Submission Sunday 9.15.24
New York Public Library, The Hudson Review, Narrative Magazine, Wildsam, Screencraft, The Southern Review, Eclectica, and Aevitas Creative
Happy Sunday, writers! Thank you for subscribing. Every other Sunday, you’ll receive eight literary submission opportunities, varying in audience and genre, that have been selected for quality and relevance.
Submission Sunday relies on the support of paying subscribers. If you enjoy this newsletter, please consider an upgrade! Paid subscribers receive an invitation to the Submission Sunday private chat, craft essays by writers, interviews with published authors about their submission process, interviews with editors about what they’re looking for, round-ups of articles about submitting and writing in general, and full access to the archives.
This edition of Submission Sunday has calls and contests from New York Public Library, The Hudson Review, Narrative Magazine, Wildsam, Screencraft, The Southern Review, Eclectica, and Aevitas Creative. More details below.
New York Public Library Cullman Center Fellowships (Deadline September 27)
The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers is an international fellowship program open to people whose work will benefit directly from access to the collections at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building—including academics, independent scholars, and creative writers (novelists, playwrights, poets). Visual artists at work on a book project are also welcome to apply.
Fifteen fellowships are given annually to artists, academics, and creative writers, including poets, fiction writers, creative nonfiction writers, and translators, whose work will benefit directly from access to the research collections at the New York Public Library. The fellows each receive $85,000, an office at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library’s main branch in the Midtown neighborhood of Manhattan, and full access to the library’s collections from September 2025 through May 2026. Fellows will be required to work on their projects at the Cullman Center for the duration of the fellowship.
The Hudson Review Call for Fiction Submissions (Deadline November 30)
Founded in 1948, The Hudson Review is a quarterly magazine of literature and the arts published in New York City. Frederick Morgan, one of its founding editors, edited the magazine for its first fifty years. Paula Deitz has been the editor since 1998.
Since its beginning, the magazine has dealt with the area where literature bears on the intellectual life of the time and on diverse aspects of American culture. It has a distinguished record of publishing little-known or undiscovered writers, many of whom have become major literary figures. Each issue contains a wide range of material including: poetry, fiction, essays on literary and cultural topics, book reviews, reports from abroad, and chronicles covering film, theatre, dance, music and art.
Narrative Magazine Fall 2024 Story Contest (Deadline November 26)
Our fall contest is open to all fiction and nonfiction writers. We’re looking for short shorts, short stories, essays, memoirs, photo essays, graphic stories, all forms of literary nonfiction, and excerpts from longer works of both fiction and nonfiction. Entries must be previously unpublished, no longer than 15,000 words, and must not have been previously chosen as a winner, finalist, or honorable mention in another contest.
Narrative winners and finalists have gone on to win Whiting Awards, the Pulitzer Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and the Atlantic prize, and have appeared in collections such as Best American Short Stories, Best American Nonrequired Reading, and many others. As always, we are looking for works with a strong narrative drive, with characters we can respond to, and with effects of language, situation, and insight that are intense and total. We look for works that have the ambition of enlarging our view of ourselves and the world.
Wildsam is a first of its kind national magazine dedicated to road trips, recreational vehicles and the outdoors. With a reverence for the textures, stories and characters of the open road, Wildsam offers unexpected insights into place and culture, vehicles and the outdoors, foodways and folkways, and more.
Like the Wildsam Field Guides, Wildsam magazine publishes original essays by some of the country’s most exciting writers. We’re open to pitches for essays that capture the mystique of the road-trip ritual and an authentic sense of place. We’d love to hear about the desert highways and mountain circuits you’ve driven again and again, the instance of crossing that one incredible landscape that’s stuck with you long after, the chance encounter on the road you’ve never been able to shake. Please send a one- or two-paragraph summary of the piece you have in mind, accompanied by published clips or links to your work. We regret that we don’t have the capacity to read unsolicited manuscripts.
