Susannah Clark is doing the E Street Shuffle.

Elizabeth Christensen likes the word cacophony and eating whole avocados with a spoon. She’ll be reading fiction.

Thea Engst hails from Fabius, New York. She grew up on her father’s dairy farm but hates cheese. She’s currently working on her thesis, writing poems about family, travel, current events but never about cheese.

Luke M. Jones is a jack of all trades and not quite a master of any of them. So avant garde it’s just plain weird? Improbably ’80s sci fi? 10 pages about a lampshade? Don’t put anything past Luke. Well, maybe not the lampshade…

Jon McConnell writes fiction, and then he reads it.

Elizabeth Pashley is a second year MFA student in fiction, though perhaps she is better known for her gut tickling non-fiction and Vogonesque poetry. When she is not saving kittens from trees or serenading the homeless with her ukulele, she contemplates the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, since she has yet to find the question. Elizabeth will be reading fiction. Probably.

Readers for 2/17!

The first event is our first ever (and hopefully annual) Literary Agent Panel. Like the Grants and Residencies Panel of the fall, it’s a networking and professional development event. Come hear Boston-based literary agent Lorin Rees discuss how to catch an agent’s attention and what it’s like to work with one. After the discussion, there will be a question and answer period, so come with questions! Lorin has also graciously offered to meet one-on-one with 15 lucky participants from the panel. Sign-ups for this opportunity will take place at the end of the event, which runs from 5-6pm and will be held in Walker 202 this Friday, 2/3/12. The individual meetings will take place on Thursday 2/9 between 1 and 5 pm.

Our second event of the night is our First Reading for Spring 2012. We’ve got a great menu and an even better line up. Check them out below. The reading will be in the Beard Room at 7PM, this Friday (2/3).

Lea McLellan is a first year nonfiction student at Emerson College. Lea has been published in Seven Days: Vermont’s Alternative Newsweekly and she was a blogger for Asia Society in New York. She was the editor-in-chief of the University of Vermont’s alternative newspaper, The Water Tower for three, glorious years. She is also pretty fun to hang out with…she thinks.

 Rebecca Podos is a fiction writer. She enjoys things, and works for the Rees Literary Agency, where you should all send your work for her to read. Rebecca@reesagency.com

 Zaynah Qutubuddin is from Richmond, Virginia and even though her family wants her back after she graduates in May, she plans to remain in Boston for a little while longer. Beyond that plan to not move (except possibly to a new apartment), she is not entirely sure what she will be doing. But that’s okay because she is currently excited to complete her collection of short stories for her fiction thesis and is enjoying being an editorial intern at the Pohly Company.

 Ricky Davis is a daddy. And a bear. He is a daddy bear. He’s also a second year MFA student who enjoys writing prose and poems about strange things happening to ordinary people. His work has appeared in Prick of the Spindle, Phantom Kangaroo and Scissors & Spackle. And he has small hands. Very small hands.

Marlena Clark is in her second year of the MFA program for Fiction. If you need to find her, she’ll be in the library, in the super secret room o’ carrels where it is actually quiet.

Amanda Hartzell strings words together and has yet to master optical illusions.  She’ll be reading fiction.

Our Readers for 2/3!

Often, the idea of the writing hinges on various notions of “the private”: I shape my experience, I tell my story, I find my voice, I am part of a community of other people finding their voices.

As well-meaning as this rhetoric might be, it is also short-sighted and exclusionary. Experience becomes another type of private property. The “I” becomes singular and substantial, and the Subject must be fenced off in order for self-coherence to remain in place.

Writing becomes not an act of invention, but an investigation into roots and origins. Writing becomes not a search for new ways of thinking and experiencing, but a search for foundations, for psychological certitudes.

Of course, according to Pate, those psychological certitudes only redirect metaphysics into “the division between fiction and truth, the corporeal and incorporeal.” Also mentioned are Samuel Beckett’s Not I and Jorge Luis Borges’ “Three Versions of Judas.” Here’s the poem in question, “A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island.”

