VOLUME 24, ISSUE 51 | December 13, 2024 |
IDEAS TO
PITCH
The world is crazy right now with holidays, politics, business, weather, and sports. We didn't used to stay so informed, but then I'm also impressed at how more knowledgeable we are about current issues. As you will see below, I mention a new magazine brought to my attention, and my old freelance mind
took off thinking of ideas I could pitch. That started an avalanche of sorts as more ideas tumbled into my brain. It was all I could do to turn back to Chapter 4 of my latest Edisto manuscript, and not write query letters to magazines. In my shopping for a friend, who is all about her dog, I realized there were three boutique dog places just in my little town of Chapin. I work out with one of
the owners (hello interview). I spent more than I thought I would on dog toys and treats (trends and budgets for pets these days). I tried out/modified a new protein cookie recipe this week, took the cookies to the gym, and immediately was asked for the recipe. That night I sat down and wrote out recipe cards with the recipe. The ladies I gave them to gasped and chatted forever on not just the
recipe, but the fact I handwrote it. They found that extremely special. What does that say about personalizing gifts? Or the future of cursive? My brain went nuts. Speaking of which, I visited a pecan orchard where their store had 30 types of flavored pecans. I mean, pure country, with the cats sitting outside the door and a dog in her bed under the counter. I thought interview, recipes,
edible holiday gifts, country living, horticulture, agriculture . . . my mind was on fire! I miss those days of freelancing fulltime. The constant searching for ideas and markets. The pitching. The fun of the diversity. People are often afraid to freelance, but trust me, what you might think is mundane might be a fantastic story idea for someone else. If you can write, you can
freelance. |
3 Sessions (Past, Present & Future) - December 15, 18 & 21
Hosted by Ignite Your Write 📝 Explore your writing process in a community of other writers. Each gathering will end with an optional,
restful, yoga nidra meditation practice, especially for writers.
CREATING FREELANCING OPPORTUNITY
Hubby came home from shopping and showed me a glossy magazine. "Do you still write for magazines like this?" I said I did, if the idea popped into my head and the publication seemed worthy. I looked at the magazine. Hook & Barrel, The Lifestyle Magazine for Modern Outdoorsmen, was pretty slick. One
might wonder how in the world I could write for such a publication? Hunting, country music, wild game recipes, Christmas gift guide for gear, cigars and beverage pairings, ammo and guns. How did I fit into that niche? Yes, I've told the freelancers I've taught that you should develop a niche. However, you also should be able to envision how to write for any publication. I instantly thought of the
following: 1) Interviews. In any of the above topics, you have people with expertise. Landing an interview with an expert in any of the topics in the publication, could land a positive nod from the editor. 2) Talk to the store where the magazine was purchased. In this case it happened to be Palmetto
Armory, a major gun range in SC. Do they know of someone special who lives local who might make for a good interview. Or what topics could the store see put in the magazine, especially if it involved them, their business, their niche, their customers. 3) Same goes for the other topics. I could go to a major alcohol distribution nearby and ask them for topics (in exchange for an interview or
mention). I could talk to businesses of any of these topics and ask how they became successful. 4) Lists. I could come up with a Top Ten list of subjects that touch upon these topics. All I would have to do is go to experts and ask for their top ten, then mold all the answers into a list of my own. In
that ten minutes, I had the itch to jump back into freelancing, and a half dozen topic ideas. An active freelancer learns to see any publication and come up with subjects. Do it enough times, and it becomes as natural as breathing.
Create Your 2025 Writing Plan – a webinar for writers who are ready to take their writing practice to the next level When: Saturday, Jan. 11, 2025,
10-11 a.m. MT (12-1 p.m. ET) What: Join me for an inspirational and practical one-hour webinar that will help you craft a personalized writing plan for the coming year! Cost: $15
-January 9, 2025 - Newberry Fine Arts Club, Newberry, SC - 10AM Eastern -March 22, 2025 - Writer's Digest Mystery/Thriller Writing Virtual Conference - "Person, Place, or Crime: Where to Start Your Mystery" - 1PM Eastern -April 23, 2025 - Artist 5 Show, Newberry Opera House, Newberry, SC - 6 PM Eastern -May 3, 2025 - Pelion Library Book Club, 206 Pine St, Pelion, SC, Saturday, 1-2PM Eastern -May 17, 2025 - Speaking of Writing Expo, New Bern, NC - 8-4:30PM Eastern
Email: hope@chopeclark.com to schedule events, online or otherwise.
