We found over four dozen excellent free poetry and prose contests with deadlines between March 15-April 30. In this issue, please enjoy "The Voice of God", a poem by Mary Karr, illustrated by Julian Peters.

Order a Winning Writers book or manuscript critique today. Tomorrow, March 16, the price increases from $180 to $240. Rave reviews! We guarantee your satisfaction. Learn more.

We would like to recognize and encourage the finalists in our ninth annual North Street Book Prize competition. We announced the prizewinners last month.

Art Book
Gary Berger, Einstein
Barbara Ford and Roberta Smith, In Pursuit of Happenstance

Children's Picture Book
Tiana Addai-Mensah, A Book Is Like a Baby
Judeah Reynolds, as told to Sheletta Brundidge and Lily Coyle, A Walk to the Store
David Ross, And Sometimes Y
Sharon Sorokin, Ziggy's Potato

Middle Grade
Wendi Threlkeld, Mercy's Rise
D.F. Whibley, One Arctic Night

Graphic Novel & Memoir
Thomas C. Jackson & Fritz McDonald, 2184 1/2
Nick Tomb, The Adventures of Maritime Domain Awareness Man

Genre Fiction
Beth Hamer Miles, 'Bout to Dye in Birmingham
Brooke Skipstone, The Queering

Mainstream/Literary Fiction
Bethany Browning, Sasquatch, Baby!
Ibrahim A. Kamara, The African Mosquito War

Creative Nonfiction & Memoir
Barbara Johnson, A Head of Cabbage
Nishta J. Mehra, The Pomegranate King
Carol Menaker, The Worst Thing We've Ever Done: One Juror's Reckoning with Racial Injustice

Poetry
Stuart Jay Silverman, Portals

Last Call!
WERGLE FLOMP HUMOR POETRY CONTEST - NO FEE
Deadline: April 1. 23rd year. $3,750 in prizes, including a top award of $2,000. Final judge: Jendi Reiter. Both unpublished and previously published work accepted. See last year's winners and enter here.

Deadline Approaching
TOM HOWARD/JOHN H. REID FICTION & ESSAY CONTEST
Deadline: May 1. 32nd year. $10,000 in prizes, including two top awards of $3,500 each. Fee: $22 per entry. Final judge: Mina Manchester. Both unpublished and previously published work accepted. See last year's winners and enter here.

Coming in next month's newsletter: We'll announce the winners of our 21st annual Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. View past newsletters in our archives. Need assistance? Let us help. Join our 135,000 followers on Twitter and 51,000 followers on Facebook. Advertise with us, starting at $40.

Deadline: March 31
Writers from all nations eligible
Top ten poems will be published in the FISH ANTHOLOGY 2024

• 1st prize: €1,000 ($1,000)
• 2nd prize: Fish Writing Course + €300 ($300)
• 3rd prize: €300 ($300)

Judge: Billy Collins
Submit unpublished poems up to 60 lines
Results: May 15, 2024
Anthology Published: July 2024
Entry Fees: €14 ($14) for first entry, €9 ($9) each additional

See the complete rules and submit.

Please enjoy Winifred Hughes' winning entry from last year...

The Scene Without

"The scene" is still the same—that's what you called it,
the view from our back windows that opens in winter

like a spread scroll—the brook that runs free and full, skidding
among stones, browned meadows with their broken stems

and grasses, matted leafmold, woods stripped of cover
spilling pent up secrets, light pallid, whether bleak or tender

only you could have told. You'd still know it instantly—how you
loved the scope of it, the sheer expanse; loved even the battered,

colorless stalks, the twiggy bushes, hollow seedpods—remnants
of your care only last summer, no longer ago than that, now

unbridgeable by any quickening of spring, unimaginable by any
thought of mine. Only this morning I saw a sharp-shinned hawk

gliding overhead, ready to plunge. Before that a fox, uttering
its short, sharp yap, then loping across the yard to re-enact

the primal plot that ends in survival and abrupt extinction.
Small songbirds enact it too, gorging against the cold but not

to the point of slowing their flight from the hawk. Look there—
I want to show you the brown creeper camouflaged against

the mottled bark, until it spirals down to the base of the trunk;
the golden-crowned kinglet flitting skittishly among the bare

branches, picking at lichens; the flicker, with its yellow-shafted wings
and dagger-like bill, drilling for grubs in the half-thawed ground.