Ashbery studied French poetry in Paris on a Fulbright. Incidentally, Kim Liao, Emerson ’09, just returned from a Fulbright in Taiwan.

Introducing the readers for October 21, 2011, which will be held in the Multipurpose Room of the Campus Center at 7pm:

Kelly Addams is a fiction writer and a first-year MFA student. She wishes she had something witty to say, but bios make her nervous. So she will just say that she will be reading two very short stories and she hopes they will not disappoint.

Sarah Chaves is a 22 year-old first year MFA creative writing: nonfiction student. For the past four years she’s been working on a memoir titled Don’ Be Scare’ about her father. Her best friend is her fourteen-year-old brother Lucas. Besides obsessing over the next episode of Glee, they enjoy singing Lady Gaga songs and making pasta.

Nicole DiCello lives in central Massachusetts. An Ithaca College graduate, Nicole cut her teeth in The Workshop for Publishing Poets led by Barbara Helfgott Hyett in Brookline, MA. Nicole’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The New Guard, Poetry East, Nimrod, Soviet Peaches, Concho River Review, and Ballard Street Journal. Earlier this year she won 2nd place in the Blue Mesa Review poetry contest judged by Lisa Gill, Danny Solis, and Richard Vargas. She was also one of 12 poets chosen by Marge Piercy for a weeklong poetry workshop on Cape Cod in 2012. She’s a reader for Ploughshares.

LuzJennifer is a second year MFA fiction student at Emerson. Before coming to grad school, she worked as a reporter for the Hispanic press and as a freelance writer in Providence, RI.

Grace Schauer is a third-year poet fresh from two years’ temporary retirement in South Florida, a stint for which she has nothing to show but an incredibly unflattering driver’s license photo.

Laura Tetreault is a second-year nonfiction MFA student at Emerson. In her writing, she is interested in combining the academic and the creative, the investigative and the lyric, the serious and the just plan weird. She teaches in the First-Year Writing Program at Emerson, tutors in the WARC, and also works as an editorial assistant for the Journal of Asian and African Studies. In her almost-nonexistent free time, she likes to read a lot of books, drink a lot of coffee, and put together outfits involving as many bright colors as possible without looking completely like a five-year-old. At this GRS, she will be reading some combination of nonfiction and poetry.

I’ve tried to create a comprehensive list of contests for both story collections and novellas. In addition to that, I’ve made a list of small presses that have open submission periods.

Short Story Collection Contests

Autumn House Fiction Contest, published through Autumn House Press
Winners of the Autumn House Fiction Contest receive publication, $1,000 advance against royalties, and a $1,000 travel grant to attend their Master Author Series in Pittsburgh. Manuscript submissions should be between 200-300 pages of short stories, novellas, or a novel and include a $30 entry fee. The deadline for next year’s contest, judged by Stewart O’Nan, is June 30th.

Bread Loaf Bakeless Prize, published through Graywolf Press
The Bakeless Prize is open to any writer who hasn’t yet published a book in their entry’s genre. The award carries a cash award of $1,000 and publication. Manuscript submissions should be between 150-450 pages and should include a $10 fee. The deadline for this year’s contest is November 1st.
A recent winner to check out is Belle Boggs for her collection Mattaponi Queen.

Dru Heinz Literature Prize, published through University of Pittsburg Press
The Dru Heinz Prize is open to any writer who has published a novel, a book-length collection of fiction, or at least three short stories or novellas in commercial magazines or literary journals of national distribution. Unfortunately online publication doesn’t count. The award is publication and $15,000, which is the most out of all the contests. Manuscripts should be between 150-300 pages. Like the Iowa Short Fiction Award, there is no entry fee for the Dru Heinz Prize. Manuscripts must be sent durin the months of May and June of each year.

