We found over three dozen excellent free poetry and prose contests with deadlines between May 15-June 30. In this issue, please enjoy the first three pages of “The Burial of the Dead" from "The Waste Land" by T. S. Eliot, illustrated by Julian Peters. We also debut a new feature, "Annie in the Middle", featuring insights on writing and publishing from Annie Mydla, our managing editor. Annie has evaluated thousands of contest entries of all kinds and addressed the widest variety of questions from writers. We are privileged to be able to share her knowledge with you. This month's subject is, "Older Writers and Finding Success".
Next Deadline
NORTH STREET BOOK PRIZE
Deadline: July 1. 10th year. Cash awards totaling $20,400, including a top award of $10,000. This year's categories: Mainstream/Literary Fiction, Genre Fiction, Creative Nonfiction & Memoir, Poetry, Children's Picture Book, Middle Grade, Graphic Novel & Memoir, and Art Book. Accepting hybrid-published as well as self-published books. Fee: $79 per entry. New this year: All entrants who submit online via Submittable will receive a brief commentary from one of the judges (5-10 sentences). See the previous winners and enter here.
Also open now, our Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest will award $10,000 in prizes, including two top awards of $3,500 each. Submit 1-3 poems for $22. Deadline: October 1.
View past newsletters in our archives. Need assistance? Let us help. Join our 135,000 followers on Twitter and 53,000 followers on Facebook. Advertise with us,
starting at $40.
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Deadline: June 2
Any topic or style is acceptable. Even though this anthology will be called Matter, all that is expected is that your poetry reflects emotions and thoughts coming from the depths of you. You need not write about a particular word. We just want you to know that your talent with words can matter to others.
Submit 3-40 lines in any style, on any topic • Entry fee $15
PRIZES
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First Place – $400 and publication
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Second Place – $200 and publication
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Third Place – $100 and publication
These top three winners will be published with a headshot and biography in the Matter - Award Winning Poetry XXIV anthology.
Finalists - All finalists' poems chosen by our judges will be published in the Matter - Award Winning Poetry XXIV anthology.
Click to submit.
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Congratulations to Laurie Klein (featured poem: "There must be a way to listen"), Carlos Andrés Gómez, Sean Nevin, Annie Dawid, Wendy Adair, R. Bremner, Tamara Kaye Sellman, Diana Goetsch, CB Anderson, R.T. Castleberry, Shobana Gomes, and Patricia Olson.
Winning Writers contest judge Michal 'MJ' Jones was named a finalist for the 2024 Lambda Literary Awards in Transgender Poetry, for their collection Hood Vacations (Black Lawrence Press, 2023). Winners will be announced in June.
Winning Writers Editor Jendi Reiter's poem "Subtext" was published in Impossible Archetype, Issue 15.2 (March 2024). Their poem "Suicide Squad" was published in the Spring 2024 issue of Solstice Lit Mag. Their poems "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Mother" and "I'm a Laura Ashley Man, Myself" were published in Beneath the Soil: A Queer Survivors' E-Zine, Vol. III (2024). Their poem "Father of Two" made it to the final round of the 2024 Plentitudes Prize.
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!
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You have something important to say. At The Forge, we'll give you the creative writing tools & training to say it, at a much lower cost than a traditional MFA program.
If not now—when?
Why commit to a writing program of such rigor? You already write. But many smart, dedicated creative writers such as yourself are missing what we consider a critical piece of the puzzle: the opportunity to engage with a writing community, the kind that can listen and respond in helpful ways.
At The Forge, instructors Irene Cooper, Mike Cooper, and Ellen Santasiero will give you the creative writing tools and training to say what only you can say, at a fraction of the cost of a traditional MFA program. In other words, we got our MFAs so you don't have to. (Don't worry—we know! The prepositional ender is a style choice!)
Shape your writing career at The Forge. Apply now for fall or email theforgewriting@gmail.com to schedule a 15-minute chat about how we can help you show up for yourself and your writing in 2024.
