Erika Dreifus

My heart is still in the East. (For more about that, please check the My Machberet blog.) This may not be as comprehensive or detailed a Monday post as you’ve come to expect on Practicing Writing—you’ll need to check some deadlines and salary info on your own. But it’s what I can do at the moment.

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 in-person and hybrid 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.

• Riddlebird is open for literary fiction and personal essays until October 26 (but they do have a cap, so consider acting fast if you may be interested in sending them something). Pays: $100.
• Honoring the memory Howerton Gowen, Shenandoah’s Graybeal-Gowen Prize for Virginia Poets opened for submissions yesterday (and will remain open until October 31). “Winners will be chosen by guest judge Anna Maria Hong. All submissions will be considered for publication. Poets living in or born in Virginia, as well as those who have lived in Virginia for two or more years in the past, are eligible. Submit as many as three poems, each no longer than 50 lines, along with brief biographical note, which should confirm the basis for eligibility as a Virginian. One poem will be selected to receive the $1000 prize and will be published in Shenandoah.”
• I’m unable to filter through The Sub Club Newsletter‘s list of “63 Newly Opened Submission Calls (23 That Pay)” to limit results to those that are both fee-free & paying, but there are several such opportunities on the list, and the fee/payment information on both counts is right there up front for you to note on your own.
• This mid-month moment is a good time to recall that plenty of the opportunities posted in the October issue of The Practicing Writer 2.0 remain open through the end of the month (and in a number of cases, even beyond).
• Book of the Month is “looking for a highly-motivated, hard-working, entrepreneurial, organized person to help launch a new literary magazine.” This is an on-site position in New York. (Hat tip: @job_writers.)
• “The Stadler Center for Poetry & Literary Arts at Bucknell University seeks a Publicity & Outreach Manager (POM). The Stadler Center for Poetry & Literary Arts is a nationally-oriented literary arts center based at Bucknell University in the Susquehanna Valley of Central Pennsylvania.”
• At the University of Montana, “the English Department invites applications for a Program Coordinator II to oversee services, activities, and offerings of the Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Creative Writing.”
• “The University of California, Davis, Department of English invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor or tenured Associate Professor of Creative Writing – Poetry position.”
• “The University of Pittsburgh English Department invites applications for the position of Teaching Professor in Nonfiction. This is a 50% effort (part-time) position that is renewable for a term of 5 years for the duration of one’s career. The position will begin in September. 1, 2024.”
• In North Carolina, Catawba College (“Catawba”) “invites applications for a full-time, tenure-track position in English at the rank of Assistant Professor, to begin in August 2024. We seek a candidate to teach and develop courses in the Creative Writing concentration (fiction and non-fiction). Successful applicants will also teach first-year writing courses and, ideally, classes in early British literature. A Ph.D. at the time of appointment is preferred; however, ABD candidates at the later dissertation stages will also be considered.”
• Also in North Carolina, Elon University “invites applications for a tenure-track writer of creative nonfiction, at the assistant professor level, beginning mid-August 2024. Requirements: MFA or higher, an active record of publication in top-tier journals and/or presses, and a history of innovation and excellence in undergraduate teaching. We especially seek candidates with a teaching history that demonstrates explicit engagement with, and commitment to, understanding experiences shaped by race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality, dis/ability, religion, and/or class.”
• And still another in North Carolina: The Department of English at East Carolina University “seeks applicants for a position in Fiction Writing at the Assistant Professor rank to begin in August 2024.”
• The MFA in Creative Writing at Antioch University “welcomes applications for Core Faculty in Poetry from poets at all career stages, with a record of national and/or international publications, including at least one book from a reputable press. We are particularly interested in poets who have demonstrated through their writing and professional practice a commitment to the role of the arts in social change.” NB: “This position is remote with the understanding that the faculty member is required to be on campus in Los Angeles during the ten-day twice-yearly residencies in June and December. Additional occasional travel to conferences and other professional events representing the Antioch MFA may be required.”
• At Michigan State University, the Department of English “invites applications for the Audrey and John Leslie Endowed Chair in North American Indian Literary Studies with a focus on any genre of Creative Writing, including poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, and cross-genre practices. The express purpose of the Audrey and John Leslie Endowment in Literary Studies is to promote the transformative potential of literature, and the English Department is particularly interested in candidates whose creative practice, scholarship, and/or editing highlights the political and cultural work that literature accomplishes.”