Monday Morning Markets/Jobs/Opportunities for Writers

  • “ArtFunkl is pleased to offer artists a special residency opportunity for a 1-month stay [October 2011] in the beautiful western Mediterranean city of Valencia, Spain.” There is a residency charge (£730 for the month), but there is no application fee. “Accommodation is in a comfortable apartment on the edge of the city centre. The apartment has a double bedroom, and a single bedroom/study room which can be set up as a studio space. The residency is most suitable for writers, or artists who work with digital media, since there is no separate studio space included.” Deadline: September 23, 2011 (received by 6 p.m., U.K. time). (via Trans Artists)
  • The Helen Schaible International Shakespearean/Petrarchan Sonnet Contest welcomes submissions until September 1. No fee. Cash prizes ($50/$35/$15).
  • “We are pleased to invite you to submit nominees for The New York Public Library’s Twelfth Annual Young Lions Fiction Award, to be given in the spring of 2012. This award was created expressly to promote the work of young writers, to celebrate their accomplishments publicly, and to make a difference in the lives of these artists as they continue to build their careers. The award, which carries a $10,000 prize, is given annually to an American writer age 35 or younger for either a novel or collection of short stories.” No entry fee. Nominations must come from publishers. Deadline: September 2, 2011.
  • From Library Journal’s Barbara Hoffert email to publicists: “In the October 1, 2011, issue, Library Journal will list the first novels premiering during the fall-winter season. Books published between September 1, 2011, and January 31, 2012, are eligible. To be featured in the issue, please send me a list of your fiction debuts and include the following information: author, title, publication date, and state or country of residence. In addition, we have begun presenting first novels by genre (e.g., mystery, thriller, pop fiction, literary fiction); please specify genre. Please remember that this list covers only novels, not short fiction, and that a foreign author’s novel must be his or her first publication, not simply the first publication here. We accept both hardcover and original trade paperback. In the past, we have offered a retrospective of the previous season’s most successful debuts. I’m still working on reintroducing that feature! Stay tuned. We are on a tight deadline. Please email materials by August 25, 2011, to me at bhoffert(at)mediasourceinc(dot)com.”
  • St. Ambrose University (Ia.) seeks a Director of Publications and Editorial Projects, Ohio University is looking for an Editor for Ohio Today, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Office of the President is advertising for a Speechwriter.
  • Friday Find: AP Sept. 11 Style and Reference Guide

    This isn’t a fun find, but it’s an important one.

    Within a few weeks, we’ll commemorate the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Perhaps you are planning to write about the anniversary. Perhaps you’ve already written something and are waiting to post or publish it.

    As I learned from the Nieman Journalism Lab this week:

    To assist its members as they create that coverage, the Associated Press just released a style and reference guide whose content is dedicated to 9/11. It includes terms like “airline, airlines” (“Capitalize airlines, air lines and airways when used as part of a proper airline name. American Airlines, United Airlines”); “ground zero” (lower-case), “acceptable term for the World Trade Center site”; and names like “Osama bin Laden” (“use bin Laden in all references except at the start of a sentence…. Pronounced oh-SAH’-muh bin LAH’-din”).

    The guide is intriguing — not only as a useful tool for the many journalists who will be, in some way or another, writing about 9/11 over the next few weeks, but also as a hint at what a Stylebook can be when it’s thought of not just as a book, but as a resource more broadly. AP’s guide (official name: “Sept. 11 Style and Reference Guide”) is a kind of situational stylebook, an ad hoc amalgam of information that will be useful for a particular set of stories, within a particular span of time.

    It’s intriguing, all right. It’s remarkable. Go take a look.

    And then, go have a good, safe weekend. See you back here on Monday.

    Thursday’s Post-Publication Post: Partying with the Poets

    As many of you know, although I “trained” as a prose writer, poetry has become an increasingly important part of my writing practice over the past several years. And even more recently–for the past several weeks–I’ve been joining in the weekly “Poet Party” on Twitter.

    Every Sunday evening, at 9 p.m. (U.S. Eastern), poets gather on Twitter to chat. Founded by @32Poems, the Poet Party addresses all kinds of poetry-related topics. Chats unfold with the assistance of a hashtag, #PoetParty, which participants append to each relevant tweet. Last week, we “talked” mainly about contests, but other topics came up, too.

    Including this one, which sprang from the keyboard of yours truly. You see, Sundays are also #StorySunday on Twitter. Everyone is encouraged to share a link to someone else’s short story online and append the hashtag #storysunday to help the thread take shape.

    And at some point during last Sunday evening’s chat, it occurred to me that the #PoetParty provides the perfect opportunity to do something similar for poetry. Especially, perhaps, as we say good-bye at the end of the hour. I said as much, and pretty soon the poet-partyers had posted a whole slew of links to excellent work that wasn’t their own.

    So whether next week’s announced topic appeals to you or not–as I write this post, I don’t know if it has been announced yet–maybe you’ll want to drop in near the end and check out the recommended poems. See you there?

    The Wednesday Web Browser for Writers

  • Kelly James-Enger warns against “Explosives, Waifs, and Users: Six Writers to Avoid.”
  • Honestly, I’m going to be dragged kicking and screaming to Google+. But I guess I’ll get there eventually. Crystal King’s post for Grub Street Daily is just one of many reminders of that likelihood.
  • In a Fiction Writers Review “Poetry for Prosers” feature, Katie Umans “sort-of” reviews David Orr’s Beautiful and Pointless.
  • I decided a few months ago that I won’t be attending the 2012 Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Chicago (I hope to return in 2013, when the conference moves to my beloved Boston). But if you’re still deliberating, perhaps the list of accepted events will help you decide.
  • I love Lisa Romeo’s post, “Not exactly qualified for that writing award? Apply anyway” (and not only because it is, in part a success story resulting from a discovery right here on Practicing Writing!).