Novel ideas

GLOBAL NON-FICTION MARKET New Republic wants long-form political essays

Gary Dalkin

Founded in 1914, The New Republic is a left-leaning ‘ progressive ’ US political magazine and website. The print edition is published ten times a year and has a circulation of 50,000, while the website features between 1-5 articles a day, and has approximately 500,000 visitors per month. ‘Name ’ writers such as Neil Ferguson, Camille Paglia, Matt Groening, Steve Pinker and Zadie Smith have been contributors, but editor Michael Tomasky and his team are open to freelance pitches and unsolicited submissions from all writers, new as well as established.

If you are pitching an idea for an essay, reportage, or other non-fiction, briefly explain your angle, why it ’ s timely, and why you ’ re the person to write it; hyperlinking any references and citations in your pitch. If you are sending a completed submission, briefly summarise it in your email and attach your full article. In all cases, include a brief biography and links to examples of your work. Note, The New Republic is not a news site, but publishes in-depth longform researched journalism and opinion piece essays, as well as reviews and other non-fiction.

It is essential to send your pitch/feature to the right editor, as anything sent to more than one editor will be deleted unread. Departments are called ‘ verticals ’ , and the editor for The Soapbox (the politics, law, healthcare, media vertical) is Jason Linkins: jlinkins@tnr.com. For Apocalypse Soon (climate change, science, Covid-19 and the environment), contact Heather Souvaine Horn: hshorn@tnr.com. Sold Short addresses identity, inequality and justice and is edited by Patrick Caldwell: pcaldwell@tnr.com and he has his own pitching guide at https:// newrepublic.com/article/160249/pitch-sold-short. He also edits the State of the Nation section of the print edition. Email Emily Cook for Critical Mass, covering arts and culture including books, film and TV: emily@tnr.com. Emily also edits feature stories for the print title. Laura Marsh is the editor to contact for books and the arts in the physical edition: lmarsh@tnr.com. You can submit poetry, no more than a page long, via poetry@tnr.com.

While New Republic is very US-centric it does cover a wide range of stories with global reach. Recent pieces have included ‘Is Nuclear Power Just Too Dangerous?’ , ‘Thom Gunn ’ s Anti-Confessional Poetry ’ , ‘Argentina Keeps Redesigning Its Currency, Solving Nothing ’ and ‘How Buster Keaton Revolutionized the Early Film Industry ’ . It ’ s best to read the magazine or website at https:// newrepublic.com before pitching and follow the full guidelines at https://newrepublic.com/pages/ contact#submissionGuidelines Payment varies at around 12-15¢ per word.

Wednesday wants

Third Wednesday is a well-established US literary journal with an editorial team looking for quality poetry and flash fiction. Read what ’ s published on their website and check the detailed guidelines carefully. The journal now has a new website and will feature some of the poetry and fiction pieces on it once they ’ ve been published in the print journal.

The editorial team love poetry and seek submissions of ‘All types of poetry… from formal to experimental. They look for an

‘ emphasis placed on the ideas… craft, language, the beauty of expression, and the picture that extends beyond the frame of the poem ’ . Read the editors ’ likes and dislikes in poetry at the website.

Flash fiction, no more than 1,000 words, should ‘ say something ’ . Give the old a twist, a new perspective. Use language well, construct a story and end it well.

Submit work online, 1-3 poems or a story in a single doc or docx file. Simultaneous submissions are welcome but not reprints or multiple subs.

Response time ‘is three months or less, often much less ’ . Payment is a token $3 per piece, plus a copy, for first print and electronic rights.

Website: https://thirdwednesdaymagazine.org

Balls in the air

Pay attention to juggling different aspects of the freelance life, says Patrick Forsyth

We ’ re still living in untypical times. There is a lot to cope with and much to catch up on. Holidays are just one example (if you survive the airport experience); many people are catching up. My next holiday, assuming it happens, was postponed three times. One result for those intent on selling their writing is that you get busy.

I thought of this the other day. I am writing a series of 15,000-word monographs for an online publisher. One day I found myself counting three that needed proof reading, one new one to be written (and further topics to be suggested) and, separately, a book to be finished. Then, of course, columns to write like this. For many writers, writing is not a full-time activity and whatever mix of activities you have on the go it must be fitted in with the hurly burly of everyday life.

Considering this sort of mix it is selfevident that you need to be, and remain, organised. I am sure I have mentioned the need to hit deadlines numbers of times here, but that is just one implication. The greatest danger is the classic conundrum of feast and famine. When you have many things to do, and I would include speculative writing in that list (some of us have many unfinished pieces that so easily get sidelined and remain unfinished), most often what gets delayed or not done is activity to secure new commissions. Suggestions to make, query messages to write, people and ideas to follow up, all need attention in parallel. Whenever you are busy it pays to take stock and balance the seeking of work with the doing of work. Neglect that and, in due, course, famine will become the right word.

