The Dream Quest One Poetry & Writing Contest

Dream Quest One is sponsoring Poetry and Writing (Fiction/Non-Fiction) Contests. In their own words:

Deadline: December 31, 2008
Open to anyone who loves to express their innermost thoughts and feeling into the beautiful art of poetry or to write a short story that is worth telling everyone! And to all who have the ability to dream. Write a poem or short story for a chance to win cash prizes. All works must be original.
Write a poem, thirty lines or fewer on any subject, style, or form, typed or neatly hand printed. And/or write a short story, five pages maximum length, on any subject or theme, creative writing fiction or non-fiction (including essay compositions, diary, journal entries and screenwriting). Also, must be typed or neatly hand printed. Multiple poetry and short story entries are accepted. All winners will be announced on January 31, 2009.
Prizes:

• Writing Contest First Prize is $500. Second Prize: $250. Third Prize: $100.
• Poetry Contest First Prize is $250. Second Prize: $125. Third Prize: $50.

Entry fees: Writing Contest entry fee: $10 per short story.
Poetry Contest entry fee: $5 per poem.
To send entries: Include title(s) with your story (ies) or poem(s), along with your name, address, phone#, email, brief biographical info. (Tell us a little about yourself), on the coversheet. Add a self-addressed stamped envelope for entry confirmation. Fees payable to: “DREAMQUESTONE.COM” Mail to:
Dream Quest One
Poetry & Writing Contest
P.O. Box 3141
Chicago, IL 60654
Visit http://www.dreamquestone.com for further details or to enter!

Ambrosia - Call for Submissions

Do you write haiku?

Ambrosia - Call for Submissions:

"You are invited to submit haiku for the Winter 2009 issue of Ambrosia. The submission deadline is January 1, 2009. Submissions will NOT close earlier than the deadline.

Ambrosia is a quarterly journal—a print literary journal, a PDF ebook, and a digital online magazine—dedicated to publishing and promoting fine English haiku in traditional style.

Ambrosia specializes in fine single haiku in tercet form. Senryu are not wanted. Collaborations and sequences are generally not wanted. All selection decisions will be made at the sole discretion of the editor.

Previously unpublished work, not on offer elsewhere, is solicited."

Franklin-Christoph No-Fee Poetry Contest ~

If you have two original, unpublished poems that are less than 100 words, why not send them to the Franklin-Christoph Free Poetry Contest? You may email your entries to clientservice(at)franklin-christoph(dot)com or snail mail (postmarked by the November 30th deadline) to: Franklin-Christoph Poetry Contest, 7511 Mourning Dove Rd, Suite 104, Raleigh, NC, 27615. In addition to seeing your work published Franklin-Christoph.com, prizes are:

• First Prize: $1000 cash
• 10 Merit Award Winners: $150 Franklin-Christoph writing instruments.

Winners will be announced by February 14, 2009.
Please go to their website for the rest of their contest rules and guidelines.

Beautiful Vowels

Take a quick peek at this BBC News article about a new fiction book that manipulates the use of vowels. Entitled "Euonia", the only word in the english language that contains all five vowels, the author has divided the book into five sections, each section using only one vowel in every word. The article quotes from each of the books sections - it's quite a feat. The comments are fun to read, too.

Use These Words ...

The second issue of Use These Words is on the horizon, and they're accepting submissions until January 1, 2009. All you need to do is use all of the following words in a poem (up to 5 poems), and email them to usethesewords(at)gmail(dot)com.

• Pillow
• Tantrum
• Silver
• Roof
• Vacant
• Atlas
• Break

Don't forget to send a brief contributor's note.

First Edition Publishing - No Fee Contest

First Edition Publishing - New Fiction, New Writers is currently looking for no-fee contest submissions for their monthly contest for possible publication in upcoming issues.

"Whether you've written a short story, poem, complete novel, script, play or book review we want to hear from you. We run a monthly competition in each of these categories that is completely FREE to enter. Our team of judges will pick the best each month, and we will publish a selection of them in the next available issue of First Edition Magazine. There are cash prizes for the very best in each category. No matter which category, if chosen you can boast that your work has been published and read by tens of thousands of people, and you may even win some cash if you're the very best!

Categories we are looking for:
# Short Stories
# Serialisations of Complete Novels
# Poetry and Prose
# Plays and Scripts
# Reader's Reviews"

Storyscape Journal Seeks Outside the Box Submissions

Storyscape Journal, The Literary Journal of Champions is seeking submissions. According to their site:

"Storyscape, a new literary journal that is story-centered, asks for your submission. We want your:

Short story, long story, overheard story, invented story, true story, false story, poetic story, oral story, historical story, crafted story, stolen story, visual story.

Just captivate us with the strength of the story. The premise of the journal is to expand the notion of what stories are while shaking up the labels we use to define them. To this end, we've come up with 4 sections of the journal: Truth, Untruth, We Don't Know and They Won't Tell Us, and Stories without Words. You label your own piece, which means you decide what 'the truth' means to you. All we want is to lean back, relax, and listen to your story.

We now have a rolling submission policy. The next issue will be published online in winter of 2009."

We e-mailed the editor, Anne Hays, for some clarification on the kinds of stories listed above and we got a very speedy response! It turns out that they have shortened the list to invented story, true story, overheard story, visual story, poetic story, audio story, found story, and given story. Their website will reflect this change soon.

Here is her answer to exactly what kind of stories move them:

Our actual categories/genres for the pieces are simply, "Truth," "Untruth," and "We Don't Know and They Won't Tell Us." The listed suggestions above are simply meant to convey that we are looking for a wide variety of storytelling methods. It's definitely not meant to limit people's options in an any way!

Here is an example of something we loved: In our last issue, Kimiko Hahn wrote two pieces specifically for us. In one piece she rewrote the same poem three times while changing and lengthening the ending. In her other piece, she interspersed attempts at writing a poem with diary entries in which she pondered the creative process, and where her work was heading. I was happy she sent these specific pieces, rather than simply sending us one solid "traditional" poem, which, if you look at our suggestion list of categories, we do potentially publish.

Our vision for this journal seems to be so outside what people think of when they think of "stories" that we are constantly re-explaining the vision, and looking for better ways to encourage creativity. At the end of the day, as is the case with all journals, the pieces in it speak louder than we can in terms of what we'd publish. Check out Chris Haske's piece in our current issue--it's totally genius. Or look at Amber Boardman's. And we are absolutely looking for people to push the envelope harder. What does that cliche even mean? We are looking for people to rip the envelope up into shreds and create new envelopes.

See Storyscape's submissions page for further information on how to submit, and thank you to Anne Hays for her responsiveness and clarity.