Web Wanderings

So I've been catching up on a few things as I wander around the Web. Here are a few writing opportunities I've stumbled on in the past few hours:

1) A few (1-3) freelance writers are sought for "an upcoming 'Arts and Collecting' issue of a 60,000-run custom business publication. The Spring issue is assigning storylines right now, and writers must be ready to accept assignments immediately. Deadline for work will be January 20, 2006. Compensation is $1.00/per word, payable upon publication in April, 2006." Chicago-area writers are preferred, but others "with the right background" will be considered. For more information, click here.

2) And now for something completely different. Or different from an assignment that will pay $1.00/word, anyway. According to her craigslist post Sara Abrams is "preparing to publish a magazine in Charlotte for cat and/or dog lovers." She seeks "some short articles or stories for [her] 'dummy' copy. Subject matter can be a story or an article based on grooming, vet care, etc." $25 payment for a chosen story/article. Might be worth asking if she'll take reprints....

3) And from The Writer magazine's online forum comes this announcement from Linda Formichelli: "I'm working on a Chicken Soup Healthy Living book on back pain, and the editors are looking for touching, inspiring essays on--you guessed it--back pain!" Authors of selected essays will earn $200 on publication. Submit work by March 31, 2006. Read the full announcement here.

In related Web news...I want to thank Claire Zulkey over at the MBToolbox for highlighting some of my writing exercises. It's always nice to know I might actually be helping other writers!

Summer Institutes in Literary Studies

The National Humanities Center has announced the topics for its 2006 Summer Institutes in Literary Studies. This year's seminars will include "George Eliot's Middlemarch," led by Catherine Gallagher, and "Herman Melville's Short Fiction: 'Bartleby the Scrivener,' Benito Cereno, and Billy Budd," led by Andrew Delbanco.

I can tell you from personal experience that these seminars are worth checking out. You can learn about eligibility, application instructions, and more right here.

Attention, Ohio Poets!

Starting next week you can submit poetry for the Akron Art Museum's New Words 2006 Poetry Competition, open to (adult) poets currently residing in Ohio. Submit only previously unpublished work beginning January 2, 2006 (postmark deadline is February 24, 2006). The top three winners will receive cash prizes ($125, $100, and $75, respectively). The top eight finalists will be invited to participate in a reading to be held Sunday, April 30, in Akron. For full details/submission guidelines, click here.

Call for Writers: Orion Magazine

Orion magazine is looking for freelance contributors. Read the announcement at JournalismJobs.com.

Reviewing the Review

Bloggers (and others) are abuzz about Sunday's article, "The Book Review: Who Critiques Whom--and Why?", written by New York Times Public Editor, Byron Calame. In this piece Calame unveils something many of us find mysterious: the book-review process at his own paper. Calame explains that his own inquiry was prompted by the NYTBR's recent list of "100 Notable Books of the Year." After the list was published earlier this month, he says, "calculations from several readers and bloggers soon turned up in my in-box. Of the 61 nonfiction books on the list, they noted, six were by Times staffers--enough to pique my interest in the overall book-review process at the paper." It should be enough to pique your interest, too.

Current No-Cost Contests

Two no-cost contests to report--both with deadlines early in the new year.

First, if you've read Bruce Holland Rogers's article on fixed forms for prose writers in the January 2006 Writer magazine you may already know about the Fixed-form challenge, a 69-word story contest. Rogers will judge the top 20 stories. The winner received $50 and a free subcription to The Writer; two runners-up will receive subscriptions; winning stories will be posted on the magazine's website. Deadline: January 2.

Then, the current Maisonneuve Literary Contest is up and running, with a January 3 deadline. The editors are apparently looking ahead to springtime: "It's time to defrost! Along with pollen and the smell of wet grass, that little thing called love is in the air. We want to celebrate spring, so we're calling for stories of young love--ironic, unrequited, dejected or entirely genuine." You should send "8-800 brilliant words of poetry or prose." Submit one prose piece OR two poems. First prize includes $100 and publication in the print magazine. Second- and third-prize winners will receive a year's subscription and their work will appear on maisonneuve.org. Note that "all other entries may be published online."

Good luck!

Words and Pictures magazine seeks submissions

Words and Pictures magazine, a publication "devoted to written and visual expression, and the inevitable commentary that springs from living in the global societies of the 21st century," seeks submissions for its Spring 2006 print issue.

Send your work (preferably by e-mail) by January 1, 2006.

Pay rates (on publication): $20 per poem; "up to $50" per prose piece; up to $50 per image.

Full guidelines available here.

Write. Publish. Learn.

Check out our winter schedule of workshops and seminars--all designed to enrich your writing practice--right here.

And Still More Paying Markets

OK--this should be it for the e-book updates for 2005. Our latest improvement--this time for our Directory of Paying Markets for Book Reviewers--weeds out "dead" listings and adds still more possibilities for freelance reviewers to pursue. No price change! Check it out and download the free preview with sample markets.