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2023 North Street Book Prize: First Prize, Middle Grade
Emerson’s summer starts with a clash of cultures, then takes a sharp turn after he discovers a stolen bag of native jewelry and a gold Code Talker medal. A gang of thieves badly wants these items back. Conflicted between returning the loot to its rightful owners and selling it to buy electronics he covets, Emerson's hesitation places himself, his dachshund, Lucky, and his Grandpa Charlie, a Navajo elder, in danger as the thieves close in.
Awards
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North Street Book Prize: First Prize, Middle Grade
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New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards Finalist, Middle Grade Fiction
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Eric Hoffer Award Honorable Mention, Middle Grade Reader
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New Mexico Press Women Zia Award, First Place, Youth Books
North Street critique by Jendi Reiter
"Glinski understands what appeals to this age group, especially boys. The book has a strong moral framework, but is not preachy. Emerson's journey of maturity arises naturally from the exciting perils he faces along the way. The action was suspenseful but not too scary. Lucky is an endearing character whose bravery and intelligence make up for her small size. The animal-human bond is a great way to delve into a tween's emotional life when relationships with peers and parents have become complicated, awkward, and fast-changing...I learned a lot about Navajo culture, and I think it's great for readers of all ages to see traditional indigenous lifeways integrated into modern life. It would be a good pick for school libraries and classroom book clubs."
Book review by Maria A. Hughes, The US Review of Books
"Glinski weaves an exciting adventure interspersed with Navajo history that will hook young readers from the first chapter. The author has penned an action-packed tale, chock-full of important life lessons and relatable characters. It is a must-read for those who are fans of adventure, mystery, and Navajo culture."
5-star Amazon customer review
"This is the third in Karen's series of adventures which take young Emerson and his dog Lucky into mysteries full of intrigue, danger and lessons. It lives up to the promise delivered by her first two books."
Read an excerpt from Badge of Honor (PDF)
Buy this book on Amazon
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This month please welcome a new editorial feature: monthly blog posts about writing and publishing by our managing editor Annie Mydla. You'll find them on our Essays on Writing resource page and we'll announce them here in the newsletter.
Our first essay is "Older Writers and Finding Success". Many older writers want us to tell them if their work is good enough to continue with it. Annie writes,
I wonder if there are other questions hidden underneath it: "Does anyone care about my writing?" "Will I find commercial success?" "Does anyone care about me?" "Am I worthwhile?" "Do my thoughts matter?" "Am I creative, or just a fake?" "Have I accomplished anything in life?"
Rather than give simplistic or superficial answers, Annie has some suggestions to find success and satisfaction:
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Try flash nonfiction
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Seek out publications that are looking for older writers (we provide a list)
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Make writing social
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Get involved with anti-ageist activism in the arts
Read the essay.
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Final deadline: May 15
The Montreal International Poetry Prize is committed to encouraging the creation of original works of poetry, to building international readership, and to exploring the world’s Englishes. A.E. Stallings is this year's final judge.
One poet will win $20,000 CAD for a single unpublished poem of 40 or fewer lines. A jury of internationally reputed poets and critics selects a shortlist of approximately 60 poems, from which A.E. Stallings will choose one winner. The shortlist is published in The Montreal Poetry Prize Anthology.
The prize is run by the Department of English at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. It is a not-for-profit initiative to recognize the single poem as a work of art.
Fee: $25 CAD for a first poem; $17 CAD for every additional poem.
Learn more and submit at the Montreal International Poetry Prize website.
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Deadline: May 31
Authors & Artists Eligible
A solar flare is short-lived but has a huge amount of energy. Sunspot Lit is looking for the single short story, novel or novella excerpt, artwork, graphic novel, or poem that provides a noteworthy flare of creative energy. Literary or genre works accepted.
Runners-up and finalists are offered publication. No restrictions on theme or category. Maximum of 500 words for short stories or nonfiction, 12 lines for poetry, and 8 pages for graphic novels. No size requirements for painting, photography, video stills or sculpture, although each entry is limited to one image.
Entry fee: $10
Prize: $500 cash and publication for the winner; publication offered to runners-up and finalists.
All fees are final and nonrefundable. Revised entries can be made by withdrawing the original entry and resubmitting, paying a new fee for the new submission.
