NEW:

06.27.08: The 2008 Hybrid Essay Contest Guidelines

So here, friends, is the lowdown.

DIAGRAM announces, to inaugurate our new nonfiction editorship (of Nicole Walker) and our continuing interest in reinvented, unusual literature, a contest for an unpublished (in a serial/magazine/journal/book or on a non-personal website) hybrid essay.

Submit an unpublished essay of up to 10,000 words with a $15 reading fee by October 30, 2008. We are particularly interested in hybrid essays, texts that exhibit some form of hybridity.

The prize is $1000 + publication. We'll shoot for publishing several of our finalists, too, in DIAGRAM.

Judged by Ander Monson and Nicole Walker, a hybrid if you ever saw one. Who's the ass end? Who's the head part? NO ONE KNOWS. It's scary.

What is a hybrid essay? Well, many essays are hybrids to start with—involving fiction, memoir, poetry, art, photography, mathematics. The essay is a hybrid form—it can take many shapes. We want to encourage this, to see your weirdo essays that have visual elements, information from other disciplines, or that marry two forms, or three shapes, or whatever.

What do we mean? See Lia Purpura's forthcoming essay (DIAGRAM 8.4) on hybridity, Albert Goldbarth's book Griffin (Essay Press, 2007), or really nearly any essay that qualifies as lyric for some examples. We like our descriptions ambiguous because we don't want to limit what we get. No one likes a reductive definition.

Okay. You're convinced. It's going to be great. You want to throw your hat in the ring. Here's how to submit:

Electronic (preferred but maybe a little awkward (sorry)!):

STAGE ONE: Pay contest fee through Paypal by clicking on the button below.

STAGE TWO: submit through our killer Submissions Manager system [here]. You'll have to create an account if you haven't submitted to us before. Make SURE, SURE, that when you enter the submission, you choose CONTEST SUBMISSION. That way it gets read/processed properly. If you submit under something else things will get munged (though we are happy to read your non-contest submissions whenever, of course). Please give us some kind of cover letter if you like.

Snail mail (not preferred but you can hit this if it's easier): submissions can go to Hybrid Essay Contest, c/o Ander Monson, Dept. of English, P.O. Box 210067, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0067. Make checks out to DIAGRAM or send cash. Or pay online with the button above anyhow and make a note on your cover letter. Include a SASE or your email address for notification.

We need to receive your submission by October 30, 2008, for your work to be considered.

We'll read everything closely, pick finalists, and hopefully announce our winner by Xmas 2008. We'll send out notifications to everyone who submitted.

Good luck, and thanks for entering the contest.

Questions can go to <nmp--at--thediagram.com>. Images are fine (as long as you have or can get permission to reproduce them if published). Multi- or mixed-media is fine.

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06.15.08: Results of the 2008 Chapbook Contest Below! And announcing a contest (what, more contests? why yes. We like judging and awarding, apparently) with an October 30, 2008 deadline (for receipt of submissions): The DIAGRAM hybrid essay contest, for the best hybrid essay we receive. We'll post full guidelines later this week, but the gist is this: we want to read your hybrid essays for a special all-essay issue. And we will award the best one submitted into the contest goodness. Rock on, you. Rock on, us. More info to come. In the meantime, try out:

The 2008 Chapbook Contest Results

THE LOWDOWN:

The Winner: Marc McKee, What Apocalypse?

We will also publish: Chloë Joan López, Quodlibet and Jennifer Moss, Beast, to be your Friend

Finalists: Erin Bertram, Febrile; Jack Boettcher, The Deviants; Travis Brown, Brainard’s Branch; Matthew Byrne, Captivity Practices; Dana Curtis, Antiviolet; Ori Fienberg, The Hummingbird's Guide to the Inner Ear; Miriam Bird Greenberg, A Child's Primer of Augury; Matthew Hittinger, Specular Reflection; Jamie Iredell, When I Moved to Nevada; Carrie Jerrell, Dearly Beloved; Trevor Kearns, Cross Words; Steve Lautermilch, The Book of Character and Change; Genine Lentine, Mr. Worthington's Beautiful Experiments on Splashes; Clay Matthews, Sire; Christopher Nelson, The Principle of the Knot; Linnea Ogden, I and the Starling; Alexis Orgera, How Like Foreign Objects; Stephany Prodromides, Fishnet; Billy Reynolds, Moving Parts; Rebecca Rubin, Glossary; Zach Savich, Don Quixote

METHOD:

We received over 400 submissions (thanks, y'all!) and enjoyed our long task quite a bit. Each chapbook submission was read thoroughly at least twice, blind, by our panel of anonymous but awesome and tastefully-dressed readers. These readers selected about 45 semifinalists, from which the editors picked 24 finalists, from which Ander Monson picked our winner and the two other chapbooks selected for publication.

