Triple Header contest: poetry, short story, essay

New Letters, the journal for University of Missouri-Kansas City is running three contests that offer top prizes of $1500 each, for a group of poems, an essay or a short story.

The publication has been operating since the 1930s (originally called the University Review) and the contest, begun in 1986, is one of the longest running in the US. They get about 500 entries in each of the categories, with those being culled to about 20 to each final judge (3 contests, 3 final judges).

For the poetry competition, you can submit a group of 3 to 6 poems and they can be unrelated. Short story and essay entries are limited to 8,000 words. Otherwise guidelines are the same for each contest.

There are no topic limitations, just make sure you have a clear voice. Entry deadline is May 18; the fee is $15 for your first entry and $10 for subsequent entries; multiple entries (obviously) are allowed as are simultaneous submissions. Each entry must be sent separately. The works have to be unpublished and your own creations. You can enter either by snail mail, or through an on-line process. Hard copy submissions will not be returned.

One caveat regarding the entry fee, a one-year/renewal subscription to New Letters, which is part of the fee, is only for US residents because of mailing costs. (The journal comes out quarterly.) Canadian residents and others still pay the full fee. Winners will be published in the fall issue of the journal.

In addition to the money, top winners will get published in New Letters. Some honourable mentions may get published as well, based on the judges’ decisions.

You can submit electronically at ecommerce.umkc.edu/newletters/order3.cfm, or mail your hard copy entry to: New Letters Literary Awards, University House, 5101 Rockhill Road, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO 64110

For more details about hard copy entries, runners-up and the judges go to: www.newletters.org/awards.asp

Poetry publisher offers prize & publication

Four Way Books, located in New York City, is looking for some quality poetry through their annual contest. Four Way is a non-profit literary press that publishes about a dozen books of poetry and short stories annually. They’ve been operating for about 20 years.

Their 2013 Four Way Book Levis Prize in Poetry (absurdly long name) offers $1,000 and publication to the winner, as well as a featured reading in New York City. Not a bad deal.

Fee: Entry fee is $28(US) and you can submit either online or through snail mail. Entry is a two-step process; first you pay for your entry, then you register and submit your work. (When you submit, you need a confirmation number that you receive when you pay.)

Requirements:

• Material in your manuscript may have been published previously in a chapbook, magazines, journals or anthologies, but the work as a whole must be unpublished
• Translations and previously self-published books are not eligible
• There are no length requirements but they note that book-length collections of poetry usually run between 45 and 80 pages of text
• The contest is open to any poet writing in English

Deadline is March 31.

For more information or to get details on where to submit go to:  http://fourwaybooks.com/contest.php

$20,000 poetry contest

For all you english poets, the Montreal International Poetry Prize is up for grabs. Details are at the bottom of this article but I thought you might want to know a bit about the prize before entering.

The Montreal International Poetry Prize is a not-for-profit grassroots organization “committed to encouraging the creation of original works of poetry, to building cross-national readership and to exploring the world’s Englishes.” Its stated goal “is to turn the traditional patronage model on its head, and deliver a major annual poetry prize funded directly by poets themselves.”

The prize is funded through an original anonymous donation of $50,000.  Its continued funding is through other donations, the purchase of its Prize Anthology ($18 for the 2011 edition), and the price of entering the contest.

An interesting angle to this competition is that the entry fee differs from country to country. Here’s their explanation:

The Montreal Prize is meant to be a truly global effort and so we’ve tried to take account of the fact that some countries are richer than others. In order to be as objective as we can in the allocation of the different fees, we’ve used the UN Human Development Index to distinguish between developed and developing nations.

Here are the rules:

• You have to have reached the age of majority in your country (in Canada that’s either 18 or 19)
• the poem must be original, yours, and simultaneous submissions are not eligible
• no more than 40 lines long (title doesn’t count)
• Early bird deadline is March 31, final deadline is May 15. (you get discounts for early entries)
• In Canada, the cost of your first entry is $25 or $20 if you enter before Mar 31. Each subsequent entry costs you $10. (On-line entries only. You have to create an account to enter — http://www.montrealprize.com/app/submit/enter)
• You can enter multiple times and it is possible to have more than one of your poems chosen for publication
• Through blind judging, a group of editors picks the best 50 entries to be published in the anthology. A final judge chooses the best one of the 50 to win the $20,000 grand prize.

