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Three prizes of $1,500 each and publication in Iowa Review are given annually for works of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Using only the online submission system, submit up to 10 pages of poetry or up to 25 pages of prose with a $20 entry fee between January 1 and January 31. All entries are considered for publication. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Grants of up to $2,000 each are given in alternating years to feminist poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers who are citizens of the United States or Canada. This year, grants will be awarded to fiction writers. Using only the online submission system, submit 10 to 15 pages of prose, a statement regarding interest in receiving support from a feminist fund, a project description, a budget, and a résumé with a $25 entry fee between January 1 and January 31. A limited number of fee waivers are available upon request. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
A prize of $1,000 is given annually for an essay “that is outside the realm of conventional journalism and has relevance to North Carolinians.” The winning essay is also considered for publication in Ecotone. Writers who are legal residents of North Carolina or who are members of the North Carolina Writers’ Network are eligible. Julie Marie Wade will judge. Submit an essay of up to 3,500 words (two copies if submitting by postal mail) with a $12 entry fee ($10 for NCWN members) by January 15. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
An award of $1,000, publication in Pinch, and two contributor copies will be given annually for a work of flash creative nonfiction. Using only the online submission system, submit a work of flash prose of up to 1,000 words with a $15 entry fee by January 31. All entries are considered for publication. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a published poetry collection, book of fiction, or book of creative nonfiction that “illuminates the heritage of North America’s mid-continental prairies.” Authors, publishers, and the general public may submit two copies of a book by January 31. There is no entry fee. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
’Tis the season for spending? The end of the year is often associated with spending money on last-minute gifts, groceries for parties, travel and outings with family and friends, and holiday sales for your own treats. This week write a personal essay on your traditions and philosophies around holiday spending. How have they evolved over the years? Do you have memories or anecdotes of extravagant purchases or of thrift-savvy techniques? You might reflect on how seasonal cultural traditions influence spending and how those traditions are maintained, broken, or might even evolve. What are alternatives to conventional modes of consumption and capital?
Lulu Wang’s 2019 film, The Farewell, begins with a group of relatives convening in China on the pretext of a wedding but who are actually there to bid farewell to the family matriarch from whom they are hiding her terminal cancer diagnosis. The protagonist of the film, a woman in her thirties who has lived in the United States for most of her life, struggles with this concept and is told by her uncle that it is their duty to carry the emotional burden of her grandmother’s illness for her. “You think one’s life belongs to oneself,” he says. “But that’s the difference between the East and the West. In the East, a person’s life is part of a whole. Family. Society.” Think back to a time when you have carried a burden for someone else and write an essay that examines your personal experience with this concept. Are there situations in which withholding the truth or keeping something secret feels reasonable, ethical, or even honorable to you?
In this 60 Minutes interview, Margaret Atwood speaks about her response to book banning, her new memoir, Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts (Doubleday, 2025), and why she says the popularity of her novel The Handmaid’s Tale is “not due to me or the excellence of the book. It’s partly the twists and turns of history.”
What’s the story behind the story? Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, the new biopic directed by Scott Cooper, relays a behind-the-music creation story of Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 acoustic album Nebraska, which was composed and recorded in a New Jersey bedroom. The album represents the singer’s desire for pure art that is free of the constraints and adornments of being a superstar in the music industry. Think about the story behind one of your own stories, perhaps a personal essay you wrote years ago that sprang from a sense of urgency. Write an essay that recounts the story behind this story describing in detail the emotions that played throughout the creative act, where you worked on it, and how the subject matter dictated the process of its writing.
In this Books Are Magic event, Lana Lin reads from her book The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam (Dorothy, a Publishing Project, 2025) and discusses how she uses both Gertrude Stein and Audre Lorde’s genre-bending approaches to autobiography in order to highlight Asian diasporic narratives in a conversation with Monique Truong.