I wonder if they might be the same individual birds you saw this time
last year, looking out from these same windows on this winter scene.

I want to tell you that they are all still here, that I am still here, that nothing
has changed—just everything inside the windows, but nothing without.

Winifred Hughes is a reformed academic and active birder living in Princeton, New Jersey. The author of two chapbooks, as well as poems in scattered journals, she currently serves on the boards of two local environmental organizations and teaches courses in nature writing and ecopoetry. When she is not actually writing poems, she can be found leading bird walks and poking around in the local wetlands, or hanging out with her two grown sons.

Congratulations to Joan Gelfand, AT Hincapie, James K. Zimmerman (featured poem: "Zen Patriarch Dōgen Takes a Ride in a Self-Driving Car"), Sue Fagalde Lick, Emily-Sue Sloane, Cedar Koons, P.M. Flynn (featured poem: "The Center of the Universe"), Terri Kirby Erickson, Richard Eric Johnson, Gail Thomas, Owen Lewis, R.T. Castleberry, Eva Tortora, Samantha Terrell, Annie Dawid, Duane L. Herrmann, and Shobana Gomes.

Winning Writers editor Jendi Reiter's poems "Kill Your Darlings" and "Commendatore", from their series of poems about characters on "The Sopranos", were published in Lammergeier, Issue 16 (Winter 2024). Jendi was interviewed in this issue as their featured poet. In other news, Jendi's poems "Satisfaction" and "Reading 'Sexuality Beyond Consent' with My Cat" were published in Action, Spectacle (Winter 2023, Part II).

Winning Writers subscriber Tom W. Taylor a/k/a The Poet Spiel passed away on March 1 at the age of 82. In recent years he had suffered from vascular dementia, though he remained active with his creative work. His most recent major publication was the retrospective anthology of his visual art and writing, Revealing Self in Pictures and Words (2018). Spiel's artwork was featured on the cover and section title pages of Jendi Reiter's poetry book Made Man (Little Red Tree, 2022). He is survived by his longtime partner, Paul Welch.

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!

Coralee, who just turned sixteen, is spending her summer vacation at the Silver Wing Point lighthouse with her beloved grandfather. She loves the smell of the briny sea and the way it crashes against the sandy beach and this year she discovers something so fantastical, so secret that she knows this will be the best summer yet.

But a fun vacation soon turns into a stormy disaster when her grandfather goes out to sea and doesn't return. Coralee must rely on the newfound secrets of the sea to save him. Will she do it in time to save his life?

"Perfect for 7+" — Kidliomag review

On sale now at Amazon.

First Prize, Mainstream/Literary Fiction, North Street Book Prize, 2023

Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist, 2022

Foreword Indies Book of the Year Finalist, 2021

Readers's Favorite Contest, Finalist, 2021

SPR Awards Finalist, 2020

Love affairs between men are completely accepted in Edo, even among men married to women, but low-ranking samurai Uchida Tomonosuke has never pledged himself to another man. Until one day he accidentally crosses paths with a beautiful blind masseur who challenges everything he thought he knew about love between men. Ichi is a member of the Todoza, the guild of blind men, who are trained in massage and music. The Todoza taught Ichi how to be independent and self-sufficient, but he's still at the very lowest rungs of society. For the samurai and the masseur to be together, it will mean not only crossing class lines and negotiating Tomonosuke's unhappy wife, but also surviving earthquake, fire and famine.

In their North Street judge's critique, Jendi Reiter writes, "I loved this book. It passed the test of 'I forgot I was reading it for work.' More than a romance—though there's nothing wrong with that—Flowers by Night beautifully re-creates a setting that differs from ours in surprising ways, yet is home to universal longings for authentic intimacy."

Read an excerpt from Flowers by Night (PDF)

Available wherever books are sold. Buy on Bookshop.org and Amazon, with additional options on the author's page on Allauthor. Audiobook available.

Rattle is proud to announce Abby E. Murray's "Supermoon", which appeared in the Poets Respond series, is the winner of the 2024 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor.

This contest has a rolling deadline

We established the Neil Postman Award for Metaphor in honor and remembrance of Neil Postman, who died on October 5, 2003. The intention of the award is simple and two-fold: to reward a given writer for their use of metaphor, and to celebrate (and, hopefully, propagate) Postman's work and the typographical mind.

Each year, the editors choose one poem that was published from regular submissions to Rattle during the previous year. There are no entry fees or submission guidelines involved. The author of the chosen poem receives $2,000.

