Check out this article on how to handle the rejections that are a part of every writer’s life. Mark McGuinness has a background as a psychotherapist before becoming an author’s coach, so his advice is founded in longstanding theories and practices.
Joan Gelfand recently shared this:
According to Writer’s Relief, the writer’s submission service, the average writer has a 4% acceptance rate. A good writer has a 10% rate and if you’re really lucky 20% and higher.
This essay provides 5 tips for handling rejection letters. They range from honoring your very real emotional response to moving on to the next opportunity.
2013 PIEDMONT LAUREATE CALL FOR AUTHORS
Deadline: January 11
The Piedmont Laureate program has reopened its call for applications from authors of children’s literature for 2013. The range of literature has been expanded to target children of all ages, up to 18. Authors must be residents of Alamance, Durham, Orange, or Wake counties.
EMERGING WRITERS CONTEST
Deadline: January 7
Award: $300 / $200 and invitation to Symposium
Fee: $15
Entries are now being accepted for the 2013 Southern Writers Symposium Emerging Writers Contest. This year categories will feature fiction and poetry. The contest is open to writers who meet at least two of the following criteria: currently live in the South; are natives of the South; write about the South. Additionally, writers must have not yet published a full-length volume in the genre that they are entering. For example, writers are still eligible for the emerging fiction writers contest if published in volume form in nonfiction or poetry. Manuscripts of fiction considered: up to 5,000 words, typed and double-spaced. Poetry considered: a single poem, or up to five to be counted as a group, typed. Entry must not have been previously published in any form. Entry must not have previously won recognition in any other contest. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable.
FICTION CHAPBOOK CONTEST
Deadline: January 5
Award: $250, publication, 25 contributor copies
Fee: $15
We are pleased to announce the first ever Origami Zoo Chapbook Contest. The final judge will be the cataclysmic Matt Bell. Origami Zoo Press has published chapbooks by Laura van den Berg, Chad Simpson, BJ Hollars and Brian Oliu. Submit manuscripts of 40-80 pages. Both novellas and collections are welcome. It’s great if pieces of the manuscript have been previously published as standalone pieces or excerpts, as long as the manuscript as a whole has not been published.
PRESS 53 OPEN AWARDS
Deadline: March 31
Award: Five beautiful etched-glass awards (personalized award certificates for Second Prize and Honorable Mention) and publication
The sixth annual Press 53 Open Awards is now accepting submissions. Five Categories, three Winners in Each: Poetry, Flash Fiction, Short-Short Story, Short Story, Novella (Finalists and Winners Announced No Later Than June 28, 2013). Five Industry-Professional Judges. Thirteen opportunities for publication: First Prize, Second Prize, and Honorable Mention in Poetry, Flash Fiction, Short-Short Story, Short Story, and First Prize in Novella will be published in the 2013 Press 53 Open Awards Anthology.
NELLIGAN PRIZE FOR SHORT FICTION
Deadline: March 14
Award: $2,000 and publication
Fee: $15 ($17 to submit online)
Colorado Review is now accepting submissions for the 2013 Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction. This year’s final judge is Jim Shepard. The prize is given annually for the best short story under 50 pages.
DORIS BETTS FICTION PRIZE
Deadline: February 15
Award: $250 and publication
The Doris Betts Fiction Prize awards $250 and publication in the North Carolina Literary Review to the author of the winning short story. Up to ten finalists will also be considered for publication. The contest is open to writers with North Carolina connections (who live or have lived in NC), members of the North Carolina Writers’ Network, or subscribers to the NCLR. The competition is for unpublished short stories up to 6,000 words. One entry per writer. No novel excerpts. No simultaneous submissions.
This is a very short essay about one author’s experience marketing her book after a traditional publisher picked it up. Although she’s a children’s book author, the core of her experience is pretty common.
Most important lesson:
Publishing is a business and books are products. Help buyers understand why they should purchase your product over someone else’s.
Here’s a very in-depth article from Writer’s Digest that helps you plan out a novel’s structure, character development, and other key points.
I find some of the recommendations too detailed. There’s a point at which authors have to stop worrying about minor details and allow the story to flow. There are two important things to remember when you start writing a novel:
1. You can’t fix it in your head. No matter what issue you’re wrestling with, you won’t be able to truly work with it until you have it on the page. Manipulating it in your mind doesn’t give you the same hold on the work. Put the material on the page where it remains fixed. Then you can adapt, adjust and revise.
2. Creativity is not logic. Writers need both skills to create a novel…and each skill is used at different times. Don’t allow the critical (logical) judge to ruin the flow state. Don’t allow the illogical creative flow ruin your revision process.
Here’s a listing of calls for submissions from The Review Review.
About Fjords: Fjords is an arts and literary review for the 21st century reader edited by John Gosslee. The twice yearly magazine features new art and literature alongside translations and reviews. Fjords is the first journal to publish some of its authors in a strictly audio format.
Staff
Straight from the land down under comes the spring 2012 edition of Meanjin, a literary journal founded in Brisbane in 1940 by journalist and editor Clem Christesen. For more than 70 years, the journal, now an imprint of Melbourne University Publishing, has delved into the Australian cultural and literary scene,
Revival is the literary journal of the Limerick Writers’ Centre.
It is published four time a year. Submissions, poetry and short fiction,
extracts (500 words), reviews or criticism pieces.
Writer's Resource/Sunspot Lit 