Jerry Jazz Musician Writing Contest: Best Counter-Culture Writing

Three times a year, Jerry Jazz Musician awards a writer who submits, in our opinion, the best original, previously unpublished work of approximately one - five thousand words. The winner will be announced via a special mailing of our Jerry Jazz Musician newsletter. Publishers, artists, musicians and interested readers are among those who subscribe to the newsletter.

Additionally, the work will be published on the home page of Jerry Jazz Musician and featured there for at least four weeks.

The Jerry Jazz Musician reader has interests in music, social history, literature, politics, art, film and theatre, particularly that of the counter-culture of mid-twentieth century America. Your writing should appeal to a reader with these characteristics.

Contest details

http://www.jerryjazzmusician.com/mainHTML.cfm?page=fictioncontest.html

A prize of $100 will be awarded for the winning story. In addition to the story being published on Jerry Jazz Musician, the author's acceptance of the prize money gives Jerry Jazz Musician the right to include the story in an anthology that will appear in book or magazine form. No entry fee is required. One story entry only.

Submission deadline for the next contest is September 30, 2009. Publishing date will be November 1, 2009.

Please submit your story by September 30, 2009 via Word or Acrobat attachment to (replace (at) with @). Please be sure to include your name, address and phone number with your submission. Please include "Short Fiction Contest Submission" in the subject heading of the email.

Flash Fiction Writing Contest: Editor Unleashed and Smashwords

The Editor Unleashed/Smashwords Flash Fiction 40

Don't miss this groundbreaking new writing contest sponsored exclusively by two great online resources for writers: Editor Unleashed and Smashwords!

Cash prizes to 40 writers including a $500 Grand Prize and publication in the Editor Unleashed/Smashwords Flash Fiction 40 anthology.

You help choose the winner. No entry fee!

The Dates:
• May 18th - June 14, 2009: Post your story on the Editor Unleashed forum.
• June 15 - June 26, 2009: The Popular Vote! Stories ranked by members of the Editor Unleashed forum.
• June 30, 2009: 40 Editor's Choice Winners announced!

How to Enter:
• Writers post flash fiction of 1,000 words or less on the Editor Unleashed forum. Contestants must be registered members of the forum to enter this contest. (Membership is free. Only one entry per writer please.)

You Help Choose the Winners:
• All members of the Editor Unleashed forum will be eligible to rank stories. The popular vote will help decide the winners!
• With close consideration to popular ranking, Top 40 Editor's Choice winners—including Grand Prize winner—will be chosen by Maria Schneider (owner of Editor Unleashed) with assistance from a select group of agents and editors.

Prizes and Promotions:
• The Grand Prize winner will receive a $500 cash prize (courtesy of Smashwords) and will be interviewed and promoted on the Editor Unleashed and Smashwords blogs. The Grand Prize winning story will appear first in The Editor Unleashed/Smashwords Flash Fiction 40 anthology.

• 39 Editor's Choice winners will each receive $25 and have their stories included in The Editor Unleashed/Smashwords Flash Fiction 40 anthology published by Smashwords as a free ebook. Once
published at Smashwords, the anthology will also be available in other online bookstores that distribute Smashwords ebooks, including Stanza,the ebook reading app used by over 1.5 million iPhone and iPod Touch users to read ebooks.

• All 40 winners will be promoted on the Editor Unleashed and Smashwords blogs.

• Entrants grant Editor Unleashed and Smashwords non-exclusive digital rights to publish their story in a digital anthology available on Smashwords and in online bookstores and websites that distribute Smashwords books. You keep full rights to your story.
Let us help you promote your writing!

Find out more on the Editor Unleashed forum.

The History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street

The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street

Most non-economists find the 'efficient markets hypothesis' the most absurd belief that most economists believe. The latest broadside is Justin Fox's book The Myth of the Rational Market. A lot of this gets into semantics. If you think efficient markets mean they are always correct, then clearly this is a stupid theory. But it only means that it is highly improbable to outperform the market, say by reading blogs about finance, listening to CNBC, and then buying or selling securities traded in liquid exchanges. The market price is an unbiased predictor of future prices, conditional on all the current information (there is a risk premium that complicates this, but I wrote about this in my upcoming book and will talk about that when released in a few weeks).