For more information and to read all fifteen previous winners, please visit the award's webpage. To submit your own poems, choose any free submission option on our Submittable page.

SUPERMOON
by Abby E. Murray

It doesn't arrive so much as continue
to exist, this blue supermoon
exactly who she was just days before.
When she's this bright though, I tell my daughter,
and this close, we give her another name, that's all.
I want to add that human kindness
is like this: never really changing,
never gone. This week, she asked me
if it was worth it, growing up in a cruel world—
that's the name she gave it, the name it earned. Cruel.
So we sat outside at night to wait
for something spectacular to prove itself.
We craned our necks like tourists in a cathedral,
expecting to see the tidy, timely face of God,
and all we got was a persuasion of clouds
so thick and cold we had to guess
where the moon might be glowing.
We had to point where the gloom was thinnest
and say there! as if it was only as extraordinary
as it was out of sight—for us, for now—
but it was happening, it was true,
for thousands of years in a row.

Deadline: March 17

CRAFT is excited to announce a brand-new contest for 2024—the Novelette Print Prize. We'll be seeking submissions of polished novelettes from 7,500 to 15,000 words. One grand-prize winner will receive $3,000, print publication, royalties, and twenty author copies. The winner will have the option of international distribution through drop-shipping at Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and other platforms, earning fifty percent of royalties on their published novelette.

Entries cost $30. Multiple entries are welcomed. Guest Judge Hanna Pylväinen, a finalist for the National Book Award, will choose the winner and write the foreword for this new print publication. We can't wait to read your simmering, scintillating novelettes!

Learn more and submit here.

Deadline: March 31

Authors & Artists Eligible

Beginnings have the power to spark passion or curiosity. They might immediately connect a specific place and time with an emotional tone. The best openings offer a feeling, atmosphere, action, or image that is gripping, and hints at more to come. The first photo, painting or frame presented in a gallery, series, or graphic novel strives for the spark that promises to burn.

For Sunspot Lit's Inception contest, send your best opening. There are no restrictions on theme, category, or the length of the piece or collection from which the excerpt comes. Word limit is 250 for prose, 25 words for poetry. Graphic novel and comic book entries should be the first page (unlimited number of panels on that page) with a maximum of 250 words (cut the number of panels in order to meet the word count, if needed).

Art entries should be the first in a series, the first in a gallery lineup, the first in a themed collection, etc. Entries are limited to one image of a painting, sculpture, mixed media form, collage, or other artwork.

• Entry fee: $10
• Prize: $500 cash and publication for the winner; publication offered to runners-up and finalists.

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 as well as the annual fall 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, but please withdraw your piece if it is published elsewhere before the winner is selected.

Enter through Sunspot's Submittable form or through Duosuma.

Deadline: April 1

The 46th annual Nimrod Literary Awards, the Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry and the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, are open. The Literary Awards offer first prizes of $2,000 and publication and second prizes of $1,000 and publication. Winners will also take part in a virtual Awards Ceremony and Reading in fall 2024. All finalists and selected semi-finalists will be published and paid at a rate of $10 per page up to $200.

The final judges for 2024 are Kelly Link in fiction and Paisley Rekdal in poetry.

Guidelines:

• Poetry: 3-10 pages
• Fiction: 7,500 words maximum
• Fee Per Entry: $20 payable to Nimrod (additional $3 fee for work submitted online), includes a one-year subscription

No previously published works or works accepted for publication elsewhere. Author’s name must not appear on the manuscript. Include a cover sheet containing major title(s), author’s name, full address, phone, and email. Open to international submissions. Entries may be mailed to Nimrod or submitted online via Submittable.

For complete rules, visit Nimrod’s website.

Deadline extended to April 2

The Perkoff Prize is a tri-genre contest that awards $1,000 and publication each to writers of the best story, set of poems, and essay that engage in evocative ways with health and medicine as judged by the editors.

Guidelines:

• All submissions must engage with health and medicine in some way.
• All submissions must be previously unpublished.
• Poetry: up to 10 pages of poetry.
• Fiction and Nonfiction: up to 8,500 words, double-spaced.
• Winners will be published in print issue of TMR.
• Check out the prizewinners and finalists from last year's contest here. Winners will be announced in late 2024.
• All entries will be considered for publication (whether in print, or as part of our Poem of the Week or Blast features).
• Multiple submissions and simultaneous submissions are welcome, but you must pay a separate fee for each entry and withdraw the piece immediately if accepted elsewhere.
• Standard Entry fee: $15. Each entrant receives a one-year subscription to The Missouri Review in digital format (normal price $24).
• "All Access" Entry fee: $30. In addition to the one-year digital subscription to The Missouri Review, the "All Access" entry fee grants access to the last 10 years of digital issues and the audio recordings of each digital issue.