Sunspot asks for first rights only; all rights revert to the contributor after publication. Works, along with the creators’ bylines, are published in the next quarterly digital edition an average of two months after contest completion, as well as in the annual print edition.
Works should be unpublished except on a personal blog or website. Artists offered publication may display their pieces in galleries, festivals or shows throughout the publication contract period.
Enter as many times as you like, but only one piece per submission. Simultaneous submissions are accepted. Please withdraw your piece if it is published elsewhere before the winner is selected.
Enter through Submittable or Duosuma (Duotrope's submission manager).
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$500 will be awarded to the Grand Prize winner of The MacGuffin's POET HUNT 29. This year's contest runs April 1 through June 15 with Michael Meyerhofer serving as the contest's guest judge. Up to two Honorable Mention poets may also be published along with the names of the finalists and semifinalists. All entrants will receive a copy of the issue that includes the judge's selections.
Send up to five poems per $15 entry fee, payable to Schoolcraft College. Include a cover page that lists your contact info and poem titles. This should be the only page containing personally identifiable information to preserve the anonymous review process. On the following pages, include your poems, beginning each poem on a new page.
Enter via Submittable, by email at the Schoolcraft College Bookstore, or mail your materials to: The MacGuffin • Attn: Poet Hunt 29 • 18600 Haggerty Road • Livonia, MI 48152.
For the complete rules, please visit our website.
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A climate fiction contest with no entry fee and a $3,000 award? Yes, please!
Do you remember the intriguing climate fiction writing contest we told you about sometime back?
Its deadline is next month! June 24th.
Grist's Imagine 2200 climate fiction contest is inviting stories rooted in creative climate solutions and community-centered resilience. And for that, it is offering:
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$3,000 to the winning writer
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$2,000 and $1,000 to the second- and third-place winners, respectively
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$300 each to an additional nine finalists
All winners and finalists will also have their stories published in an immersive collection on Grist's website.
Beyond the impressive awards, Grist has partnered with Oregon State University's Spring Creek Project to offer the winning writer (first place) an unforgettable Environmental Writing Fellowship and Residency.
You will not only be helping a nonprofit news org dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions in their battle against climate change, but you'll also try your hand at an entirely new genre you wouldn't usually write in.
Either way, it's a win-win!
You can find all the contest details here.
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Deadline: July 1
Winning Writers will award a grand prize of $10,000 in the tenth annual North Street competition for self-published and hybrid-published books. Choose from eight categories:
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Mainstream/Literary Fiction
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Genre Fiction
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Creative Nonfiction & Memoir
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Poetry
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Children's Picture Book
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Middle Grade
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Graphic Novel & Memoir
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Art Book
$20,400 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: $79 per book, with free gifts for everyone who enters.
New this year: All entrants who submit online via Submittable will receive a brief commentary from one of the judges (5-10 sentences).
Please enjoy our judges' remarks on the winners of the ninth contest:
Daniel Victor's The Evil Inclination is a sensitive, tragic love story between a modern-day Romeo and Juliet who transgress religious boundaries. It's a brilliant novel that works on many levels—theological, personal, cultural—with high stakes and sharply observed humorous moments that make the characters achingly real.
[click to read all the remarks]
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Deadline: July 15
The annual Rattle Poetry Prize celebrates its 19th 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 a masked 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 runner-up Readers' Choice Award to be chosen by the writers themselves—the Rattle Poetry Prize aims to be one of the most writer-friendly and popular poetry contests around.
We accept entries online and by mail. See Rattle's website for the complete guidelines and to read all of the past winners.
Please enjoy last year's Rattle Poetry Prize winner by Ardon Shorr, published in Rattle #82, Winter 2023:
TIME TRAVEL FOR BEGINNERS
Every crumb of starlight
sails across the universe,
the journey of a million years
to end inside our eyes.
Except I was looking at you,
canvas coverall cinched at the waist,
as you undressed me with photons,
wrapped me in stories,
painted with x-rays,
until everything glowed
with backstory—the names of trees,
the name of an extinguished star,
still visible, ghost in the sky,
climbing a staircase of optic nerve
into an afterlife of sight.
