Monday Morning Markets/Jobs/Opportunities

  • The Center for Fiction is launching “a new grant program for emerging fiction writers who reside within the five boroughs of New York City….Eight writers will be selected in 2011….” Grants confer $3,000 plus an array of other benefits, including space and time to write in the Center’s Writers Studio, opportunities for mentorship and agent meetings, two public readings, and much more. The application deadline is January 31, 2011, and there is no application fee.
  • Something else for fiction writers: The annual Nelson Algren Short Story Awards competition is now open to submissions. “Stories must be fictional, unpublished, under 10,000 words and received by midnight (Central time) Feb. 15, 2011.” Administered by the Chicago Tribune, the awards confer a $5,000 first prize and three finalist prizes of $1,500 each. No entry fee. (Thanks to Jenn Crowell for reminding me that it was time to check in on this opportunity once again.)
  • Not just for fiction writers: The January/February 2011 Poets & Writers Classifieds section is now live. Lots of calls for submissions and contest listings. But be forewarned: Not all of the calls are paying opportunities, and not all of the contests are fee-free.
  • Visiting Assistant Professor position: “The Department of English at Franklin & Marshall College invites applications for a one-year position at the Assistant Professor level, beginning Fall 2011. We are looking for a Creative Writer who can teach a multi-genre introduction to creative writing as well as upper-level workshops in a single genre-poetry, fiction, or non-fiction.”
  • From MediaBistro.com: “mb LEARN is looking for a dynamic, spirited instructor to teach our Food Writing Boot Camp class in New York this March. This class meets for 8 weeks and will teach students how to write pitches, how to break into a print or online food magazine, and how to write articles that will get published. By the end of class, students will have a complete portfolio of publishable articles including a news product; an interview; a profile of a food personality; a restaurant roundup; a travel piece; and a food blog entry.Ideal candidate will be a highly experienced food writer, editor, or freelancer with a passion for teaching others. No previous teaching experience required. Classes run several times throughout the year, so there is an opportunity for continuous teaching.” Click here for the announcement (you’ll need to be registered on the site–it’s free–to access it).
  • Guess what’s coming this week? That’s right, it’s our January Practicing Writer newsletter, jam-packed with opportunities for the new year. Not yet a subscriber? Join us! It’s free, and we won’t share your e-mail address with anyone.
  • Some nonteaching jobs for writers: Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Mass.) is looking for a Magazine Editor, San Jose State University (Calif.) seeks an Advancement Writer, and PEN Center USA (Calif.) has announced a 24-hr/week position for a Program Coordinator.
  • Friday Find: How to Write Great Fiction

    I’ll be doing some traveling today (I’m lucky–it’s an easy trip, and I’m a mere passenger, not a driver/pilot/conductor). I do hope that at some point, I’ll be able to plug in my headphones and enjoy this terrific “Big Think” series of author commentaries on the theme of writing fiction. Here are just a few of the particpants’ names to pique your interest: Salman Rushdie, Isabel Allende, Anne Lamott. (Hat tip, for the second time this week, to Mark Athitakis for the find.)

    I know that many of you will be celebrating Christmas this weekend, and I want to wish you all a wonderful, meaningful, and very merry holiday.

    And I’ll look forward to seeing everyone back here on Monday.



    Thursday’s Pre-Publication Post: Where Have We Been? Where Are We Going?

    So, this past Sunday (December 19) marked the one-month point in the countdown to the publication of my short-story collection, Quiet Americans, which will be released January 19 by Last Light Studio.

    If you’ve been following along, you’re pretty up-to-date on the road we’ve been traveling to this point. Most recently, on Sunday, our first two giveaways came to a close. Three lucky readers won free early copies of Quiet Americans via Goodreads, and another two received copies simply by virtue of having been kind enough to sign on to our Facebook page.

    In the coming weeks/next couple of months, you can expect to see new giveaway opportunities announced. Join our Facebook page for updates, and check back here for news about anything that will be offered via Goodreads.

    There’s lots more to do in the next few weeks before the book is officially “born.” Here are a few things on my to-do list:

  • The pub date is January 19, but the book should be available on Amazon.com before then, and I’ll be checking (as I’m sure my publisher will be!). We’ll keep you posted!
  • Also coming soon: As promised, by early January, you’ll be able to order (signed) copies of Quiet Americans right from this website. My exceedingly talented web designer is working on this right now. (Special thanks to the marvelous Midge Raymond for her sage counsel and example here.)
  • Remember that Winter Blog Tour I told you about a couple of weeks ago? Well, details—including a list of tour stops—will be posted here on the website by December’s end. I promise.
  • Speaking of the Winter Blog Tour, I’ve just finished responding to the first set of interview questions I’ve received from one of our wonderful hosts. Over the next few weeks, I’m expecting to answer more such questions—and get to work preparing all of those guest posts that bloggers have been kind enough to say they’ll welcome.
  • I’m also going to be shipping books to Washington ahead of my early February trip there. (Working with a new micropress, this sort of thing falls to me, but I’m not complaining! At all!)
  • Think that’s enough for the moment?

