Free contests and paying markets for creative nonfiction, short stories, poetry, erotica, ultra-shorts, and WWI stories

Hello, Brian!

Would it be possible to place a call for submissions for a nonfiction award on Quick Brown Fox? We opened for submissions Feb. 1 and the deadline is Feb. 28:

Do you have a piece of creative nonfiction that is just waiting for an award? Creative nonfiction writers , send us your best work. The Diana Woods Memorial Award in Creative Nonfiction is currently accepting submissions until Feb. 28. 

The winner receives $250 plus publication in Lunch Ticket, a literary magazine published by the Antioch University Los Angeles Creative Writing MFA Program. For guidelines and submission manager, see here. Note, Lunch Ticket has contests throughout the year, see the whole list here.

Be well,
Sheena McFerran
Lunch Ticket

Literary journal New Welsh Review (Wales) seeks dynamic, curious, lively, and outward-looking writing. Looking for short stories (2,500 to 3,000 words) and poems (up to six). Occasionally publishes shorter stories and microfiction. Payment: £100 per story and £28 per each poem, upon publication. Also welcomes submissions and ideas for online content (no payment): short reviews (600-800 words), opinion pieces (450 words) and author interviews (8-15 questions).

Deadline: March 1, 2014. Guidelines here. 

Cleis Press seeks Female Fantasy Erotica. This collection of erotica will feature female protagonists living out their hottest fantasies. From vanilla to kinky, single to partnered, from 18 to elderly. Length: 1,500-4,000 . Payment: $50 and 2 copies of the book on publication. Deadline: March 1.

Cleis Press also seeks seeks sex toy erotica stories of all varieties for another anthology. Length: 1,500-4,000 words. Payment: $50 and 2 copies of book on publication. Deadline: April 1, 2014.

Guidelines here.

The Binnacle ultra-short competition for prose or poetry: The Binnacle is the University of Maine’s Literary and Arts magazine.  It accepts submissions from writers all over the world and sponsors an annual contest that everybody should enter: The Binnacle’s ultra-short competition.  There’s no fee and your piece doesn’t have to be long at all.  In fact, for prose and poetry the maximum length is 150 words (sixteen lines max for poems).

All submissions should be made via email to ummbinnacle@maine.edu

Please include the work in the body of the email message if possible.

Winning entries will be published, and a minimum of $300 in cash awards will be awarded, with a minimum award of $50. At least one of the awards will go to a UMM student.  Please submit no more than two works total, prose and/or poetry.  When you submit your work, please be sure to include your postal address as well as a thirty-five to fifty word self-description.

The deadline is March 15. Contest rules here.

As a literary journal, The Binnacle accepts submissions, too, both from the students, faculty, and staff of the University of Maine at Machias and from writers and artists anywhere in the world. Please submit original poetry, short fiction, short short fiction, creative non-fiction, as well as photography and other works of visual art, both color and black and white. Please limit submissions to 2500 words.

The Binnacle accepts submissions year round. Full submission guidelines here.  

Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop (NOWW) is seeking entries for its 14th Annual Writing Contest in four categories: poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, and children's story. First prize: $125. Entry fee: $10.

Deadline: March 25, 2012. Guidelines here.

Speculative fiction submissions wanted for anthology Start a Revolution: QUILTBAG Fiction Vying for Change. Published by Exile Editions (Canada) in Spring 2015. International subs welcome. Length: 2,000 – 10,000 words (under 7,500 preferred). Payment: $0.05/word.

Deadline: March 31, 2014 Guidelines here. 

Seraphim Editions has commissioned me, Bernadette Rule, to edit an anthology of creative nonfiction stories based on Canadians in World War I to be published in 2014, the one hundredth anniversary year of the beginning of that terrible war.  I am looking for creative nonfiction stories of no more than 5,000 words.  There is no minimum word requirement, as shorter is almost always better. 

The stories should illustrate the impact of the war on Canadians and on Canadian society, so some sense of what life was like here before WWI would be welcome.  The stories need not be limited to literal depictions of soldiers and battles, though obviously such scenes may be necessary.

Please note, I am not looking for fiction, but for creative nonfiction.  You may have to imagine some aspects of the story, but it should be based on real people and real incidents.

Deadline for submission of first drafts: April 1, 2014.   Email submissions to: yardstickrule@gmail.com

Please include a telephone contact and a brief (50-75 words) bio, including how the story came to your notice or why it is of particular interest to you.

See Brian Henry's schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing courses in Barrie, Brampton, Bolton, Burlington, Caledon, Cambridge, Georgetown, Guelph, Hamilton, Kingston, London, Midland, Mississauga, Newmarket, Orillia, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, St. Catharines, Stouffville, Sudbury, Thessalon, Toronto, Algoma, Halton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Muskoka, Peel, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.