Hand on my hand you pointed to the past:
the sun, an 8-minute time machine,
the moon, one second old,
and the incredible now,
unfolding like a cone,
megaphone of memory stretched to the sky
and balanced on the tip was us,
a luminous shout
of life at the speed of light.
In a blink, this moment reaches the moon.
When we pack up the hammock, it floats
in the acid clouds of Venus.
Which means that somewhere, there is a spot,
past the gaps in Saturn’s rings,
beyond the storms of Jupiter,
outside the curved embrace of the Milky Way,
at least one place in the universe,
where you could turn around and see us,
back when we were still in love.
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Poet William Huhn (Bachelor Holiday, BlazeVOX) gave Made Man, Jendi Reiter's third full-length poetry collection, a 5-star Amazon review:
"Each of its broad array of subjects—from a Tarantella or New Jersey's Vince Lombardi rest stop to the 'Word of the Year'—is entered 'slant', at a surprising angle, and the freshness is maintained to the end, like a tightrope walker's balance. The skill of word on display here ratchets up the stakes around every turn, as the poet continually shape-shifts from form to form, so you never quite know where you're going, yet it's the right place. You can just feel it.
"Poetry lovers will relish this mysterious outpouring of rebellion—yet of respect for the very things rebelled against. It's like doubt dipped in a deep well of optimism."
Enjoy this sample poem from Made Man:
Broken Family Couch
I miss the neighbors who used to jump shirtless on the trampoline
in the bramble woods they didn't own.
October, early, the sun is mooning through the fog,
translucent disk, surprise of perfect geometry.
Her boyish hair and rippling brown ribs,
his black beard and plié legs an Edward Gorey sketch.
Pre-dawn wires smoked, sparked — emptied of renters,
the house burst out its curbside trash of wicker and mirrors.
A mother, a husband, her children, their father, a baby.
Their rose-colored couch sinks into the unweeded lawn.
Everyone pretends someone else will take the decision
off their hands, till the first mold-fertilizing rain.
I miss the neighbors who cleaned roadkill birds for stew,
child in high-heeled Disney Princess slippers hunting with arrows.
Where stinkhorns once raised hooded shafts from spring mulch,
a blue couch appears, one September overnight, beside the pink.
My actual father, I'm sure,
never lived anywhere furniture sprouted without a landlord.
Rain after rain blighted the summer tomatoes,
the new normal, says the pocket computer.
Round equinox, the blue couch is gone,
and a rolled-up mattress tilts swaddled on the pink one's arm.
Another storm soaks their vigil.
When the summer evening was pearly and clear
a red-tailed hawk perched on our front yard wires
and he and the neighbors and I looked at each other for hours.
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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
Dan Veach Prize for Younger Poets. The Atlanta Review will award $100 and publication for poems by college-age students, aged 18-23, on any subject or style. The sponsor is particularly interested in "poems with an international focus". Enter up to 2 English-language poems, 40 lines maximum for each poem, via sponsor's online submissions portal. Be sure to include 500-word author's statement and 500-word letter of recommendation with your entry. Must be received by June 1.
Intermediate Writers
bpNichol Poetry Chapbook Award. Meet the Presses will award C$4,000 to the Canadian author and C$500 to the publisher of the best English-language poetry chapbook, 10-48 pages long, published in Canada in the preceding year. Author or publisher should submit 3 copies of book plus author's curriculum vitae and completed submission form by Canada Post or courier. Contest named for the late poet, novelist, and indie publisher bpNichol and formerly administered by Phoenix Community Works Foundation. Must be received by May 31.
Advanced Writers
Griffin Poetry Prize. The Griffin Trust will award C$130,000 for English-language poetry books published in the current calendar year (by an author in any country), 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. Publisher should send 4 copies of book plus entry form and a press packet. This is one of the most lucrative poetry prizes, as well as one of the most prestigious. Prize is awarded once a year, but there are ordinarily two deadlines depending on when the book was published. For the "2025" award, books published between January 1-June 30, 2024 must be received by June 21, 2024.
See more Spotlight Contests for emerging, intermediate, and advanced writers within The Best Free Literary Contests database.
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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, Submittable, and literary journals' own newsletters and announcements.