FLASHES

The Olga Sinclair Prize is an annual creative writing competition from Norwich Writers. Previous contests have been themed, but this year entries are invited on any topic, in any genre. Prizes are £500, £250 and £100. Winners and shortlisted entries will be published in an anthology. Enter original, unpublished short stories up to 2,000 words. The entry fee is £9; closing date, 30 September.

Website: https:// norwichwriters. wordpress.com/

Publishing insiders believe Boris Johnson could command a fee of around £1million for his memoirs. Recent Prime Ministers are all believed to earned six figues or more for their memoirs. Tony Blair’s A Journey is reported to have netted an advance around £4.6 million, although he donated his profits to The British Legion. Wonder what Bojo might spend his on? Form an orderly queue to place your bets.

Lucinda Marsden has won the Kit de Waal Bursary for Carers with the first 500 words of her YA feminist novel Undercurrent. Her prize is a free place at York Festival of Writing.

‘A lot of what I write about in terms of the fantastic I picked up from comics, particularly Marvel comics. ’

Marlon James

ONLINE NON-FICTION MARKET Serious thinkers wanted

Gary Dalkin

Aeon is a US registered charity committed to the spread of knowledge and a cosmopolitan worldview. The website ’ s mission is to create an online sanctuary for serious thinking covering everything from history to metaphysics, religion to neurology. Companion site, Psyche, focuses on illuminating the human condition through psychology, philosophy and the arts.

Aeon and Psyche commission longform essays, mainly from academics and clinicians, though the content itself is aimed at a an intelligent non-specialised audience. If you are an academic and would like to write for Aeon or Psyche email editorial@aeon.co with a short bio and a link to your faculty page or website, a one paragraph summary of your proposed feature and an indication of which section of Aeon or Psyche it would fit. It is strongly recommended to read some of the articles at https://aeon.co and https://psyche.co before pitching. Payment is at US professional rates.

GLOBAL SPECFIC MARKET Bad Robot

PDR Lindsay-Salmon

Mocha Memoirs Press is currently closed to submissions of full length novels but the editorial team is seeking SF and fantasy short stories for an anthology about ‘ androids, robots, and/or cyborgs who have been naughty... going off programming, cracking their internal code, etc ’ for Crack in the Code: Cybernated Stories of Rebellion. They want to see what happens when the artificial lives become alive and share their stories. Any story not set in westernised culture goes to the top of the acceptance pile as does a story with a disabled android, or LGBTQ+ characters.

The editors, Venessa Giunta and Nicole Givens Kurtz, want short stories, no more than 7,500 words, micro and flash fiction.

Submit stories online using their Google system as a docx or doc file.

The deadline is 30 September. Response time is

‘ reasonable ’ . Payment, depending on a successful crowdfunding campaign, is 8¢ per word, for first world rights.

Website: https:// mochamemoirspress.com

Well placed SF

The Locus Awards were announced by the Locus Science Fiction Foundation in June. The winners were: Science Fiction Novel, A Desolation Called Peace, Arkady Martine; Fantasy Novel, Jade Legacy, Fonda Lee; Horror Novel, My Heart Is a Chainsaw, Stephen Graham Jones; YA Novel, Victories Greater Than Death, Charlie Jane Anders; First Novel, A Master of Djinn, P Djèlí Clark; Novella, Fugitive Telemetry, Martha Wells; Novelette, That Story Isn ’t the Story, John Wiswell (Uncanny 11-12/21); Short Story, Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather, Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny 3-4/21); Anthology, We ’ re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2020, eds CL Clark & Charles Payseur; Collection, Even Greater Mistakes, Charlie Jane Anders; Magazine, Tor.com; Publisher, Tor; Editor, Ellen Datlow; Non-fiction, Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950–1985, eds Andrew Nette & Iain McIntyre; Illustrated and Art Book, The Art of Neil Gaiman & Charles Vess ’ s Stardust, Charles Vess; Special Award 2022: Community Building & Career Development, The Codex Writers ’ Group.

Waking Dead

Input/Output Enterprises is an independent publishing house with an editorial team crazy about vampires. The team have already published volume one of their vampire anthology series and now look for more vampire stories for And the Dead Shall Sleep No More volume two. The team want stories, no more than 6,000 words, and any genre which is a little off-kilter ’ is acceptable. Think horror, science-fiction, speculative fiction or weird fiction. Anything which twists or subverts these genres in some unexpected way will be welcomed.

Submit online, one single-spaced manuscript through the website: www.inputoutputenterprises.com/ vampires

Response time: following the close of submissions for the anthology ’ . Payment is $15, plus a digital copy of the anthology for First North American Serial Rights.