There are lots of straw men in this book. Efficient markets does not imply price changes ('errors'?) are normally distributed. LTCM's failure, and its positions, were not predicated on the Black-Scholes-Merton option model's assumptions. No one believes markets are perfect.

Think of the problem this way. Say one can buy a contract that Global Warming implies temperatures will be 3 degrees higher in 2100. If it were a traded contract, such that there was a way to generate some validation (say, that average temperatures in the troposphere done by NASA, paid to legal beneficiaries of current bettors). People strongly disagree on this, and most people think those who disagree aren't merely making an honest mistake, but have biased or stupid beliefs, though unintentionally (tools of bigger forces, a malevolent Borg), and the key is you cannot prove this today via indisputable logic. The set of information is large, and it is not clear what is relevant to this forecast (climate models are very complicated). In 90 years, with hindsight, the losers will look like stupid ideologues, and that will pertain to a significant number of otherwise smart people. Is this market then 'inefficient', because those taking the other side of a losing bet will be not merely unlucky, but 'wrong'?

Read the rest of the review here, or get a copy of The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street now!

Right Words Flash Fiction Contest: Open Theme for InkSpotters 6th Annual Writers Contest

InkSpotter's 6th Annual

Finding the Right Words

Flash Fiction Contest

Open Theme

1st Prize: $60 plus publication

2nd Prize: $30 plus publication

Theme: Open

Genre: Fiction

Length: 500 words or fewer

Deadline: July 21, 2009 (postmark)


Entry Fee: $2.00 per story

All dollar figures are quoted in Canadian funds

You may also send your entry and payment by postal mail. (No signature items please.)

Betty Dobson
InkSpotter Publishing
163 Main Avenue
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Canada B3M 1B3

PLEASE NOTE: Money orders must be in Canadian funds and negotiable in Canada. Cheques may be drawn on any currency using current exchange rates and must be made payable to Betty Dobson or InkSpotter Publishing.

THE RULES
Write a self-contained short story in 500 words or fewer. No predetermined theme this year, so let your imaginations run wild!

Be original. Be concise. Be spelled correctly.

Send your story in plain text in the body of an e-mail to contests@inkspotter.com (subject line = "Annual Contest Submission") or to the address above. Do not indent paragraphs. Leave one line space between each paragraph.

All stories MUST have a title.

Be sure to include your full name and e-mail address. If your story wins, we'll contact you for your preferred method of payment.

Enter as often as you like, but payment must be received for each entry.

You retain copyright of your story.

All entries will be acknowledged if an e-mail address is included.

EFFECTIVE MARCH 2008: By entering the contest, you agree to have your name and email address added to the subscriber list for InkSpotter News, our monthly ezine. Contest news and winning stories appear in the newsletter. (Our subscriber list will never be shared with or sold to a third party.)

For more information, visit InkSpotter Publishing.

Tropes Writing Contest: Brain Harvest Mega Challenge

2009 Brain Harvest Mega Challenge

As writers, we’re warned constantly against resorting to tried-and-true tropes, usually for very good reason. In fact, our colleagues at Strange Horizons have assembled a very smart list of contrived plots seen too many times (http://strangehorizons.com/guidelines/fiction-common.shtml).

But here at Brain Harvest, we’d actually like to see if you can untrope the tropes, and create something interesting, solid, and, well, bad ass from these overly familiar clichés. In fact, we’re willing to stake the first annual Brain Harvest Mega Challenge on the fact that one of you out there can… in 750 words or less.

Your entries will be read by the Brain Harvest editors, and the winners chosen by our celebrity guest judge, the amazing, award-winning writer and editor, Jeff VanderMeer.

The winning entry will receive $100, publication in Brain Harvest, a hand-knitted mustache, 1 Fresh Eyes crit (up to 10,000 words) to be used on the piece of their choice, and the accolades of their peers, friends, and family.

The second place winner will receive $25, publication in Brain Harvest, and a hand-knitted mustache.

