Vermont College of Fine Arts

 

SPECIAL ISSUE & BOOK PROJECT: SUSTAINABILTIY

Deadline: January 15, 2013

 

“Sustainability depends on a simple principle: Everything that we need 

for our survival and well-being depends, either directly or indirectly, 

on our natural environment. —from www.epa.gov

For a special “Sustainability” issue, Creative Nonfiction is looking 

for essays that illuminate environmental, economic, ethical and/or 

social challenges related to the state of the planet and our future. 

Whether you’re on a world tour of wind farms or cranking up the a.c.; 

deciding it’s not worth the trouble to recycle or living off the grid; 

torn between driving your car, taking public transportation, or riding 

your bike; leasing your land to hydro-frackers or protesting against 

them (or, perhaps, both); or just grappling with which apples to buy 

(organic? local? the red ones?), we want to hear about it in an essay 

that is at least partly narrative—employing scenes, descriptions, etc.

 

Your essay can channel Henry David Thoreau or Henry Ford, Rachel Carson 

or (a literary) Rush Limbaugh; but all essays must tell true stories and 

be factually and scientifically accurate.*

Guest editor Donna Seaman will award a cash prize (amount TBA) for best 

essay. Selected essays will be published in Creative Nonfiction #51, and 

an expanded book version will be published in Spring 2014. All 

submissions will be considered for both the magazine issue and the book.

 

*A note about fact-checking: essays accepted for publication in 

Creative Nonfiction undergo a fairly rigorous fact-checking process. To 

the extent your essay draws on research and/or reportage (and ideally, 

it should, to some degree), CNF editors will ask you to send 

documentation of your sources and to help with the fact-checking 

process. We do not require that citations be submitted with essays, but 

you may find it helpful to keep a file of your essay that includes 

footnotes and/or a bibliography.

 

Guidelines: Essays must be unpublished and no longer than 4,000 words. 

There is a $20 reading fee (or send a reading fee of $25 to include a 

4-issue subscription to Creative Nonfiction-—U.S. submitters only); 

multiple entries are welcome ($20/essay) as are entries from outside the 

United States (though due to shipping costs we cannot offer the 

subscription deal).

 

You may submit essays online or by regular mail:

 

By regular mail

Postmark deadline January 15, 2013

Please send manuscript, accompanied by a cover letter with complete 

contact information including the title of the essay and word count; 

SASE or email for response; and payment to:

 

Creative Nonfiction

Attn: Sustainability

5501 Walnut Street, Suite 202

Pittsburgh, PA 15232

 

Online

Deadline to upload files: 11:59 pm EST January 15, 2013

To submit, please click the appropriate link:

Reading fee only ($20)http://bit.ly/PKrqpy

Reading fee + 4-issue subscription ($25; U.S. submitters 

only)http://bit.ly/SUxzTm

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FIRST ANNUAL SARANAC REVIEW WRITING CONTEST

$15 ENTRY FEE
Deadline December 15, 2012. The Saranac Review is a literary
journal published by the Department of English under the auspices
of SUNY Plattsburgh. $500 for best poem and $500 for best story.
Both receive publication. The contest is open to all authors
writing in English regardless of nationality or residence.
Entry fee entitles applicant to one story or three poems.

 

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Hi, everyone!

I'm looking for a couple online fiction instructors for my studio, AllWriters' Workplace & Workshop. The studio has grown and become so busy that I am having problems keeping up with my own schedule. These are two classes that I regularly teach, but it's time to find someone else to do it for me.

The first is the Monday Night Online Book-Writing Workshop. Students in this class are working on either the novel or the book-length memoir. Class size is limited to six, due to the number of pages handed in. Each week, students can hand in up to 3750 words. The instructor provides a line by line edit and an overall thematic critique. The students critique their peers' work as well. Then on Monday nights, from 8 - 10 central time, the instructor meets with the students in an online chatroom. We've always used Aol, but I am open to other chatrooms as long as they are easily accessible to students. The chatroom format provides students with the closest to a face to face workshop that they can get on the internet. Each student's work is discussed for fifteen minutes, and then they have five minutes to respond.

