Contesting Contests: A Conversation
A while back, I posted a link to Les Figues Press’s very first book contest. Whereas all I did was post the submission information, many commenters responded, asking questions and giving opinions about contests in general. To clear up any questions about motivation, profit margins, etc, I have assembled four small presses – Les Figues Press, Starcherone Books, Noemi Press, and Fiction Collective 2 – to discuss their contests. I hope you find this conversation as illuminating as I do.
Bios for the presses can be found after the conversation. The publishers representing the presses are as follows:
Les Figues Press (LFP) – Teresa Carmody
Starcherone Books – Ted Pelton
Noemi Press – Carmen Gimenez Smith
Fiction Collective 2 (FC2) – Lance Olsen
Note: You may notice an exclusion in the conversation here, that is, I didn’t ask anyone to represent a press who doesn’t have a contest. I had considered asking a few people, but ultimately, I wanted to focus on why presses have chosen to run a contest. Expect a post within the next few weeks with presses who have chosen not to run a contest, for whatever reason. Hey publishers: if you have a press that doesn’t run a contest and want to participate in a conversation like this one, email me: Lily [dot] Hoang [dot] 326 [at] gmail [dot] com.
LH: How long has your press run a contest, and what was your rationale in starting it? Do you require a submission fee? With the submission fee, does the applicant get any other goodies?
The Authentic Animal, Caption Contest / Book Giveaway
Many Dave Maddens exist in the world. There’s the one from The Partridge Family, the one who is a video game executive, the one who is a musician, the one who is an Australian police commissioner, and the one who is a writer who wrote a book that will be published by St. Martin’s Press two weeks from today entitled The Authentic Animal: Inside the Odd and Obsessive World of Taxidermy.
To celebrate its release, Dave and I came up with an idea: I roamed the web and found various pictures of taxidermied animals, which I sent to Dave. He then responded to each of the pictures using his vast knowledge of the field…you’ll find the pictures and his responses after the jump…you’ll also find a picture without a caption and this is where you come in…
Dave has graciously agreed to give away a free signed copy of the book to the person who comes up with the most best caption to that final image. You have one week from today. He’ll select the winner next Tuesday.
For those of you who aren’t clever, or who aren’t selected by Dave, I highly recommend pre-ordering the book now…it’s about taxidermy folks…you can be sure it kicks ass. Also, you can find out more about the author here.
Applies to Oranges Giveaway Results
There were some fantastic responses to the Applies to Oranges giveaway contest. The comments to that post are like their own wonderful literary journal. And why can’t we host an online journal in a comment stream at HTMLGiant? I’m calling it the second issue of the Crystal Gavel, the “Trouble in Paradise” theme. I think I’m going to nominate the winners here for Pushcarts, too. I’m applying for the ISSN tomorrow.
Maureen Thorson has selected the winners: Josh Thompson, for “Clerical Work” and Heather Sommer, for “Ex-Pats” and Nick Francis, with “Vacationing.” (Josh, Heather, Nick, please email your address to me at adam at publishinggenius.com and we’ll get you your prizes.) Their entries can be read below the fold, or in Crystal Gavel 2, naturally.
Thanks to Maureen for putting this together! Check out her very truly wonderful book over at Ugly Duckling’s wonderful website. READ MORE >
Book Giveaway: Applies to Thorson
Here’s a chance to win a copy of Maureen Thorson’s Applies to Oranges, which is one of the top five most beautiful books of 2011. No doy, it comes from Ugly Duckling Presse so that means it’s impeccably designed and intentionally detailed: good paper, letterpress cover, set in a typeface I hadn’t heard of (Bembo). But I don’t let that overshadow the poetry, which I first read and thought, “Damn, these are consistent.” They are the melt-in-your-mouth variety. You read one in a comfy chair after work and let it mellow. There’s an orange in every poem, and every poem is about 15 lines long and just one stanza. Earlier I thought the poems were quiet, but reading the book again now I realize no not quiet, tense. For instance, this sartorial sorrow:
If we had lived a hundred years, I’d say
give me washed leather, milliners’ pins,
Battenburg lace looped in orange silk.
Let me learn the politics of exclusion–
six hundred threads to the inch. In place
of island chic, a native’s pretend servility,
I’d dress to show that sorrow can harden
into a surface more starched than any collar,
more formal than the pleats of a skirt
as its hem dusts a dim corridor. It sets.