For more information, or if you have questions about the contest go to:  http://montrealprize.com/competition/judging-process/

You can roam around their site, use their FAQ page or check out the credentials of the final judge and the editorial board.

A second Hamilton Lit Fest contest

On May 6, I reported a literary contest, Creative Keyboards. Apparently, Hamilton has another Literary Festival contest running concurrently, gritLIT, that has a more generous deadline of June 1. The folks running this one are looking either for fiction stories up to 3000 words, or poems up to 300 lines. Cost to submit a story or a poem is $20 per piece. A total of 6 prizes will be offered, 3 for short stories and 3 for poetry. In both cases, the prize values are: First, $200; second, $100; and third, $50. All winning submissions of fiction and of poetry will be published in their gritLIT Literary Chapbook and may also appear on the gritLIT website.

You have to send your entry (and payment) “the old-fashioned way. They must be printed on paper and mailed through the post office or courier.” No electronic submissions will be accepted.

The organizers do have several requirements so you need to take a look at the full list of rules (nothing onerous) at http://gritlit.ca/pages/writing-competition.

Malahat Poetry Contest

B.C.-based literary magazine, The Malahat Review, is running its annual poetry contest, the Far Horizons Award for Poetry. You are eligible if you have not yet published your poetry in a book form — they define a book as 48 pages or longer. You can enter up to 3 unpublished poems that are each 60 lines or less. Deadline is May 1.

This competition is open to anyone. Canadians pay an entry fee of $30 Cdn, other countries’ fees are larger and in US funds. All who enter get a subscription to the magazine. The winner gets $500 plus payment for publication in the Fall issue of the magazine.

The Malahat Review is a well established magazine, started over 40 years ago by two professors at the University of Victoria. It publishes poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction and book reviews. They run contests in all three categories.

For complete details go to: http://www.malahatreview.ca/far_horizons_poetry/info.html

Writing contest deadlines 4 weeks away

The Niagara Branch of the Canadian Authors Association is holding its 11th short story contest and it’s open to all Ontario residents. Stories can be of any genre but must be previously unpublished, and between 1,000 and 3,000 words. Entry fee is $15 per story. Deadline for submissions is March 31. Small cash prizes will go to the top three and the top 10 finalists will have their stories published in an anthology this fall.  For full details, go to: www.canauthorsniagara.org/Resources/ShortStoryContest.html.

Grain Magazine is offering $1250 to the top winner of its annual Short Grain short story contest. Second place and two runners-up also get cash prizes and all four will be published in the magazine. Each entrant gets a one-year subscription to the magazine so if you’re looking to build your research library this might be a way to add some resources while taking a shot at fame and money.

It costs $30 to enter a piece  to the Short Grain contest and you have to stay under 2500 words. Deadline is April 1st. Get full details at: www.grainmagazine.ca/contest.htm

Grain Magazine also has a poetry category in its Short Grain contest. Same prize money and April 1 deadline as the short story category. They’ll accept poetry in any form, up to 100 lines.  Both categories require snail mail entries so make sure  your entry is postmarked on or before the deadline. Get full details at: www.grainmagazine.ca/contest.htm

Poetry contest desperate for entries

I seem to be on a theme this month – Here is another poetry contest, with a Christian requirement: Utmost Christian Poetry Contest.

As of yesterday (Feb. 22) they have received only a small fraction of the entries they normally get. So, if you meet their base requirement of being Christian, think seriously about entering. Your chances of winning one of the 14 prizes may be better than usual.

Their first prize is $1,000, second is $600, 10 honourable mentions worth $100 each with a couple of valuable special categories as well. One requirement is you have to be Christian. The limit is 5 poems per contestant at $20 an entry (5 poem limit = $100). Canadian entry fees are in Canadian dollars. Poems can be up to 60 lines, must be previously unpublished and unawarded. Deadline is Feb. 28. Full details at: www.utmostchristianwriters.com , then click on Poetry Contest.

For those of you who prefer Canadian Contests, this one’s Alberta based.