Submit Online
Submit By Mail (short downloadable form in .docx format)

Regular deadline: April 10

• This international competition is for emerging writers who are NOT currently represented by a literary agent.
• The top three winners in each category of Fiction and Creative Nonfiction receive:
       → A cash award (1st - $2,000, 2nd - $1,500, 3rd - $1,000)
       → A Developmental Mentorship: Each mentor/mentee experience will reflect the needs of the winning writer.
       → Consultation with an agent via Zoom
• The regular entry fee is US$20 per entry ($35 after the regular deadline).

Visit our website for additional information and prize guidelines.

• Theme: Cross-Genre Challenge
• Prize Money: $1,000 USD (500 USD per genre pair)
• Entrance Fee: $14.99
• Word Count: Max. 1,000
• Registration Deadline: April 14th

How does it work?

Receive two genres, pick a writing prompt, and challenge yourself to submit your story within 5 days.

After submission, step into the shoes of the jury and review other entries. Vote for a winner and develop an eye for what makes a story stand out.

At the end, you receive detailed feedback from your fellow writers and you might walk away with the prize money!

We put strong emphasis on fostering a supportive community in which writers empower other writers. The unique set-up of our contests ensures that everyone gets the feedback they deserve to help them grow as authors.

Start Your Journey Today

Postmark deadline: April 15

In honor of Richard Angilly, 1941-2022, co-founder of Dancing Poetry Festival and the Poetic Dance Theater Company, Artists Embassy International celebrates the ambassadorship of excellent artists and their work that furthers intercultural understanding and peace through the universal language of the arts.

Now in its 31st year, all Dancing Poetry Festival prize winners will receive cash prizes, a certificate suitable for framing, and an invitation to read their poem at the Dancing Poetry Festival online.

Three Grand Prizes will receive $100 each plus their poems will be costumed, danced, and filmed. Many smaller prizes.

See videos from past Dancing Poetry Festivals that show the vast diversity of poetry and dance we present each year. For poetry, we look for something new and different including new twists to old themes, different looks at common situations, and innovative concepts for dynamic, thought-provoking entertainment. Please do not feel constrained to submit a poem about dancing. The entry fee is just $5 for one poem and $10 for three. Limit of 38 lines per poem. We look forward to reading your submissions.

See the complete contest rules and enjoy "Different Diamonds" by Eileen Malone, winner of a Grand Prize in 2023.

Deadline: April 30

The inaugural ONLY POEMS Prize is an attempt to disrupt the contest model and create an ethical, fun, writer-friendly contest. You can read about how we tried to design this contest without selling our soul. We will publish 3-10 poem portfolios from the winning poets alongside an extensive interview. Poets will be promoted widely across our 10K+ subscribers and 11K+ strong social media channels.

Read the submission guidelines on our website and submit via Submittable.

While we ask you to submit poems that are previously unpublished at the time of submission, if your poems get published while still under consideration for the ONLY POEMS Prize, you will not be ineligible. No more withdrawing!

Join renowned authors and professional park educators for a writers conference like no other set on a lush, secluded campus nestled within America's most-visited national park. Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont partners with Smokies Life to bring this five-day intensive retreat to a small group of selected writers.

Apply to be a part of your chosen cohort: fiction, nonfiction, or poetry—and enjoy the benefits of award-winning author workshop leaders dedicated to focusing on you and your work. Days will be dedicated to learning and writing in small groups. Each afternoon, writers will have the option to join experienced Tremont naturalists for guided explorations that spark curiosity and wonder through a deeper connection to the region's cultural and natural history. Evenings will conclude with hearty dinners, fellowship with peers, and readings by writing faculty.

Apply now through April 30.

Early-bird deadline: May 1

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: $20 CAD for a first poem during the early entry period; $17 CAD for every additional poem.

Learn more and submit at the Montreal International Poetry Prize website.

