Unusual Calls for Submission

YA Short Story Anthology
Pugalicious Press is looking for Young Adult short stories to include in our first ebook anthology, titled Timeless! If your short story is between 3000 and 7500 words and fits into the genre of Young Adult historical romance with some twists, we want to read it. We would love if your story included any of the following elements: steampunk, fantasy, magic, or adventure. Please include a bio, publishing credits if any, and a synopsis. Email: pugaliciouspress(at)gmail.com (replace (at) with @ in sending email). Submit the whole manuscript as a Word .doc file (no .docx) by March 30, 2012, with the subject heading: submission-YA anthology. Please include a bio, publishing credits if any, and a synopsis.

The New Purlieu Review
The New Purlieu Review seeks essays, short fiction, artwork, photos and poems that address the unique issues of living in our time. Issue 3/2011, Healing, will examine how we repair our bodies and minds in times of external and internal turmoil.  Can love beat cancer?  Can a week alone in a cabin in the woods repair a marriage?  What does a family need when they've lost their home?
Submit your words and images that incorporate new ideas about HEALING by April 1, 2012.  Issue to go live in June 2012.

The Waterman Fund
The Waterman Fund seeks essays about life in the mountains of the northeastern U.S. for its fifth annual Waterman Fund Alpine Essay Contest. Wildness! Are you finding it where you least expect? Did you go in search and it wasn’t there? The Waterman Fund is seeking personal essays about stewardship of wild places, whether through a scientific lens or an encounter with wildness. What do we mean by “ the spirit of wildness?” Why is it so important to our lives? Or, is it? Guy and Laura Waterman spent a lifetime reflecting and writing on the Northeast’s mountains. The Waterman Fund, a 501c3 nonprofit centered on strengthening human stewardship of the open summits, exposed ridgelines, and alpine areas of the Northeast, seeks to further the Waterman’s legacy through essays that celebrate this spirit. The winning piece will be published in Appalachia Journal, America's longest-running journal of mountaineering and conservation. The winning essayist will be awarded $1500. Honorable mention will receive $500. We appreciate online submissions. If you prefer to submit by mail, include a SAS postcard or your email address; we try to let you know as soon as we’ve received your work. Please contact Annie Bellerose by mail or email with questions, or on Facebook. The deadline for submissions is April 15, 2011.  We will announce winners by early June.

The Whidbey Writers MFA Alumni Association
The Whidbey Writers MFA Alumni Association is holding a first novel contest, with a grand prize of a seven-day retreat at a fully furnished, rustic-luxury Smoky Mountain cabin in North Carolina, with daily continental breakfast ($2,000 value), plus a cash award of $300. Second and third place winners receive cash and other prizes.Pulitzer Prize winner William Dietrich is the final judge. Top three finalists will be reviewed by Andrea Hurst Literary Management, for possible representation. The top twenty-five entries will each receive two critiques from members of the association. Winners will be announced on August 5, 2012. All profits from the contest will go towards creative writing student scholarships.

Prime Mincer Press
Prime Mincer Press, publisher of Prime Mincer literary magazine, is seeking submissions of short fiction for an anthology titled, "The Man Date: 15 Bromances," to be published in early 2013. The editors are looking for original, unpublished short stories ranging from 1,500-6,000 words concerning bromances—work that in some way comments on or deals with male friendships and relationships, and/or plays on the idea of the buddy story. The final selection will be a mix of emerging and established writers including Rick Bass, Pinckney Benedict and Alan Heathcock, among others. Submissions will be accepted from March 1st through June 1st. Notifications will be sent by August 15th. Please include a cover page with contact information and a short bio. Please do not include any contact information on the manuscript or in the document's title, as the editors will be doing a blind read. Payment will be in the form of contributor copies and a percentage of royalties. Submissions will be judged by anthology editors Shawn Andrew Mitchell and Nick Ostdick.

Mason's Road
The literary journal Mason's Road is looking for submissions for its latest issue. We will also be selecting the winner for our 2012 Mason's Road Literary Award during that period, which is free to enter and offers a $1,000 prize to the best entry we receive. "We have been honored to publish established writers such as Philip Schultz, William Kennedy, Rhina Espaillat and Lia Purpora, alongside talented emerging writers who had never been published before. The theme for our fifth issue and our upcoming $1,000 contest is "characterization." While we always publish the very best submissions that come our way, we are particularly looking for submissions this issue in which characters' voices, behaviors and thoughts resonate and shine. Mason's Road is especially well-suited for MFA students in programs across the country. Each issue is dedicated to a particular element of the writing craft, and includes fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, drama, craft essays, writing exercises and art. MFA students and faculty are welcome to submit, comment on the current selections, and engage in a dialogue about the writing craft with each issue. Our submissions period runs February 15, 2012, until May 15, 2012."