THE RULES
1. Each entry MUST follow as its main plotline at least one of the tropes listed on the Strange Horizons page. Bonus points if you combine a few.
2. Each entry must be 750 words or fewer. Period. Cover letters are unnecessary–just make sure to include your contact information.
3. Entries will be accepted from August 1st - August 31st, 2009, midnight PST. Results announced by October 15th
4. You may enter as many times as you’d like, however, each entry has a reading fee of $5, which must be remitted when you submit.
(WE WILL POST UP SUBMISSION INFORMATION ON JULY 1)
5. Stories must be original works, available for First North American Serial Rights in Brain Harvest.

Find out more about the contest on the Brain Harvest Magazine site.

Calling All Travel Writers to Enter “Planet Earth Awards 2010″

Travel Writers Can Change the World: Planet Earth 2010

Sustainable travel — eco-travel — green travel — cultural travel . . . what does all this mean? The current trend of travel experiences that enrich and fulfill the traveler while contributing to the welfare of a place and its inhabitants presents a grand opportunity for us as writers.

By choosing to focus at least some of our work on such topics as philanthropic travel opportunities; resorts, hotels and tour companies that operate sustainably; travel with a purpose; responsible tourism; and/or “cultural sojourns” (as described in the New York Times 2009 summer travel magazine), we become part of a new millennium crusade to appreciate and to save the planet and its inhabitants.

As Bradley Weiss wrote in “The Untold Travel Story: A Travel Writer’s Guide to Sustainable Tourism and Destination Stewardship” for National Geographic magazine, “The tourism industry does not merely make use of the destinations on which it depends, it interacts with them. It can sustain them. It can ruin them. Sometimes, it can save them. If carefully managed, tourism can alleviate poverty and provide an incentive for wildlife conservation, historic preservation and cultural enrichment.”

Travel writers can influence millions of people to look at their vacations, their travel-related activities, and even the sustainability of their hometowns and states, in new ways.

Believing in the power of its growing and influential membership, and that of travel writers around the world, BATW is again sponsoring an international writing competition — Planet Earth 2010 — that is open to all journalists and authors. The focus of the competition:

“Travel writing that helps to sustain or enhance the unique and valuable character of a place — its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage, and/or the well-being of its residents."

The Bay Area Travel Writers organization, based in San Francisco, announces its latest travel book and travel article competition for writers from around the United States and the world. Travel journalists, writers and authors are welcome to enter Planet Earth Awards 2010 with works of this description:

Travel writing that helps to sustain or enhance the unique and valuable character of a place — its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage, and/or the well-being of its residents.

Categories:
Best Travel Article or Essay for Planet Earth
Best Travel Book for Planet Earth

Deadline: September 1, 2009
Prizes: $200 Gold, $100 Silver and $50 Bronze in each category
Contest rules and information: http://www.batw.org/contests/planetearth2010/

Personal Essays and Memoirs Writing Contest: Seeking Stories Based on Autobiographical Experiences

Memoirs Ink is looking for original, well-written personal essays, memoirs, or stories that are based on autobiographical experiences. The narrative must be in first person, other that that, the contest is open to any type, genre or style of story. It is open to any writer, any age, writing in English--that means Canadians, Brits, Australians, Ugandans and anyone else anywhere can enter.

1. Entry must be previously unpublished (this includes websites and blogs).

2. Entry fee: $17. (Make check or money order to Memoirs, Ink.) or you can PAY ONLINE. (Mail receipt of payment with entry.) Previous entrants and/or fans on Facebook get at $2 discount on entry fee.

3. Prizes: First Prize: $1000. Second Prize: $500. Third Prize: $250.

4. Word Limit: February Deadline: less than 1500 words; August Deadline: less than 3000 words.

5. Annual Contest Deadline: August 1, 2009 (postmark); Late deadline: August 15, 2009 (late entries require additional $5 fee per entry);

6. Half-Yearly Contest Deadline: February 15, 2010 (postmark) Late Deadline: February 28, 2010 (Postmark - Late entries require additional $5 entry fee per entry).

