Mayborn Offering Prizes for Nonfiction

Mayborn Offering Prizes for Nonfiction

The University of North Texas Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference of the Southwest is offering cash prizes totaling $15,000 for writers of book-length manuscripts, personal essays and reporting, and research-based narratives.

Writers of the top 20 manuscripts and the top 50 articles and essays will be selected to participate in writing workshops at this year's conference, which will take place July 18-20 in Grapevine. The writer of the winning manuscript will have the option of entering into a provisional publishing contract with UNT Press.

Essays and articles must be no longer than 20 pages. The deadline is June 13. For details visit www.themayborn.unt.edu

Thanks for the heads-up to hb Leonard Cohen.

Seeking Creative Submissions

Submit: Flask and Pen

Flask and Pen Literary Magazine is seeking submissions. FlaskandPen.com is a inviting online literary community that sparks thought, discussion, and interest in an entertaining fashion. We accept short fiction, poetry and essays.

Each month we invite our readers to write on a topic selected by our staff. The topic may be a single word such as Sunrise, while at other times it may be a phrase such as New Adventures.

http://www.flaskandpen.com/

Please review submission guidelines and register with Flask and Pen prior to submitting, E-mail all submissions to submissions@flaskandpen.com

Flask and Pen Seeking Creative Submissions

Submit: The Commonline Project

It sounds like these guys were having a bad day when they wrote their submission guidelines. Even so:

common-line.com

If you think Shakespeare is the greatest writer that ever lived, or
you aspire to someday be published in Reader's Digest, or
you plan on sending spoken word poetry, or
you think that light verse poetry is the “only poetry” –

Do Not Submit, The Commonline Project is not the place for you.

Everyone writes poetry. And yes, everyone means everyone. If you can’t figure out what that means, it means that we receive a lot of writing that doesn't fit our needs. That we get a lot of what is called "blind submissions" and that we read a lot of poems about pets. So the point is, send us something different, raw, interesting and new. That is what we are after, not to mention, that is what you are after; if these things seem “crazy” to you, do not submit.

The Commonline Project Seeking Submissions

Submit: Writers wanted for an online magazine

We're looking for submissions for an online magazine. (The site is still under construction, but you can check it out at theplebeian.com We're hoping to launch the site sometime during the summer.)  It won't pay much---if something is accepted it might pay for a meal or two. Anything goes: fiction, poetry, current affairs, plays, book reviews, etc.

Thanks for your time.  Reply to: gigs-608810114@craigslist.org

Writers wanted for an online magazine

Sketch Journal: SXSW Conference Notes

via Moleskinerie

Why We Write - Number 8: Damon Lindelof

Damon Lindelof, Co-Creator and Executive Producer of “Lost," on why he writes:

I was listening to the news on NPR the other day and two things occurred to me.  First, only assholes feel the constant need to tell you they listen to NPR (does anyone ever say, “So I was watching the CW last night…”?) and I guess that makes me an asshole.  The second was that in the midst of listening to the story in question, I had finally figured out how to succinctly sum up why I write.  It goes a little something like this:

There’s this ninety-year old woman named Rose who, after honking her horn repeatedly at the school bus idling in front of her, decides she has much more important things to do and guns her Honda Civic around the bus.  Before she realizes that the bus was stopped for a very good reason indeed, Rose finds herself watching a freight train bear down on her and almost instantly, it smashes into the passenger side of the Civic and pushes it a good hundred feet before screeching to a stop.  Forgoing all the gory details, Rose  is pronounced dead at the local hospital and the attending doctor in the ER is tasked with notifying next of kin.  Turns out Rose’s husband has been dead for decades, but she has a couple sons and a daughter.  The doctor calls one of her sons and his wife answers the phone.  The son isn’t home, but the wife offers to take a message.  The notification ethics, however, forbid the hospital from telling anyone but next of kin about Rose’s death and so they ask when the son will be home so they can call back.  

And the wife responds “He won’t be back for two months.”   And the hospital says, “Well… do you have a number where we could reach him?”  And the wife says no, she doesn’t.  And why not?

Because he’s in space.

As in outer space.  As in orbit.  As in one of a handful of human beings who have the unique distinction of not being on the fucking planet. 

The son, Richard, is working on the International Space Station doing repair work.   And as he floats in Zero-G, he is blissfully unaware that his ninety-year old mother has just been flattened by a train.

I shit you not.  This really happened.

And what does this family’s personal tragedy have to do with why I write?

Why We Write - Number 8: Damon Lindelof « Why We Write (via)