Thanks to everyone who submitted, as always. Official responses will be going out this week. SASEs will be stuffed. When we complete production on Marc's chapbook (Fall) we'll mail those off to anyone who gave us chapbook-sized envelopes. And we'll get next year's guidelines posted in October if not before. On this page. Thanks for your attention.

—Editors

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The 2008 $5 Innovative Fiction Contest Results:

METHOD:

1> each story was read blind, multiple times by multiple readers. Our readers selected the semifinalists (about 40).

2> from this pool our editors and specialized reader types selected the finalists, eight of them. We disqualified one (it had been withdrawn: sad day for DIAGRAM), and passed them onto Kelly Link, our celebrity judge.

3> She chose "Quell the Mayhem Night" by Debra Di Blasi as the winner. Cheers to Debra.

OUTCOME: Debra will receive a $1000 honorarium and of course everlasting glory. This story, of course, rules. As do the other finalist stories, frankly, any one of which could easily have been picked by any individual reader as the winner. But Kelly is our designated Authority, and she has spoken.

Here are the other finalist stories, all of which will be published in our upcoming all-fiction issue at the end of June. The finalists also get delicious DIAGRAM apparel: hot POE TRY shorts and sweet shirts. Rock!

  • "And What of Boys? What Land Do They People?" by Elisabeth Benjamin
  • "Four Secrets and Three Lies I Have to Tell About Love." by Kea Wilson
  • "Girls Who Love Horses" by Amanda Goldblatt
  • "The Many Forms of Rain ___ Sent Upon Us In Those Days Before the Last Days" by Blake Butler
  • "Snow" by Mark Leidner
  • "There Will Be Sense" by Amelia Gray

Check back to see the issue. We hope you like it. We think these stories rocked the hardest out of all those that were entered (300 or so). I have no doubt we might have missed a couple really good ones, stories that almost completed the task of rocking us, but that we overlooked somehow. Sorry for that. Yours may well have been one of them. But these are the favorites, so they're the ones we chose.

And keep us in mind for your future fiction submissions--we read year round, and are always interested in innovative work. Next year's contest deadline will be about the same time. Brian Evenson has signed on to judge, and he is pretty much a badass. So start the engines churning, gentlemen, ladies, and others--

We appreciate your entry in our little contest. It doesn't really make any money, but it makes us happy. And hopefully you too.

Best,
Ander Monson, Editor

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04.02.08: Both of our 2008 contests have closed. We are reading madly. We will post the results here when we have them.

The 2008 Chapbook Contest results will be sent via email to entrants who used our submissions manager. If you sent a SASE, we'll stuff them and send them back with the results.

And of course the winning chapbook will be mailed to those entrants who gave us proper envelopes and postage when it is ready (Fall 2008).

The 2008 $5IFC results will be posted here and emailed to all entrants who submitted via submissions manager. No envelopes will be stuffed for the $5IFC (as the guidelines indicate). We'll try to send emails to people who submitted nonelectronically but we don't promise anything. The official results will be here when we have them.

Thanks for your interest and entries. Now for the hard work. —Ander

We will very likely have a contest for form-interested nonfiction with an October deadline in 2008. More info once we have it.

 

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12.13.07: The 2008 Contest Guidelines for the NMP/DIAGRAM Chapbook Contest (deadline for receipt of submissions: 04.01.08) are available now just below on this page:

NMP/DIAGRAM Chapbook Contest
 deadline for receipt of submissions: 04.01.08

[The 2008 Contest is closed. New guidelines for 2009 posted in Fall 2008.]

$1000, 25 copies of the finely-printed chapbook, author can purchase more at 40% discount.

We will also publish at least one other finalist manuscript, possibly more (in 2007 we published five).

18-44 pp of poetry, fiction, essay, mixed-genre, or genre-bending work. Images can be included, though they must be black and white. No more than one poem (if yer sending poems) per page.

$15 reading fee (U.S. funds please; cash if you want to risk it, money orders, or checks made out to New Michigan Press, or use your credit card by clicking on the button below, in which case mention on your cover letter that you paid online. (If you pay online, you're welcome to send SASEs snail mail for a copy of the winning chapbook and notifications.)