☙ Tenth year sponsored by Winning Writers
☙ Win $10,000 for your self-published or hybrid-published book
☙ New! Everyone who enters online will receive 5-10 sentences of feedback on their entry
☙ Fee: $79

Learn more

 

LitMag's Emily Dickinson Award for Poetry is open for submissions. First prize is $1,500 + publication in LitMag + agency review. Visit LitMag's website for guidelines. The deadline is September 30.

LitMag is pleased to announce the opening of indie book publisher Bard Books, which will launch with the publication of two new books by Gordon Lish in 2024.

Bard Books is animated by the same spirit that brings you LitMag, a dedication to mining the slush pile, looking for gems, being open to all writers who want to submit. Submit manuscripts of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Visit the Bard Books website.

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
Great American Think-Off. The New York Mills Regional Cultural Center seeks essays from US writers up to 750 words on a selected philosophical question that changes annually. Four finalists receive $500 and an expenses-paid trip to New York Mills, MN in June for a debate to determine the contest winner. The 2024 topic is: "Is freedom of speech worth the cost?" Must be postmarked, submitted online, or emailed by April 1.

Intermediate Writers
BBC National Short Story Award. The British Broadcasting Corporation and Cambridge University will award a top prize of 15,000 pounds for the best short story up to 8,000 words by a UK national/resident aged 18+. The author must have "a prior record of publication in creative writing in the United Kingdom". Stories must either be unpublished or have been first published during the previous calendar year. Must be received by March 18.

Advanced Writers
Maya Angelou Book Award. The Kansas City Public Library will award $10,000 to a US author age 18+ whose published work "demonstrates a commitment to social justice and diversifies contemporary American literature". Genre alternates between poetry and fiction. 2024 contest is for a work of fiction published the previous year or scheduled for publication by November of this year. Winner will participate in a two-week book tour of Missouri colleges, universities, and libraries. Publisher must make the submission. Must be received by April 1.

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, Submittable, and literary journals' own newsletters and announcements.

• Green Linden Press: Chapbook Open Reading Period
(poetry chapbook manuscripts - March 21)

• 20.35 Africa Anthology Vol. VII
(poetry by African-born or resident authors ages 20-35 - March 22)

• Rough Cut Press: "Dream" Issue
(creative writing on this theme by LGBTQ authors - March 27)

• The Garlic Press
("extra pungent" poetry and literary prose - March 31)

• Haymaker Literary Journal
(poetry, fiction, essays, drama, visual art, graphic narrative, and translations - March 31)

• Lampblack Lit: "Community" Issue
(poetry, prose, and criticism by Black authors - April 1)

This month, editor Jendi Reiter highlights fiction and nonfiction that have won recent prizes. To see more winning prose and poetry, visit our online collection.

ANAADI'S SMILE
by Nandini Lal
Winner of the 2022 Tobias Wolff Award in Fiction
Entries must be received by March 15
Bellingham Review awards $1,000 apiece for poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction in this annual contest. Lal's fable-like story tells of a young man in rural India, the cherished firstborn son after seven daughters, who dreams of a life beyond supporting his family.

CONFLAGRATION
by Teresa Burns Gunther
Winner of the 2023 Gemini Magazine Short Story Contest
Entries must be received by April 1
This long-running contest offers prizes up to $1,000 and online publication for short fiction. In this tense story, a woman reflects on struggles in her marriage while they prepare to evacuate their home during a wildfire.

MY RED HOT CAPE COD SUMMER
by B. Rosenberg
Winner of the 2023 Sixfold Short Story Award
Entries must be received by April 23
Winners of this poetry and fiction contest receive $1,000 apiece when they receive the most votes in a multi-round competition judged by the entrants. In this witty coming-of-age story, a teen boy navigates the perplexities of family dynamics at a summer beach house and kisses a girl for the first time.

Julian Peters kindly shares with us "my graphic interpretation of the poem 'The Voice of God' by the American poet and author Mary Karr. This comic was originally commissioned by the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States with the permission of the poet."

In Memoriam: The Poet Spiel
Spiel was a prolific, irreverent, multi-genre artist whose oeuvre included poetry of gay male love, lust, and childhood trauma; vivid animal prints and graphic designs inspired by his travels in Africa; and gritty stories about trailer-park elders and war veterans. His aesthetic could be shocking, satirical, or grotesque, but these techniques were always directed at inspiring empathy for the downtrodden and outrage about American inequality.

[read more]

Jendi Reiter is the editor of Winning Writers.
Follow Jendi on Twitter at @JendiReiter.