Wednesday’s Work-in-Progress: Boston-bound!

by Erika Dreifus on
4

muse10Boston’s amazing Grub Street has opened registration for its always-fabulous annual conference. This year, The Muse and The Marketplace will take place May 3-5th, 2013, in Beantown’s Park Plaza Hotel.

I’ll be there. How about you?

On Sunday afternoon, I’ll be moderating a session titled “Grubbie Guide to Writing Contests, Conferences, and Residencies.” I know that we’ll all learn a lot from Sheri Joseph (it would be easier to name the residencies she hasn’t won than those she has) and Douglas Trevor, whose honors include the Iowa Short Fiction Award (which resulted in the publication of his collection The Thin Tear in the Fabric of Space). It’s going to be a great session (#8K, if you want a registration shortcut).

I’m so looking forward to this particular trip. This conference is always terrific; I always love returning to Boston; and, above all, it will be springtime!

Monday Markets for Writers

by Erika Dreifus on
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Monday brings the weekly batch of no-fee competitions/contests, paying submission calls, and jobs for those of us who write (especially those of us who write fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction).

  • The February issue of The Practicing Writer went out to subscribers late last week. Plenty of no-fee contests and paying calls included there.
  • “The Cheryl Strayed/VIDA Memoir Scholarship will provide for one recipient the full registration fee for the Wild Mountain Memoir Retreat, March 15-17th 2013. The scholarship, provided by an anonymous donor, will be awarded to a female writer of demonstrated financial need and literary promise.” Deadline is February 14, 2013. No application fee.
  • Those of you in the NYC area: Gigi Rosenberg will be leading a free session on “Grantwriting for Artists: Perfecting Your Proposal,” on the afternoon of Thursday, February 14.
  • Canada-based Arc Poetry Magazine “is look­ing for sub­mis­sions of poetry—or prose about poetry—that takes the North as its pole star. We are look­ing for writ­ing from the North and/or about the North in its many guises. We don’t take the North as a given and encour­age sub­mis­sions that engage with and chal­lenge ideas and his­tor­ies of the North. We encour­age sub­mis­sions of diverse North­ern voices, poetry styles, and lan­guages (sub­mis­sions in Eng­lish, French, Inuit lan­guages, Dené, and Cree are wel­come; how­ever, sub­mis­sions in lan­guages other than Eng­lish should be accom­pan­ied by author-approved translations).” Check the site for more guidelines and pay rates.
  • Westminster College [Utah] invites applications for an assistant professor in Fiction Writing, the New York Public Library is looking for a Production Assistant to join its Live from the NYPL series, and The University of Baltimore’s School of Communications Design seeks a published fiction or literary non-fiction writer for a half-time contractual position.

    • Friday Finds for Writers

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    Treasure ChestWriting-related resources, news, and reflections to read over the weekend.

  • Check out Chuck Sambuchino’s super list of 11 ways to support an author’s new book. And send it to all of the family members and friends who want to help you and your book(s)! (via Literary Citizenship)
  • “I became a writer when I was hit on the head with a rock.” So begins Karen E. Bender’s essay for the latest issue of The New York Times Book Review. But, as Bender notes, “Rocks can come from anywhere. You can write about the terrible event happening around the corner or about ones occurring far away in the world. You can take revenge; you can write about people you know who have been wronged; you can write about all the rocks careening through history….Your imagination takes any rock and throws it any way it wants.”
  • Helpful hints for writers on crafting query letters to agents.
  • More hard-hitting advice for freelancers (especially would-be freelancers), courtesy of Carol Tice.
  • Important words of wisdom/“gentle reminders about writing” from Roxane Gay. Example: “Getting your name out there is only as useful as the writing you’re associating with your name.”
  • If you’re a reviewer seeking not-yet-published titles for possible review, you’ll want to check out the Publishers Weekly/Edelweiss Spring Announcements database.
  • Finally, in case you missed it, over on my other blog I’ve offered some advice on promoting books with Jewish themes/subjects.

    • Have a great weekend, everyone. See you back here on Monday!

    Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

    by Erika Dreifus on
    2

    Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
    Every Friday morning My Machberet presents an assortment of Jewish news, primarily of the literary variety, from around the Web.

  • Listen to this radio interview with Nora Gold, all about JewishFiction.net, which Gold edits.
  • And speaking of Jewish fiction: Nicole Krauss’s “Zusya on the Roof” appears this week in The New Yorker.
  • David Curzon’s appreciation of poet Harvey Shapiro (1924-2013), courtesy of Jewish Ideas Daily.
  • Call for submissions: “The Israel Association of Writers in English (IAWE) is planning arc-23. The theme of this issue is: ‘beyond boundaries.’ We are looking for work that implicitly or explicitly explores the experience of transcending a boundary, for example personally, politically, poetically, or linguistically. Boundaries can be literal or symbolic. Creative interpretations of this topic are welcome.” NB: “Any resident of Israel, past or present, can submit original material. The material should be in English. Translations of Israeli authors from Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, etc. are welcome, provided that the original’s copyright holder has consented.” Deadline: June 30, 2013.
  • Mazel tov to the winner and honorable mention awardees for this year’s American Library Association Sophie Brody Medal, which “encourages and recognizes outstanding achievement in Jewish literature. The 2013 winning title is The Aleppo Codex: A True Story of Obsession, Faith, and the Pursuit of an Ancient Bible by Matti Friedman. Honorable mentions: I Am Forbidden by Anouk Markovits, Nathan Englander’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, and The Lawgiver by Herman Wouk.
  • And you’ve still got some time to enter this giveaway. Two copies of Quiet Americans (which received a Sophie Brody Medal Honorable Mention last year) will be awarded!

    • Shabbat shalom!

    Wednesday’s Work-in-Progress: Five Ways to Finish Applications for Grants, Fellowships, and Residencies

    by Erika Dreifus on
    3

    Raise your hand out there if you have recently applied for a grant, fellowship, residency, or similar competitive opportunity. Raise two hands if you’ve applied for multiple opportunities.

    I’ve recently emerged from a series of such applications. Six applications, to be exact. I’ve already heard good news about one of them – a tuition-free seminar that begins imminently. And I’ve lost out on another (a fact I discovered only by checking the program website and finding the winners’ names posted there). But I’m waiting to hear from the others.

    Part of me thinks that I could have/should have completed even *more* applications. And part of me wonders how I managed to finish the six that have been safely submitted.

    It’s the latter part that inspires this post, because as I prepared each of my recent applications, I realized that I was benefiting from a series of lessons learned: (more…)