...have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live
the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
~Ranier Maria Rilke in his letters to a Young Poet
Hi Hope - I just found out that I came in first place in a writing competition sponsored by Silver Sails Press in the UK. The contest was INEXPLICABLE STORIES - Have you experienced a thing so strange, odd, unusual that it makes no
sense? My submission was titled Decision Time. The contest was limited to 500 words and the prize was $500. I thought you might be interested in this for your Success Story column because I found this contest in your Funds for Writers weekly email. https://www.silversailspress.com/contestwinners Thank you for your truly inspirational presence in my life. This is one of many positive results I've had from contacts I've found through your most welcome weekly email: grants, artist-in-residencies, publishers and writing contests. I've received a total of 14 grants, 5 artist-in-residencies, many publishing opportunities
for books and magazines and my favorite--writing contests. You light up my life! Laura Lee Perkins
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Laura-Lee-Perkins/author/B00HCO5890
<<If you have a success story you believe was prompted by FundsforWriters, please share with us! Send to hope@chopeclark.com >>
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A 32-YEAR LEARNING CURVE
By Vincent Czyz Some years ago my Philadelphia-based agent received the following letter of decline from Michael Pietsch, a New York–based editor:
Dear Mary Jo,
I was very impressed by the subtlety and loveliness
of Vincent Czyz’s writing, and by his ability to bring a large cast and several distinct settings to life. But for all the author’s skill, Sun Eye Moon Eye strikes me as a very difficult novel to sell. The story unfolds at a very stately pace, and Logan is a tough nut to crack. It will get good reviews, but I can’t foresee selling many copies. So I won’t be offering for Little, Brown.
Mary Jo and I were encouraged, in fact, celebratory.
If we’d come so close with Little, Brown, we reasoned, it was a matter of months, maybe a year, before we found the right editor for the novel. Mary Jo, however, was overly optimistic, and I was hopelessly naïve. After more declines that praised various aspects of the book but raised similar sales concerns, I overhauled the manuscript, cutting some 300 pages and restructuring the rest (it was originally over 800
pages.) That ought to do it, we thought. A short time later, a chapter from Sun Eye Moon Eye attracted a fellowship from the NJ Arts Council—but still no publishing contract. Two years after that, Mary Jo quit the business in frustration and disgust. Unagented, I tried the
indie presses. One of them, Persea, sent a scribbled-on form rejection: “I regret that we cannot take this on. Gorgeous prose; you are a real spell-caster.” The novel, it seemed, wasn’t commercial enough for the larger houses, while smaller presses balked at its size (550 pages), or it just didn’t suit their tastes. An editor at Dalkey Archive recommended it for publication but was overruled by the editorial board. In retrospect, I can see
it really wasn’t their kind of work. I moved my ever-fattening folder of declines to a filing cabinet. I was discouraged, of course, but one of Rilke’s letters to a young poet had persuaded me that I needed to be patient: “There is here no measuring with time, no year matters, and ten years are nothing.” https://www.quotes.net/quote/53285#google_vignette The opening chapter of Sun Eye
Moon Eye eventually landed me the Truman Capote Fellowship at Rutgers University. Excerpts were published in a total of seven journals. One was a finalist in the Jerry Jazz Fiction Contest. Another was anthologized.
Days, months, and years continued to click over, though, and I began to doubt Rilke’s advice—or at least to suspect it didn’t apply to me. Waking at 3 or 4 in the morning in mild panics, I was certain that the manuscript would never see
print.
