Unusual Calls for Submissions

Call for Submissions: Working Title: And Then It Shifted: Women Open Up About Leaving Men for Women (Seal Press, 2010)
2,000-4,000 words. Deadline: December 1, 2009. As Dr. Lisa Diamond’s recent groundbreaking book Sexual Fluidity makes clear, women’s sexual desire and identity are capable of shifting. Cynthia Nixon, Carol Leifer, Wanda Sykes, Portia de Rossi, and countless others have left the fold of heterosexual identity to enter into or pursue same-sex relationships. Although this book will evolve as we receive submissions, we welcome first-person essays from women 1) who were aware that they had always felt robust same-sex desires, but wanted to try to make it work in the straight world, and also 2) who identified as heterosexual at one time, but found that the situation they were in just naturally led to embarking on an intimate romantic relationship with a woman. We seek a diversity of voices, and welcome submissions from a variety of perspectives. We also welcome essays from women who don’t fit precisely into the above descriptions. More here.

The Bitter End: Tales of Nautical Terror
Edited by Jessy Marie Roberts. pillhillpress(at)gmail.com (replace (at) with @). Please put SUBMISSION: THE BITTER END in the subject line of your email, followed by the title of the story. We are looking for scary stories that take place on ships, boats, rafts, anything - as long as the setting is on - or in - or under - the ocean (or land-locked bodies of water or lakes). Traditional monsters (werewolves, vampires, witches, mummies, ghosts, etc.) are welcome if presented in a new and interesting way. The setting (at sea) must be integral to plot development. Stories can be realistic or fantastical. They can take place at any time - past, present, future, alternate. We are looking for a good variety of unique and terrifying sea stories. We are looking for short stories 500-5,000 words in length. Submissions will be accepted until Saturday, October 31, 2009. We will not make final selections until the end of the submission period. Responses will be sent by November 30, 2009. Please do not query about the status of your submission until December 1, 2009. We will send notification that we received your story
within one week of submission. If you do not receive acknowledgement of your submission, please resend to (replace (at) with @). This book is scheduled to be released April, 2010.

Merton Prize for Poetry of the Sacred
What is poetry of the sacred? Poetry that expresses, directly or indirectly, a sense of the holy or that, by its mode of expression, evokes the sacred. The tone may be religious, prophetic, or contemplative. Deadline for submissions: Received by December 31, 2009. First Prize, $500; Three Honorable Mention Prizes, $100 each. Winning Poems will be published in The Merton Seasonal, a publication of scholarly articles about noted spiritual leader Thomas Merton and will be posted on the Merton Institute web site: www.mertoninstitute.org. Only ONE unpublished poem type written in English may be submitted. Please limit the poem to no more than 100 lines. More here.

Games People Play
From Tin House: Starting September 1, 2009, Tin House will resume reading for our Winter 2010 issue (although we recommend getting your submission in by September 30 to be considered for this issue). We would also like to announce our theme for Spring 2010: Games People Play. We're looking for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and interviews revolving around the idea of play and sport. From poker to mind games to soccer, we want unique voices and ideas about games, play, and sport, from the personal to the cultural, from the inside and the outside, positive and negative, from within big-business sports to profiles of privately obsessive participants in willfully obscure games. At this stage (of the game, race, rally, inning, hand, match, set, clash, etc.) we are open to suggestions. The deadline for unsolicited submissions to this theme issue will be November 1.
Autumn Rondeau Contest: No Entry Fee!
The Rondeau Roundup is looking forward to fall colors, warm sweaters, and mellow sips of cider by the fireplace. To welcome in Fall 2009, the Rondeau Roundup blog is having a contest for the best rondeau on the topic of AUTUMN submitted by September 15, 2009. Contest Rules:
Only one rondeau may be submitted per person. No entry fee. Top five rondeaus will be published on the blog (theroundeauroundup.blogspot.com). The first place rondeau will also receive a $35 gift certificate from Amazon.com. For this contest, I'm looking for rondeaus that follow the standard definition, as given on poets.org. "The rondeau’s form is not difficult to recognize: as it is known and practiced today, it is composed of fifteen lines, eight to ten syllables each, divided stanzaically into a quintet, a quatrain, and a sestet. The rentrement consists of the first few words or the entire first line of the first stanza, and it recurs as the last line of both the second and third stanzas. Two rhymes guide the music of the rondeau, whose rhyme scheme is as follows (R representing the refrain): aabba aabR aabbaR." To enter, send a single rondeau on the topic of AUTUMN to roundeauroundup(at)gmail.com>(replace (at) with @) by September 15, 2009. Winners will be announced on the Rondeau Roundup Blog on October 5, 2009.