On the Writerly Benefits of Sibling Rivalry

In a review of Catherine Wald's The Resilient Writer some months back I noted how grateful I am to my parents for a major contribution to my writing career. By creating me as a Taurus, they endowed me with certain personality traits essential to any writer's success (not to mention sanity). Taureans, you see, are by definition (at least according to the definition on one of my refrigerator magnets) "DETERMINED" and "PERSISTENT." Sometimes people go so far as to call them "STUBBORN" (bull-headed?).

But you need those qualities to deal with certain aspects of the writer's life. Rejection, in particular. You need to be able to find a rejection letter in your mailbox (or when you log in to e-mail) and go on with the rest of your day. You need to have some inherent drive to send a story to 40+ journals before it finds a home. Sometimes I almost feel sorry for writers born under all the other astrological signs.

Yesterday I realized I owe my parents even more. Though I somehow sense it wasn't uppermost in their minds at the time, they also really helped me prepare for a life as a writer when they gave me a sibling thirtysomething years ago.

I've just read two pieces dealing with writers and sibling rivalry. The first, by Steve Almond, appears in the December 5 Publishers Weekly. In "The Case Against Sibling Rivalry," Almond recounts, among other things, his own shameful experience as a "jealous little turd" at a writers' conference. His conclusion "isn't that all writers should love and praise the work of other writers. It's that we're all members of the same family."

Now I'm a big Steve Almond fan--not least because Mr. Almond very graciously and with considerable concern helped me out when he emceed a reading at which I practically fainted a few years ago (that's another story). And I agree with his conclusion. But isn't it true that rivalry even within the same family is, at least sometimes, unavoidable?

That's a point made in A. Papatya Bucak's "With a Little Help from My Enemies," which begins with a chronicle of the motivating power of jealousy in her own life. "The younger sister to a genius brother, I quickly learned that the successes of those you love are a much greater spur than the successes of those you hate. He was an editor for our high-school literary magazine; I was editor-in-chief. His Science Olympiad team won the state championship; mine won the nationals. He went to Cornell; I went to Princeton."

For Bucak (and for her essay) this personal history serves as a prelude to her writing life. Now her "siblings" include everyone from her college-mates to a young woman she once babysat for. And they all seem to be "out-succeeding" her.

How she turns this to her advantage I'll leave to you to discover.

But here's what I'm thinking. Pity the poor writer who is an only child (now I have nothing against only children--my dad and one of my best friends are only children). But I think only children have a tougher time as writers. They have to learn some lessons later on (maybe even at an MFA program?) that those of us graced with siblings learn much, much earlier in life. Here's one: there's competition in this world; sometimes, someone else is simply more "successful" than you are. Here's another: life and feelings are messy. You might very well have a great deal of affection (or even love) for someone who inspires some pretty nasty sentiments (jealousy, rage, etc.) at the same time.

For his part, Almond says: "I don't know that I'll ever rid myself of envy. What I am trying to do is manage these feelings, so they don't infect the pleasure I might take in the work of others." What a perfect way of summing up the happy developments in my relationship with my sister now that we're both safely into adulthood. Somehow, I suspect that feat resonates in the way I relate to my writer friends, too, the ones that do, in fact, often seem to comprise another "family" for me.

So once again I have to say it: Thanks, Mom and Dad! I appreciate your help!

Holiday Sale!

Thinking ahead to those New Year's Resolutions? If they include working to get your short story collection or novel published you'll want to check out the latest, just-updated and expanded version of our Literary Contest Directory for Writers of Book-Length Fiction. In honor of the season we've discounted the price 25%. Take a look and download the free preview (with a few sample listings--an extra gift!).

Lessons Learned from the Nieman Narrative Nonfiction Conference (III)

OK. Here are my final thoughts (for the moment) about something I gleaned from the conference. (I know I promised a conference summary in the next newsletter, but I'd rather devote the space to the words and wisdom of a fantastic interviewee. Watch the newsletter for the interview!)

This last lesson actually returns to an issue highlighted in a previous post, which quoted Lee Gutkind's reminder that "There are two types of stories. One type is one's own story. The other type is telling the stories of others."

As I've said before, I've encountered many creative nonfiction writers who seem to believe that the genre is synonymous with--and limited to--memoir. Looking outward is far from the point--interpreting one's own experience is.

So it was interesting to find at this conference--attended by so many practicing newspaper and magazine journalists--that some people focus too much on the opposite and really have to learn how to bring their own narrative, first-person voice into a work of nonfiction. They know how to "report" on other people, but they may need to slow down and craft other characters: themselves.

Still, here's the overall message: there's room for everyone at the narrative table.