GLOBAL FICTION MARKET Unpublished writers wanted

Jenny Roche The Canadian based Elegant Literature magazine aims to promote new talent and will only accept work from writers who have never been published either traditionally, selfpublished or have won a fiction contest. Check out the website for information on the word and payment limits criteria as to the definition of being an unpublished author.

Unpublished writers may submit short stories of 500-2,000 words in any genre. There is a monthly theme – see website for details. The themes are designed to inspire whilst ‘leaving room for you to tell the story you want to tell’ . To give a feel of the kind of stories published past issues of the magazine can be read online.

Stories will be evaluated on creativity, character, structure and flow and the quality of the writing. There is a list of grammar and punctuation requirements that if followed will increase your chances of acceptance.

Payment rates are Can10¢ per word for first world electronic rights and non exclusive anthology and audio rights.

Multiple and simultaneous submissions will be considered. Format your work as a rtf, doc or docx document and submit through the website: www.elegantliterature.com

Submissions close at midnight on the last day of each month.

COSTA CLOSING

One of the UK and Ireland’ s biggest literary awards, the Costa Book Awards, has come to an end. Established in 1971 as the Whitbread Book Awards (becoming the Costa in 2005), the Awards spanned fifty years, with the final, 2021 Awards, being given in February.

The Awards were in five categories (Novel, First Novel, Children ’ s Book, Poetry, Biography), each with a prize of £5,000, with an overall winner receiving a further £30,000 for the Book of the Year. The first Book of the Year winner was Gerda Charles for The Destiny Waltz and the last, Claire Fuller, for Unsettled Ground. Other winners included Susan Hill, Iris Murdoch, Paul Theroux, David Lodge, Beryl Bainbridge, Peter Ackroyd, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Rose Tremain, Colm Tóibin, Andrea Levy, Maggie O’Farrell, Hilary Mantel, Kate Atkinson, Sebastian Barry, Sally Rooney and Jonathan Coe.

The most controversial year of the Award came in 1989 when Best Novel was initially awarded to The War Zone by Alexander Stuart. But then juror Jane Gardam told Whitbread that the novel, which she considered ‘ repellent ’ would make the Award a ‘laughing stock’ . The crisis leaked to the media and judges David Cook and Val Hennessy agreed the award should be given instead to Lindsay Clarke for The Chymical Wedding.

Eyes in for this prize

The annual Eyelands Book Awards for published and unpublished books are inviting entries

The Awards from Eyelands and Strange Days Books in Greece are given in two categories: • Published books: The winner receives a fiveday stay in Athens (air tickets not included) and a handmade ceramic. An alternative prize in case of travel restrictions is translation into Greek of the winning book. • Unpublished books: The winning book will translated into Greek and published by Strange Days Books.

Ten further prizewinners will each receive a handmade ceramic.

International entries are welcomed. Enter books and manuscripts in English in any of the following: novels, novellas, short story collections, poetry, children ’ s books, historical fiction, memoir, graphic novels.

The entry fee is €22 until 1 September, then €27. The closing date is 20 October.

Website: https://eyelandsawards.com

Novel Ideas What works for you?

Your way is the right way, says Lynne Hackles

If you don ’ t know by now, let me tell you that every rule is made to be broken. The worst for me when I started out was the one about writing every day. I had a job and a young family with all that entails. I was lucky to find time to write a shopping list some days. On others I had several hours and would write.

A while ago I suggested sitting down to write at the same time every day. I do this but sometimes the writing consists of writing-related stuff, like answering emails and checking what others are doing online.

In Stephen King ’ s book, On Writing, he recommends writing 1,000 words a day. In Anne Lamott ’ s book, Bird By Bird, she suggests writing at the same time every day. Ray Bradbury said, ‘Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers. ’ And there is your answer. Who do you think Stephen, Anne and Ray ’ s friends are? I reckon they are professional writers. That ’ s who. Professional writers have books to turn out. Their job is to write. Many of you will have other things to do and have to fit writing into busy schedules.

So many of the experts we look up to emphasise that we need to write every day and for some of us that just doesn ’ t work. Don ’ t allow others who post about their 5,000 words before lunch get to you.

If you want more time in the day then do what James Clear (Atomic Habits) suggests. Instead of asking what you should do, ask yourself what you can remove each day in order to give you that extra space you need. You may find time to get in 1,000 words.

FLASHES

The annual Moth Poetry Prize is one of the world’s biggest prizes for a single poem, awarding a prize of €1,000.This year’s judge is Louise Gluck, who in 2020 won the Nobel Prize for Literature. The winner will be published in The Moth. Enter original, unpublished poems of any length and on any theme. Entry fee, £15; closing date, 31 December.

