Monday Morning Markets/Jobs/Opportunities for Writers

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled
  • Good news: flashquake is back! The spring issue of this “literary and art journal for the briefest of forms” will launch on March 1. In submissions news, you can send work until February 15 for the current reading period. This remains a paying (albeit low-paying) publication.
  • Want to have your essay on the writing life published in Writer’s Digest magazine? It’s a distinct possibility! (Via e-mail, I’ve been assured that this is a paying freelance opportunity.)
  • As I said on Twitter when I discovered this competition last week, this Short Story Prize is my ideal contest–or it would be, if I were still 16-25…and “resident in the UK.” From the Franco-British Council: “Do you have a passion for France? Are you a Francophile with a story to share? The FBC, in conjunction with Prospect magazine and Eurostar, is inviting those aged between 16 and 25 to submit a short story of no more than 1,500 words. This year we are asking entrants to be inspired by a few choice quotes from French literature in writing a story that touches on some aspect of France or the French. The story does not have to be set in France but should simply possess a French element, however tentative. Particular credit will be given to stories that are well plotted, set in a real rather than abstract world and illuminating unexpected rather than familiar aspects of France or Frenchness.” Cash and travel prizes. No entry fee. Deadline: April 1, 2011. (Bonne chance!)
  • Another opportunity for writers on the younger side: In conjunction with the Lex Allen Literary Festival, Hollis University (Va.) has announced literary festival prizes in poetry and fiction ($100 each). Undergraduate college students are eligible. No entry fee. Submission deadline is Monday, February 7, 2011.
  • LOTS more no-fee competitions (and paying literary markets) are included in the February issue of The Practicing Writer, which went out to subscribers over the weekend. But the current issue is also online.
  • “The English Department at Siena Heights University in Adrian, MI, seeks candidates for a full-time, Assistant Professor position in creative writing with a specialization in Fiction. The successful candidate may also be asked to help develop a potential program in Digital Media Arts and Communication. Siena Heights University is a Catholic liberal arts University sponsored by the Adrian Dominican sisters.”
  • “Southern New Hampshire University seeks candidates for the position of Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and English, and Director of the Creative Writing Program. This is a full-time position with excellent benefits, starting September 1, 2011. As the coordinator for the undergraduate creative writing major, the successful candidate will have a passion for creative writing, an excellent record in teaching undergraduates, and experience in administering a writing program.”
  • From the University of Puget Sound (Wash.), where they’re looking for a Visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing: “We seek a colleague who works in fiction, with secondary areas of teaching ability in one of the following: poetry, playwriting, screenwriting, or creative non-fiction. The course load is three courses per semester and the faculty member in this position will be asked to teach composition courses in addition to creative writing. Depending upon interest and expertise, the possibility for the candidate to teach literature courses also exists.”
  • Harvard University (Medical School, Mass.) is looking for a Writer/Editor, Rice University (Texas) seeks a Communication Writer, and the Writers Guild of Alberta (Canada) invites applications for a Program Coordinator position.

    • Friday Find: The Literarian

    by Erika Dreifus on
    2

    This week, the Center for Fiction (New York) launched its new website. The entire site is likely to keep you busy for awhile–sections include “for readers,” “for writers,” “audio/video,” and “awards,” among others. But perhaps the pièce de résistance is the Center’s new online magazine: The Literarian.

    Go check it out. And have a great weekend.

    We’ll see you back here on Monday.

    Notes from Around the Web: Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    Many apologies for missing last week’s lit-links post. And fair warning: I’m unlikely to post next Friday as well: I’ll be away at the Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference. But don’t worry: I shall return!

