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The Wednesday Web Browser

by Erika Dreifus on
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Welcome to our Wednesday gleanings from around the Web:

Monday Morning Markets/Jobs/Opportunities

by Erika Dreifus on
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Let’s try out a different format for these Monday morning posts, shall we? Please let me know what you think. Is this format more user-friendly than what we’ve presented in the past?

  • Witness, a literary journal now based at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has announced revised submission guidelines, including a call for submissions on the theme of “Disaster.” Pays: “$25 for every 1,500 words of prose and $25 per poem, for both print and online work.”
  • The Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award (McSweeney’s) gives a grant “to aid a young woman writer of 32 years or younger” who embodies the personal strengths of Amanda Davis and who needs some time to finish a book in progress. Deadline: December 1, 2010. No application fee.
  • Also from McSweeney’s: The Second Annual Columnist Contest is open to submissions until this Friday, September 10. “Our site is known for printing funny things, but columns need not be comic in nature. They just need to be interesting reading.” No fees. Cash prizes and contracts to the winners.
  • Poetry Competition (no entry fee) from the Genomics Policy and Research Forum, requiring a poem (no more than 50 lines) on the theme of “improving the human.” Cash prizes, publication, and an evening of poetry readings based on the winning entries (hosted by the Scottish Poetry Library). Deadline: October 7, 2010.
  • Assistant Professor of Creative Writing (fiction), Bucknell University
  • Assistant Professor of Creative Writing (poetry), University of Minnesota
  • Some nonteaching jobs for writers: Writer/Client Manager at Macalaster College (Minn.), Writer at Boston College, Director of Communications at Rhodes College (Tenn.).

Friday Find: Where to Publish Your Work

by Erika Dreifus on
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Maybe some of you are planning to spend time this weekend mapping out submission strategies. After all, most of us here in the U.S. have a three-day weekend and a bit of extra time.

Here’s a resource that may help you, right here on erikadreifus.com: a page on “Where to Publish Your Work.” I hope that you find it helpful! And if you do, please share it with your friends/fellow writers.

Have a great weekend, everyone. This blog won’t take Monday off–we’ll see you back here then.

Thursday’s Pre-Publication Post: First Review Copies Out!

by Erika Dreifus on
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The big news this week is that there are tangible copies of Quiet Americans out there in the world.

There had to be.

You see, in order to be considered for pre-publication reviews in trade pubs like Publishers Weekly, you have to get copies in as early as four months ahead of publication. In the case of Publishers Weekly, for instance: “”Submissions must be sent (3) months–preferably (4)–prior to the 1st day of the month of publication.” For Quiet Americans, “preferably (4)–prior to the 1st day of the month of publication” was yesterday.

Galleys could have been made, but fortunately, finished copies are also acceptable. I say “fortunately” because galleys would have added another layer of expense that would have posed a significant strain given the newness and size of the press with which I’m working. And there’s no guarantee that any of the trade pubs we’ve contacted will review Quiet Americans, anyway.

In any case, there is now a (small) inventory of copies, most of which will be distributed to other review outlets in the near future. (Alas, everyone else will still have to wait until January!)
It’s a bit surreal to imagine my book showing up at Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Library Journal, and Kirkus. Surreal—and a little scary.