Six Writing Contests Open For Submissions From TWFest And SASFest

The annual writing contests for the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival (TWFest) and Saints + Sinners LGBTQ+ Literary Festival (SASFest) are open to submissions now until October in fiction, poetry, and one-act plays.

 

TWFest contest details include the following:

 

One-act play – Judge: Peter Hagan. Prize: $1500,  professional staged reading at the 2024 festival, publication in Bayou magazine, and a 2024 VIP festival pass. Deadline: October 1.

 

Fiction – Judge: Margot Douaihy. Prize: $1500, domestic airfare (up to $500) and accommodations to attend the 2024 Festival, a 2024 VIP festival pass, and a public reading at the 2024 festival. Deadline: October 1.

 

Poetry –  Judge: Stephanie Burt. Prize: $1000, public reading at the 2024 festival, and a 2024 VIP festival pass. Deadline: October 15.

 

Very Short Fiction –  Judge: Tara Lynn Masih. Prize: $500, a 2024 VIP festival pass, and a public reading at the 2024 festival. Deadline: October 15.

 

Finalists for all categories will have their photos and bios published on their website, newsletter, and social media, and will receive a literary discussion pass ($100 value) to the 2024 festival. 

 

Full details for each writing contest category are on our website at: http://tennesseewilliams.net/contests/. 

 

More about our judges for this year's TWFest contests:

Peter Hagan will judge the one-act play submissions. Hagan has worked for over 40 years in the theatre. He has represented playwrights, directors, and designers, and his clients were winners of Tonys, Emmys, Oscars and Pulitzers. A member of the Board of Directors of the prominent play publisher and licensor Dramatists Play Service, in 2013 he became only the sixth president of that company in its 80-year history. During his time as president, his acquisitions often included all of the Tony Best Play nominees in a given year, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

 

Margo Douaihy will judge fiction submissions.  Douaihy is a Lebanese American, and she received her Ph.D. in creative writing from the University of Lancaster in the UK. She is the author of the poetry collections Bandit/Queen: The Runaway Story of Belle Starr, Scranton Lace, Girls Like You, and the novel, Scorched Grace. She is a founding member of the Creative Writing Studies Organization and an active member of Sisters in Crime and the Radius of Arab American Writers. A recipient of the Mass Cultural Council's Artist Fellowship, she was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, Aesthetica Magazine's Creative Writing Award, and the Ernest Hemingway Foundation's Hemingway Shorts

 

Stephanie Burt will judge the poetry category. Burt is a poet, literary critic, and professor with nine published books, including two critical books on poetry and three poetry collections. Her essay collection Close Calls with Nonsense was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her other works include We Are Mermaids; Advice from the Lights; The Poem is You: 60 Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them; and The Art of the Sonnet; Something Understood: Essays and Poetry for Helen Vendle to name a few. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, the Believer, and the Boston Review.

Tara Lynn Masih will judge very short fiction. Masih is a National Jewish Book Award Finalist and winner of the Julia Ward Howe Award for Young Readers for her debut novel My Real Name Is Hanna. Her anthologies include The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction and The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prize-winning Essays. Her latest collection, How We Disappear: Novella & Stories, won a 2022 Florida Book Award, and she has published multiple chapbooks with the Feral Press that are archived in universities such as Yale and NYU. 

 

SASFest contest details include the following:

 

Fiction – Judge: Trebor Healey. Prize: $500 to the winner and $100 each to two runners-up.

 

Poetry — Prize: $500 to the winner and $100 each to two runners-up.

 

Finalists for both categories have their pieces published in our SASFest anthologies to be released at the 2024 SASFest. They will also have their photos and bios published on our website, newsletter, and social media.

 

More about our judges for this year's SASFest contests:

Trebor Healey will judge fiction. Healy is a recipient of a Lambda Literary award, two Publishing Triangle awards and a Violet Quill award. Healey is the author of the novels A Horse Named Sorrow, Faun and Through It Came Bright Colors; a poetry collection, Sweet Son of Pan, and three collections of stories — A Perfect Scar, Eros & Dust, and Falling. He co-edited (with Marci Blackman) Beyond Definition: New Writing from Gay and Lesbian San Francisco and co-edited (with Amie Evans) Queer & Catholic.

Chen Chen will judge poetry. Chen is the author of two books of poetry, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (BOA Editions, 2022) and When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017), which was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the Thom Gunn Award, among other honors. His work has appeared in Poetry and three editions of The Best American Poetry. He has received two Pushcart Prizes and fellowships from Kundiman, the National Endowment for the Arts, and United States Artists. 

 

Full details for each writing contest category are on our website at: https://www.sasfest.org/

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