Memoir Writers/Magazine Market

Writer’s Thought for the Week: An inveterate and incurable itch for writing besets many… ~ Juvenal

If MEMOIR is your genre, check into the National Association of Memoir Writers. Membership includes monthly teleseminars and access to archived sessions, free e-books, monthly newsletter, and more.

SLICE magazine is open for short fiction, nonfiction and poetry submissions until August 1, 2013 for Issue 14 (Spring/Summer '14). The nonfiction theme for this issue is “Escape." Fiction and poetry submissions are not bound by the theme. Pays $100 for stories and essays and $25 for poems.

Punctuation Fun/Market for fiction, poetry, essays

Writer’s Thought for the Week: If you want to change your life, remember that change starts with you. ~ Jeffrey Keller

Best take on punctuation since Eats, Shoots, and Leaves: http://writerunboxed.com/2013/05/02/take-a-punctuation-mark-out-to-lunch/

CONFRONTATION MAGAZINE
Accepts works from new and established writers – from a talented 14-year-old to Nobel prize winners. The current reading period ends May 15, 2013. Publishes fiction, poetry, memoirs and essays. Pays up to $125. U.S.-based writers must submit by snail mail; others may submit by e-mail.

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.

Web tools for writers/Memoir prose and poems

Writer’s Thought for the Week: I have touched with a sense of art some people – they felt the love and the life. Can you offer me anything to compare to that joy for an artist?  ~ Mary Cassatt

WEB TOOLS FOR WRITERS

When you’re in the mood for some targeted Web browsing, The Writer’s Toolkit lists a variety websites for writers. The links are grouped according to forums, resources, writing references, conferences and webinars, and more.

MEMOIR(AND)

http://Memoirjournal.net/submissions

http://www.memoirjournal.net/downloads/submission-guidelines.pdf

Publishes memoirs in both prose and poetry form.

Prizes: $500/$250//$100 and publication.

Reading period is open through noon Pacific time, February 16, 2013. If using snail mail, must be postmarked by that date.

No entry fee. One entry per author per submission period.

Can a Hippo help your writing?

Thought for the Week: The sages do not consider that making no mistakes is a blessing. They believe, rather, that the great virtue of man lies in his ability to correct his mistakes and continually make a new man of himself. ~ Wang Yang-Ming, Chinese Philosopher

Have you discovered Word Hippo? It lets you look up synonyms, antonyms, word meanings, rhyming words, words that start with a certain letter, pronunciations, and translations.

BLACK LAWRENCE PRESS

The month of November is an open reading period for Black Lawrence Press, an imprint of Dzanc Books. They specialize in contemporary literature and creative non-fiction: novels, memoirs, short story collections, poetry, biographies, cultural studies, and translations from the German and French.

Personal Narrative vs Memoir/Poetry and Prose

Thought for the Week: I still have a full deck; I just shuffle slower now.   ~ Unknown

Personal Narrative vs Memoir

This link describes the difference between personal narrative and memoir, and explains why memoir is more demanding for both writer and reader.

CRAB ORCHARD REVIEW

Submission deadline: November 3, 2012 (postmark)

Pays $50 minimum for poetry, $100 minimum for prose

For their Summer/Fall 2013 issue, Crab Orchard Review seeks work that focuses on the people, places, history, and changes shaping the states in the U.S. that make up the "Big Middle" of prairies, plains, mountains, and deserts that shape the middle and non-Pacific Coast West of the Lower 48 (Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, and Nevada).

Bread Loaf/Iowa Review

Writer’s Thought for the Week: Creative work…is like a faucet: nothing comes unless you turn it on, and the more you turn it on, the more comes. ~  Brenda Ueland

Bread Loaf Conference

If, like me, you did not attend the Bread Loaf conference in Middlebury, Vermont, you can capture some of the experience thanks to Chloe Yelena Miller. 

You may listen to some of the readings and sessions here.

THE IOWA REVIEW
 
Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome during the fall semester only--September, October, and November. The Iowa Review publishes short stories, flash fiction, graphic novels, self-contained novel excerpts, and plays; poetry of all kinds, including verse plays and longer work; and all manner of creative nonfiction, including personal essays, lyric essays, memoirs, and literary journalism. 

Pays $1.50 per line for poetry ($40 minimum) and $0.08 per word for prose ($100 minimum). They also publish 750-1,000 word reviews of book-length fiction, poetry, and nonfiction on their website.

Literary Journals/Memoir

Thought for the Week: Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. ~ Winston Churchill 

JOURNAL OF THE MONTH

We can subscribe to all sorts of “of the month” clubs: book, fruit, cheese, wine, or even pig. Now we have literary journal of the month. Editors often read literary journals to find new talent. Interested in writing for literary journals but can’t afford to subscribe to more than one? If you live in the USA or Canada, you can sample more than one journal by subscribing to Journal of the Month. For $33, you receive four different journals. You select the frequency – one every month, every other month, or quarterly. Other options are available, up to 24 journals for $170. I’m going to give it a try.

MEMOIR(AND)

http://Memoirjournal.net/submissions

http://www.memoirjournal.net/downloads/submission-guidelines.pdf

The current reading period ends August 16, 2012 at noon Pacific Time.

No entry fee. One entry per author per submission period.

Seeks memoir in prose, poetry, or graphic form. Does not accept previously published work but does accept simultaneous submissions. (A personal blog is not considered previously published.)

Prizes: $500/$250/$100 and publication.