2011 DIAGRAM Essay Contest Guidelines
The Essay Contest deadline for 2011 is October 31, 2011. This is the deadline for receipt of submissions.
DIAGRAM's yearly Essay Contest encourages submissions of essays—essays in an expansive sense, meaning essay as experiment, essay as heterogenous and sometimes strange beast. We will read your submissions of unpublished (in a serial/book or on a non-personal website—blogs etc. are fine) essays. (Unpublished means you must be able to give us, if your work is selected, first serial rights.)
To enter: Get us your unpublished essay (definition here is a bit hazy because we like lots of things) of up to 10,000 words with a $15 reading fee by Oct 31, 2011.
The prize is $1000 + publication. This contest is judged by Nicole Walker and Ander Monson. We'll shoot for publishing several of our finalists with the winner in DIAGRAM, as we have the last few years.
FAQ stuff:
- We prefer our entries electronic (if possible), with the manuscript itself anonymous. A removable cover page would be ideal if you send hardcopy. If you send electronically no cover page is necessary; just don't put your name on the manuscript.
- Anyone with more than a casual relationship with either of the judges is ineligible (though we're happy to read your work via regular submissions). Sorry lovers, former lovers, friends, students, mentors, and so on.
- Images are fine as long as you have or can get rights to print/reprint (or if they are in the public domain) if selected.
- We don't have any particular aesthetic biases for this contest other than the name: we are looking for works of nonfiction that essay interestingly--however you'd like to define. That's a pretty open definition, we admit.
- If you're sending something multimedia sometimes it's easier to send snail mail if the file is too big (or unwieldy). The submission manager system only accepts files less than 10 megabytes or so. (Remember when that was a crazy size for a file?)
- Multiple submissions are fine. Simultaneous submissions are fine as long as you notify us as soon if an essay is no longer available. In which case, congratulations on getting it published! Then you can withdraw your submission manually from the submissions manager if you sent it electronically, or email us below.
- We read everything for contests anonymously, ethically, and rigorously.
- We expect to notify finalists and winners in February 2012 or before. Thanks for entering! And good luck. Questions can go to nmp--atsymbol--thediagram--dot--com.
- Multiple authors are fine, if weird.
Then, here's how to submit:
Option 1, Electronic (much preferred but maybe a little awkward):
REQUIRED Step 1 of 2: Pay contest fee through Paypal by filling out the form with your last name and the essay title, then clicking on the Buy Now button just below this paragraph. You can use a credit card if you like (or a checking account etc.), or a Paypal account. No need to create an account: just click the don't have a paypal account button on the next page in that case. Once you complete step one and pay the entry fee, it will click through to a page with step two.
Note that the payment goes to New Michigan Press, which is the publisher of DIAGRAM.
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Option 2, Snail mail, old school:
Step 1 and 2: Send entry and payment to DIAGRAM Essay Contest, c/o Ander Monson, Dept. of English, P.O. Box 210067, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0067. Make checks out to DIAGRAM for $15 or send cash. If you send Express Mail or Overnight, please check the box so it doesn't require a signature.
Or pay online with the paypal button above and make a note of that in your cover letter. Include a SASE if you'd like a response. Otherwise we will only contact you if you're a finalist or winner, and will post the results on the contests page here when the decision is made.
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Keep in mind that we need to receive your submission by October 31, 2011.
Good luck, and thanks for entering the contest.
Questions can go to <nmp--at--thediagram.com>.