Sorry We're Prosed: November writing opportunities
Game-writing, manuscript reviews and residencies as well as the usual calls for submissions
Hello again,
Thanks for opening another edition of this monthly round-up. Herein you will find a wide range of opportunities that some may call random, but I prefer to think of as ‘eclectic’.
This month I am thinking a lot about the ways we reach readers, not just of our creative work but of our thoughts and fancies. What are the best ways to find people receptive to what we have to say?
All this is of course in the shadow of Twitter potentially changing beyond recognition in the coming months. I rely heavily on the platform not just to share my own work but to find and share that of other writers. It is also crucial to the compilation of this newsletter. Even if you don’t have an account yourself, Twitter has a huge impact on other elements of the writing world and the information economy.
I’m not given to the hyperbolic predictions of doom for the platform, but something certainly feels like it’s about to change. I hope to write more about this later this month. If you have thoughts on what it would mean to be a writer without Twitter, or on a changed Twitter, let me know in the comments or by replying to this email.
But for now let’s just focus on getting our stories out there by any means possible, and dive into this month’s opportunities.
Closing soon
In addition to being a prize-winning author, Naomi Alderman heads up popular game Zombies, Run! and is looking for someone new to train up in the art of games-writing. You have to have created a game before but this can be anything from a card game to a puzzle. You also have to write a Zombies, Run! mission. If you’re up for all that, you have just under a week to get the application in on 7 November.
And if you’ve already done some games-writing and want some more experience in the field, novelist and video game writer Greg Buchanan is looking for an assistant writer/researcher (paid).
You know I like an interesting theme and new-ish periodical The Primer has a cool one this month: ‘Relics’. They seek any kind of form or genre as long as it has an air of strangeness and beauty. Submit by 11 November.
Residents of the US and Canada can apply to the Kirkland Arts Centre’s Snowed-In Residency until 13 November.
There’s a great new opportunity for UK-based writers from Writers & Artists in association with whitefox. Both fiction and non-fiction writers can enter for a chance to get free help from an editor on their work-in-progress manuscript. It closes 14 November.
Usually I would be including a link in this November edition for the food-themed Mogford Prize, but sadly it seems that one has closed for good. If you have some food-themed work burning a hole in your pocket, though, you could try Superpresent Magazine which has a call out on the topic until 15 November. Open for both essays and short stories.
Freelancing website ServiceScape runs a Short Story Award which is free to enter and has a top prize of $1,000. Entries close on 30 November. Open to any genre, but have a read of last year’s winner if you want to get more of a vibe.
Open to entries from around the world, the annual Observer/Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism is accepting submissions until 30 November. It costs £10 to enter and the top prize is £3,000.
The lovely Popshot Quarterly is open again, this time with the theme ‘Heart’. Send work by 2 December.
Open now
New mag alert! Body Fluids seeks disconcerting literature. Think: gross, weird, uncalled-for. They welcome the unwelcome. They also have an interesting new payment structure: each good-faith submission which adheres to the guidelines will be rewarded with £1, whether it’s published or not. Published work receives no further payment. Issue 1 is themed on ‘parasocial relationships’, while Issue 2 will be about ‘teeth’. Follow them on Twitter to keep abreast of when windows will close.
Three non-fiction writers will be selected to act as regular contributors to the Griffith Review’s website in 2023. If you want to be considered, follow the instructions for applying here. This is paid opportunity.
This Glencairn Glass Crime Short Story Competition, for short stories set in Scotland is free, open worldwide, and has prizes including £1,000 cash and a set of whisky glasses. Closing in December.
Open to all, the Australian Book Review’s Calibre Essay Prize is calling for entries until 30 December. At AU$30 ($19.20), it’s pricier than I would normally include here, but entrants do also get four months of digital access to ABR.
If you’ve published anything that could fit the description of queer speculative short fiction this year, make sure to send it in for consideration for Neon Hemlock’s We’re Here, a round-up of the best queer speculative fiction of 2022. Submit by the end of this year.
And here are a couple of opportunities for those who have already published books. The first is the 2023 Green Earth Book Award, for children’s books with a green angle published in the US this year. There are several different categories.
Then there are the UK’s Royal Society of Literature prizes. The Ondaatje Prize rewards work which evokes the spirit of a place, while the Christopher Bland Prize is for debut novelists or non-fiction writers over 50.
There is an open reading period at publisher Feminist Press right now, up until 15 January. Read carefully about what they’re looking for before submitting.
The Nine Dots Prize is a big non-fiction contest, with a $100,000 top prize. Yes that’s the correct number of zeroes. To enter, you must respond to the question ‘Why has the rule of law become so fragile?’ and outline how you would expand your initial response into a short book. It is open until 23 January.
Australian indie publisher Giramondo’s literary journal HEAT is open for fiction, essays, hybrid forms and translation until February.
US residents, the Stadler Center’s Philip Roth Residence in Creative Writing is open for applications until February.
All kinds of writing is welcome at Oranges Journal, which has just reopened to submissions. Fiction, pieces about mental health, cultural commentary, and health writing.
Opening soon
Irish indie The Stinging Fly opens again for submissions from 15 November. Sometimes there are submission fees.
The next Scottish Arts Club Short Story Competition will open on 1 December and accepts entries from writers internationally. There’s a £3,000 top prize, as well as prizes for the best Scottish entry and for the most amusing or bizarre story.
Wild Hunt Books, a publisher of darker genres that came out of the excellent Wild Hunt Magazine, will be open for manuscript submissions from 1 December. The team has shared a manuscript wish list that you should check out if you’re interested.
General submissions at Heartline Spec will be open from 1 December. This is an online magazine looking for speculative fiction about long-term friendships and relationships, and will pay you 8 Canadian cents per word.
Always open
Seize the Press has increased its maximum word count to 5,000. This anti-capitalist speculative publication pays 3 pence (GBP) a word, and looks for stories in the sci-fi, dark fantasy and horror realms and aren’t didactic or moralistic. They also take pitches for pop culture articles.
An obvious one, but worth a reminder nonetheless. McSweeney’s is always open for submissions to its various humorous features, and has an average response time of just over a week. Several of these opportunities are paid.
Vine Leaves Press is always open to new submissions to its 50 Give or Take feature, while delivers daily, 50-word stories via its email mailing list. Response time is about a month and all stories accepted go into an annual print anthology.