We found over three dozen excellent free poetry and prose contests with deadlines between June 15-July 31. This issue features "A Birthday" by Christina Rossetti, from Julian Peters' newly published Nature Poems to See By. Annie Mydla gets specific on ensuring that your vision for your book comes through to the reader.

Subscriber Donna Nichols warns about a self-publishing company that delivered neither good-looking books nor adequate customer service. If you have a tip, recommendation, or warning, please email it to info@winningwriters.com.

Last Call!
NORTH STREET BOOK PRIZE
Deadline: July 1. 12th year. Cash awards totaling $23,500, including a top award of $10,000. Many additional benefits from our co-sponsors. This year's categories: Mainstream/Literary Fiction, Genre Fiction, Creative Nonfiction & Memoir, Inspirational/Self-Help (new!), Poetry, Children's Picture Book, Middle Grade, Graphic Novel & Memoir, and Art Book. Accepting hybrid-published as well as self-published books. Fee: $95 per entry. All entrants who submit online via Submittable can choose to receive a brief commentary from one of the judges (5-10 sentences) at no extra charge. See the previous winners and enter here.

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Congratulations to Stephen C. Pollock, Gary Beck, J. Arthur Moore, Cheryl J. Fish, Phyllis Klein, Linda Summersea, Terri Kirby Erickson, Chen Du, Duane L. Herrmann, Charles Sartorius, and Eva Tortora.

Winning Writers Editor Jendi Reiter and Subhaga Crystal Bacon will read from their new poetry collections at 3:00 pm Eastern time on Sunday, July 5 in the Saddle Road Press "First Sundays" online reading series (Zoom link, passcode 536814). Jendi's latest book is Introvert Pervert (The Word Works, 2026) and Subhaga's is A Brief History of My Sex Life (Lily Poetry Review Press, 2026). Watch past episodes on the Saddle Road Press YouTube channel, including Jendi's 2024 reading from their novel Origin Story with Donald Mengay (Ojo).

Jendi and Andrea Lawlor will be reading their work and interviewing Joseph Osmundson about his new memoir Spawning Season: An Experiment in Queer Parenthood (Bloomsbury) at 7:00 pm on Wednesday, June 17, at Odyssey Bookshop, 9 College Street, Suite 4, South Hadley, MA.

Learn about our subscribers' achievements and see links to samples of their work.

Have news? Please email it to jendi@winningwriters.com.

Do you use TikTok or Instagram? Send your news to the @winningwriters account so we can share it!

This Pride Month, join the Academy of American Poets and Dawn Lundy Martin for "Queering the Poetic Line", a three-part virtual seminar starting June 23. Exploring queer and trans poetry through syntax, silence, lineation, and form, the seminar features works by Julian Talamantez Brolaski, francine j. harris, Eileen Myles, Justin Phillip Reed, and Ronaldo V. Wilson.

Participants will examine how poetry can unsettle language, breath, and meaning itself. We'll take a deep dive into poems that utilize the line and line break—not as obligation but as opportunity. In this opportunity we will find syntactical derangement, transgressions of sense and breath, fits of tension, seemingly necessary caesurae, and more.

Sessions: Tuesdays, June 23, June 30, and July 7 (virtual)
6-7pm EDT.

Registration is $150 general / $120 Academy members.
Recordings will be available to registered participants.

Presented by Two Sylvias Press

• July 6-August 2
• August 3-August 30
• October 5-November 1

If you participated in last year's online retreat (summer or fall), you will find that this retreat has all-new prompts, exercises, and reflection questions. Same style as the retreats in previous years, but with new material to inspire you!

You can choose one of the following guest poets to critique a poem for the July and August retreats:

JULY
Diane Seuss (Full—no longer available for July)
Traci Brimhall
Diannely Antigua
Jennifer K. Sweeney

AUGUST
Diane Seuss
Traci Brimhall
Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
Jennifer K. Sweeney

(Learn more about each Guest Poet here)

For the October Retreat, the editors of Two Sylvias Press (Kelli Russell Agodon & Annette Spaulding-Convy) will critique your poem.