My only recourse, I decided, was to make Sun Eye Moon Eye a better book. The only way I could think of to do that involved yet another round of revisions with, as ever, an eye to cutting the page count and polishing the remaining sentences. I trimmed it down to 528 pages. When the offer from Spuyten Duyvil finally came, it sat in my spam folder for 17 days (I spotted it purely
by accident). Certain it was a rejection, I reread the email several times, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t turn “I can send a contract over to you and get the ball rolling” into a decline. Chronologically speaking, Sun Eye Moon Eye was my first book. In order of publication, it became my fifth. While the novel was in production, I picked up Dan Sinykin’s Big Fiction: How
Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature. There, on page 15, I came across an old acquaintance: Michael Pietsch. Pietsch, according to Sinykin, “had little interest in midlist.” As Pietsch himself explains, “It’s hard to make money on books that sell only 10,000 copies. We’re looking for writers who can break through to a larger audience.” I finally understood that it wasn’t about cutting or revising or writing
a better novel; it was about writing a different novel, one with more market appeal. Fair enough. I just wish I had known, as a 28-year-old tapping away on a Smith-Corona typewriter, what I now know as a 61-year-old long-acclimated to a Hewlett-Packard laptop. BIO: Vincent Czyz (Vincent Czyz - Wikipedia ) is the author of a short story collection, which won the Eric Hoffer Award for Best in Small Press, two novels, a novella, an essay collection, and a collection of short fiction due out in 2025. He is the recipient of two fiction fellowships from the
NJ Council on the Arts, the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Prize for Short Fiction, and the Capote Fellowship at Rutgers University. His stories and essays have appeared in New England Review, Boston Review, Shenandoah, AGNI, The Massachusetts Review, Tin House, Copper Nickel, and Southern Indiana Review, among other publications.
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COLORADO PRIZE FOR POETRY
https://coloradoreview.colostate.edu/colorado-prize-for-poetry/
$25 ENTRY FEE. Deadline January 14, 2025. The Colorado Prize
for Poetry is an international poetry book manuscript contest established in 1995. Each year’s prizewinner receives a $2,500 honorarium and publication of his or her book by the Center for Literary Publishing. Manuscripts must be at least 48 pages and no more than 100 pages. They may be composed of any number of poems. No limited to Colorado residents. They have a limited number of fee waivers for writers experiencing financial hardship. PORTER HOUSE EDITOR'S PRIZE
https://porterhousereview.org/contests/
$10 ENTRY FEE. Deadline December 31, 2024. The Porter House Review staff is excited to announce our 2024 – 2025 Editor’s Prizes in Poetry, Nonfiction, and Fiction. The three winners of
Porter House Review Editor’s Prize will each receive an award of $750 and publication in our literary journal. During the week of December 22nd through December 28th, the submission fee will be waived. Submit a maximum of 5 poems or fewer. Limit your nonfiction submissions to 6,000 words or fewer. Limit your fiction submissions to 8,000 words or fewer. ELIZABETH ALEXANDER WRITING
AWARD
https://sites.smith.edu/meridians/awards/elizabeth-alexander-creative-writing-award/
NO ENTRY FEE NOTED. MAY APPEAR WHEN SUBMITTING. Deadline December 31, 2024. The award is open to all genres, including: poetry, fiction, play scripts, and non-fiction.
Manuscripts of 3-5 poems. Prose and non-fiction manuscripts should be no longer than 7,500 words. Play scripts should be no more than 5,000 words. Offers a $500 prize, a reading and retreat at Smith College, and publication in Meridians. Works engaging with feminism, race, and transnationalism will be prioritized. THE WRITERS COLLEGE
https://www.thewriterscollege.com/free-writing-competition-my-writing-journey/
NO ENTRY FEE. Deadline December 31, 2024. The My Writing Journey Competition is free to enter and open to writers from around the world. Write us a 600-word essay on the theme: The best writing tip I’ve ever received. We’ll publish the best
piece in our newsletter and on our blog – plus the winner receives $200 (R2 000 or £100). RUMPUS PRIZE FOR POETRY, FICTION, AND CREATIVE NONFICTION
https://therumpus.net/the-rumpus-prize/
$20 ENTRY FEE. Deadline March
2, 2025. Submit previously unpublished poetry, short stories, and/or creative nonfiction. All submissions will be read by The Rumpus's editorial team, and our final judges will be Kaveh Akbar (Poetry),Rachel Khong (Fiction), and Megan Stielstra (Creative Nonfiction). Prizes (6 total, 2 in each genre) $1,000 first-place prize and publication in three genres: poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Honorable mentions receive $200 and publication in each of the three
genres.