Website: www. themothmagazine. com/

The winners of the 2022 Orwell Prize are: Political Writing Book Prize: My FourthTime, We Drowned, Sally Hayden; Political Fiction Book Prize: Small Things LikeThese, Claire Keegan; Journalism Prize: George Monbiot, The Guardian; Exposing Britain’s Social Evils: Ed Thomas, The Cost of Covid – Burnley Crisis, BBC News.

Scottish author Joan Lingard, the author of sixty books including the Kevin and Sadie series for young adults, has died aged ninety. The Kevin and Sadie books, which sold more than 1m copies, were set against a backdrop of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and began with her first novel for children, 1970’s TheTwelfth Day of July.

‘Write the book you need to read.That is all that matters right now.The rest will come. ’

Nikesh Shukla

GLOBAL LITERARY MARKET Common goals

PDR Lindsay-Salmon

The Common is a magazine with an editorial team who like ‘Finding the extraordinary in the common ’ .

It needs literature that embodies particular times and places, real and imagined: from deserts to teeming ports; from Winnipeg to Beijing; from Earth to the Moon ’ . They want literature and art with ‘ a modern sense of place, ’ with ‘ a global exchange of diverse ideas and experiences ’ from all writers, Black, indigenous, people of colour, disabled, LGBTQIA+identifying, immigrant, international, and/or otherwise from communities underrepresented in US literary magazines and journals. ’

Submit ‘ stories, essays, poems, and dispatches ’ with ‘ a strong sense of place… where the setting is crucial to character, narrative, mood, and language. ’ This does not mean travelling to a foreign country; conventional travelogues are not wanted.

Submissions are open 1 Sep-1 Dec, then again 1 March-1 June. Dispatch submissions are accepted year-round. Read the samples of work online to get a feel for their needs and check out the interview with editor-in-chief Jennifer Acker to understand what is meant by a feeling of place.

Submit 1-5 poems, or one prose piece, no more than 10,000 words, or three flash pieces per submission. Submit one dispatch. Dispatches are notes, news, and impressions from around the world. Both prose and verse accepted, but must be non-fiction. Length: up to 800 words. They are accepted year-round and are published online only.

Submit work online. No reprints, or multiple submissions but simultaneous submissions are reluctantly accepted with the usual proviso.

Response time is ‘ eight months, but that varies ’ . Payment is $200 for prose, $40 per poem and $100 for a Dispatch.

Website: www.thecommononline.org

Parallel lines

Outlook Spring calls itself ‘ a literary journal from another dimension ’ . It is

‘devoted to fiction, poetry, and non-fiction tinged with the strange... weird, wobbly word work’ . They are not biased against genre and publish fiction which is ‘Experimental, science fiction, fantasy, slipstream, magical realism, minimalist, maximalist, flash, etc, ’ as long as the writer has given ‘ emphasis on character and/or language rather than on cleverness and conceit. ’

Poetry is the team ’ s first love. Submit one to five poems that ‘ ooze with sonic pleasure... stagger from line-to-line with an animated corpse ’ s lingering bravado ’ .

For creative non-fiction the team welcome ‘ all its forms and variations. ’ They like ‘ memoirs… Montaigneesque ramblings… travel narratives… lyrical essays… personal essays, and everything in between. ’ Make it real, interesting, well-written and show ‘ a new and exciting way to see the world. ’ They are happy to accept experimental work as well traditional narratives.

No reprints or multiple submissions are allowed but simultaneous submissions are okay. Submit online.

Response time is ‘ reasonable ’ . Payment is $10 per poem or flash piece, $25 for short fiction and essays

Website: http://outlooksprings. com

Rewarding reviewing

The Observer/Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism is an annual competition for arts reviewers.

The first prize is £3,000 and publication in the Observer. Two runners up each get £500.

To enter, send an original, unpublished 800-word review of new work in the arts (ie, work produced since September 2021). Subjects might include an album, book, concert, exhibition, film, play, live stream, social media entertainment, TV show, or any other artform or cultural activity that offers the opportunity to write a lively, thoughtful piece.

The entry fee is £10. The closing date is 30 November.

Website: www.anthonyburgess.org/observeranthonyburgess-prize-arts-journalism/

Wild beauty

The Wild Atlantic Writing Awards 6th Edition are inviting entries.

The new 2022 WAWA contests are for flash fiction and creative non-fiction on the theme of ‘Beauty ’ .

The winner in each category will receive either €500 or a €1,000 voucher redeemable against any Ireland Writing Retreat from Wild Atlantic Writers. The top ten stories in both categories will be published online.

Enter original, unpublished flash fiction or creative nonfiction up to 500 words on the ‘Beauty ’ theme.

There is a €10 fee for each entry.

The closing date is 9 September.

Website: www.irelandwritingretreat.com