Sorry We're Prosed: July writing opportunities
Where to send essays, stories, travel writing and children's literature this month
Hello again,
Lots of good stuff this month. And like a shop attendant selecting the best stuff for herself before it goes on the shelves, I’ve already submitted to a couple of the opportunities below.
Before we get to the good stuff, I wanted to say that if you’re a subscriber to this newsletter and have recently published new work - whether through an opportunity you found here or not - please let me know.
I would love to start including a few links to subscribers’ writing at the end of each post, a bit of parish news if you will. Just reply to this email or comment on the online version if you have something to share.
And now, the listings.
Closing soon
The week-long submissions period at Cosmic Horror, which pays professional rates, opens today and closes on 7 July.
If you have a piece of non-fiction handy and ready to submit, biannual Irish journal Tolka is open until 8 July.
This year’s HG Wells Short Story Competition, on the theme ‘Switch’ closes 11 July. There’s a £10 entry fee and £500 prize.
The Cincinnati Review’s summer contest is open until 15 July with categories for both fiction and non-fiction. Normally I wouldn’t include contests that cost $20, but this one gives entrants a year-long subscription as part of that price, which I think makes it better value.
Also until 15 July, you can submit to The Capilano Review’s open call for pieces on the theme of ‘Bad Feelings’. They pay $50 a page.
And another one with the same closing date, Northern Gravy wants submissions from UK or Ireland writers until 15 July. Contributors get £100 each.
There’s still time until 18 July to enter the Writers & Artists Working-Class Writers’ Prize if you live in the UK or Republic of Ireland and consider yourself to be from a working class background. It’s free, and you just have to submit 2,000 of your work-in-progress.
For aspiring travel writers, The National Geographic UK Travel Writing Competition is open until 24 July, with a grand prize of a gorgeous-looking trip to Iceland. You must be a UK resident and you have to be an amateur - i.e. you don’t frequently publish paid work in media outlets.
This year’s Ambit Magazine competition is open to entries, including short stories, on the theme of ‘Magick’. It’s £6 to enter, with a £500 prize.
Here’s a big one. The Virginia Quarterly Review is open to unsolicited submissions until 31 July. Short fiction is generally paid $1,000 or above.
Wizards in Space, a paying publication which - despite the name - doesn’t just want sci-fi, is looking for contributions to its next issue until 1 August. There is a loose theme of strength and thriving. Read the full details here.
Open now
Roxanne Gay Books is open for unagented submissions, including memoir, short story collections, novels, and essay collections.
This is an interesting opportunity. The Institutional Review seeks work from people who have experienced “institutionalization/psychiatric hospitalization, inpatient rehab or eating disorder treatment, the troubled-teen industry, or other modes of institution”. It’s a relatively new project and there’s no pay for writers at the moment.
There is a special issue of Reckoning in the works, tackling the intersection of bodily autonomy and environmental justice until the end of August. And if you’ve nothing to suit that one, they are also taking regular submissions on the theme of ocean up to 22 September.
The submission period for Salt Hill has just opened and runs through September. No pay for this one but they do have a relatively strong Twitter following for a lit mag, and produce nice-looking print issues.
Submissions for Structo should now be open. I like their alternative to submission fees, which is that you simply have to show you’ve recently supported a literary magazine by including a photo of any you’ve bought.
Opening soon
Writers over 50, the next open issue reading period for the Passager Journal should start on 15 July. Both memoir and short fiction are accepted here.
The next Emma Press submissions window will be open between 18 July and 14 August. This Birmingham-based indie press publishes gorgeous little books, and this call is for all genres they publish, which includes small collections of stories, essays, and children’s books. Have a look at what they publish and read the submission guidelines if you are interested.
Thank you to Wil Dalton of the Process newsletter for recommending this one to me in response to my last post. It’s an anthology of Shakespeare-inspired horror, to be published by Monstrous Books. Submissions open 22 July.
Mythaxis will open to submissions on 23 July. They give a token payment of $20 a piece, and have a useful editorial policy page in addition to general submission guidelines.
Science fiction writers, the next Fusion Fragment window will open on 25 July, and runs until 7 August.
The fiction reading period at The Rumpus will open on 1 August.
In very exciting news, the Comedy Women in Print prize has added a short story category this year. Women writers of any nationality can enter, and there are the usual prizes for both published and unpublished novels. This one doesn’t open until 5 September, giving you plenty of time to finish off that manuscript.
Always open
Some good stuff has been published on The Cardiff Review website recently. They take English-language work from anywhere in the world, though they give preference to people who are current students on creative writing, literature and journalism courses. They don’t pay.
OK it’s not technically always open, but online Australian magazine Scum has a week-long reading period at the start of every month, so you’re never too far off. They pay $60 (Aussie dollars that is) per piece.
You may have noticed that in last month’s listings, I did away with this ‘always open’ section altogether. The reason for that was it was taking me a really long time to find new places to include here, especially as I have a policy of not including anywhere that charges reading fees.
So for now I will including this section whenever I have something worth adding, but sometimes it might be absent. Let me know if there’s another category you’d like to see featured here instead.