Note: Space is limited, so sign up early to make sure you receive your first choice of guest poet to respond to your poem. Sign up for one session only—the material for each retreat is the same.

All you need for this online retreat is access to your email and some writing time. Do as many or as few of the prompts and activities as you would like. It's a poetry writing retreat you can do from your own home on your OWN schedule! We provide the prompts, writing exercises, and inspiration—directly to your email box!

The 4-week Online Poetry Retreat includes the following:

• Daily poem prompts and writing exercises developed specifically for the retreat.
• One poem critiqued by your guest critique poet (July and August). One poem critiqued by the editors at Two Sylvias Press (Kelli Russell Agodon and Annette Spaulding-Convy) for the October Session.
• Example poems and exercises/prompts emailed to you throughout the week (Monday-Friday), with weekends left open for focused writing and revision.

See testimonials from satisfied poets and register now for the July, August, or October Retreats.

Deadline: July 1

Winning Writers will award a grand prize of $10,000 in the 12th annual North Street competition for self-published and hybrid-published books. We are proud to be a Partner Member of the Alliance of Independent Authors. Partner Members include "contests that have been vetted and align with ALLi's Code of Standards." These are ALLi's guiding principles in rating literary awards:

• The event exists to recognize talent, not to enrich the organizers
• The judging process is transparent and clear
• Entrants are not required to forfeit key rights to their work
• Receiving an award is an achievement
• Prizes are appropriate and commensurate with the entry fees collected
• There is no profiteering upsell

Choose from nine categories in our contest:

• Mainstream/Literary Fiction
• Genre Fiction
• Creative Nonfiction & Memoir
• Inspirational/Self-Help (new!)
• Poetry
• Children's Picture Book
• Middle Grade
• Graphic Novel & Memoir
• Art Book

$23,500 will be awarded in all, and the top nine winners will receive additional benefits to help market their books. Books published on all self-publishing and hybrid-publishing platforms are eligible. Any year of publication is eligible. Entry fee: $95 per book, with free gifts for everyone who enters.

This contest is co-sponsored by Atmosphere Press, Book Award Pro, BookBaby, Carolyn Howard-Johnson, Gatekeeper Press, Laura Duffy Design, and Self-Publishing Made Simple.

All entrants who submit online via Submittable can choose to receive a brief commentary from one of the judges (5-10 sentences) at no extra charge.

In Shakespeare on Sex, readers will discover William Shakespeare as they have never seen him before: a rebellious playwright determined to challenge Elizabethan England's sexual mores and champion the freedom of love. Drawing on the scandal of Shakespeare's own shotgun wedding after he impregnated twenty-six-year-old Anne Hathaway when he was still a teenage minor in a time and place that prohibited premarital sex, this groundbreaking book reveals how sex was at the heart of his life and art.

Shakespeare filled his works with filthy jokes, lusty wordplay, and frank portrayals of sex and desire. But audiences today miss his peerless and purposeful smut, which flies by in iambic pentameter and Elizabethan slang. Shakespeare defied the restrictive laws of his day, giving voice to women, young lovers, and rebel hearts yearning for sexual liberation.

Shakespeare offered revolutionary counsel in play after play, advice that can still help us all. This bold book uncovers the untold story about Shakespeare's mission to bring sexual liberation to the world's stage; it also shows how his constant focus on sex formed the narrative arc of his career, linking his plays to documented facts about his life. The big reveal that ends the so-called authorship controversy is monumental.

Buy now at Amazon or Bookshop.org

Praise for Shakespeare on Sex

"If Norman Mailer…were with us still, he would relish and cherish Marc Berley's speedy, elating, jubilating, dramatic excavations of Shakespeare's daring ideas of chastity and fulfillment. Here is the living Bard far, far from the classroom and set on an intimate, vivid, and fearless stage."
—Cynthia Ozick, award-winning author

"A fascinating read that shows a feminist Bard hiding in plain sight."
—Charlie Lovett, New York Times bestselling author

For early-career authors, intention can be a blinding force. Authors feel the content so hard. In a way, they are the content. It can be almost impossible for them to separate what they're projecting onto the book from what's actually there in black and white.

