Summer Literary Seminars is excited to announce that our annual unified (Montreal, Lithuania and Kenya) literary contest has expanded! It will be held again this year in affiliation with The Walrus and Black Warrior Review. Joining us will be the dynamic online magazines Joyland, Branch, and DIAGRAM; We are also thrilled to announce two exciting new prizes, sponsored by the Center for Fiction and SLS creative partner Graywolf Press. Judging the contest are award-winning writers Mary Gaitskill (fiction), Tony Hoagland (poetry), and Ander Monson (non fiction).
Contest winners in the categories of fiction and poetry will have their work published in print in the Black Warrior Review, and online in The Walrus. Additionally, they will have the choice of attending (airfare, tuition, and housing included) any one of the SLS-2012 programs – in Montreal, Quebec (June 17 - 30); Vilnius, Lithuania (August 4 - 18); or Nairobi-Lamu, Kenya (December).
Second-place winners will receive a full tuition waiver for the program of their choice, and publication in online magazine Joyland (fiction) or Branch (poetry). Second-place fiction winner, and third-place winners will receive a 50% tuition discount and publication in Joyland (fiction) or Branch (poetry).
The contest winner in the category of non fiction will be published in DIAGRAM, and will have the choice of attending (airfare, tuition, and housing included) any one of the SLS-2012 programs.
Two additional prizes will be given as a part of the 2012 contest. The winner of The Center for Fiction Prize for excellence in short story writing will receive full tuition for any 2012 SLS Program, as well as $500 towards travel and publication in The Center for Fiction's online journal, The Literarian.
The winner of the Graywolf Prize for the best novel excerpt of an emerging writer* will receive full tuition for any 2012 SLS Program, as well as $500 towards travel and publication on the Graywolf website.
A number of select contest participants, based on the overall strength of their work, will be offered tuition scholarships, as well, applicable to the SLS-2012 programs.
*See guidelines
Fiction Judge: Mary Gaitskill is the author of the novels Two Girls, Fat and Thin, and Veronica, which was nominated for the 2005 National Book Award, National Critic’s Circle Award, and L.A. Times Book Award. She is the author of the story collections Bad Behavior and Because They Wanted To, which was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner in 1998. Her newest collection of stories is titled Don’t Cry (2009). Her story “Secretary” was the basis for the feature film of the same name starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader. The film received the Special Jury Prize, and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Gaitskill’s stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Esquire, Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Prize Stories. In 2002 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction. She has taught at U-C Berkeley, the University of Houston, New York University, Brown and Syracuse University. Mary Gaitskill was born in 1954 in Lexington, Kentucky. In 1981 Gaitskill graduated from the University of Michigan, where she won an award for her collection of short fiction The Woman Who Knew Judo and Other Stories.
Poetry Judge: Tony Hoagland's latest book of poems, Unincorporated Persons In The Late Honda Dynasty, was published by Graywolf Press in 2010. His recognitions include the Jackson Poetry Prize, the O.B. Hardisson Award, and the Mark Twain Award, for humor in American Poetry. His previous collection, What Narcissism Means To Me, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Award in poetry in 2004. In 2005 his book of essays about poetry and craft, called Real Sofistakashun, was published by Graywolf. He teaches in the writing program at the University of Houston and in the Warren Wilson low residency MFA program.
Non Fiction Judge: Ander Monson is the author of a number of paraphernalia including a website, a decoder wheel, several chapbooks, as well as five books, most recently Vanishing Point: Not a Memoir (Graywolf Press, 2010) and The Available World (Sarabande Books, 2010). He lives in Tucson where he teaches at the University of Arizona and edits the journal DIAGRAM <thediagram.com> and the New Michigan Press.
The complete guidelines for the 2012 contest are as follows:
• Deadline: February 28 2012
• All entries should be in a standard type face and 12pt font and, if emailed, attached in .doc or .rtf format.
• For fiction: One short story or novel excerpt, maximum 25 pages per entry. NOTE: To qualify for the Graywolf Prize, you must have published no more than two novels.
• For non fiction: One piece of non fiction, maximum 10 pages. Essay may include multimedia such as sound, image, video, hyperlinking, etc.
•For poetry: No more than three poems per entry.
• Entrants may submit to any or all categories more than once; however, each entry must be accompanied by its own entry fee.
• Only previously unpublished work can be submitted.
• In your subject line, please include your name and type of submission (short story, novel excerpt, poetry) eg. Jane Smith - Poetry
• Include your complete contact information (address, telephone, email address) on the manuscript. Entries are not judged blind.
• All entrants will be notified of the winners in the spring by email.
• Cover letters are not required.
• Previous First-Place winners may not re-enter.
Entries can be submitted electronically, to: sls.contest@gmail.com (NOTE: Please do not send payments to this address - we request that if you pay online you use the Paypal button below.)
A $15 US reading fee must accompany each entry. Multiple entries are permissible, as long as they are accompanied by separate reading fees.
Fees can paid paid online, via Paypal, or to the address below, by cheque.
NOTE: Online submissions and payments are preferred, but if you would rather submit the hard copy and pay by cheque, the address is below:
Summer Literary Seminars
Unified Literary Contest
English Department
Concordia University
1455 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W.
Montreal, Quebec H3G 1M8 CanadaThese are the complete contest guidelines.
Do not hesitate to contact SLS with any questions, by e-mail: sls@sumlitsem.org, orann@sumlitsem.org – or by telephone: (514) 848-2424x4632.
We wish each and every one of you the best of luck with the contest!
