No, I’m not talking about the British World War One poets–this time. That’s a subject I’ve been known to focus on.
Today, however, I suggest you check out Dana Goodyear’s Talk of the Town piece in the current New Yorker. Goodyear profiles Brian Turner, 38, a former Army sergeant whose book of poems, Here, Bullet, was recently released by Alice James Books. The book, about a year Turner spent deployed in Iraq, won the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award. It’s Turner’s debut collection.
This may be a real niche population–medical students who are also poets–but for this group there are two no-cost contests coming up with December 31 deadlines.
First, the William Carlos Williams Poetry Competition, sponsored by the Human Values in Medicine Program of the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine (NEOUCOM), is open to students attending schools of medicine or osteopathy in the United States and Canada. The contest’s final judge is John Stone, M.D., poet and essayist from Emory University School of Medicine. The top three poems will be considered for publication in the Journal of Medical Humanities and will be awarded $300, $200, and $100, respectively. The three winners will also be invited to read their poems at NEOUCOM in April (expenses paid). For more information about this contest (including submission instructions), visit the NEOUCOM website.
And second, “medical undergraduates currently enrolled in accredited U.S. medical schools” may submit poetry for the Baylor College of Medicine’s annual Michael E. DeBakey Medical Student Poetry Award. This competition awards the top winner a cash prize of $1,000; the second- and third-prize winner receive $500 and $300, respectively. Note that “All winning poems become the property of the Michael E. DeBakey Medical Student Poetry Award program.” The first-prize poem will also be submitted for possible publication in “a major medical periodical.” For more information, click here.
The deadline for the next GoNOMAD.com cash grant for a travel writer is November 15. In case you’re not familiar with this quarterly program (awarding $500 every three months in 2005), click here. There is NO ENTRY FEE.
Touchstone, Kansas State University’s Literary Journal, is currently accepting submissions from graduate students from any creative writing program in the United States (the KSU English MA program is excluded). Poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction essays are all welcome. There will be one winner in each genre, who will have his/her work published and will win $50 and two copies of the journal. Submissions must be postmarked or e-mailed by November 11, 2005. There is no entry fee. For more information and full submission guidelines, visit the website.
flashquake, a web-based literary journal, has announced a “venue where people affected by [hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma] can share their stories and art. Fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, artwork and photographs are welcome from anyone directly affected by the storm. This includes those who endured or were evacuated from the affected areas, their family members, rescuers, volunteers, foster homes and so forth.” Submissions for this “Voices from the Storm” project will be read during three periods: October 21-November 15, 2005; November 16-December 15, 2005; December 16-January 15, 2006. Selected entries will be published in broadsheet form and will receive monetary awards of $25. For more information, read the Voices from the Storm Call for Submissions.
Philip Roth may not have won the Nobel Prize this year (that honor, as you know, went to Harold Pinter). But Roth was celebrated nonetheless on October 23 in his hometown of Newark, New Jersey, where a plaque now marks his boyhood residence on Summit Avenue. Said Roth: “Today, Newark is my Stockholm, and that plaque is my prize. I couldn’t be any more thrilled by any recognition accorded to me anywhere on earth. That’s all there is to say.” To read the New Jersey Jewish News account of the visit, click here.