The Dzanc Prize for Excellence in Literary Fiction and Community Service, published through Dzanc Books
The Dzanc Prize is an award that carries a $5,000 award and possible publication. Writers must have a work-in-progress and be able to present a Community Service Program that they can facilitate somewhere in the United States. There is no fee to enter this contest either. Last year’s deadline to enter the contest was March 1st.
Emerson MFA Alum won the inaugural year with her collection What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, so her book is definitely worth reading if you haven’t already.

Dzanc Books Short Story Collection Competition
Dzanc offers another story collection contest. This one carries a $1,000 cash advance and publication. There is a $20 entry fee and the deadline this year is December 31st.

Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, published through University of Georgia Press
Emerson professor Jessica Treadway won this prize last year for her collection of stories Please Come Back to Me. This prize has helped to launch the careers of a lot of well-known authors by publishing their debut books—Lori Ostlund’s The Bigness of the World, Andrew Porter’s The Theory of Light and Matter, and Antonya Nelson’s The Expendables. The Flannery O’Connor Award carries a cash award of $1,000 and publication. To submit, eligible manuscripts must be between 40,000-75,000 words and should include a $25 fee. Manuscripts should be submitted between April 1st and May 31st.

Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction, published through the University of Massachusetts Press
The Grace Paley Prize is part of the AWP Award Series that offers a prize for short fiction as well as poetry, creative nonfiction, and a novel. The Grace Paley Prize carries an award of $5,000 and a publishing contract. To be eligible manuscripts should be between 150-300 pages and include a $30 entry fee. For AWP members, the entry fee is $15. Manuscripts for next year’s contest should be postmarked between January 1sta nd February 29th.
Recent winners to check out are Christine Sneed’s Portraits of a Few People I’ve Made Cry and David Vann’s Legend of a Suicide.

The Hudson Prize and The St. Lawrence Book Award, published through Black Lawrence Press
Black Lawrence Press is an imprint of Dzanc. In addition to The Hudson Prize and the St. Lawrence Book Award, they also have a chapbook contest held twice a year (once in the spring and once in the fall). Both The Hudson Prize and The St. Lawrence Book Award carry a cash award for $1,000, publication, and ten author copies of the book. The St. Lawrence Book Award is open to any writer who hasn’t yet published a full-length collection of short fiction whereas The Hudson Prize is open to any writer, whether they’ve previously published a book or not.

The Iowa Short Fiction Award, published through the University of Iowa Press
The Iowa Short Fiction Award is open to any writer who has yet to publish a book of fiction. The award is $1,000 and a contract for publication. Unlike some of the others, there’s no entry fee. All that’s needed to enter is a manuscript of at least 150 double-spaced pages. The contest is open for submissions from August 1 through September 30th of each year.
If you’re looking to check out writers who’ve won previously, some great recent story collections to check out are All That Work and Still No Boys by Kathryn Ma or How to Leave Hialeah by Jennine Capo Crucet.

Juniper Prize, published through the University of Massachusetts Press
The Juniper Prize is open to any writer, whether they’ve previously published a book or not, and the competition is open to not just story collections but novels and novellas. Winners receive $1,500 and a contract for publication. Manuscripts should be between 150 and 350 pages and accompanied with a $25 entry fee. The contest is open for submissions from August 1 through September 30th of each year.
Last year’s winner went to debut author Andrew Malan Milward for his collection The Agriculture Hall of Fame.
Story collections worth checking out include Then We Saw Flames by Daniel A. Hoyt and Bring Everybody by Dwight Yates.

Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction published through University of North Texas Press
One of the things I like about this contest is that entries can be a combination of short-shorts, short stories and novellas. The inclusion of short-shorts is something I haven’t seen with any of the other presses. Also, the word count is one of the lowest I’ve seen, being between 27,500 and 50,000 words. The award carries a prize of $1,000 and publication. The submissions period for this contest is usually between May 1st and June 30th of each year.

Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, published by Sarabande Books
The Mary McCarthy Prize includes a prize of $2,000 and publication of a collection of short stories, novellas, or a novel. Manuscripts must be between 150-250 pages and include a $27 entry fee. Manuscripts for next year’s contest should be sent between January 1st and February 15th.