  • The New Vilna Review presents an informative interview with Carol Hupping of the Jewish Publication Society, digging into the JPS’s past, present, and future.
  • Having recently gone to see the Hannah Senesh exhibition at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, I appreciated Elissa Strauss’s post about it for The Forward’s Sisterhood blog.
  • Fiction Writers Review has posted an exceedingly interesting interview with Jacob Paul, author of Sarah/Sara, which I reviewed (also for FWR) last year.
  • I’ve been noticing a growing cluster of Holocaust-related books authored by grandchildren of those who lived under Nazism. Among the latest (in addition, of course, to my own Quiet Americans, which was officially released last week) is Johanna Adorjan’s An Exclusive Love. Subtitled “A Memoir,” Adorjan’s book is, in the words of Jewish Journal’s reviewer Elaine Margolin, “an imaginative piece of work that blends fact and fantasy.”
  • And on a related note: Last Sunday’s New York Times Book Review featured a piece on Ferdinand von Schirach’s Crime (translated by Carol Brown Janeway): “To say that Germans and guilt have a special relationship would be to dive into the deep end of platitude, but in von Schirach’s case it’s difficult not to raise the issue, and not only because he’s titled his preface ‘Guilt.’ His grandfather, Baldur von Schirach, head of the Hitler Youth for most of the 1930s and later the wartime governor of Vienna, was convicted of crimes against humanity at Nuremberg.” Tbr, to be sure.
  • Finally, I hope that you’re following my virtual book tour for my new short-story collection, Quiet Americans. Several of the “stops” feature material of Jewish literary interest. Check out the itinerary (with brief content descriptions) here. (Plus, some really lovely reviews have been coming in.)

    • Shabbat shalom!

    For the International Day of Commemoration: Reznikoff Reading “Holocaust”

    by Erika Dreifus on
    2

    For me, at least, Yom Hashoah remains the primary Holocaust Remembrance Day of record, so to speak. But in 2005, the United Nations designed January 27 as an “annual International Day of Commemoration to honour the victims of the Holocaust” (Auschwitz was liberated on January 27, 1945).

    And yesterday, I discovered an amazing and relevant online resource: excerpts from a recording of poet Charles Reznikoff reading from his last book, Holocaust. (For background on Holocaust, read Charles Bernstein’s exceptionally instructive essay, and for information on a full CD—the product of many years of labor by Professor Abraham Ravett—please read this.)

    I’ve begun listening to the excerpts. It’s not easy to listen to them consecutively, without a break. But today of all days, do try to listen to some of them.

    (Thanks to the NewPages blog for this very special find.)

    Thursday’s Post-Publication Post: Do You Know What Today Is?

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    Today, eight days after the official publication of my debut story collection, Quiet Americans, I’m not going to blog (or link to) my book’s latest reviews, the virtual tour, or anything along those lines. Instead, focusing on the history behind my book, I want to take this opportunity remind us all about today’s significance: Today is the annual International Day of Commemoration to honor the victims of the Holocaust.

    In my Jewish education as a child and young adult, I learned about (and now routinely remember) Yom Hashoah. As My Jewish Learning explains:

    The full name of the day commemorating the victims of the Holocaust is “Yom Hashoah Ve-Hagevurah” –literally the “Day of (Remembrance of) the Holocaust and the Heroism.” It is marked on the 27th day in the month of Nisan–a week after the seventh day of Passover, and a week before Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day for Israel’s fallen soldiers).

    The date was selected by the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) on April 12, 1951. The full name became formal in a law that was enacted by the Knesset on August 19, 1953. Although the date was established by the Israeli government, it has become a day commemorated by Jewish communities and individuals worldwide.

    (In 2011, Yom Hashoah will begin at sundown on Sunday, May 1.)

    Recently, however, I’ve learned about a second commemorative day. In 2005, the United Nations designated “27 January–the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp–as an annual International Day of Commemoration to honour the victims of the Holocaust.”

    So today, too, we remember. And since I’m not pointing you to any links concerning my book, I humbly ask that you take just a few moments out of your day to click over to the International Holocaust Remembrance Day mini-site curated by Yad Vashem, “the Jewish people’s living memorial to the Holocaust” in Israel.