If you pay online, you're welcome to use the DIAGRAM submissions manager system to submit your work; this way you will definitely get a response—create an account and submit your story, and this is important, you must choose the genre as "Chapbook Contest Entry" for your manuscript to be considered; you must also pay the entry fee ($15) through paypal with a CC. Note that you will receive an automated submission acknowledgment via email (it's the boilerplate one we send for regular DIAGRAM submissions, so ignore that part of the email).

Enclose a business-sized SASE if you'd like notification of the results. Manuscripts cannot be returned (sorry—please don't send your only copy).

Enclose a self-addressed, stamped postcard if you'd like confirmation that we received your manuscript.

Enclose a self-addressed 6"x9" envelope with $1 of postage (in USA—$5 is a safe bet if you're sending from overseas) if you would like a complimentary copy of the winning chapbook (or another chapbook in our series—please specify which, if any). If you do not care, there is no need for this. Unfortunately we are giving up on IRCs. They don't seem to work. It is truly horrible. If you'd like us to mail out a copy internationally please make sure you include a self-addressed envelope and either an extra $5 for postage, or $5 worth of US postage.

Please do not send submissions certified mail, express mail, or anything we have to sign for; it's a pain. If you want to overnight it, please check off the "no signature req'd" box.

It's fine with us if individual works have been published elsewhere, but the manuscript can't have been published as a whole before. Please include specific acknowledgments if any of the works have appeared elsewhere—tell us where individual pieces appeared, as we consider submitted work for possible publication in DIAGRAM.

This contest is open to both published and unpublished writers.

Multiple submissions is fine; a separate reading fee is required for each.

Mail to: NMP/DIAGRAM Chapbook Contest, 648 Crescent NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49503

We recommend that your manuscript be as coherent as possible. Chapbook manuscripts do not necessarily have to be diagrammatic (though the diagrammers among us do enjoy those). Since our resources are limited, we generally do not print four-color chapbooks.

About the Chapbook as an Art Form: Though we are a small press with fairly limited resources, we are devoted to producing striking and elegant (when appropriate to the subject matter) chapbooks, and we keep them in print. We feel that we run one of the classier chapbook operations around. (The Wick Poetry Program through Kent State University runs a series of chapbooks that we envy.) All contest entry fees go to support the contest, chapbook series, and the press.

Typically we narrow the field down to ten finalists, all of which are considered for publication (even if they don't win the contest; in 2003, NMP published four contest finalist mss.; in 2004, we published two; in 2005, we published four; 2006: four). All work submitted (unless previously published) is considered for possible publication in DIAGRAM.

We don't have a celebrity judge for our chapbook contest. Since we pick the majority of our chapbooks from the submissions to the contest, we judge everything internally.

Our readers change from year to year; we read work anonymously and try to be open to both traditional and experimental work. We strive to vary our aesthetic year to year and be open to what is excellent and moving.

Buy previous winners and other NMP chapbooks [here] to see what we mean.

Questions? Email <nmp@thediagram.com>.
$5 Innovative Fiction Contest

deadline: 03.15.08

 

[The 2008 contest is closed; new guidelines up in Fall for 2009. Results up here when we have them (May? June at latest.)

Our 2008 judge is fabulous (fabulist) fiction writer Kelly Link, author of Magic for Beginners and Stranger Things Happen.

The prize is $1000 + publication. 10+ finalists will have their stories published in the DIAGRAM Summer Fiction issue. The information on last year's contest finalists and winners is online [here]. The 2007 summer fiction issue is [here].

Length: 5 words to 10,000 words. NOTE: Poets & Writers listed this information incorrectly as 5,000-10,000 words. We really mean 5 (five) words is the minimum. Ten thousand words is the maximum.

We don't make money on this contest (obviously). This contest also has no frills: we can't send out snail mail contest announcements or email announcements of the finalists or winner (though if you submit electronically, you'll get a response). All submissions are read anonymously by an anonymous panel of judges and screeners (different group than last year). This is an ethical contest, so please, close friends or former students of the judge, you're not welcome to enter this time (sorry). All submissions are considered for publication by DIAGRAM. All stories submitted must be unpublished (personal website and blogs excepted).

The entry fee per story is $5, paid via paypal or check or cash.

This year we will accept submissions via two methods:

1> snail mail (not preferred, but okay if you want to do it): mail the story (w/a removable cover sheet with your contact info & the story title) and a check or cash to DIAGRAM $5IFC, 648 Crescent NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49503). Sorry, but we can't notify via SASE. If you want a notification, go for #2.

2> the DIAGRAM submissions manager system: much preferred; this way you will definitely get a response—create an account and submit your story, and this is important, you must choose the genre as "$5 IFC" for your story to be considered; you must also pay the entry fee ($5) through paypal with a CC by clicking here:

[link void now that contest is closed]

or via post. Note that you will receive an automated submission acknowledgment via email (it's the boilerplate one we send for regular DIAGRAM submissions, so ignore that part of the email).