Character: The Heart of Desire with Libby Flores
Sunday, September 22: 10 am–1 pm PST / 1-4 pm EST
How do we form character? Once we have a human on the page how do we create narrative drive in a story? What propels them? What do they yearn for? As Kurt Vonnegut said, “Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.” It simply does not matter what they seek; a character’s single-mindedness and perusal of any desired object hooks the reader to join in that quest. In this online workshop, we will explore how to locate and follow what a character longs for, how to detect this from the first stroke of characterization (what is often already on the page), and investigate the choices a character is making.
📚 Every other week, I’ll be making space for up to three online writing classes or programs (and the occasional retreat or conference) to advertise their upcoming offerings here. Learn more about getting your own classified ad. 📚
Screencraft Cinematic Prose Writing Competition (Deadline October 31)
Our jury is looking for great stories with potential to be adapted for the screen. Now accepting novels, short stories, novellas, true stories, biographies and everything in between! Benefits of the program include:
Grand Prize Winners will receive an opportunity to develop their project with a manager at Intellectual Property Group.
One selected winner will get their script produced with innovative multimedia company Crazy Maple.
There’s an additional project development opportunity with Verve Talent & Literary Agency.
Winners and select finalists receive introductions to book agents, literary managers, producers and more.
This could be your chance to see your story come to life in a new and dynamic way. See also: TV Pilot Screenplay Competition, Horror Screenplay Competition, and Stage Play Competition.
The Southern Review Call for Submissions (Deadline January 1)
The Southern Review is one of the nation’s premier literary journals. Hailed by Time as "superior to any other journal in the English language," we have made literary history since our founding in 1935. The Southern Review strives to discover and promote a diverse array of engaging, relevant, and challenging literature—including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and translation from literary luminaries as well as the best established and emerging writers. The journal also features a broad range of visual artists from across the South and around the globe.
Eclectica Magazine Call for Submissions
Eclectica was founded in October 1996 with the goal of providing a sterling quality literary magazine on the World Wide Web. At the time we struggled to find the net equivalent (in terms of content) of Harper's, New Yorker, Granta, The Atlantic, and other publications providing quality material for the appetites of a wide variety of demanding readers. Although some of these magazines even had their own web-sites, they were conceived as companions to the print items rather than sites intended to stand completely on their own.
Thus Eclectica was born. The vision we shared was of a magazine not bound by formula or genre, harnessing technology to further the reading experience rather than for the sake of flashy gimmickry, dynamic and interesting enough content-wise to keep readers coming back for more. Over two decades later, quality is still the sole criterion in our editorial process. If it is outstanding writing, then we want to share it with our ever growing, global readership.
Aevitas Creative Open for Queries
Aevitas Creative is a full-service literary agency, home to more than thirty agents in New York, Boston, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Detroit, Nashville, London, and Barcelona, representing scores of award winning authors, performers, thinkers, artists and public figures. Aevitas also provides high-level strategic communications consulting and original content development services to internationally renowned business, political, and cultural leaders, institutions, brands, and estates.
Our mission is to help cultivate and promote stories, expertise, and insights that are timely and timeless; that are innovative and necessary; that spark debate and challenge conventional wisdom; that enlighten and entertain; that inspire meaningful conversation and propose groundbreaking ideas; that test and expand on literary conventions; and that bring people together, influence the culture in positive ways, and enable voices that might otherwise be silenced to be heard.
Here’s a reminder of the deadlines coming up from previous posts. Please note that archived posts might also include calls that are open year-round. If you sign up for Substack Notes, I also post deadline reminders there. If you submit to any of the Submission Sunday calls and publish or win, let me know and I’ll broadcast your success in a future post.
Alaska Quarterly Review Call for Submissions (Deadline September 15)
carte blanche Call for Submissions (Deadline September 16)
At Length Call for Submissions (Deadline End of Summer)
River Styx Castro Prize 2025 (Deadline September 30)
Ecotone Call for Rondeaux et al. (Deadline September 30)
The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award (Deadline September 30)
The Lascaux Review Prize in Creative Nonfiction (Deadline September 30)
The Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction, Short Story Collection Competition, and Poetry Collection Prize (Deadline September 30)
Art Omi: Writers Residency 2025 Open Call (Deadline October 15)
DUM DUM Zine Call for Submissions (Deadline December 1)
The Citron Review Call for Submissions (Deadline December 6)