Monday Morning Markets/Jobs/Opportunities

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled
  • Big news from Milkweed Editions about a new poetry prize: “The Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry is an annual regional prize, presented in partnership by Milkweed Editions and the Lindquist & Vennum Foundation. Established in 2011 with the aim of supporting outstanding Midwestern poets and bringing their work to a national stage, the prize will award $10,000 as well as a contract for publication to the author of the winning manuscript. The winner will be selected from among five finalists by an independent judge.” NB: “Submissions for this regional prize will be accepted only from poets currently residing in the Upper Midwestern United States, defined as: North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin.” No entry fee indicated. Submissions for the 2012 prize must be received by January 31, 2012. (via Poets & Writers)
  • The latest Ploughshares newsletter contains this reminder: “We are on the hunt for Patricia Hampl’s Fall 2012 all-nonfiction issue. Submit online or via regular mail. The regular reading period ends on January 15th, so please polish and send in those essays soon.” NB: If you submit online and you don’t subscribe to the journal, you must pay a fee. No fee for postal submissions. Ploughshares pays “upon publication: $25/printed page, $50 minimum per title, $250 maximum per author, with two copies of the issue and a one-year subscription.”
  • “The African American National Biography continues to look for writers for entries to appear in regular updates to its online edition. All entries are assigned at 500 or 750 words and are paid at an honorarium of 10 cents a word. The AANB, a joint project of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University and Oxford University Press, was published in an eight-volume print edition of 4081 entries in January 2008, under the editorship of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham. It is now published online, with occasional (though infrequent) print spin-offs. We look to include not only great and famous African Americans, but a selection that will be representative of a diverse range of African Americans in all fields, from all periods of North American history, and from all stations of life: activists, writers and journalists, slaves, sharecroppers, domestic workers, musicians, performers, singers, politicians, government workers, judges, lawyers, ministers, preachers and other religious workers, educators, athletes, sports figures, actors, directors, filmmakers, doctors, nurses, artists, photographers, business people, entrepreneurs, military personnel, scientists, philanthropists, dancers, frontiersmen and women, cowboys, legendary figures, inventors, aviators, explorers, astronauts, and more.”
  • Via @GinaFrangello: “Publicists, editors, agents, writers: The Nervous Breakdown Fiction Section is booking Featured authors with books released Jan, Feb, March.” NB: That’s all I know about this opportunity, but I suggest that anyone interested check out The Nervous Breakdown and its guidelines.
  • If you’re a short-story writer AND a citizen of a Commonwealth country, you may want to consider entering the Commonwealth Short Story Prize competition, “awarded for the best piece of unpublished short fiction (2000-5000 words). Overall and regional cash prizes. No entry fee indicated. Deadline: November 30, 2011.
  • Attention, undergraduates (enrolled full-time in U.S. and Canadian colleges). The Lyric’s College Poetry Contest will award $500 (first prize), $100 (second prize), and publication for original, unpublished poems, “39 lines or less, written in English in traditional forms, preferable with regular scansion and rhyme.” Submission deadline: December 1, 2011. No entry fee.
  • Emory University (Atlanta) seeks a Staff Writer, the Josephson Institute (Los Angeles) invites applications for an Associate Web Producer/Writer, and Spread the Word (“inspiring London’s writers” in the U.K.) is looking for a Director.

Lots of teaching jobs follow after the jump. (more…)

Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

For your Shabbat reading, please find below some links I’ve liked this week (and some I hope to explore further over the weekend):

  • In case you missed its debut on Tuesday, you can still enjoy the November Jewish Book Carnival.
  • Looking for book (and educational toy) ideas for Chanukah? Look no further than these suggestions from my very own sister.
  • Leslie Epstein, on Aharon Appelfeld.
  • Have I mentioned before that sometimes I dream of a career writing biographies for young people? That’s just one of the reasons why I’m so interested in this Whole Megillah interview featuring both the author and the editor behind a new Leonard Bernstein biography for young readers.
  • A hearty Mazel Tov to the Jewish Book Council on its sparkling new website (replete with renamed blog)!

    • Shabbat shalom!

    Thursday’s Work-in-Progress

    by Erika Dreifus on
    4

    It has been a busy week! And a very good one. Herewith, a few highlights. (There was actually one anti-highlight–it has to do with a negative review of my book. But especially in light of all the things that are going so well in my writing life these days, I’m trying not to focus on it. Which is not to say that you won’t hear more about it later!)

  • You know that commissioned story I keep mentioning here? Well, I finished some (small) requested revisions for it last weekend. So if everything goes smoothly, it shouldn’t be too long before I can share it with you. I really can’t wait!
  • A few days ago, I sold a rant-like essay that I’ve been working on for awhile, too. I’ll let you know when the piece is online.
  • I’ve been working hard on polishing and practicing the speech I’ll be giving at my home congregation tomorrow evening. The title is “Why Is This Jewish-American Writer Different from (Some) Other Jewish American Writers?” (For those who may not be familiar with the tradition, the title plays on an essential line in the Passover Haggadah.) I hope to be able to turn the text into an essay, too. We’ll see.
  • Last, but not least, last Sunday I had the privilege of meeting with the Jewish Historical Society of New York City. Since it was a local event, some members of my fan club were able to attend (including my parents and my niece, pictured below). Much of my presentation focused on the work of other “third-generation” writers who are grandchildren of refugees from and survivors of Nazi persecution. If that subject sounds familiar, that may be because you’re thinking of a piece I wrote earlier this year for Fiction Writers Review. In Sunday’s talk, I updated that material to include mentions of Natasha Solomons’s new novel and Julie Orringer’s work-in-progress, as well as incorporating some remarks about and poems by Jehanne Dubrow and Erika Meitner. I wrapped up the presentation with a brief reading from my own book of short stories, Quiet Americans.

    • All of this and a “day job,” too? I know. Especially since things have been extra-intense at that job lately, I am really looking forward to the Thanksgiving mini-break!

    Words of the Week: Mikhail Baryshnikov

    by Erika Dreifus on
    2

    I’ve always adored Mikhail Baryshnikov. But now I have an additional reason to appreciate him.

    Meeting recently with the press in Israel, where he is starring in a play (Dmitry Krymov’s stage adaptation of Nobel Laureate Ivan Bunin’s [1870 – 1953] short story, “In Paris,” performed in Russian with Hebrew subtitles), Baryshnikov gave the following answer when pressed about politics:

    “I’m not taking sides in any conflict. Art should heal and not divide. I would not give advice to any person; I don’t live in Israel and am not entitled. I deeply admire this country and love these people.”

    Bravo–and thank you–Misha.