GRANTS / FELLOWSHIP / CROWDFUNDING WEINBERG ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE FELLOWSHIP
https://www.newberry.org/research/artists-in-residence/artists-in-residence-fellowship
Deadline
January 3, 2025. This fellowship is for writers, journalists, filmmakers, visual and performing artists, and other humanists who wish to use the Newberry’s collection to further their creative work. Preference is given to individuals working on projects that focus on social justice or reform. Stipend: $3,000/month. Length: 1 month. Applicants must be working outside of traditional academic settings. THE NEWBERRY HISTORICAL FICTION WRITING ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE FELLOWSHIP
https://www.newberry.org/research/artists-in-residence/artists-in-residence-fellowship
Deadline January 3, 2025. Offering one month of support for a person working
in the area of historical fiction. We encourage applications relating to a wide range of historical fiction including novels, short stories, plays and theatrical works, or poetry. Stipend: $3,000. Length: 1 month. Who can apply: Writers of historical fiction. OUTPOST FELLOWS IN RESIDENCE
https://www.outposttheresidency.org/
Deadline January 10, 2025. The Outpost Foundation’s flagship program is a residency that offers two BIPOC writers from the United States and Latin America a $4,000 award as well as complimentary travel, lodging, and meals to spend the month of September cultivating a generative writing community in the mountains of Southern Vermont. In addition to the time spent in residence,
Outpost Fellows in Residence will engage in organized interactions with the community of local universities and bookstores, allowing space to share their work and expand their networks. (Thanks www.erikadreifus.com)
PUBLICSOURCE
https://www.publicsource.org/publicsource-policies-for-contributor-freelance-journalist/
Pays $400 to $1,000. See chart on
website for what they pay for each type of writing. PublicSource is Pittsburgh’s home for impactful journalism and community-driven storytelling. Through in-depth reporting and analysis alongside diverse perspectives, our nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization serves and engages the people of Southwestern Pennsylvania. We strive to empower our audience with the knowledge and understanding needed to make informed decisions and drive positive change, on a personal level and within broader
systems. JOYSAUCE
https://joysauce.com/contribute/
Here at JoySauce, we make space for vibrant, unforgettable stories full of nuance and contradictions, to celebrate the tapestry of narratives that make up Asian America, which is not
a monolith but a mosaic, an archipelago, a teeming forest. Please email us at pitches@joysauce.com with a well written 2-3 paragraph pitch that tells us about the unique story you want to tell, the format in which you’d like to tell it, and why you are the right person for the job. We pay writers a flat rate of $300-$700 per story, dependent on experience and required research/interviewing/etc. Rate will be negotiated at time of assignment. THE WIRE CHINA
https://www.thewirechina.com/pitch-guidelines/
The Wire is a digital news magazine dedicated to understanding and explaining one of the biggest stories of our time: China’s economic rise, and its influence on global business. We accept pitches only
for longform Cover Stories that focus on some aspect of business or economics related to China. These are reported, magazine-style articles that tend to be enterprise or investigative in nature. They run from 2,500 to 3,500 words. Cover Stories do not focus explicitly on political issues. Pays highly competitive rates. OUR DUST EARTH
http://www.aanpress.com/submissions.html
Deadline December 31, 2024. We are seeking submissions for an anthology to be titled Our Dust Earth which will collect stories that take place within the Our Dust Earth mini-RPG (see the RPG section after Submission Guidelines in the linked PDF) world. This anthology is to be published in early summer of 2025 by the
Air and Nothingness Press. We pay $0.08/word for the stories we publish. MMEORY ANTHOLOGY
http://www.aanpress.com/submissions.html
Deadline April 30, 2025. We are seeking stories for an anthology to be titled
Mmeory which will collect stories of memory manipulation. To be published in late summer of 2025 by the Air and Nothingness Press. All stories to be between 1000 and 2000 words. Theme: Memory manipulation - Examples include magic spells, cyborg memory edits, very unreliable narrators, time travel gone horribly wrong. We pay $0.08/word for the stories we publish. MOTHER JONES
https://www.motherjones.com/contribute/writer-guidelines/
Mother Jones is a nonprofit investigative news organization that delivers bold and original multiplatform reporting on the urgent issues of our time, from democracy protection and climate change to extremism and beyond. Our rates are based on a writer’s
experience, our experience with the writer, article type, and the difficulty of the reporting and editing required. For print, rates start at $1.75 per word. For online, rates start at $0.75 a word. We pay 1/3 of the fee upon submission of a first draft, and the rest as soon as possible after publication.