• Marrow Magazine
(poetry, prose, artwork, multimedia - rolling deadline)
• Africa Migration Report: An Anthology of Poems
(international anthology about refugees and immigrants - May 25)
• Moving Words
(poems and flash prose suitable for adaptation into short videos - May 31)
• Poet Lore
(original poems and translations - May 31)
• Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets
(full-length poetry manuscripts - May 31)
• Diamond Gazette
(poetry and prose by authors aged 10-22 - June 1)
• Let's Say Gay: A Queer Youth Literary Journal
(creative writing and art by LGBTQ authors aged 13-18 - June 1)
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This month, editor Jendi Reiter presents selected books that deserve your attention. There are many more in our Books resource section.
Stephen Dobyns
THE WRESTLER'S CRUEL STUDY
Poet and noir mystery novelist Dobyns branches out into philosophical farce in this ensemble-cast comedy set in early 1990s New York City, where wrestling matches re-enact early Christian disputes about the nature of evil, and anyone's life might unwittingly mimic a Grimm's fairy tale. What holds this capacious story together is the idea that truth is only manifested through artifical personae and constructed narratives—what wrestlers call their Gimmicks—and if there is free will, it consists of noticing your Gimmick and maybe choosing a different one.
Sanya Whittaker Gragg
MOMMA, DID YOU HEAR THE NEWS?
This sensitive picture book features a Black family giving their two young sons "the Talk" about how to avoid being shot by the police. The book manages children's fears about current events in an age-appropriate way, and also conveys a nuanced message that many police officers are good people doing a dangerous job.
Robert Jones Jr.
THE PROPHETS
Set on a Mississippi plantation, this devastating yet life-affirming novel centers on the forbidden love of two young Black enslaved men. Multiple perspectives reveal how sexual violation and erotic entanglement give the lie to the brutally maintained separation of Black and white, as well as the complex uses of Christianity to comfort the oppressed while muting their rebellion. Interspersed with the deadly despair of the plantation scenes are hopeful visions of pre-colonizer African cultures that respected queer identities, a legacy that finds expression in the main characters' pure bond.
Vikram Kolmannskog
RHYHEIM
Subtitled "A porn poem", this lyrical and erotic chapbook is a meditation on scenes from Black gay adult performer Rhyheim Shabazz's videos. Slow-motion, stream-of-consciousness descriptions of sexual encounters transform into moments of spiritual oneness with concepts from Hindu mysticism. As a queer man of color in predominantly white Norway, Kolmannskog finds inspiration and self-acceptance in Rhyheim's multi-racial intimate couplings. Publisher Broken Sleep Books is a small press in Wales with a working-class orientation and an interest in social justice.
Charlie J. Stephens
A WOUNDED DEER LEAPS HIGHEST
This exquisite coming-of-age story depicts a queer youth struggling to survive in the rural Oregon of the 1980s. In the human world, the narrator's life is defined by poverty, instability, and abuse from their mother's boyfriends. But to Smokey, a nonbinary child with a shamanic connection to animals, the human world is not the only or most important one. The adults are tossed around by delusion and impulse, even Smokey's mother, who is genuinely devoted but succumbs to her addiction to dangerous men. The child's view of reality is clear, compassionate, and attuned to beauty. This makes the book hopeful in a strange way, despite the tragedies that pile up.
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Mr. Peters writes, "Ever since completing my comics adaptation of T. S. Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock', I have wanted to do something similar with Eliot's most famous and celebrated poem, 'The Waste Land'. But besides being extremely complex and often difficult to interpret, 'The Waste Land' (first published in 1922) is very long, and this always deterred me from getting started. But in recent times, with a historical situation that in many ways mirrors that in which Eliot was writing, with a society emerging from a vast global collective trauma—made up of innumerable individual personal traumas—and a disquieting future looming on the horizon, this latent desire pressingly reasserted itself.
"Finally it occurred to me that I could after all begin to tackle the project by breaking it down into smaller, more manageable units. Near the end of last year I resolved to adapt, for the time being, only the first section of the five sections into which the poem is subdivided, 'The Burial of the Dead'."
We will reproduce the full 16-page comic of "The Burial of the Dead" in segments in our upcoming spring and summer newsletters.
Continues next month
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