7. Winners will be announced October 7 and April 30, respectively. We will announce them by e-mail and on our website.

8. Send entries to:
Memoirs Ink Writing Contest
10866 Washington Blvd, Suite 518,
Culver City, CA 90232

9. Please submit entries as follows: Typed, double-spaced, 12 pt. font.

10. Your name should appear only on the contest submission form. Contest submmission form.

11. The title of the manuscript should appear on every page. The pages should be numbered.

12. Pages should be stapled.

13. Multiple submissions are accepted, however, an additional $10 entry fee is required for each additional story.

14. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, however, if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere, you need to let us know immediately that you are withdrawing your submission.

15. E-mail questions to Jill at memoirsink.com

OTHER INFO


1. Manuscripts will not be returned. Memoirs, Ink., is not responsible for manuscripts lost in the mail, etc. Memoirs, Ink cannot confirm receipt of your entry unless you provide a self-addressed stamped postcard.

2. Winners must sign a contest winner agreement form that certifies your writing is original and assigns us temporary rights and electronic archiving rights.

3. If you win, we will publish your story. If you do not want your story published please do not submit it.

4. We reserve the right to mention or not mention anyone honorably.

Young Readers Contest From Delacorte Press: Submit Your Manuscript

Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers is pleased to announce
The Twenty-Sixth Annual
Delacorte Press Contest
for a First Young Adult Novel

The prize of a book contract (on the publisher’s standard form) covering world rights for a hardcover and a paperback edition, including an advance and royalties, will be awarded annually to encourage the writing of contemporary young adult fiction. The award consists of $1,500 in cash and a $7,500 advance against royalties.

All federal, state, and local taxes, if any, are the winner’s sole responsibility. Prizes are not transferrable and cannot be assigned. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN.

ELIGIBILITY
1. The contest is open to U.S. and Canadian writers who have not previously published a young adult novel. Employees of Random House, Inc. and its subsidiaries and affiliates, and members of their families and households are not eligible.

2. Foreign-language manuscripts and translations are not eligible.

3. Manuscripts submitted to a previous Delacorte Press contest are not eligible.

FORMAT FOR SUBMISSIONS
1. Submissions should consist of a book-length manuscript with a contemporary setting that will be suitable for readers ages 12 to 18.

2. Manuscripts should be no shorter than 100 typewritten pages and no longer than 224 typewritten pages. Include a brief plot summary with your covering letter.

3. Each manuscript should have a cover page listing the title of the novel; the author’s name, address, and telephone number.

4. Manuscripts should be typed double-spaced on 8-1/2″ x 11″ good quality white paper, and pages should be numbered consecutively. The type should be at least 10 point. The author should retain a copy of any manuscript submitted.

5. Photocopies are acceptable if readily legible and printed on good quality white (not gray) paper.

6. Do not submit manuscripts in boxes. A padded envelope will do. Please do not enclose checks for postage. The publisher is not responsible for late, lost, misdelivered, or misplaced submissions.

7. Please enclose a business-size stamped, self-addressed envelope for notification only. Please do not enclose checks for postage. Due to new postal regulations, the publisher cannot return any manuscripts. All submissions will be recycled by Random House after they are read.

MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS
1. Manuscripts sent to Delacorte Press may not be submitted to other publishers or literary agents while under consideration for the prize.

2. Authors may not submit more than two manuscripts to the Delacorte Press competition; each must meet all eligibility requirements.

DATES FOR SUBMISSION
1. Manuscripts must be postmarked after October 1, 2009, but no later than December 31, 2009. CHECK DATES

2. Send manuscripts to:

Delacorte Press Contest
Random House, Inc.
1745 Broadway, 9th Floor
New York, New York 10019

JUDGING
1. Entries will be judged by the editors of Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers. The prize will be awarded on the basis of originality, style, and creativity.
2. The judges reserve the right not to award a prize.
3. The decision of the judges will be final.
4. The editors of Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers will not be able to offer critiques of manuscripts or enter into correspondence about the manuscripts other than with the winning author.
5. Writers will be notified between January and April as submissions are evaluated by the editors. Final contest results will be announced on our Web site on or around April 30, 2010.