It makes creases I’ll never press out. READ MORE >
Nick Antosca—
So, wow, Yale just announced $150,ooo literary prizes that’ll be awarded starting in about a year and a half. Endowed by the late writer Donald Windham, who “specifically requested that writers with no academic affiliation be considered.” Here’s hoping prizes go to some surprising (in a good way) recipients.
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Got a manuscript? Enter a contest.
Les Figues Press is having a contest. Find out more about here. 1k + publication. All entrants get a free TrenchArt book of their choice. And there are many good choices.
Win Limited Edition Prints from There is No Year
Pardon the shameless self post, but it’ll be quick: Harper Perennial has agreed to give away framed, original limited edition prints of three images created by Justin Dodd that appear in There is No Year (examples of which are above). There are two ways one can win:
(1) The book includes information of the odd deaths of certain young celebrities. An example: “Rainer Werner Fassbinder died with a cigarette in his mouth and blood pouring from one nostril.” Comment here with some kind of information of this sort about a person that doesn’t appear in the book, also in one sentence.
(2) Take a picture of yourself close to a mirror holding the book and put it somewhere online, then post a link here.
Three winners will be selected (1 or 2 by choice from the death facts, 1 or 2 at random from the pictures) to received a framed edition of one print of any image in the book, your choice, or I will choose for you. Others chosen at random from the celeb facts may receive a copy of the book.
Winners be selected this Sunday.
Thanks for the indulgence.
No Rapture But Plenty of Freaks
From Jamie Iredell:
Thanks to everyone who submitted something for a free copy of Freaks!
The winners, selected by Roxane Gay and Mike Young, are:
“Ain’t Saying She’s a Grave Digger” by “joe bloe”
“The West Coast” by “Frank Tas, the Raptor”
“VAG” by “barry”
“Pets” by “Tyler Gobble”
Get me your contact info (email me at jamieiredell [at] gmail [dot] com) and I’ll mail you a(some) book(s) and other bullshit.
All of the entries were awesome, awesomely funny and disturbed. They made my week. Below one can read the winners’ entries. These entries do not reflect the opinions of HTMLGIANT or of Jamie Iredell and remain the sole property of the authors. These are caveats. Caveats remain.
Read the winning entries after the jump:
dull, humourless, uptight, inhibited, mindless, depressing, boring and swaggering
1. Amazing Herzog interview in GQ. You should read this:
I’ve always been suspicious. I don’t even look into my face. I shaved this morning, and I look at my cheeks so that I don’t cut myself, but I don’t even want to know the color of my eyes. I think psychology and self-reflection is one of the major catastrophes of the twentieth century. A major, major mistake. And it’s only one of the mistakes of the twentieth century, which makes me think that the twentieth century in its entirety was a mistake.
If an actor knows how to milk a cow, I always know it will not be difficult to be in business with him.
I think there should be holy war against yoga classes.
11. Interesting thoughts on biography in this review of Avraham Shlonsky.
7. American Short Fiction short-short contest ends in 4 days. Send.
12. Photo montage of writers posing with their typewriters. What is a typewriter?
13. Cathy Day with an interesting post about linked story collections and how to teach such a thing.
What is a novel-in-stories? A linked collection? A story cycle? I find it hard to make distinctions between these terms. Instead, I think of it this way: On one end of the prose spectrum is the traditional linear novel. On the other end is the collection of disparate stories. Linked stories exist on the narrative spectrum between “novel” and “story collection,” and they are unique and valid formal artifacts.
Giving Away the Freaks
Jamie Iredell is giving away his killer new book, the weird faux-encyclopedia of trash talk and straight talk: The Book of Freaks. Here follows the scheme from Jamie himself — MY
“I want to give away some copies of The Book of Freaks.
I’m thinking that the most entertaining way I might achieve this is to have other people write their own entries to The Book of Freaks.
For examples, some of the entries that I wrote can be found
at Hobart
at the2ndhand
at PANK
at Robot Melon (x2)
at Mad Hatter’s Review
at Servinghouse
Write your freakish entry. It can be about anything you damn well please. Post your entry in the comments here. Entries will be judged by Roxane Gay and Mike Young. Three winners and a runner-up will be selected to receive a signed copy of the book and some other junk that I decide to send your way.” Post your comment entries by Thursday May 12th.