The Wednesday Web Browser

Welcome to our Wednesday writerly link roundup. May I present:

The Wednesday Web Browser

Oh, have I found some online goodies for you this week, my friends!

Quotation of the Week: Elinor Lipman

Actually, you’ll find multiple priceless quotations within the article I’m about to cite. Here’s just one, within the rubric of “guidelines for authors”:

1. Never, ever read longer than 20 minutes. Fifteen is better. Ten minutes if there are more than two authors on the docket. Practice reading in the privacy of your home using your microwave oven timer. Note that 20 pages do not equal 20 minutes; 20 pages, especially the too-beautiful kind, go on forever.

Source: “Elinor Lipman Provides a Guide to Author Anxieties” (thanks to ThereseWalsh for the find).

Monday Morning Markets/Jobs/Opportunities

  • St. Martin’s Press is running a short-story contest to mark the publication of Jeffrey Archer’s latest short-story collection. No entry fee. Prize: e-publication with St. Martin’s (& royalties). “Contest is open to legal residents of the U.S. aged 18 or older who have been Previously Unpublished (except that authors of self-published works only may enter, as long as the Manuscript submitted is not the self-published work) and who are not under contract with a publisher for publication of a novel.” Deadline: October 1, 2010 (11:59 p.m. ET). (via PublishersLunch)
  • From @thewritermag: “Calling all self-publishers! We’re looking for fresh articles on this topic. If you have a new angle, pitch us at queries(at)writermag(dot)com.”
  • The Sleep Club (U.K.) seeks bedtime stories (stories that “are to be read before falling asleep”). Stories for children are also welcome. Pays: “The Sleep Club is able to offer a nominal fee to those writers we chose to publish on the site.”
  • Chicagoans! Attend a free freelancing-for-magazines seminar presented by Dollars & Deadlines’s Kelly James-Enger. Tomorrow!
  • Oregon Humanities magazine has announced a call for submissions for its spring 2011 issue, on the theme of “fail”. Pitch/submit by October 18, 2010. More info on the call is available at the link above; for general information and pay rates, click here. NB: “At this time, we almost exclusively publish work by Oregon artists and writers.”
  • Choice Publishing Group has issued calls for submissions for three anthologies within the Patchwork Path series: “Star Spangled Banner,” “Star of Hope,” and “Baby’s Block.” Deadlines vary (the first, for “Star Spangled Banner,” which is looking for stories and essays “about living the American Dream,” is December 31, 2010). Pays: $50/published story. (Via PayingWriterJobs, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/paying-writer-jobs).
  • Teaching jobs in poetry: Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professor of creative writing-poetry. Tufts University (Mass.) is advertising for a non-tenure-track (5-year position) Professor of the Practice of Poetry.
  • Teaching jobs with a fiction focus: Marymount Manhattan College (N.Y.) is looking for a tenure-track assistant professor of creative writing with a specialty in fiction. The University of Nevada-Las Vegas is also looking for a tenure-track assistant professor (fiction writer).
  • Teaching jobs with a multi-genre focus: The University of Montana invites applications for the position of assistant professor of creative writing, and they’re looking for “a writer of both nonfiction and fiction.” And the College of Wooster (Mass.) is advertising for a visiting assistant professor of English (three-year position), with a “background in teaching all forms and levels of writing, especially fiction and/or creative nonfiction; secondary expertise in U.S. ethnic literatures desirable.”
  • Rutgers (N.J.) seeks a Gift Acknowledging Writer, University of Michigan is looking for an Acknowledgment Letter Writer, and the University of Chicago seeks a Campaign Associate.
  • Monday Morning Markets/Jobs/Opportunities

    It’s good to be back! I had a lovely vacation week (even if the weather didn’t really cooperate until Thursday). Those of you who subscribe to The Practicing Writer will be receiving your September issues today. Plenty of the usual medley of offerings for poets/fictionists/writers of creative nonfiction, in terms of the no-fee competitions and paying calls for submissions. Plus, an interview with author, essayist, editor, and professor Dinty W. Moore. Soon, I’ll post the issue online, but if you’re not yet a subscriber why risk missing out on first glance at our next issue, too? Subscribe now! For today’s blog post, I’ll limit myself to items that didn’t make it into the newsletter.


    From Chuck Sambuchino: “As the editor of both Guide to Literary Agents and Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market, I need upfront informative articles for those books. I am now open to queries if you want to submit any ideas. Send them to [literaryagent(at)fwmedia(dot)com] and put “Query” in the subject line. I will only be open to queries until about mid-September, and I will respond within 4-8 weeks from now, so please query soon. Articles are 1500-2300 words and will appear in the 2012 editions (next summer). I urge writers to go in detail about what they had in mind and who, if anyone, they plan to interview. In other words: Wow me!”


    Win a free writing class: Basement Writing Workshop is running a prompt-based contest (no entry fee). “The contest winner will receive a free online class from the Basement Writing Workshop, chosen by him or her from any of our Winter offerings, as well as publication in the Basement Writing Workshop ‘campus’ website, props in our newsletter and social networking outlets, and last but not least, a Certificate of Awesomeness, signed by all our Portland-based instructors, in lipstick.” Deadline is November 1.


    Brown University (R.I.) “invites applications for an Associate Professor or Professor specializing in Poetry, position to begin 1 July 2011. Candidates should have a strong national and international reputation as a poet, a substantial publication record, and extensive teaching experience; additional expertise in other areas such as translation or poetics. An ideal candidate will also have leadership potential and be interested in helping to develop and administer the future of the Literary Arts Program.”


    California State University, Monterey Bay “seeks an Assistant Professor whose specialty is in both Fiction and Creative Nonfiction Writing to teach undergraduate courses in its Creative Writing and Social Action concentration (CWSA). We seek a candidate who is uniquely qualified and committed to educating working-class, ethnically diverse, and historically under-served students through innovation in interdisciplinary teaching and learning, scholarship, community service, and collaborative and imaginative program development. The concentration in CWSA is offered as part of the New Humanities for Social Justice (NHSJ) curriculum, along with Chicana/o Latina/o studies, Africana studies, cultural history, oral history, and new media studies.”


    Harvard University Press (Mass.) seeks a Publicity Assistant, Princeton University (N.J.) is looking for a Public Relations Specialist, and Montgomery College (Md.) wants to hire a Speech Writer.