The Words Finesse

The Emma Press has called for submissions of poems about insects, for a children’s anthology to be edited by Fran Long and Dr. Isabel Galleymore. 

The anthology will be part of the publisher’s continuing series of themed anthologies of poetry for children. It accepts international entry, as long as such entrant have bought an Emma Press book or ebook.

Poets are invited to send in up to 3 poems, which should be suitable for readers aged 8+, and which will enthuse youngsters about the wonders of insects by either taking the readers on a journey of discovery to learn about insect anatomy, or inspire young readers about insect super powers. Or the ones  that could help children identify and classify insects.

The Emma Press accepts previously published poems as long as such entrant hold the rights to the poems and can license such to them. It also accepts translations, and translators can submit multiple proposals as long as they are one translation per author. The Emma Press offers each anthologised poet two complimentary copies of the book and a discount on future purchases of the book.

How to submit to Insect Poems

You must be a member of the Emma Press Club. Meaning you must have bought a book or ebook from the Emma Press website in this calendar year, since January 1, 2018, or already have been accepted into the club.

Place a maximum of three poems, each no longer than 65 lines, into a single Word/PDF/ODF document and only include text in the document and not images. Make sure your submission is anonymous. Also make sure you haven’t put your name or any biographical notes in the document and be aware that you will be asked to rename your document at a certain stage within the Google form.

Fill in the Google form HERE – it will tell you everything you need to know.

 The submissions will close on 5th of October, 2018.

Send all enquiries to hello@theemmapress.com. The team responds to every submissions. Hence, you will get an automatic receipt and a response once it receives your submission.

For more information on the call, visit HERE. 

The Goethe-Institut has invited aspiring African writers of all ages interested in writing for Young Adults (YA) to submit short stories, 3,000 to 5,000 words in length, in Kiswahili, English or French.

Afroyoungadult, published by the Goethe-Institut, will feature Young Adults (YA) stories.

Selected authors will be published in an anthology and will participate in workshops in February 2019. 

The anthology will be available in Kiswahili, English, and French, and launched at the 2019 Ake Festival.

If interested, send your short story to afroyoungadult@gmail.com with a short biography and your preferred city for the workshop. 

The workshops will take place in the following languages in the following cities:

KISWAHILI: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

FRENCH: Lome, Togo; Dakar, Senegal.

ENGLISH: Accra, Ghana; Kigali, Rwanda; Lagos, Nigeria; Nairobi, Kenya; Johannesburg, South Africa.

The deadline for submissions is 30th of November this year. Announcement of selected entries will be made on 3rd of January, 2018. The workshops will take place between 11th of February  to 15th of February, 2019. 

Therefore, it's pertinent that only writers who will be in Africa and can travel to attend their chosen workshop should submit to the call.

Send all  enquiries to afroyoungadult@gmail.com.

Submit to the Emerging Writer’s Prize in Fiction, a prize run by The Arkansas International. Send in your single prose work, not exceeding 7,500 words. 

The contest is open to writers who have not yet published a full-length book, but will accept writers with a book forthcoming before May 1, 2019 and those with chapbooks.

The prize incurs a $20 entry fee, which includes a one-year subscription. However, it is free to current subscribers. 

Interested writer may submit more than once. However, such writer must pay $20 for each new entry.

The Emerging Writer’s Prize in Fiction only accepts previously unpublished works. It will consider all works for inclusion in the print journal. 

Stanford professor, Adam Johnson, will judge the contest and he will judge all entries blindly. 

Therefore, entrants should not include name, contact information, or cover letter in their uploaded document. They should also double space their work and save it as a single .doc, .docx, or .pdf file. 

All entries should be turned in on or before October, 20, 2018, as submission has been on since August, 20.

Submissions can be uploaded online via The Arkansas International’s Submittable.

Close friends of the judge or recently affiliated with the University of Arkansas (studied or worked there within the past 4 years) are excluded from submitting to the competition.

For more information about the contest, Click HERE.

The 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, an initiative of Commonwealth Writers, is now open for Short fiction submissions, and entrants have no restriction on setting, grenre or theme for their story.

The competition which also requires no entry fee covers countries* of the Commonwealth regions of Africa, Asia, Canada and Europe, Caribbean and Pacific. 

The Prize is awarded to the best piece of unpublished short fiction of 2000 to 5000 words in English. Translated entries are eligible, as well as short stories written in the original Bengali, Chinese, Kiswahili, Malay, Portuguese, Samoan and Tamil.

Regional winners will receive £2,500, while the overall winner receives £5,000. The translator of a winning short story into English will receive additional prize money.

The five winning stories from the 2019 competition will be published online by Granta.

The submission for the Prize opens on 1st of September, 2018 and will close on 1st of November 2018. 

To find out more about the contest's eligibility criteria and rules, kindly click HERE TO DOWNLOAD. 

Enter for the competition after reading the rules via HERE.

* See Section 4 for countries in the regions mentioned in this story.