The instructor for this course must be someone who has published either a novel or a book-length memoir (no self-published please). The course lasts twelve weeks each session, and runs year-round. Students pay $150 and the instructor receives half of each student's tuition.

The second class is the Thursday Night Online Fiction Writing Workshop. Students here are working on fiction, either the novel or the short story. Each week, two students hand in up to 3000 words each. The instructor provides a line by line edit and an overall thematic critique. The students critique their peers' work as well. On Thursday nights, the instructor meets with all of the students in an online chatroom (same as above) from 7 - 8 central time. Each students work is discussed for 25 minutes, and then there is a 5 minute response time.

The instructor for this course must be currently publishing fiction, either the short story, the novel or both. The course typically lasts ten weeks, but might go longer if enough students are enrolled, to ensure that each student has three times within the session to be critiqued. Students pay $150 and the instructor receives half of each student's tuition.

Kathie Giorgio, MFA-W '04

 

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Vermont College of Fine Arts alumna Micaela Myers (class of '03) works as the group editor at Firebrand Media, which produces Montage Magazine (for Montage Hotels & Resorts) and Bespoke Magazine (for St. Regis Hotels & Resorts), among other publications. These oversized, full-color luxury lifestyle magazines are always seeking new writers. Pay is between $300 - $500 per article. If you are interested, please send your resume and two writing samples to Micaela@FirebrandMediaInc.com (nonfiction examples that are not first person preferred).

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Excelsior College Launches Its Own Press and Calls for Submissions

Excelsior College was founded on the principle that what people have learned in life is worth celebrating, and its primary mission honors the idea that what you know is more important than where or how you learned it. Begun in 1971 as Regents College, Excelsior has become one of the nation’s leading nonprofit, accredited, distance learning institutions. Now Excelsior is marking its 40th anniversary by creating a publishing arm –

Hudson Whitman, the Excelsior College Press – and it is calling for submissions. Hudson Whitman/Excelsior College Press will publish and promote high-quality nonfiction books and multi-media projects in areas that include health care, education, business & technology, military issues, and American culture & society. Hudson Whitman’s tag line is “Books that make a difference,” and the press looks to publish 5 to 10 books a year for its first three years. Susan Petrie, director of the press, will manage the day-to-day operations, and William Patrick, award-winning novelist and author of Saving Troy, will be the editor in charge of acquisitions.

“Hudson Whitman is a very natural extension of our focus on lifelong learning and expanding access to higher education,” said Dr. John F. Ebersole, president of Excelsior College. “We will use a variety of new and emerging technologies to publish works in print and as e-books. In this manner, we will offer an efficient and affordable environment for our faculty, students, alumni and others to publish serious projects that will be engaging and appealing to both the Excelsior community and to the interested general reader.”

Among its current titles is Courageous Learning: Finding a New Path through Higher Education, written by Ebersole and Patrick. The book assesses the current state of education in America, profiles a number of adult-serving institutions, and offers practical information for adults who want to earn higher education degrees. It also includes autobiographical self-portraits of adult learners who have not only shown uncommon persistence in attaining their degrees but who have also overcome considerable challenges on the road to personal and professional success.

Finally, Courageous Learning features interviews with a number of higher education experts, including Martha Kanter, current U.S. Under Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, former Secretary of Education under George W. Bush, and Arthur Levine, president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. In line with Excelsior College’s mission, Courageous Learning underscores the urgent need for American adults to embrace a culture of lifelong learning as a way to help solve America’s education and employment crises.

To submit a manuscript for consideration, or to purchase one of our titles, please visit our website: www.hudsonwhitman.com.

For further information, please contact:

Susan Petrie

Hudson Whitman/Excelsior College Press

5 Columbia Circle

Albany, NY 12203

(o) 518.608.8156

spetrie@excelsior.edu

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