Pitch an Agent/Poetry and Essay Markets

Writers Thought for the Week: The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time. ~  Mary Oliver

AGENT QUERIES

Want some help crafting your query to prospective agents? Here are 23 actual pitch letters that grabbed an agent queries. Why 23? Because they represent 23 different genres.

HOW I SURVIVED

Deadline: April 30, 2013

Did you survive an illness, personal tragedy, abusive relationship, financial ruin, or other life experience that brought you to your knees? Did Gloria Gaynor's disco-era song “I Will Survive” inspire you to rise and thrive? If so, share your story in a new book of personal narrative essays about survival and how the song influenced your life. The book will include 50 stories of 1,000-2,000 words each. If your essay is selected, you will receive $75 and a copy of the book signed by Gloria Gaynor. Submit to either glolo2004@me.com or susancarswell@aol.com

THE FREEMAN

Deadline: June 1, 2013

Theme: Power

You may submit up to 6 unpublished poems up to 60 lines each. Pays $50/poem, plus one copy of the issue containing your poem, for FNASR. The theme changes monthly.

Set the Scene/Multi-genre Market

Writer’s Thought for the Week: Try not to be precious about the act of writing. Get something down and then you can make something of it. ~  Hallie Ephron  

Beginnings

The draft of my historical novel begins with dialogue, a testy exchange between mother and daughter. Although the first page establishes time and place, some of my test readers insisted that I needed to set the scene. I like jumping right into the middle of things and find descriptive narrative a slow start, but I don’t want to be vague or confusing. Can I write a beginning that satisfies both kinds of readers?

Yes, by writing narrative in a way that reveals character. Author and editor C.S. Lakin explains how and gives an example paragraph by John Le Carré here.

WEST BRANCH considers poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and translation.

The current reading period closes April 15, 2013.

Purchases First North American serial rights for $40 for poetry, $10/page of prose with a maximum payment of $100, and $.05/word of  online prose with a maximum of $100. Each contributor also receives two copies of the issue in which his/her work appears and a one-year subscription to West Branch.

Beware the Contract/Creative Nonfiction

Writer's Thought for the Week: I take a simple view of life: keep your eyes open and get on with it. ~ Sir Laurence Olivier

BEWARE THE CONTRACT and a New Imprint

 

Last December when I blogged about Random House’s new digital imprints, no one had seen their contracts. As contracts appeared, Writer Beware, Science Fiction Writers of America, Horror Writers of America, and other author group representatives soon criticized the onerous clauses. Last Tuesday morning, Random House announced changes to their contracts for Hydra, Alibi, Flirt, and Loveswept. They will now follow a more traditional contract model as one of two options. You can read the details here.

The situation reminds us that publishing is a business. Writers need to either become familiar with contract jargon and what it means or find an agent or attorney who is. We've all heard about scam publishers and agents preying on writers, but when even Random House is called to task, whom can you trust?

Also this week, Amazon launched imprint called Little A, aimed at novels, memoir, and story collections. Within Little A is a digital-only series called Day One which targets short stories from writers who have not published books yet. I have not heard any bad news about these.

DIANA WOODS MEMORIAL AWARD IN CREATIVE NONFICTION

Deadline: March 31, 2013 for the June issue.

No entry fee

Submit an essay of up to 5,000 words on the subject of your choice to this semi-annual competition. Winners will receive $250 and their work will be featured in the next issue of Lunch Ticket. All submissions for the award will be considered for publication. The reading period for the award is February and March for the issue that publishes in June, and August and September for the issue that publishes in December.

Southern Lit/Crime Writing

Writer’s Thought for the Week: The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you the knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination. ~  Elizabeth Hardwick

The ReviewReview Has a list of 6 literary magazines from the southern USA, but material need not be southern.

ROOM, “Canada’s oldest journal by and about women,” is working on an issue with “crime” as the theme. “Sin, wrongdoing, injurious acts, murder, deceit, contraband. Poison, theft, larceny, lust, fraud, family and foreclosure.”

Deadline: January 31, 2013.

You may submit fiction and creative nonfiction up to 3500 words, or up to five poems. Pays $50 for up to 2 pages, $60 for 3 pages, $80 for 4 pages, $100 for 5 pages, $120 for 6+ pages for First North American Serial Rights. 