MEL PARKER BROOKS LITERARY AGENCY
https://melparkerbooks.com/
As a literary agent, Parker represents nonfiction authors in categories such as narrative nonfiction, memoir/biography, business, health,
science, technology, history, and politics. Looks to represent authors who are thought leaders in business, journalism, government, and academia and have unique and newsworthy book ideas. Having also helped launch the careers of many bestselling fiction authors, Parker represents voice-driven upmarket and commercial fiction, especially literary fiction, psychological suspense, and crime fiction. CALLIGRAPH LITERARY AGENCY
https://www.calligraphlit.com/about
Calligraph is a full-service literary agency with offices in New York and Boston. They offer representation for new and established authors, and sells rights for clients worldwide in print, audio, electronic, film and television. They handle
literary and commercial fiction and a wide range of non-fiction, including biography, history, memoir and narrative, popular science, popular culture, and business, children’s books and YA. Authors include creative writers, experts in their fields, established journalists, and academics. SPENCER HILL ASSOCIATES LITERARY AGENCY
https://www.spencerhillassociates.com/
Based in Florida. Specializing in commercial fiction, romance and women's fiction, and expanding into middle grade and young adult, they work with talented writers in every genre at any stage of their career-from the well-known, successfully published and established author to the debut writer with an exciting new voice.
McBRIDE LITERARY
https://mcbrideliterary.squarespace.com/aboutus
Please note, for works of nonfiction, we require a complete, polished book proposal. Your book proposal should include a 1-2 page overview of the
book (think of it as your elevator pitch), information regarding your author platform, a promotion/marketing plan, a comparative works section, chapter summaries, and at least two sample chapters. They do handle fiction as well. Read what each agent is seeking to know who and what to pitch.
Please forward the newsletter in its entirety. To reprint any editorials, contact hope@fundsforwriters.com for permission. Do not assume that acknowledgements listed in your publication is considered a valid right to publish out of ours.
C. Hope Clark
E-mail: hope@fundsforwriters.com
140-A Amicks Ferry Road #4
Chapin, SC 29036
http://www.fundsforwriters.com Copyright 2000-2024, C. Hope Clark
ISSN: 1533-1326 Our subscriber list is NOT made available to others. Use information listed at your own risk. FundsforWriters gives no warranty to completeness, accuracy, or fitness of the markets, contests, and grants although research is done to the best of our ability. FundsforWriters finds open submission calls, contests, and markets from a wide variety of sources, including Erika Dreifus' Practicing Writer newsletter, Erica Verrillo's blog, Authors Publish, Poets & Writers, Duotrope,
Winning Writers, Write Jobs Plus, LinkedIn Jobs, Emily Stoddard, and other newsletters and online sites. Many announcements are submitted directly to FundsforWriters. All must be paying opportunities. Contests must pay a minimum of $200 first place. Submit potential listings to hope@chopeclark.com **Note that FundsforWriters.com places paid advertising in this newsletter. ALL ads are related to writers and the business of writing, screened by FundsforWriters to make sure the information is suitable for writers and their endeavors to improve their careers. While the mailing list is not sold to third parties, other parties do advertise in the newsletter, to include
the occasional solo ad. You will not receive this newsletter without your permission. It's physically impossible since recipients must opt-in, giving us permission to send the newsletter. If at any time you no longer wish to receive the newsletter, click the UNSUBSCRIBE link at the bottom of each newsletter. We want you to enjoy this newsletter at your pleasure, not be forced to read anything you do not wish to receive. Direct any complaints, suggestions, and accolades to Hope Clark at hope@fundsforwriters.com. We are an anti-spam site. | |
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