New American Press
New American Press offers a contest for a full-length work of fiction (short stories, stories and a novella, or a novel) each year. Winners of the contest receive publication, a cash prize of $1,000, %15 of royalties, and 25 author copies. Previous judges have included Lee K. Abbott and Benjamin Percy.

NOS Book Contest, published through Les Figues Press
What’s interesting about the NOS Book Contest is that eligible submissions can include not just short stories but poetry, novellas, prose poems, innovative novels, anti-novels, lyric essays, and other hybrids. The award included a prize of $1,000 and publication. Submissions should be between 64-250 pages and include a $25 fee. The deadline for the first annual contest has passed, but assuming they have another contest the deadline would be around the beginning of September.

Ohio State University Prize in Short Fiction, published through Ohio State University Press
Submissios to the Ohio State University can be a combination of short stories or novellas and must be between 150 to 300 pages. Winners of the prize receive publication and a cash prize of $1,500 as an advance against future royalties. Manuscripts must be sent during the month of January and include a $20 entry fee.

Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction, published through the University of Nebraska Press
The Prairie Schooner Book Prize carries an award of $3,000 and a publishing contract. This contest is similar to the Juniper Prize in that both contests are open to any writer whether they’ve previously published a book or not, so the competition pool is greater. Manuscripts have to be at least 150 pages long and should include a $25 entry fee. For next year’s contest, manuscripts should be mailed between January 15th and March 15th.
In the past, this contest has usually been given to well-established authors including Brock Clarke for Carrying the Torch and Greg Hrbek for Destroy All Monsters.
To look at the past winners and to see more about their guidelines, go here:

Spokane Prize in Short Fiction, published through Willow Springs Books
The Spokane Prize in Short Fiction offers publication and a cash prize of $2,000. Manuscripts should be at least 98 pages of at least three short stories and include a $25 entry fee.

Small Presses With Open Submission Periods
The following is a list of small presses that have open submission periods for story collections/novellas. Some have open submissions periods during certain times of the year so it’s important to check with the website for information. It’s also important to read the mission statement of each of the presses and to look at/read the books the presses have previously published. You wouldn’t send the same manuscript to Featherproof Books that you would to Kore Press, for example.

Black Lawrence Press
Engine Books
Featherproof Books
Kore Press
Milkweed Editions
Mud Luscious Press
Patasola Press
Press 53
Red Hen Press
Rose Metal Press
Texas Review Press

Presses With Contests for Novellas/Chapbooks
The following is a list of small presses that have contests for novellas or chapbooks. A chapbook is a small book or pamphlet that has made a resurgence in recent years. It’s more often associated with poetry, but there are a few presses that are doing chapbooks for fiction. I’ve included some presses from the list above here as well because in addition to having an open submissions period they also hold at least one contest every year.

Bateau Press
Winners of the Keele Short Short Chapbook Contest will receive publication, a cash prize of $250, and author copies of their chapbook. Manuscripts must be 20-30 pages of short short fiction (stories under 500 words) and include a $15 entry fee. The deadline for next year’s contest is May 31st.

Burnside Review
Winners of the Burnside Review chapbook contest will receive publication, 25 author copies, and a cash prize of $200. Submissions can be up to 10,000 words of fiction and should sent between September 15th through December 1st. This year’s contest will be judged by Blake Butler.

Florida Review
The Florida Review has created The Jeanne Leiby Memorial Chapbook Award for fiction and graphic narrative. The winner of the contest will receive a letterpress, hand-bound chapbook publication through Hoopsnake Press, a $500 cash award, and an invitation to read. Manuscript entries can be 1-2 stories, a flash fiction collection, or a graphic narrative of up to 35 pages and should include a $25 entry fee. The deadline for this year’s contest is December 1, 2011.

Gold Line Press
The winner of the Gold Line Press Chapbook Competition receive $500, publication, and contributor copies. Submissions should include a $15 entry fee and a manuscript between 7,500 and 15,000 words.

