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Monday Morning Markets/Jobs/Opportunities for Writers

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled
  • “Hazard Community and Technical College [Ky.] is hosting the annual ‘Spooky Story Contest’….Stories should be spooky, thrilling, and macabre.” The contest is open to any writer; stories must run no longer than 4 pages or 1000 words. No simultaneous submissions. There is no entry fee, and the deadline is coming up fast: October 22. First-prize winner will receive $75; second-prize winner will receive $50. The winners and an honorable mention will be published in Kudzu. (via Kentucky Literary Newsletter)
  • “Gothamist is interested in adding more long-form non-fiction features to our websites….For this round, we’re looking for a feature that will be relevant to our complete network audience of over four million readers in large American cities. We believe pitches that involve crime or other mysteries work especially well. However, we will review pitches on any subject you care to send.” Pays: initial payment of $3,500; 50/50 profit split. Pitch deadline: October 31. (via @longreads & @cnfonline)
  • Write it Sideways, a site that provides “writing advice from a fresh perspective,” is looking for two paid contributors. Extensive information available here. Applications are due November 1, 2011 (9 a.m. EST). Pays: $15/article, for 2 articles/month from January-June 2012. (via @NinaBadzin)
  • The Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway (Galloway, N.J.) offers scholarships for first-time attendees. Check the detailed guidelines for eligibility and deadlines (which vary by scholarship). No application fees indicated. (via CRWROPPS-B)
  • “Gemini Ink, the only literary arts center in South Central Texas, seeks an ardent Executive | Artistic Director who can actively build on its mission to nurture writers and readers through literature and the related arts….” Application review will begin January 16, 2012.
  • The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in Washington is looking for a researcher to gather information and write entries for an encyclopedia project. Details on my other blog.
  • Hyde Park Art Center seeks a Marketing and Communications Manager and F+W Media, Inc. (Cincinnati) invites applications for a Content Strategy Manger — Writing Community.
  • From Emerson College (Mass.): “The Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing seeks a full-time, tenure-track Assistant Professor in the area of Magazine Writing and Publishing to teach a range of magazine publishing courses. The initial appointment is for the 2012-13 academic year beginning September 1, 2012.”
  • The University of Maryland-College Park is looking for an Assistant Professor in Fiction Writing (tenure-track).
  • “The English Department of Stonehill College (Mass.) seeks candidates for a three-year renewable position in creative writing with a specialization in fiction, to begin fall semester 2012. The position may be renewed for another three-year term upon satisfactory review.”
  • “The Department of English, College of Arts and Sciences, Loyola University Chicago (LUC) seeks qualified candidates for a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of Creative Writing (Poetry), beginning August 15, 2012.” (Look for Job #8500704.)

    • The Wednesday Web Browser for Writers

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled
  • By now, you’ve doubtless heard that Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer has won the most recent Nobel prize for literature. But have you heard this? “Tranströmer lost his ability to speak and the use of his right arm after suffering a stroke in 1990. Since then, he has continued to play piano with one hand. According to The Independent, the poet will express himself through the piano.”
  • One of my literary lights, the stupendously gifted writer and human being Sage Cohen, wears so many hats that even I, fan that I am, had nearly forgotten one of them: Sage’s role as founder of Queen of Wands Press, which has just released Finding Compass, a poetry collection by Carolyn Martin. Check out this interview with Ms. Martin.
  • The latest news from the world of author archives: “The Harry Ransom Center, a humanities research library and museum at The University of Texas at Austin, has acquired the archive of Nobel Prize-winning writer and University of Texas at Austin alumnus J. M. Coetzee. Spanning more than 50 years, the archive traces the author’s life and career from 1956 through the present.” (via The Literary Saloon)
  • I’m eager to read through a special roundtable on “poetry and race” in Evening Will Come, a journal of poetics. (via the Poetry Foundation)
  • Hopefully, by the time The New York Review of Books publishes the second part of “A Jewish Writer in America,” which reflects a talk originally given by Saul Bellow in 1988, I’ll have been able to digest fully part one. Oh, so much to read and think about.

    • Quotation of the Week: Gish Jen, on Apple Computers & Writing

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    As for whether the Apple computers changed not only who wrote, but what they wrote, I can’t speak for others. I can only say that these computers coaxed out of me an expansiveness the typewriter never did. For every writer, the leap from short story to novel is, well, a leap. It involves faith, and resources, and a conception, finally, of how much room is yours in the world. I was not a person who would have looked at a ream of paper and thought, “Sure, that is mine to fill up.” But I turned out to be a person who could keep moving a cursor until I’d filled one ream, then another. It is a truly minuscule reason, in the scheme of things, for which to celebrate and mourn Steve Jobs. Still, I add my small reason to the infinity of others.

    –Gish Jen

    Source: Jen’s lovely op-ed in last Sunday’s New York Times, “My Muse Was an Apple Computer”

    The Wednesday Web Browser for Writers

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled
  • Elise Blackwell blogs about the Squaw Valley Community of Writers (and summer writing conferences more generally).
  • Reflections on the question: What is a story?
  • Really enjoyed this inspiring and instructive interview with author and editor Matt Bell.
  • A new column on The Millions is focusing on “Post-40 Bloomers,” writers “whose first books debuted when they were 40 or older.” Hurray!
  • Last week, I had the privilege of adding my voice to others paying tribute to memorable writing teachers on the Fiction Writers Review site: I wrote about the amazing Sands Hall.

    • Quotation of the Week: Roger Ebert

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    “When I write, I fall into the zone many writers, painters, musicians, athletes, and craftsmen of all sorts seem to share: In doing something I enjoy and am expert at, deliberate thoughts fall aside and it is all just there. I think of the next word no more than the composer thinks of the next note.”

    –Roger Ebert

    Source: “Roger Ebert on Writing: !5 Reflections from Life Itself,” TheAtlantic.com. For more about Ebert’s new memoir, see Harvey Freedenberg’s review for Bookreporter.