The thing is, readers don't have that extra layer in their minds while reading the book. All we have are the words we're reading. The author's intention doesn't count unless it's embodied in the story and technique. Read on.

"What an incredible experience my first residency was! Being on campus, surrounded by other passionate writers, for an entire week made me realize I haven't been able to dedicate this much time to my writing since...ever. This is why I wanted to get my MFA.

"I had no idea how enriching residency would be. This one week created a huge shift: in my motivation, my perspective of what's possible, my mental health, and the number of people I call Friend.

"Now I'm back home for my semester of independent study—writing, reading, analyzing texts, but not as 'on my own' as I thought it would be. We all have so much support from the faculty and staff, a huge network of alums, and each other.

"I can't wait to see what we write this semester! I'm beyond grateful that it's finally time to give my all to my writing."

– Emily Persichetti Schuster, low-residency MFA student at Spalding University's Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing

LEARN MORE

When you self-publish with IngramSpark, you are plugged in to one of the publishing industry's largest global book distribution networks, including access to over 45,000 retailers, libraries, and independent bookstores. Create your free account today.

Subscriber Donna Nichols writes,
"Books.by is a very poor self-publishing company. I used them and all my pages came out so faded you couldn't read them. I have been going back and forth with them since February to refund my customers and myself for the author copies I ordered, and no one has ever received a dime. I have never had any correspondence back from them after the first month or so. I do believe I got scammed!"

[Editor's note: It's a good idea to vet companies by searching the web for company name scam and company name complaints. You can also search Writer Beware.]

Have a tip, recommendation, or warning? Please email it to us at info@winningwriters.com.

Deadline: July 15

The annual Rattle Poetry Prize celebrates its 21st year with a 1st prize of $15,000 for a single poem. Ten finalists will also receive $500 each and publication, and be eligible for the $5,000 Readers' Choice Award, to be selected by subscriber and entrant vote. All of these poems will be published in the winter issue of the magazine.

With the winners judged in an anonymized review by the editors to ensure a fair and consistent selection, an entry fee that is simply a one-year subscription to the magazine—and a large Readers' Choice Award to be chosen by the writers themselves—we've designed the Rattle Poetry Prize to be one of the most inspiring contests around.

Past winners have included a retired teacher, a lawyer, and several students. It's fair, it's friendly, and you receive a print subscription to Rattle even if you don't win.

We accept entries online via Submittable. See Rattle's website for the complete guidelines and to read all of the past winners.

Please enjoy the very first Rattle Poetry Prize winning poem by Sophia Rivkin, published in Rattle #26, Winter 2006:

CONSPIRACY
The husband calls from two hundred miles away
to say he cannot stand it, his wife is dying
in a rented hospital bed in their living room
and he must put her away, somewhere, anywhere,
in a nursing home and she is crying looking up at him
through the bars like a caged animal—
she is an animal with foul green breath
and buttocks burnt raw with urine—
he cannot lift her, he cannot change her often enough,
and she is crying for the children’s pictures on the mantle,
she cannot leave the silver candlesticks,
the high school graduation pictures.
And I say, yes, it is time to put her away,
I am the friend and I say it,
the living conspiring with the living,
death standing like a Nazi general or a stormtrooper
with a huge cardboard chest covered with metals,
and he leans over her and pins a gold star
through her skin and it pricks us,
pricks us through the brain,
through our skin
but we do not bleed
when death is pushing her
out of her bed, marching her away,
while everyone stands white-faced
among the white-faced crowd,
blending in, blending in.

Some contests are best suited to writers at the early stages of their careers. Others are better for writers with numerous prizes and publications to their credit. Here is this month's selection of Spotlight Contests for your consideration:

Emerging Writers
Preservation Foundation Essay Contest for Unpublished Writers. Preservation Foundation will award up to $200 and web publication for essays, 1,000-5,000 words, by unpublished writers, defined as those whose creative writing has never produced revenues of over $250 in any single year. Nonfiction categories are General, Biographical, Travel, and Animal. The April 30 deadline is for entries in the Animal Nonfiction category; June 30 deadline is for entries in the General Nonfiction category; August 31 deadline is for entries in the Biographical Nonfiction category; and October 31 deadline is for entries in the Travel Nonfiction category. Entries must be received by these dates.