Miami University Press
The Miami University Press has a contest specifically for novellas. The winner receives book publication and a $750 advance against royalties. Entries should include a $25 fee and should be between 18,000 and 40,000 words.

Patosola Press
The winner of the Patosola Press Chapbook Contest receive 10 copies of the chapbook, an interview on Patasola Press, and discounted copies. They also will receive 50% royalties per copy sold to the author. Submissions should be between 10-45 pages.

Rose Metal Press
Rose Metal Press was started by Kathleen Rooney and Abigail Beckel, two Emerson alums. The press specializes in publishing work of hybrid genres including short shorts, flash, and microfiction; novels-in-verse or book-length linked narrative poems, and other work that goes beyond traditional genres. They have an annual short short chapbook contest that includes publication of the winner’s manuscript. Entries should be between 25-40 pages and the short short stories should each be under 1,000 words.

Subito Press
Subito Press doesn’t specifically say that they are looking for chapbook-length fiction, but in their contest guidelines manuscripts can be up to 100 pages which can typically considered to be chapbook length and so I’ve included it in this list.

Publishers That Publish Collections/Novellas/Chapbooks But Aren’t Currently Open to Submissions

Artistically Declined Press
Dark Sky Books
Future Tense Books
Tarpaulin Sky Press
Tiny Hardcore Press

Additional Information
There are a lot more small presses out there. These are just the ones that either I’ve come across over the past couple years or published books I’ve read and liked. If you want to see a more comprehensive list, you can do a search through Duotrope, or you can go to the publishers listing at Poets & Writers. Newpages also periodically lists upcoming contests through small presses sorted by month.

*One of my favorite short story writers Jacob Appel wrote an article about submitting to contests called “The Case for Contests” in the January/February 2009 issue of Poets & Writers. I’ve found the article to be pretty helpful and it’s worth a read. An excerpt can be read here.

What is Kansas City is how to occupy a split and barely-functioning thing, how to occupy a city made from the wild west, racial injustice, emancipatory urges, and off-hand under-hand anti-rule. When I am occupying Kansas City, I am occupying “suspect nostalgia and equally suspect admiration for decay.”

- Anne Boyer at Lana Turner about Occupy Kansas City (via Mike Young at HTMLGIANT)

Bill Bordy Theater, 216 Tremont, 7pm.

Amanda Hartzell has been elevator-trapped in Stillwater, Oklahoma; rock-stranded in Pennsylvanian quarries; and happily lost in southwest cities with diners open past three a.m. She is a second-year MFA fiction writer. She plans—in a round-about fashion—on running away to geography with lighthouses and accents.

TJ Staneart is a second year Fiction writer from Minnesota. His work has been rejected by Tin House, The Missouri Review, and many more; he does not have a story appearing in the New Yorker next month. He is unhappy and currently works in a bar.

Jon McConnell is a fiction writer from Pennsylvania, where they wear flannel unironically and eat scrapple at tractor pulls. And, by God, he loves ‘em for it. Just, not enough to stay.

Joshua White is from Arizona. He writes stories.

Mandala Scott is from Texas but not at all Texan. She likes green mangoes and small birds. One time she went to the Creation Museum and rode a dinosaur. She’ll probably read fiction.

Becca Podos is a mystery star.

Not that I’d ever want to work in an office again, but as a third-year MFA student my Emerson tenure is quickly coming to a close and I’m looking at my options for full-time-ish employment. Something that gives me flexibility and the mental freedom to continue working on what matters the most (writing), but still lets me, you know, live. Many of my peers are currently teaching and plan to continue in that field once their degree is in hand. And that’s spectacular, for them. But what about the rest of us who don’t want to teach? Or who don’t want to teach full time?

I began putting (whoring) myself out there about two months ago. The services I offer: article writing, copywriting, copyediting, non-literary translation and just about anything else I can convince someone to pay me for. And I’ve been lucky enough to find at least one short-term gig in each of these areas. In the last three weeks I’ve easily put thirty hours a week into my freelance work and have made $820. So if you’re bad at math, that’s a smidgeon over $9/hour. And since I charge anywhere between $15-$40 an hour for a service (making sure I’m well under the standard rate – again, whoring), there must be a reason that I can’t pay rent AND have less time to write.

