Sorry We're Prosed: 25+ writing opportunities in March
Mentoring, contests and journals for your prose
Hello again,
Thank you for your patience on this edition. It seems I’m slipping a little into mid-month with my mailings, we’ll see how things work out.
My mind has been on my day-job writing lately, as we launched a brand new publication a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been writing about the future of the internet and AI’s role in our relationships. Please check it out if that sounds up your street.
Nevertheless, I feel like I’m finally making some progress on my creative writing as well, largely thanks to the two friends I’ve been swapping manuscripts with. And there are lots of great opportunities coming up that I’d like to be ready for.
If you’re working on something too and want to give yourself a deadline, take a look through the list below and see if anything takes your fancy.
Closing soon
Submissions of micro prose to Identity Theory will close on 15 March.
The reading period for original fiction at The Rumpus is currently open until 15 March. Writers are given a share of a fund.
Currently, the short fiction submission window for The Minnesota Review is open until 15 March.
Various forms of prose are sought by Switzerland-based The Woolf, which is reading for its sixth issue, with the theme ‘Music’, until 25 March.
Firewords Magazine is looking for submissions on the theme of ‘Adventure’ for its next issue, until the end of the month.
Short story submissions to Cork-based Southword journal are open until 31 March.
Applications to A Public Space’s fellowship for writers who have not yet published a book are open until 31 March. The programme includes an honorarium and editorial support to publish a piece in the magazine.
Free submissions to The London Magazine run until the end of the month.
Canadian feminist magazine Canthius is accepting submissions on the theme ‘Trash’ until 1 April.
No specific deadline mentioned but there is still time to send fiction and pitch non-fiction to The Drift.
Until 3 April, Australian magazine Island is open to both fiction and non-fiction submissions for online publication. Accepted pieces will get $500 Australian dollars.
Kansas-based online magazine The Tomahawk Creek Review is open for submissions until 6 April.
The deadline to enter the Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize is coming up on 7 April. Entry fee is £10, top prize £1,000.
Open now
Currently open for submissions is the delightfully-named Excuse Me magazine, which is looking for weird and angsty stories on the theme of ‘Music and Madness’.
New literary press Dumbo has just launched, and is looking for fiction for both its web features and full manuscripts. There are a few pieces online already to give you a flavour, and they say they lean towards the ‘non-traditional’.
The Working Class Writers Nature Prize is open for entries until 19 April. It is free to enter and is for UK-based writers with no agent and no commercial publication history. Prizes include a writing course, a paid commission, and mentoring.
An ongoing one, Five Minutes publishes 100-word pieces about five minutes of the writer’s life. Sound interesting? Have a look at full guidelines here.
For essay collections, Mad Creek Press is open for new submissions to its 21st Century Essay series. Have a look at other books in the series here.
New Zealand magazine Folly is open for both general submissions, which are free, and for its short story prize, which costs $10. They are looking for “humour, satirical takes on the social scene, and starkly honest accounts of ordinary life”.
Submissions for the Peters Fraser and Dunlop mentorship programme are open until the end of May.
There are a range of opportunities to submit to Maison Neuve, including reviews, essays and comics.
Prairie Schooner publishes fiction, essays and reviews. Submissions are currently open until 1 May.
One of the contests run by Adventures in Fiction, the New Voices First Novel Competition, is open for entries. This one is for those early on in the drafting process, with around 50 pages or so written. It costs £10 and you just submit the first page and synopsis of the novel, for a chance to win a package of mentoring.
Opening soon
Brace yourselves, genre writers. Penguin Random House imprint Berkley will open 18 March for novels by unagented authors. These should be complete and sit in one of the following categories: romance, women’s fiction, mystery, suspense and thrillers, horror, science fiction, and fantasy. Only the first 1,000 manuscripts sent will be considered, so be ready!
Submissions from non-Canadian writers to The Malahat Review are only open in April and May. They pay $70 Canadian dollars per piece.
A revamped The Wild Hunt will return soon with a call for, appropriately, short stories on the theme of ‘Return’.
From 1 April, the SI Leeds Literary Prize will be open for entries. This is for women writers of Black or Asian descent who are resident in the UK. It costs £10 and the top prize is £4,000.