THE NEW GUARD 2012 CONTESTS
Good news, folks! We have extended both contest deadlines to July 18, 2012 (midnight/postmark). Entries are $15. International submissions are welcomed.
KNIGHTVILLE POETRY CONTEST: $1,000 for an exceptional work of narrative and/or experimental poetry. Three poems per entry. Up to 300 lines per poem. Judged by National Poetry Series winner JEANNE MARIE BEAUMONT.
MACHIGONNE FICTION CONTEST: $1,000 for an exceptional work of literary and/or experimental fiction. Submit up to 7,500 words: anything from flash to the long story. Novel excerpts are welcome if the manuscript functions as a stand-alone story. We do not publish illustrations. Judged by Novelist and Essayist RICK BASS.
THE NEW GUARD 2012 contest readers are looking forward to reading your work! You can enter online via our submissions manager or by postal mail with a $15 check and SASE. Contest winners and all finalists get two free copies of TNG and publication. We published 40+ debut writers in the 2011 issue alone. Each submission will be carefully considered. Final judging is blind.
We accept .doc or similar files–no PDFs, please. We do pay strict attention to word and line count. Please include your name on the first page of your submission only. Poetry submissions should be made together in one file (up to three poems in one document). TNG accepts previously unpublished work only. Any size print run or online publication (including blogs and/or social networking) disqualify your entry. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, provided we're notified upon publication elsewhere.
TNG retains standard first publication rights; all rights immediately revert to the writer upon publication. Please note that TNG cannot return manuscripts. We are not presently accepting submissions aside from our contests.
KNIGHTVILLE POETRY CONTEST JUDGE
Jeanne Marie Beaumont is the author of three books of poetry, most recently, Burning of the Three Fires, which was a finalist for the 2011 Writers’ League of Texas Book Award, and Curious Conduct. Her first book, Placebo Effects, was selected as a winner in the National Poetry Series. She also won the Dana Award for Poetry and The Greensboro Review literary award for poetry. Her poems have been included in two dozen anthologies and textbooks, including Good Poems for Hard Times, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, The Norton Introduction to Literature, 9th ed., and Poetry Daily: 366 Poems from the World's Most Popular Poetry Website. She was co-editor of the literary magazine, American Letters & Commentary, from 1992-2000. With Claudia Carlson, she co-edited the anthology, The Poets' Grimm: Twentieth Century Poems from Grimm Fairy Tales.
"Afraid So," a poem from Curious Conduct, was made into a short film by the same name (narrated by Garrison Keillor) by award-winning filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt. The movie has been screened at numerous international film festivals, on the IFC, and at the Museum of Modern Art. She served as director of the annual Advanced Poetry Seminar from 2006-2010, and she currently teaches at both The Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, and at the Stonecoast MFA Program in Maine.
MACHIGONNE FICTION CONTEST JUDGE
Rick Bass grew up in Houston, and started writing short stories on his lunch breaks while working as a petroleum geologist in Jackson, Mississippi.
Bass has published more than 20 books of essays and novels, and has worked passionately for environmental causes all over the world. His honors and awards include a PEN/Nelson Algren Award Special Citation for fiction, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and the James Jones Literary Society First Novel Fellowship for Where the Sea Used to Be. He was a finalist for the Story Prize in 2006 for his short story collection The Lives of Rocks. He was a finalist of the National Book Critics Circle Award for his autobiography, Why I Came West. He was also awarded the General Electric Younger Writers Award.
Bass lives in the remote Yaak Valley of Montana, where he works to protect his adopted home from roads and logging. He serves on the board of both the Yaak Valley Forest Council and Round River Conservation Studies. His papers are held at the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library at Texas Tech University and Texas State University–San Marcos.