One reason is that I’ve pretty new at it and so a lot of my time is spent looking for new work. But another reason is that much of what these articles don’t mention is how much unavoidable, unbillable time is spent in a day. I spoke to Reshma Mehta, a graphic designer and owner of her own company A Burst of Color. She spends 9-10 hours a day at work, but can only bill for about 5. Things like research, reviewing contract, hunting people down who haven’t paid, new client meetings, and rate negotiations all fall into that un-billable time.

Reshma estimates it takes two years for a freelancer to become established, and that you can actually lose money on things like taxes and insurance.And that doesn’t take into account other pitfalls for writers, such as your house feeling more like an office (I’ve begun escaping to the cafes near my home to write), and business writing sometimes stunting your creative writing. I’ve decided to dive headfirst into freelance writing because a) its location-flexible (I married an immigrant and expect to be out of the country for long periods of time), b) because I don’t want to go the tenure professor route, and c) I’m anti-social so working alone is ideal. And, most importantly, if I decide to take a few months off here and there to focus on a book/collection/project, I can.

But, I don’t know. For writers who want to leave their work at work, a steady paycheck, someone telling you what and what not to do, an office job might not be the worst thing in the world. I’m still figuring it all out myself.

Tonight at 8pm in the Beard Room (Little Building, 80 Boylston), the below Emerson writers will read from their flame scrolls.

LP is a third-year fiction MFA student who teaches in the FYWP and Emerson Writes, along with working as a Calderwood Fellow in Snowden International High School’s Writing Center. Writing and teaching writing are just two of LP’s passions — she also freelances as a graphic designer and is heavily involved in the Boston Ultimate scene. A native to Boston, LP’s accent is an amalgamation of her local roots, her attempts to mask aforementioned roots, her time spent in Upstate New York, and her uncanny ability to unintentionally adopt the speech patterns / dance moves of people she observes. She admires Kurt Vonnegut, reads too many comic books, and is simultaneously in the running for both Team Bro and Team Hipster on her mixed club team. She blames the hipster nomination on her glasses, her Subaru, and her ties with Emerson College.

Zaynah Qutubuddin was not originally supposed to be here at Emerson. She was supposed to be in medical school saving lives. After years of studying amino acid structures, chemical formulas, and anatomical structures of various animals, her brain died. It only revived when she applied for the MFA program and began to take up writing again. Now she plans to save lives in another way: through her written work. Zaynah was born in Manhattan but grew up in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia where she also attended Virginia Commonwealth University for undergrad as an English major with a double minor in Biology and Chemistry. She has a lot of random experience such as helping elderly Parkinson’s Disease patients exercise, teaching children how to build rockets, organizing large-scale banquets, and volunteering for the Richmond Marathon for years but never once running it. This is her second year in the MFA Fiction program and she plans to graduate in May 2012 with the hope of publishing soon.

Charlotte Seley is a unicorn inside a shot gun inside a rest stop in Ohio inside a puddle of fried chicken grease inside a tender little girl who undoes poems like a daisy and lays the petals out like a $14.95 all you can eat chinese buffet. This is her second year offering Emerson College her cantankerous charm and someone made her the poetry editor of Redivider but they’re gone now. Long long gone now.

Dave Snyder is not comfortable writing about himself in the third person. Dave Snyder decides to try the second person. You feel strange. You find it disconcerting to address yourself like this. You wonder how others will respond. You bail, decide to try the first person. Plural. We think this is no better. We think this comes across as pompous at best. “They?” we think. No. They don’t even know what’s going on any more. It’s nonsense. Dave Snyder agrees, signs off.

Graham Trail (b.1986) is an American studying fiction at Emerson College. He is the founding editor of The Ear Hustler, an online literary magazine.