    The Wednesday Web Browser

  • This week, I’m reading Andrew Furman’s new memoir, My Los Angeles in Black and (Almost) White. It’s a very absorbing read—and I’d say that even if Andy weren’t a friend! Over on her Reading for Writers blog, A. P. Bucak, who has already finished the book, seems to feel the same way.
  • Stacy Schiff shares advice for aspiring biographers.
  • You still have three days to buy Christmas presents, and Writer Abroad has some gift suggestions for the international writers on your lists.
  • My latest book review tackles some questions about how anthologies are compiled.
  • The ever-reliable After Deadline blog presents a new batch of “notes from the newsroom on grammar, usage and style.”
  • Quotation of the Week: Mark Athitakis

    Sometime last week, Mark Athitakis posted a series of tweets concerning the popular Xtranormal videos that have been making their way around the Internet. You’ve probably seen at least one of these creations, examples of which are “Can You Help Me Get Published?”, “So You Want to Get a PhD in the Humanities?“, and  “So You Want to Be a Historian?”. (There are more, but let’s just say that between my own academic and professional training and the resulting group of friends and colleagues I’ve acquired along the way, these three really caught my attention.)

    I’ll admit: These videos, with their focus on the trials and tribulations endured within certain professions, have made me laugh. Sometimes, they’ve made me laugh a lot.

    But. Still. The animation, stilted “voices,” and exaggeration have something to do with that. In real life, I have to admit that I also agree with Athitakis, whose tweets suggested a certain impatience with the “So You Want to Be” clips.

    One example: “‘People need to hear my insights about how the profession they aspire to is a grind.’ Oh, grow up. Every profession has its headaches.”

    Let’s leave aside, for the moment, the privilege already embedded within these professions. I’m sure that my grandparents, for example, whose work histories were far less “professional,” could never have created this sort of video, in part because they were too busy working (typically with lengthy commutes attached) to do so.

    But in a larger sense, Athitakis made resonant points. Maybe it was the timing of his tweets, which came just as many of the aforementioned friends and colleagues were sighing and complaining, virtually and persistently, about all the grading they had to do (primarily within relatively small writing courses and workshops–I exempt from my impatience anyone with a full/heavy course load, and/or classes that are way too large, but some of these folks are teaching two courses/sections, with at most 15 or 16 students each). About how, even in the happy days of “winter break,” it’s so difficult to work out five times a week. Or, among the freelance set, about all the caffeine they’ve had to ingest while sitting at home, toasty in their thermal knitwear, meeting freelance deadlines.

    I have to say, reading all of the griping—early in the morning before heading outside to go to an office where I’m expected to show up by nine and not leave before five, five days each week, twelve months each year—can get annoying. Reading it during lunch or late in the day is no better.  (No, just because I work for a university does not mean that my office closes down for half of December or January, or even a week during that time, or for the summer.)

    Yes, I’ve been in other shoes. I know that grading can be a drag (worse: fielding student complaints about those grades). I know that it takes discipline to exercise (but oh, how much easier it was to keep to a regime when one didn’t have to hike over to the gym in the dark, freezing dawn, or the dark, freezing evening). I know that freelancing has its frustrations.

    But how amazing it is to me, how many people seem to be making the same complaints, round the clock, no matter what the season.

    Especially when one stops to realize this: They’re all, in fact, quite lucky! Supposedly, they’re doing what they wanted to do! What they trained to do. And, let’s face it, these professions are not exactly back-breaking or (usually) dignity-wounding.

    For my part, I try to keep the complaining to a minimum. Yes, I did vent a bit about an especially crazy day at my office early last week. Yes, if you get me started in a conversation, I’ll give you a million excuses why I am not exercising much these days (mainly, I hate exercising when it isn’t daylight, and except for weekends, daylight isn’t in the cards right now for someone with my schedule living where I live).

    But I know how lucky I am to have a job, to be able to deploy skills and interests productively, and to be putting food on the table in my own home.

    “Every profession has its headaches.” Writers and professors hold no monopoly. Indeed. Thank you for the reminder, Mark Athitakis.