Submitting!

To hold myself more accountable to submitting more often (because how else can a writer get published except by constantly, constantly submitting?), I am going to share with you all the contests and such that I'm planning to submit to in the next few months.

February 15th (this Monday!!)

Chicago Tribune's Nelson Algren Award

For this contest, I am going to submit a short story, "Stick Shift," that I wrote two years ago now, and that I've been sitting on since then. I wanted to wait to send it out, to see if any insight would flash before my eyes, to make sure I knew it was "done." And for the past two years I simply have not thought of even one single thing that could change this story, the main character, or the ending. So, I think it's ready.

February 26th

National Society of Arts and Letters Competition in Short Story Writing (Illinois Chapter)

NSAL requires each writer to submit a short story written in first person, and another written in third person. I'll be honest: I'm not positive what first person story I'll turn in (I might have to search through the archives) but for the third person story I'll probably try to send out a chapter of my novel. Luckily, I have a couple weeks to figure this out.

March 31st

The Poetry Foundation's Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship

I'm actually pretty excited to apply for this fellowship. This submission is limited to poets between the ages of 21 and 31 and must include 10 poems and a 250-word essay about the poet's work. I am crossing my fingers that my inclusion in Nye's 25 poets under 25 anthology will be a nice publication to have on my resume for this fellowship.

Wish me luck!

L. Stacks

ACM #50 "Another Chicago Issue:" Call for Submissions!

As many of you know, I have been interning with the award-winning literary magazine Another Chicago Magazine for the past six months, helping with editorial selections, organization, and slush-reading. ACM's #49 "Bestiary" was released mid-summer, and we are well on our way to produce another great issue in early 2010.

ACM #50 will be a Chicago-themed issue, "Another Chicago Issue." To be considered for publication in this issues, you need not submit a piece specifically about Chicago (although feel free to, if you're so inclined) rather, you need only to live in Chicago, and to represent what we feel to be true Chicago-writing style.

About ACM: "Above all, we prefer diversity and an eclectic variety of work, which in some way diverges from and chafes againt preconceived ideas of genre, technique, and form, as well as work that may be a particularly distinguished example of more conventional modes. We believe that our content continues to encourage the reading of contemporary literature that is not only outside the most popular “mainstream,” but somewhat outside the “literary mainstream” as well. In other words, we hope to strike a more adventurous path from our peers and we hope to break new ground in our consideration and inclusion of multiple aesthetic and social viewpoints. Over the past four decades we feel we have largely succeeded in achieving this vision."

Submissions must be postmarked by January 5, 2010 and addressed as follows:

Another Chicago Magazine

Jacob S. Knabb

2608 W. Diversey

Apt 202

Chicago, IL - 60647

Re: "Another Chicago Issue"

I'd love to see submissions from you all--and please feel free to spread the word, as we have always been a magazine that is interested in publishing quality writers regardless of their previous publishing experience.

L. Stacks

Harper's "Wait Till You See Me Dance"

Read this story from Harper's Magazine written by a once-adjunct freshman composition professor at Roosevelt. What do all you RU MFAers think? I'll just say that I didn't find the story particularly engaging--the main character's terrible attitude really was riding me by the end, not to mention how horribly Roosevelt was portrayed...

L. Stacks