The deadline for the 2009 R. L. “Buzz” Capener Memorial Writing Contest in Comparative Religious Studies is May 31, 2009. First place receives $750.

For the Brookie and D. K. Brown Fiction contest, entries are due June 30, 2009. Winners receive up to $400 each.

Click here to see the official rules.

“Well why in the world would anybody write a novel then?”

(Don’t get me going on the reaction I get when people find out I edit Irreantum for free!)

When I started out as a fiction writer, I honestly had no intention or expectation of making ANY money. I wrote for the love of it, and the idea of getting published in a magazine someday–even without payment, even if only thirteen people ever read the dang thing–seemed to me to be wholly adequate. Well, even more than wholly adequate. It seemed to me to be absolutely thrilling. I’ve been surprised over and over again when people seem so disappointed for me over my lack of writing-generated income. (Sometimes I feel like saying, “Hey, congrats on finishing the Salt Lake Marathon. How much money did they give you when you crossed the finish line? None? Seriously? So why d’ya do it then?” But that would be seriously catty and unbecoming, and I’m all about being uncatty and becoming.)

So my question for you: How do you approach writing and earning a living? Given the gender definitions in Mormon culture, is the expectation to earn a living with your writing–or at least buy a swing set–even more weighty for men? (I’m guessing yes.) In what ways have you managed to turn your experiences as a writer into cold hard cash, either directly or indirectly?

And speaking of cold hard cash: Enter the Irreantum Fiction Contest and/or the Charlotte and Eugene England Personal Essay Contest. The deadline is May 30th. You could win some money, honey!

Following are the official contest rules.

Sunstone invites writers to enter the 2009 Eugene England Memorial Personal Essay Contest, made possible by the Eugene and Charlotte England Education Fund. In the spirit of Gene’s writings, entries should relate to Latter-day Saint experience, theology, or worldview. Essays, without author identification, will be judged by noted Mormon authors and professors of writing. The winner(s) will be announced in Sunstone and at the 2009 Association for Mormon Letters conference. Only the winners will be notified of the results. After the judging is complete, all non-winning entrants will be free to submit their essays elsewhere.

Prizes: A total of $450 will be shared among the winning entries.

Rules:

1. Up to three entries may be submitted by a single author. Five copies of each entry must be delivered (or postmarked) to Sunstone by 28 February 2009. Entries will not be returned. A $5 fee must accompany each entry.

2. Each essay must be typed, double-spaced, on one side of white paper and be stapled in the upper left corner. All essays must be 3500 words or fewer. The author’s name should not appear
on any page of the essay.

3. Each entry must be accompanied by a cover letter that states the essay’s title and the author’s name, mailing address, email address, and telephone number. Each cover letter must be signed and
attest that the entry is the author’s work, that it has not been previously published, that it is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere, will not be submitted to other forums until after the contest, and that, if the entry wins, Sunstone magazine has one-time, first-publication rights.

Send entries to:

England Personal Essay Contest

Sunstone

343 North Third West
Salt Lake City, Utah 84103–1215

• The staff of Segullah wants you to win!! By that I mean that we are pulling for the people who enter this contest.  We never forget the women behind the stories. And many of us (me, at least) are not widely published, and still consider ourselves to be novice writers.   Trust me: we are a sympathetic audience.  We are rooting for you.    Not everyone can win, this is true. But we appreciate each woman who takes the time to share her life with us through writing.
• Contest winners are held to higher standards than regular submissions.  Regular submissions go through a revision process, working with our editorial board to do at least three revisions, sometimes four, before we publish them. However, our contest winners are published as-is, with minor copyediting.   What this means for those who enter is that they need to take the time to send us the very best version possible. Publication-ready. Please, find someone who can see your writing clearly, and have them give you honest feedback.  Then revise.  Then find someone else, and get more feedback, and revise.  Then do it again, as many times as you can before the deadline.
• Do not be daunted if you have never published before! You don’t have to have published anything before to do well.  I speak from personal experience: “Finding Myself on Google,” which won an honorable mention in the 2006 essay contest, was the first essay I’d ever published.  I don’t think that’s true of our other winners, who had more writing experience than I did, but it’s true of me.  You can do this!
• If you’re wondering where to go with your next draft, and having a hard time finding a good editor, read the writing tips section of Segullah’s blog, and evaluate what you’ve got based on some of the ideas there.
• There is no theme for either contest (I’ve gotten that question a couple of times this year, so I wanted to clarify it).  Write about whatever you want that fits in our mission statement.  Read a few back issues to get some ideas of what we are looking for.
• If your essay doesn’t win, it still has a good chance of being published in Segullah after working through our editing process.  For me, one of the best things about my involvement in Segullah is finding people who will critique my writing with expertise, honesty, and kindness.  So if your essay doesn’t win, but it’s accepted for publication, that’s going to be good for your future writing.  You’ll have the chance to revise it under the guidance of one of our editors.  You’ll get published, and become a better writer.  Yeah, yeah, winning would have been better.  But this is pretty good, too.
• Follow the submissions guidelines I linked to above.  Pay attention to word count–our space is limited, and we’d hate to disqualify your essay from consideration because it was too long.

There you have it–behind the scenes at Segullah.  Now get writing!

p.s. I’m happy to answer any more questions you have about the contest in the comments section.

–Emily Milner, Assistant Editor, Segullah

Two years ago when Segullah made its debut I fielded lots of questions. The most frequent was this: Why a new journal?

My answer: Because Mormon women need an independent forum that maintains a faithful perspective.

“Independent forum” rarely caused any hang-ups. “Faithful perspective” was a speed bump for some (and that’s a topic for another post). But others moved right along to the “women” part. Aren’t male perspectives just as valuable? some of them asked.

Of course, of course. I had radical feminist leanings in college, but I’ve far outgrown the deluded belief that men are, basically, chumps. I believe that the greatest heights of humanity come from the union of male and female, in intimate pairs and in larger communities. And I’d love to see a faith-promoting journal of personal writings by LDS men and women. For that matter, I’d love to see one for men only. But those are someone else’s projects. Mine, as editor of Segullah, is fostering the female voice. (read the rest).

2008 has been an exciting year on Mount Segullah. We recently published our summer issue, which features prose and poetry contest honorees. In December we’ll publish our tenth issue since our 2005 debut. Our subscriber base is steadily growing, and we’re hearing from some great new voices. You can subscribe here, view the archive here, and find our submission guidelines here. The deadline for our 2008 literary contests is December 31, so get writing!

We’re also excited about the recent release of our staff anthology, The Mother in Me: Real-world Reflections on Growing Into Motherhood , published by Deseret Book. (To my knowledge, this release marked the first appearance of the word “nipple” in mainstream LDS literature.) We blushed over Margaret Young’s glowing endorsement], and we’re looking forward to reviews around the bloggernacle. And hey–we want you to come to our book release party!

Saturday October 18, 2-4 p.m

Deseret Book at the University Mall in Orem, UT

You can hear more about the book in my interview with Doug Wright, which will be broadcast on KSL radio (SLC, 1160 AM), Sunday October 12 from 9-9:30 a.m.

I suppose that’s enough shameless self-promotion for now, but we’ll soon be back with more.  My thanks to Stephen for creating this round table (vanity mirror?)–Segullah is pleased to be part of it.