Monday Morning Markets/Jobs/Opportunities

  • Matador Abroad is looking for narrative pieces, photo essays and single photo submissions for a new series.” This series focuses on “celebrating holidays outside of your home country….Submissions are not limited to American holidays; tell us what it was like first celebrating Ramadan away from home, or how Diwali is different in London than it is in Delhi.” Pays: $25 per narrative or photo essay (single photos do not receive payment).
  • Also from Matador: an interesting piece spotlighting paying online markets for freelancers.
  • Let’s keep the travel focus going, shall we? The NYT’s Nicholas Kristof has announced the 2011 “Win a Trip with Nick Kristof” contest. This year, the competition is open to graduating students and to those over 60 (US residents only). Application deadline (essay or video submission) is January 18 (my thanks to Mr. Kristof for so kindly responding to my query about this on Twitter). No application fee.
  • “Voices of Youth (VOY) is UNICEF’s site for young people interested in learning about and taking action on issues affecting their lives. VOY is currently undergoing a redesign to update the site’s look and functionality. The new site will emphasize interactivity and dialogue, and will feature posts from youth contributors, UNICEF staff, activists, bloggers, etc….We’re looking for 2 part-time bloggers to create original content (primarily print, but video, audio, and visual pieces are welcome) for Voices of Youth.”
  • “The Arc Poetry Society [Canada] seeks applications for the part-time contract position of Editor of Arc Poetry Magazine commencing April 1, 2010. Reporting to the Board of Directors, Arc’s editor will ensure that the content of Arc Poetry Magazine is selected and presented to maintain a consistently high standard for the publication.”
  • From Johns Hopkins University (requisition #46416 if you’re redirected to the human resources home page): “This part-time faculty position at Johns Hopkins University involves academic administrative duties and the teaching of four courses per year in a thriving, two-campus graduate writing program. This year-round position offers a 12-month contract requiring part-time responsibilities in fall, spring, and summer terms. The position expects a regular presence at the program’s Washington, D.C. and Baltimore locations, although the faculty member will be based at the main Hopkins Homewood Campus. Expertise in teaching, writing, or editing is required in at least one of the program’s concentrations of Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction, and Science-Medical Writing, or in Journalism, Professional Writing, Publishing, Editing or related fields. This faculty member will work with and report to the program’s full-time director and assistant director. The M.A. in Writing Program caters mostly to part-time adult students who take evening or Saturday courses at the Hopkins Washington, D.C. Center near Dupont Circle or the main Homewood Campus in Baltimore. The program is based in Washington but has offices, students, and faculty at both campuses. This position is effective on Jan. 3, 2011.”
  • Nicholls State University (La.) is looking for an Instructor whose “preferred experience” includes “Creative Writing, Poetry and/or Screen Writing.”
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art (N.Y.) seeks an Editor, Boston magazine is looking for an Associate Editor (you’ll need to register/log in, free of charge, to read the announcement), and the University of Oregon School of Law invites applications for a Director of Communications position.
  • Friday Find: Essay Symposium Proceedings from Welcome Table Press

    Some of you may have caught my short article in The Writer magazine some months back that described a spring event here in New York: a symposium convened by Welcome Table Press titled “In Praise of the Essay: Practice & Form.” In that article, I called Jerald Walker’s presentation–which included an account of one editor’s pre-publication request to confer with Walker’s 73-year-old mother before going ahead with a particular piece–“a conference standout.”

    Well, now you can read Walker’s presentation for yourself. Thanks to Lisa Romeo’s blog, I recently learned that Welcome Table Press has made some of the symposium proceedings available for download (link updated April 2021: click “In Praise of the Essay: Symposia Proceedings” and scroll to Walker’s essay). (You can download this material for free, or you can purchase them in pamphlet form to benefit Welcome Table Press.)

    Enjoy the find, and have a wonderful weekend. See you back here on Monday.

    Thursday’s Pre-Publication Post: The Blog Tour Is Coming! The Blog Tour Is Coming!

    Busy, busy, busy. That’s how this time of year always is, right? But somehow, everything is even busier (and, of course, more exciting!) with the release of my short story collection, Quiet Americans, just a little more than a month away.

    One of the pre-publication projects that I’ve been working on behind the scenes is a blog tour. You may be familiar with these “tours.” A quick way to explain the concept, as the Book Publicity Blog does in this excellent post, is that a blog tour involves “an author going from blog to blog (rather than from store to store as they would on a traditional book tour).” Since my book’s publisher is too small to have its own publicist (and, let’s face it: I’m a bit of a control freak as it is), I’ve taken on the job of arranging the tour myself. As work-intensive as the process is, I couldn’t be more grateful. The emergence of the blog tour concept is a real blessing for my book and me. Between the lack of a big-time publicity budget and my responsibilities at my “day job,” a traditional city-to-city tour just wasn’t in the cards.

    So I am happy to announce that the Winter Blog Tour for Quiet Americans will launch the week of January 17, 2011, which is the same week that the book will be released. The tour will last a little over a month (touring will be light during the days I’ll be focusing on the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference in early February).

    I’m so excited for this tour. I’ll admit that I’m a bit apprehensive, too. But mainly, I’m excited.

    Right now, the biggest challenge ahead of me is content. The blog tour “stops” will feature a combination of interviews, book reviews written by various “hosts,” and some guest pieces that I’ll be writing up. Interview questions haven’t yet arrived, and the reviews, thankfully, are not my responsibility. So as soon as I finish my holiday cards, complete a freelance assignment with a fast-approaching deadline, and check one or two other things off my to-do list, I’ll be able to focus on preparing those guest posts.

    I’ll also be working hard to showcase the participating host blogs. In fact, I can promise you the unveiling of the tour schedule and hosts three weeks from today, on Thursday, December 30. (There. I’ve just given myself another deadline!)

    For now, I just hope that all of you who read this blog will share my enthusiasm. And I’d like to say an early, heartfelt “thank-you” to all of the tour hosts. Thank you for welcoming my book and me to your online homes. Thank you for reading the review copies. Thank you for the wonderful comments you’ve already shared with me about your reading experiences. Most of all, thank you for what you’re going to be doing in the next couple of months.

    The Wednesday Web Browser

  • All of us who participate on the Poets & Writers Speakeasy discussion boards are immensely proud of Rebecca Makkai (aka “kismacko”), a three-time Best American Short Stories (BASS) author whose first novel is forthcoming in June. This weekend, we had the pleasure of hearing Rebecca read from her story on NPR, in a feature in which Richard Russo, who edited this year’s BASS volume, talks about some of his choices.
  • Also on the subject of the Russo-edited BASS volume–but far less celebratory–is Roxane Gay’s HTMLGIANT post, “A Profound Sense of Absence.”
  • The Writer brings you writing-book recommendations from several of the magazine’s book reviewers (including yours truly).
  • I’ve just begun reading Ellen Meeropol’s debut novel, House Arrest, which will be out on February 1 (look for an interview in the March Practicing Writer). I am especially taken with the author’s recent blog post on the subject of what the book’s early readers have taught her about her own work.
  • Finally, Bill Roorbach’s blog post on “reference season” is something every student, teacher, and potential student/potential teacher should read. Especially students and teachers of creative writing.