The Latest from JBooks.com

The latest offerings from JBooks.com: The Online Jewish Book Community are now available. As someone who has not infrequently submitted work to anthologies, frankly enjoys reading them, and sometimes even daydreams about possible anthology topics myself, I found Sanford Pinsker's piece, inspired by a new anthology edited by Jerome Charyn, a very intriguing read. (Of course, I'm also partial to my own current JBooks.com contribution, a review of Abigail Pogrebin's Stars of David.)

Back Online: The University of New Orleans Low Residency MFA Program

They're back online! You can check in with the UNO Low Residency MFA Program here.

Food Writing Scholarships--Deadline Approaching!

If you're interested in attending The Symposium for Professional Food Writers at The Greenbrier next March--but worried about the cost--check out the several scholarships that are available. But do it soon, because the application deadline is December 15. New this year: The Leite's Culinaria Scholarship for Narrative Food Writing, a $1,000 scholarship to be awarded "to a novice food writer (writing for fewer than five years) whose work is narrative in nature. The goal of the scholarship is to promote literary writing (essays, food novels or narrative nonfiction) that has a strong, expressive voice and a unique perspective on the world of food."

Lessons Learned from the Nieman Narrative Nonfiction Conference (II)

Here's a lesson learned: pay close attention to any conference that offers a "First Pages" session. The Nieman Narrative Nonfiction Conference regularly offers this kind of session, and according to Sarah Wernick (who moderated Sunday morning's session), it's something borrowed from children's writers' conferences.

This is how it worked on Sunday. Attendees who planned to attend the session were invited to submit (in advance) the first pages from their narrative nonfiction projects. At the session eleven such first pages were read aloud (by readers specially present for the job--the pages were kept anonymous). After each page was read, the panel critiqued it. And the panel included two agents and two editors.

Hearing specific comments from each of the panelists on other people's work proved infinitely more valuable than any individual yet generic "this isn't for us...hope it finds a home with another agent/publisher" I've received to date.

If you want more details about this First Pages session (or maybe some guidance on how you might run a similar session at a conference yourself), click here.

NEH Summer Internship Program Update

Those of you who have already read the December 2005 issue of our Practicing Writer newsletter will recall the feature article on tips and tools for internship seekers. This is just a follow-up note to let you know that the Web site for the NEH Summer Internship Program has now been updated for the 2006 applications (which are due January 6). Find out more here.

Lessons Learned from the Nieman Narrative Nonfiction Conference (I)

I have just returned from the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center and the 2005 Nieman Narrative Nonfiction Conference, and I'll be happy to tell you about some things I learned in this and subsequent posts (and you can look forward to a more coherent summary in the next Practicing Writer newsletter, too).

Here's the first piece of news:

If you're one of the many readers (and writers) who mourned the passing of DoubleTake you'll no doubt be pleased to discover that the magazine is back. Represented by its new editors at the conference, DoubleTake/Points of Entry is "the marriage of a magazine (DoubleTake—quarterly from 1995-2003) that featured narrative stories, essays and narrative/documentary photography grounded in the liberal arts, and an academic journal (Points of Entry: Cross-Currents in Storytelling—annual 2003-2005) that featured narrative and professional/scholarly essays about narrative writing."

Now published bi-annually from its offices in the English department at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, the magazine also has an online home here. That's where you can learn more about current content and submission guidelines. (The only bad news here is financial: the magazine is pretty expensive [a single copy costs $15; an individual subscription is $25, which provides two issues], and it's not paying its contributors.)

More Paying Short Story Markets

Well, my job is done. It was time to update the Directory of Paying Short Story Markets, and as of this evening, the latest edition is online and available!

The previous version was published in August. As in summertime. As in four months ago. It's unbelievable how quickly things change in this field. I update these market directories at least three times each year, because I want to make sure anyone buying them obtains the most up-to-date information I can possibly provide. It's part of the perfectionist in me, I guess.

This new directory is a case in point. Several publications included in the August edition (including Conversely) are now on hiatus--with no clear hiatus end date in sight. So while I'm sad to see them go, they've been cut from the new version.

And some publications have moved to new addresses (both on the Web and in their "real" offices somewhere on the planet). You need to have that information, too.

Despite the "cuts," this e-book is still even more packed with publishing possibilities than the one it replaces. There are now 110 print and online publications included, all of which tell you up front (that is to say, online) what they're looking for and how much they'll pay for it. You won't have to e-mail for the guidelines or guess how much these paying markets actually pay.

But enough blabbing. Go check it out for yourself. You can even download a free preview of the new e-book, complete with sample listings, right here!

The Pedestal Magazine Seeks North Carolina Poets

The Pedestal Magazine plans to feature North Carolina poets in its April 2006 issue. The editors intend to include 10-15 poems and will pay their standard rate ($30/poem). For more information, including submission instructions, click here.