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06.18.07: The 2007 Chapbook Contest results are in!

:: Our 2007 winner is Mathias Svalina, whose manuscript, Creation Myths, will be published by New Michigan Press in Fall 2007 (at which point you'll receive your complimentary copy if you provided a suitable SASE). He will receive $1000.

:: NMP will also publish four of the finalist manuscripts in Fall/Winter 2007–2008:

  • Charles Jensen's The Strange Case of Maribel Dixon (prose/mixed)
  • Karyna McGlynn's Scorpionica (poems)
  • Vincent Zompa's Jacket of the Straits (poems)
  • Arianne Zwartjes's The Surfacing of (Excess) Exist (poems)

:: The other excellent finalists were Brent Armendinger, Kate Hill Cantrill, John Estes, Marie Lawson, Josie Sigler, and Leigh Stein. We had an amazing variety of quality manuscripts to look at, and found another 20 that deserve special mention, though we don't have room here to list them all.

Thanks to everyone who entered. The guidelines for the 2008 contest will be posted in Winter 2007.

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05.17.07: The results for the $5 Innovative Fiction Contest are below.

Our judge, Michael Martone, chose Holly Tavel's story "On the Mysterious Appearance of Philo S. in Other People's Photographs" as the winner of the contest in 2007. She will receive publication in DIAGRAM 7.3 (out at the end of June) and an honorarium of $1000. Congratulations to her.

The ten finalists, whose stories we also loved, will appear in the all-fiction issue of DIAGRAM:

  • Elisabeth Benjamin: "Her Slideshow"
  • Kay Boruff: "Tickle Me"
  • Chris Higgs: "Mother: A Deconstruction with Critical Apparatus"
  • Clay Matthews: "The Abridged Version of P. S. Forever"
  • Megan Milks: "Yuri-G"
  • JoAnna Harriet Novak: "Assignments"
  • Katherine Satorius: "Miss Bester"
  • Mattie Quesenberry Smith: "Calico Fractal"
  • Teresa Shen Swingler: "Taste"
  • Girija Tropp: "Looking for the Country of Love"

The finalists will also receive our fine DIAGRAM t-shirts (or our fine new POE TRY shorts, soon to be released). Thanks to everyone who entered, who helped make this a success. Every story was read 3-4 times by our crack staff of fictioneers, and the decisions were necessarily hard, the result of much discussion. And thus it is done. We will most likely do it again next year, though we are fairly sure we lost money on the whole. Still we awarded a prize and got some great fiction, so it's worth it, we think. We are foolish like that. --Editors.

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06.01.06: The Contest Results are Announced

::: Our 2006 winner is Stephanie Anderson, whose manuscript, In the Particular Particular, will be published by New Michigan Press in Fall 2006 (at which point you'll receive your complimentary copy if you provided a suitable SASE). She will receive $1000.

::: NMP will also publish five—!—of the finalist manuscripts in Fall / Winter 2006:

  • Kristy Bowen's Feign (poems)
  • Melissa Ginsburg's Arbor (poems)
  • Paul Guest's Exit Interview (poems)
  • Jeff Parker and William Powhida's The Back of the Line (stories & images)
  • John Pursley III's A Conventional Weather (poems)

The finalists:

Susan Briante, Dear Mr. Surgeon General and Other Poems; Cheryl Clark, Dead-eye Spring; Nicole Terez Dutton, Chromatrope; Anna Journey, Little America; Erin Lambert, Resolution; Genine Lentine, Mr. Worthington's Beautiful Experiments on Splashes; Erin Malone, What Sound Does it Make; Sierra Nelson, Primitive Animal, A Drifter in Dust; Emily Rosko, Weather Inventions; Maureen Seaton and Neil de la Flor, Pink Eye; Peter Jay Shippy, The Minor Cinemas of Western New York State; Jen Tynes, See Also Electric Light.

Thanks to everyone who entered. Letters have gone out with this information if you gave us a SASE. We found much to love in our reading this year, and there were many more worthy manuscripts. We had over five hundred this year, riches all around, and we read as deeply and as well as we could. Next year, we'll have a different set of readers, and will hopefully see your new work.

Ander Monson, NMP

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On this page, find:

Contest Guidelines:

  • 2008 Hybrid Essay Contest
  • 2009 Chapbook Contest [forthcoming in October]
  • 2009 $5 Innovative Fiction Contest [forthcoming in October]

Contest Results: