upcoming fiction/non-fiction contests

9/1: Happy Tales Literary Contest http://www.bookfest-mt.org/happy.htm
Recommended free contest offers $200 and a trophy cup for the best literary parody providing an alternate happy ending to a well-known tragic work of fiction or drama. Sponsored by the Montana Festival of the Book. Entries should be no more than 10 double-spaced pages. Submit by mail or email.

9/15: Family Circle Fiction Contest
http://www.familycircle.com/fc/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/fc/story/data/1151279216376.xml
Recommended free contest offers top prize of $750 for short fiction up to 2,500 words. Entrants must be US residents, aged 21+. Family Circle is a women's magazine with articles about parenting, health, cooking, crafts, relationships, and family travel.

9/15: Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize
http://www.graywolfpress.org/Company_Info/Submission_Guidelines/
Graywolf_Press_Nonfiction_Prize_Submission_Guidelines/127/
Highly recommended free contest from major literary publisher offers $12,000 for the best full-length manuscript of creative nonfiction by a US resident with no more than two published books in that genre. Entries should be 175-400 double-spaced pages.

9/22: Bronx Writers' Center - Chapter One Fiction Competition
New York City residents aged 18+ offers up to four prizes of $1,000 and a public reading. Send the first chapter of your unpublished novel or work-in-progress, maximum 20 double-spaced pages, plus 250-word synopsis.
www.bronxarts.org

9/30: Iowa Short Fiction Prize http://www.uiowa.edu/uiowapress/prize-rules.htm
Uof Iowas seeks a manuscript of short fiction (150 pages minimum) by an author who has not previously published a book of prose fiction in English. (Books in other genres or languages, and self-published books, do not disqualify you.) Prize is publication under a standard royalty contract.

9/30: Jerry Jazz Musician Fiction Contest
http://www.jerryjazzmusician.com/mainHTML.cfm?page=fictioncontest.html
prize of $200 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, 2006. Publishing date will be November 1, 2006.
Please submit your story by September 30, 2006 via Word or Acrobat attachment to jm@jerryjazz.com. 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.

9/30: L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Contest
http://www.writersofthefuture.com/
Recommended free contest for emerging writers of short science fiction, fantasy and horror offers quarterly prizes of $1,000 plus an annual $4,000 grand prize for one of the four winners. Send only one story per quarter, maximum 17,000 words. See website for eligibility rules. [they're really long & the website is REALLY poorly designed - don't say I didn't warn you!]

9/30: Vanity Fair Essay Contest
http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/pressroom2/
$15,000 and a one-week stay at the Santa Maddalena writers' colony in Donnini, Italy, for the best essay on an annual theme concerning the contemporary American character. The contest is open to US residents aged 18+. Vanity Fair is a well-known glossy magazine focusing on celebrities, cultural trends and politics. Send one essay, 1,500 words maximum, by email only. 2006 theme is: "What is reality to Americans today? And did we ever have a grasp of it?"