Calls for Submission

CONTEST: End of Life Stories
postmark deadline Dec. 31, 2009

Creative Nonfiction is seeking new essays that explore death, dying, and end of life care, for a collection to be published by Southern Methodist University Press. We’re looking for stories that transcend the “I” and find universal meaning in personal experiences. We hope to include stories representing a wide variety of perspectives— from physicians, nurses, hospice workers, social workers, counselors, clergy, funeral directors, family members, and others. We want narratives that capture, illustrate and/or explain the best way to approach the end of life, as well as stories that highlight current features, flaws, and advances in the healthcare system and their impact on professionals, patients, and families.

Essays must be vivid and dramatic; they should combine a strong and compelling narrative with a significant element of research or information. We’re looking for well-written prose, rich with detail and a distinctive voice.

Creative Nonfiction editors will award one $1500 prize for Best Essay, and two $500 prizes for runners-up.

Guidelines: Essays must be: unpublished, 5,000 words or less, postmarked by December 31, 2009, and clearly marked “End of Life” on both the essay and the outside of the envelope. There is a $20 reading fee (or send a reading fee of $25 to include a 4-issue CNF subscription) ; multiple entries are welcome ($20/essay) as are entries from outside the U.S. (though subscription shipping costs do apply). Please send manuscript, accompanied by a cover letter with complete contact information, SASE and payment to:

Creative Nonfiction
Attn: End of Life Stories
5501 Walnut Street, Suite 202
Pittsburgh, PA 15232

For more information: www.creativenonfiction.org or email information@ creativenonficti on.org

Please forward this announcement to anyone who might be interested. Thank you!

Men in Bed: Women Writers on the Male Sexual Experience

Forthcoming from Other Voices Books

This groundbreaking anthology, edited by Stacy Bierlein, Kat Meads and controversial fiction writer Cris Mazza, notorious for her candid explorations of sexuality, will investigate the sexual experiences and identities of male characters as envisioned by female writers.

Throughout history, male writers from D.H. Lawrence to Phillip Roth have defined sex in literature, including female sexuality. Rare examples of women writers’ sexual explorations were either suppressed or treated as trivial. While women writers in a post-Erica-Jong era have claimed the female sexual experience for themselves, those attempting to explore sex from a male character’s point of view are still often challenged for their so-called lack of credibility, or for trying to push a feminist agenda.

Of course, great works of literature involve writers stepping far outside their own experiences—gender, age, social class, race, nation—to approach a wider envisioning and understanding of the world. In Men in Bed, today’s prominent women writers, alongside emerging talent, explore the provocative and historically pertinent sphere of writing sex through the male lens, thereby reaching a greater understanding not only of human sexuality but of literary tradition and the power of the creative imagination.

Guidelines:

Literary fiction only
Sexually frank work invited; must have strong literary merit
All work should be self-contained and less than 10,000 words.
Previously published stories eligible if the author has retained rights
Submit work via email to meninbedstories@yahoo.com
Please include a brief biographical note.

On the Clock: Contemporary Short Fiction of People and Their Work
Working Lives Series from Bottom Dog Press Inc.

We want to anthologize some outstanding fiction about working in a post-industrial world or making the transition from manual labor to intellectual labor, or the conflict of living in both spheres. In short, we want modern stories about people and their work. Although we prefer post-industrial fiction, we will also look at any fiction that deals with work in a meaningful way. Money and how we earn it are an endless source of conflict, loss, redemption and the source of great fiction. Please send us your best fiction about work.

Specifics:

Length: up to 5,000 words.

Submissions are open now, but reading will begin July 1, 2009.

Deadline: October 1, 2009.

Email submissions strongly preferred (query first if you absolutely must send a hard copy). Send attached .rtf or .doc file to: ontheclocksubmissions@gmail.com and make sure the word “Submission” is somewhere in the subject line.

Payment: $50 and two copies

Reprints are acceptable. Please let us know where it’s been published.

Simultaneous submissions are okay as long as we are notified immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.

Multiple submissions are allowed, up to three stories.

This is great news – the next volume of two lines will be edited by Natasha Wimmer and Jeffrey Yang. Natasha Wimmer of course translated Roberto Bolai’s monumental 2666 and The Savage Detectives, and Jeffrey Yang is an editor at New Directions, a translator and poet whose most recent book, An Aquarium, I just read and highly recommend.

Here are details about submissions for this volume:

two lines World Writing in Translation will be accepting poetry and fiction submissions for its seventeenth volume through November 25, 2009. Previously unpublished translations from any language will be considered, and works from outside Europe are especially sought.

Submitters are encouraged to read previous volumes in the series, which can be ordered directly from the Center. Full guidelines and ordering information can be found on the Center’s website at www.catranslation.org. Publishers interested in submitting manuscripts for serialization should contact Annie Janusch at ajanusch@catranslation.org.

Full details at the Center’s Website.