2024.”