Welcome to Practicing Writing! Here you’ll find updates on writing and publishing opportunities (especially handy between issues of our popular monthly newsletter). You’ll discover ONLY opportunities that charge no fees, and ONLY publications/contests that will pay for your writing. The blog also shares writing-related news and resources and updates regarding this practicing writer’s own work.
Image by Markus Spiske from Pixabay
1. Author Photo Update
This past Monday was the day of the shoot for the author photo for my forthcoming poetry collection (Birthright). Although I was anxious ahead of time, both the photographer and the makeup artist really put me at ease. Continue reading ›
The weekly batch of no-fee, paying competitions, contests, and calls for submissions—plus jobs for those of us who write (especially those of us who write fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction). These posts are intended to complement/supplement 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 (this blog, on the other hand, does sometimes include those more restricted opportunities). 
Continue reading ›
In which I participate in David Abrams’s “Sunday Sentence” project, sharing the best sentence I’ve read during the past week, “out of context and without commentary.” Continue reading ›
Three Quick Things
1. I received a lovely rejection note this week for the poems I’d entered into Gaze‘s “Loving Gaze Poetry Contest.” Not only did the editor include some kind words about my (losing) poems and invite me to send additional work in the future, but she also thanked me for having publicized the contest to other writers. It was simply a gracious note that left a warm impression. (I don’t see an announcement about the winning contest work on the site yet, but I’ll look forward to reading it.) Continue reading ›
The weekly batch of no-fee, paying competitions, contests, and calls for submissions—plus jobs for those of us who write (especially those of us who write fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction). These posts are intended to complement/supplement 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 (this blog, on the other hand, does sometimes include those more restricted opportunities). Continue reading ›
Erika Dreifus is a reader, writer, and literary advocate whose next book, Birthright: Poems, will be published by Kelsay Books in fall 2019. She is also the editor and publisher of The Practicing Writer, a free (and popular) e-newsletter that features opportunities and resources for fictionists, poets, and writers of creative nonfiction.
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A high-ranking Nazi’s wife and a Jewish doctor in prewar Berlin. A Jewish immigrant soldier and the German POWs he is assigned to supervise. A refugee returning to Europe for the first time just as terrorists massacre Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. A son of survivors and the family secrets modern technology may reveal. These are some of the characters and conflicts that emerge in Quiet Americans, in stories that reframe familiar questions about what is right and wrong, remembered and repressed, resolved and unending. Portions of the proceeds from sales of Quiet Americans are being donated to The Blue Card. Quiet Americans has been named a 2012 Sophie Brody Medal Honor Title (American Library Association) and recognized as a “Notable Book” (The Jewish Journal) and “Top Book” (Shelf Unbound).
