In a recent installment of our Craft Capsules series, Christine Imperial, author of Mistaken for an Empire: A Memoir in Tongues (Mad Creek Books, 2023), writes about the freedom in hybrid forms of the essay and how becoming comfortable with failure helped the process of writing her book. “The essay should be an experiment—without a guarantee of success, like the hypothesis before an experiment,” she writes. “When one writes with failure as kin, one writes without the expectation of understanding, ceding to the persistence of the opaque.” Write an essay about a time when failure led to a better understanding of something in your life. What lessons did you learn through this process?

The Language of Trees: A Rewilding of Literature and Landscape edited by Katie Holten is an anthology of poems, essays, quotations, song lyrics, recipes, and other texts offering a variety of perspectives on trees and their relationship to human life. With contributions from writers such as Ross Gay, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Carl Phillips, the book also includes a “Tree Alphabet” created by Holten translating each letter of the English alphabet into a drawing of a different type of tree. “When we translate our words into glyphs, such as trees, it forces us to re-read everything,” writes Holten in the afterward. Inspired by this “rewilding” of language, write a short story in which a forested area plays a major role. How will the trees speak in your story?

In the iconic poem “My Mother Would Be a Falconress,” Robert Duncan uses the metaphor of a falcon and a falconer to characterize the relationship between a son and his overbearing mother. As the falcon, the speaker of the poem is sent by his mother “as far as her will goes.” Throughout the poem, Duncan provides detailed imagery associated with falconry—such as the hood placed on birds of prey, often sewn round with bells—to give the complex metaphor a realistic weight. Think of a metaphor that captures the relationship between a mother and her child. Write a poem that uses this metaphor to characterize this relationship, whether nurturing, overbearing, or otherwise.

For fans of the Star Wars franchise, the fourth of May has become a holiday to enjoy their favorite characters, series, and films with themed parties and community gatherings. The unofficial fan holiday stems from a pun of the phrase, “May the Force be with you,” first heard in the 1978 film Star Wars: A New Hope which launched a decades-long phenomenon. The popularity of the holiday is a testament to the fierce loyalty of fans of science fiction and fantasy. Write an essay that explores your favorite sci-fi character. How do you connect with this character? Explore the traits, whether human or otherwise, that make you a fan.

“I tell my audiences over and over, you should rethink the old gray women in your life that you take for granted,” says Luis Alberto Urrea about writing his new novel, Good Night, Irene (Little, Brown, 2023), in the May/June 2023 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. “My mom’s own madness wrecked her. But you try and you try to give something back, and in this book, I finally gave my mom a happy ending.” Inspired by the most important women in his life, his mother and his wife, Urrea began a journey of research and exploration to tell this personal tale. Write a short story that reimagines the biography of someone close to you. How would you offer grace or a new perspective?

In her Pulitzer Prize–winning collection, The Wild Iris, Louise Glück gives voice to a multitude of flowers: violets, snowdrops, trillium, lamium, scilla, and more. Glück uses floral imagery and personification, as well as the relationship between garden and gardener, to explore themes of resurrection, existence, loss, and suffering. In the poem “Lamium,” she writes: “This is how you live when you have a cold heart. / As I do: in shadows, trailing over cool rock, / under the great maple trees.” This week, inspired by this season’s super blooms, write a poem in the voice of your favorite flower.

Spring is in full swing: Give your writing the chance to bloom by submitting to contests with a May 15 deadline. Prizes include $5,000 for a debut novel set in the American South; $1,000 for a single poem; and $15,000 for women, transgender, and/or otherwise gender-nonconforming poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers in the Philadelphia area who have been creating art for social change. All prizes have a cash award of $1,000 or more, and two have no entry fee. Good luck, writers!

Academy of American Poets
James Laughlin Award
A prize of $5,000 is given annually for a second book of poetry by a living poet to be published in the coming calendar year. The winner also receives an all-expenses-paid weeklong residency at the Betsy Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. Copies of the winning book are distributed to members of the Academy of American Poets. Entry fee: None.

Academy of American Poets
Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize
A prize of $25,000 is given annually for a poetry collection by a living poet published in the United States during the previous year. The winner also receives a 10-day residency, free of charge, at the Glen Hollow cottage in Naples, New York. Copies of the winning book are distributed to members of the Academy of American Poets. Entry fee: $75.

American Poetry Review
Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize
A prize of $1,000 and publication in American Poetry Review is given annually for a single poem by a poet under the age of 40. Multilingual submissions are eligible, provided one of the languages is English. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $15.

Crook’s Corner Book Prize Foundation
Book Prize
A prize of $5,000 is given annually for a debut novel set in the American South. The author may live anywhere, but eligible novels must be set primarily in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, or Washington, D.C. Self-published books are eligible, but books available only as e-books are not. Wiley Cash will judge. Entry fee: $35.

Gaudy Boy
Poetry Book Prize
A prize of $1,500 and publication by Gaudy Boy, an imprint of the New York City–based literary nonprofit Singapore Unbound, is given annually for a poetry collection by a writer of Asian heritage residing anywhere in the world. Divya Victor will judge. Entry fee: $10.

Leeway Foundation
Transformation Awards
Awards of $15,000 each are given annually to women, transgender, and/or otherwise gender-nonconforming poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers in the Philadelphia area who have been creating art for social change for five or more years. Writers who have lived for at least two years in Bucks, Camden, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, or Philadelphia counties, who are at least 18 years of age, and who are not full-time students in a degree-granting arts program are eligible. Entry fee: None.

Lost Horse Press
Idaho Prize for Poetry
A prize of $1,000, publication by Lost Horse Press, and 20 author copies is given annually for a poetry collection by a U.S. poet. Entry fee: $28.

Pittsburg State University
Cow Creek Chapbook Prize
A prize of $1,000, publication by Pittsburg State University, and 25 author copies is given annually for a poetry chapbook. Chad Abushanab will judge. Entry fee: $15.

Ploughshares
Emerging Writer’s Contest
Three prizes of $2,000 each and publication in Ploughshares are given annually for a poem or group of poems, a short story, and an essay. Each winner also receives a consultation with the literary agency Aevitas Creative Management. Writers who have not published a book or a chapbook with a print run of over 300 copies are eligible. Entry fee: $24.

Regal House Publishing
Fugere Book Prize
A prize of $1,000 and publication by Regal House Publishing will be given annually for a novella. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $25.

Visit the contest websites for complete guidelines, and check out the Grants & Awards database and Submission Calendar for more contests in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and translation.
 

Every year Time magazine releases a list of the year’s one hundred most influential people, offering a look into the political, cultural, and social figures who have made notable achievements. This year’s list includes politicians such as U.S. Congressman and Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Colombian president Gustavo Petro, writers Judy Blume and Neil Gaiman, and scientists Ozlem Tureci and Ugur Sahin who codeveloped the first COVID-19 vaccine approved worldwide. If you composed a list of your own life’s most influential people, who would be on it? Write an essay that considers who you’ve been influenced by and the many ways your life has been changed by them.