As we gear up for the 2008 Million Writers Award, which will kick off in February, we are now accepting applications for preliminary judges. These judges will help screen the nominations and select the list of notable stories of the year. To apply, e-mail me your writing and/or editing experience and why you think you'd make a good preliminary judge. My contact info is on the editors' page.
The Fall 2007 Deep South Festival of Writers seeks fiction, non-fiction, drama and poetry submissions related to geographic displacement, trauma, nostalgia and loss. While we are especially interested in works exploring the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, submissions may interpret the concept of displacement broadly.
Fiction, non-fiction and drama submissions should be 8-14 pages. Poetry submissions should be no more than 5 pages. Please submit the entire manuscript to be presented.
Conference Dates: November 1 - 4, 2007
Submission Deadline: September 15, 2007
A hard copy of the submissions should be sent to:
The Deep South Festival of Writers
c/o Dayana Stetco, Director of Creative Writing
Department of English
University of Louisiana Lafayette
P.O. Box 44691
Lafayette, LA 70504-4691
For more information, please see the website:
http://english.louisiana.edu/deep-south/DeepSouth.html
One of the oldest literary conferences in the country, the Deep South Festival of Writers is an annual event run by the Creative Writing Program at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. The festival encourages innovative cultural exchange by providing panel discussions, performances, readings and craft lectures by prominent artists and writers from across the nation. This year's featured writers include Mary Gaitskill, Rikki Ducornet and Ernest Gaines.
In an article entitled "The Wide World of Online Literary Journals", Julie Dolan of Utne.com notes that:
A good place to get acquainted with the e-literary world is the Million Writers Award, an online fiction contest started by an editor of the online publication storySouth in which readers vote for their favorite stories. Simon Owens at Bloggasm reports that the Million Writers Award was started after a print editor asserted that storySouth wasn't a "real" publication. Now, the awards are gaining notoriety and acclaim. Last year's winner of the best short story, Catherynne M. Valente, says "Most of those people would never have seen it otherwise, and that's a fantastic result."
Read more. And read more storySouth.
Not according to Pulitzer-Prize winning poet Natasha Trethewey in this article from the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.
More awards for storySouth contributors.
Alison Pelegrin (Summer 2002)) of Mandeville, Louisiana, won the 12th annual Akron Poetry Prize for Big Muddy River of Stars. She received $1,000, and her book will be published by the University of Akron Press. B. H. Fairchild judged. Alison was also awarded an NEA Literature Fellowship earlier this year.
Allan Peterson (Spring 2004 and Summer 2005) of Gulf Breeze, Florida, won the 2006 Muriel Craft Bailey Award for "Antipyretic." He received $1,000 and publication of his poem in Comstock Review. Thomas Lux judged. The annual award is given for a single poem.
Natasha Trethewey, author of Domestic Work, Bellocq's Ophelia, and Native Guard has won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for Native Guard. Our congratulations to her.
Read some of Natasha's poems from our Spring 2002 issue, here.
Our very own Dan Albergotti was recently named the winner of BOA Editions' Sixth Annual A. Poulin, Jr., Poetry Prize for his manuscript The Boatloads, which will appear from BOA in March, 2008.
Edward Hirsch, the final judge for this year's competition praised Dan's work, noting "The Boatloads, is filled with the spirit of mystery. It is a startling achievement that begins in wonder and ends in awe."
All our congratulations go to Dan. We hope you'll share in our celebration and join us again next Spring with the book comes out.