Poetry Stamps/Vocabula Writing Contest

Writer’s Thought for the Week: Books are not rolls, to be devoured only when they are hot and fresh. A good book retains its interior heat and will warm a generation yet unborn. ~ Clifton Fadiman

On April 21, the U.S. Postal Service® will begin sale of Twentieth-Century Poets stamps honoring ten of the nation’s most admired poets: Elizabeth Bishop, Joseph Brodsky, Gwendolyn Brooks, E. E. Cummings, Robert Hayden, Denise Levertov, Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke, Wallace Stevens, and Wil­liam Carlos Williams. The many awards won by this illustri­ous group include numerous Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, and honorary degrees. Each stamp features a photograph of one of the ten poets and text on the back of the stamp sheet includes an excerpt from one poem by each poet.

VOCABULA WELL-WRITTEN WRITING CONTEST
http://www.vocabula.com/popupads/VRWritingContest.asp

Deadline May 31, 2012.

Send “200 to 500 words of readable, well-written, even beautiful
writing,” fiction or nonfiction, no poetry. Your first entry is free. $15 fee for each entry after your first.

1st prize $200, 2nd prize $100, 3rd prize $50. Winners and honorable mentions receive a one-year subscription to The Vocabula Review.

The web site has a link where you can read the prior winners.

Call for Essay Submissions

Writer’s Thought for the Week: I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say. ~ Flannery O'Connor
 

Morning smile

While helping bag my groceries at the supermarket last Monday morning, I noticed a sign in the next cashier aisle: “Register broken. Thank Management.”

I couldn’t help but smile. It was a slow morning and no customers were behind me in line. The cashier noticed me smiling and asked if she could help with anything.

I gestured toward the sign. “I was just noticing the sign. Did management really break the register?”

The cashier looked and grinned. Nothing like getting both one up on your boss and a reason to smile on a Monday morning.

THE WATERMAN FUND
http://www.watermanfund.org/EnterEssayContest.shtml

 

Deadline: April 15, 2012

Top prize: $1,500.

Honorable mention: $500
No entry fee; limit of one entry per author.

The Waterman Fund seeks essays about life in the mountains of the northeastern U.S. for its annual Waterman Fund Alpine Essay Contest held in partnership with Appalachia Journal. They want personal essays about stewardship of wild places. Essays must be original works at least 2000 words long.

Nail Your Query/Blackbird Literary Journal

Apropos to the query/rejection process: Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

Don't sabotage your writing by submitting a poorly written query. The best queries are targeted for a specific market, but first you need to get the basics down. Marla Miller has about 90 “quick query” analysis samples on her web site: http://www.marlamiller.com/quick-query-critiques/.  Various genres are included from children’s to romance to memoir to suspense. Just scroll down the list and click one to start the YouTube video.

Marla is an author, founder of Marketing the Muse, and past Assistant Director of Santa Barbara Writers Conference. Her video series “Critique My Query” is available at theWriterMag.com.

Blackbird

http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/

This online journal of literature and the arts is open to submissions until April 15, 2012. Considers poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and plays. Pays after publication.

Accents and Novel/Novella/Nonfiction Contest

ACCENTS

What kind of American accent do you or your characters have? A friend of mine and I both tried this quiz which correctly identified where each of us grew up. Something to think about when we’re writing dialogue.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/spl3/american-accent-quiz.html

TARCHER/PENGUIN NOVEL/NOVELLA/NONFICTION CONTEST
 
Deadline: March 2, 2012. No entry fee.

Writers residing in the USA are invited to submit an unpublished novel, novella, or narrative nonfiction. (Limit one entry per person.) The top prize is $5,000 and a manuscript review by a Penguin editor.

Thought for the week: The question is not what you look at -- but how you look and whether you see.  ~ Thoreau

Ghost Stories/Creative Nonfiction

Thought for the week: People can lose their lives in libraries. They ought to be warned. ~ Saul Bellow

Glass Woman Prize Call for Ghost Stories
Deadline: November 18, 2011

This no entry fee competition offers a $100 prize for a ghost story written in English by a woman. The definition of "ghost story" is up to the author and the sponsor looks forward to the many embodiments and disembodiments of this theme. The preferred length 1000 to 3000 words, but stories of any length may be submitted. One submission per author. The winning story will be offered non-obligatory publication on the Glass Woman Prize page.

CREATIVE NONFICTION anthology

Deadline: November 30, 2011

Creative Nonfiction seeks submissions by and about nurses for their Becoming a Nurse anthology. What motivates nurses to enter, and to stay in, this demanding profession, and how are their daily lives affected by ongoing changes in the healthcare system? Becoming a Nurse will present readers with the world of medicine from the perspective of nurses in hospitals, in-home care programs, long-term care facilities, hospices, and the armed forces as they tell stories that recall and recreate the most salient moments of their careers. Submissions should be 2,500-5,000 words.

Note: This publisher accepts queries year-round for sections of their magazine as well as general un-themed submissions up to 5,000 words.