Intermediate Writers
Wingate Literary Prize. The Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation will award 4,000 pounds for the best English-language fiction or nonfiction book published between September 1 of the previous year and August 31 of the deadline year that "translates the idea of Jewishness to the general reader". Books must explore Jewish themes and be published and distributed in the UK and Ireland. Author may be of any nationality. Must be received by June 26.

Advanced Writers
Griffin Poetry Prize. The Griffin Trust will award C$130,000 for English-language poetry books published in the current calendar year (author may be from any nation), as well as C$10,000 for shortlisted entries and a debut Canadian author. Translations are eligible, with the prize split between author and translator. For the "2027" award, books published between January 1-June 30, 2026 must be received by June 19, 2026, and those published between July 1-December 31 must be received by December 18, 2026. These deadlines have changed a little from the prior year. Publishers are to make the submissions.

See more Spotlight Contests for emerging, intermediate, and advanced writers within The Best Free Literary Contests database.

Winning Writers finds open submission calls and free contests in a variety of sources, including Erika Dreifus' Practicing Writer newsletter, FundsforWriters, Erica Verrillo's blog, Authors Publish, Lit Mag News Roundup, Poets & Writers, The Writer, Duotrope, and literary journals' own newsletters and announcements.

• The Literary Times Magazine: "Half-Being" Issue
(poetry, prose, artwork on the divided self - June 30)

• Midnight & Indigo
(speculative and literary fiction and creative nonfiction by Black women - June 30)

• Arsenal Pulp Press: "Queer Little Daydreams" Anthology
(speculative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry with a queer vision of the future - August 1)

• Ploughshares
(poetry, fiction, essays - November 15)

This month, editor Jendi Reiter presents some of the best self-published books that have come through our North Street Book Prize competition. Click the links for our critiques and samples from the books. More winners are featured in our Contest Archives.

SPIRIT BRIDGES
Li Mo
First Prize, Creative Nonfiction, 2019
In this imagistic, introspective memoir, the author recalls her family's hardships when Shanghai fell to the communists, and her coming of age in the 1960s counterculture as an immigrant in Europe and America.

LENTILS IN BLACK RICE
Molly Lazer
Honorable Mention, Genre Fiction, 2019
This concise story collection features eloquent retellings and recombinations of myths and fairy tales in modern settings.

CARAS LINDAS DE COLOMBIA/BEAUTIFUL FACES OF COLOMBIA
Michael Bracey and Ruth Goring
First Prize, Art Book, 2023
This bilingual book of photojournalism celebrates Colombia's African-descendant communities and their ongoing activism against poverty and gender inequality.

TIME ZONES
Sven Siekmann
First Prize, Graphic Novel & Memoir, 2024
This cinematic, suspenseful black-and-white comic dramatizes Siekmann's parents' attempted escape from East Germany in 1978.

Comic artist Julian Peters offers a fresh twist on 24 famous poems in a stunning anthology about our relationship with the natural world. Available in ebook and hardcover formats. Order from the publisher or Amazon.

Please enjoy this poem from the book:

Read the text of this poem at Poetry Foundation.

I have relaunched my blog as a Substack. This week, I review Spawning Season: An Experiment in Queer Parenthood, a memoir by Joseph Osmundson. On June 17, Andrea Lawlor and I will interview the author at Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, MA.

Grieving for Children We Have and Don't Have
"...His maternal hunger to nurture a child from his body has no obvious avenue of expression for a cisgender man in a gay partnership. Alongside ethical objections to adoption and surrogacy, the economics of their life in New York City don't leave room for being primary parents. When the story opens, he's offered a seemingly ideal path to parenthood by becoming a sperm donor for his close friend Kay and her wife Jaime. The friends see it as an opportunity to become closer, creating a queer family in flesh as well as spirit..." Read on.

Jendi Reiter is the editor of Winning Writers. Visit their website and subscribe to their Substack.