Fair Winds Press was originally founded in 2001 as part of the Rockport Publishing Group. Fair Winds focuses on providing readers with authoritative and accessible information that helps them live “a healthier life, both physically and spiritually.” This sounds specific but actually covers a wide range of topics including but not limited to triathlon training, eliminating meat from your diet, gentle parenting, and witchcraft.

You can get a good feel for what they publish here.

Their covers seem excellent and market appropriate. Their distribution is good.

They have recently added a mandatory submission agreement, that you can see here, that some writers find alarming. It is certainly more formal than any disclaimer I’ve encountered before, but the contents itself are very similar. Please read it carefully before submitting.

You can see their imprint page here. Their submission guidelines are now listed with the rest of Quarto Publishing’s guidelines here.

Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2021 Guide to Manuscript Publishers.

L=Y=R=A plans to publish a bimonthly journal, as well as “Snippses” and “Vonires” on a rolling basis. “Snippses” are “anything vaguely language related” such as thoughts, found snippets, dreams, diagrams, and micro essays. “Vonires” are made-up words, accompanied by definitions.

L=Y=R=A accepts a wide range of experimental writing—fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and plays—as well as artwork. Right now, they’re seeking submissions for their inaugural issue. Authors may submit up to five pieces totaling 5,000 words in any genre. Visual artists may submit up to ten pieces.

Authors submitting to “Snippses” should include “Snippses” in the subject line of the submission email. Submissions to “Snippses” can be broad, and the editors enjoy receiving unusual content that wouldn’t otherwise be included in the journal. For more information, you can visit this page. “Snippses” will be published on a rolling basis.

Authors submitting to “Vonires” should include “Vox” in the subject line of the submission email. Submission to “Vonires” should include a made-up word along with a definition and a paragraph about its etymology. For more information, you can visit this page. “Vonires” will be published daily.

L=Y=R=A accepts submissions via email, not online or by post. They accept simultaneous submissions, but they do not accept previously published work.

L=Y=R=A only accepts submissions that follow the guidelines they’ve posted online. Please read these guidelines in full before submitting.

If you would like to learn more or submit to L=Y=R=A, please visit their website here.

Bio: Ella Peary is the pen name for an author, editor, creative writing mentor, and submission consultant. Over the past five years, she’s written hundreds of articles for Authors Publish, and she’s also served as a copywriter and copy editor for a wide range of organizations and individuals. She is the author of The Quick Start Guide to Flash Fiction. She occasionally teaches a course on flash fiction. You can contact her at ellapeary@gmail.com.

The Dow Jones News Fund 

The Dow Jones News Fund invites college students to apply for paid summer internships in audience engagement, business reporting, data journalism, digital media and multiplatform editing. The News Fund will select college journalists for internships with more than 70 newsrooms across the US (see eligibility requirements here – scroll down). Those selected will also benefit from week-long, pre-internship training, $1,500 scholarships, memberships to journalism groups and access to the DJNF alumni network for jobs and mentoring.

Deadline is November 14, 2022. For details, go here.

Gotham Writers Scriptwriting scholarships

The Gotham Scriptwriting Scholarship is open to people of color who have an interest in writing scripts for movies, TV shows, or plays. Any level of experience is fine. All they ask is the desire to write scripts. Three scholarships will be offered. Each scholarship includes: the latest version of the Final Draft scriptwriting software; two 10-week script-related courses of the writer’s choosing; two intensives of the writer’s choosing; and one 12-hour mentorship, after the writer has completed at least one 10-week course. Acceptance is open to all people of color, age 18 and up. At least one spot will be rewarded to a Black applicant. Once accepted, Gotham will do a consultation to help guide the writer with their initial course selection. There is no time limit on when all the courses must be completed.

Deadline is November 15, 2022. For details, go here.

Stephen Fraser Encouragement Fund 

The Impact and Legacy Fund has announced the Stephen Fraser Encouragement Fund which will provide three grants of $2,000 each to children’s book authors, artists or translators who have traditionally published at least one book. It is supported Stephen Fraser, an editor and an agent at The Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency. His clients have won various prestigious awards. He hopes this fund will “spoil its recipients with encouragement,” combating the reality of rejections, financial hardships or emotional discouragement. The aim of the fund is to help create an environment of support in which creative people can flourish. The grants have no strings attached and may be used however the recipient sees fit.

Deadline is November 15, 2022. For details, go here.

Writers’ Conference Scholarships

Scholarships are being offered for first-time participants of the 29th Annual Winter Poetry & Prose Getaway writers’ conference scheduled for January 13-16, 2023. Recipients may choose from workshops in fiction, memoir, creative nonfiction, poetry and more. In addition to workshops, the conference also offers plentiful writing time, readings, open mics, yoga and dancing at the Getaway Disco.

There are two different types of scholarships available:

1. The Toni Brown Memorial Scholarship will offer three scholarships to poets or writers aged 31 and over.

2. The Robert Hayden Scholarship will fund three poets or writers between the ages of 18 and 30. At least two of these scholarships will be awarded to poets or writers of color.

Deadline is November 15, 2022. For details, go here.

Africa Writes Day: Writing Workshop: Performing Your Poetry

This is an event at the Birmingham Literature Festival 2022, at Birmingham. It is a workshop by the outgoing Birmingham Poet Laureate, Casey Bailey, to learn how to approach reading and performing your poetry to an audience. Writers should bring a poem they want to work on, to play with tempo, volume, emotion and intonation. For poets of all levels of experience, including beginners. The program date is November 19, 2022, from 2.30 p.m. to 4.30 p.m.

The event costs £10 but bursaries are available for West Midland based writers – see here. To apply for a bursary place, please send a short paragraph of information about your circumstances to Olivia Chapman on: olivia@writingwestmidlands.org. They don’t require financial records nor any statement from a government agency. For bursary details, go here.

ECW Press BIPOC Writers Mentorship Program

This 4-month mentorship program is part of ECW’s commitment to promote diverse and inclusive voices in books. The goal of this program is to find and nurture up-and-coming writers from BIPOC communities and equip them with tools and information to navigate the industry, submission process, and publishing process. The program is only open to writers who have never published a book and are currently living in Canada.  (Note: they also have paid positions for freelance editors).

Deadline is November 30, 2022. For details, go here.

Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop

Eligible writers are invited to apply to the inaugural edition of the Idembeka Creative Writing Workshop. Selected writers will be notified via email.  The workshop will be held virtually, and it will run from the 9th to the 13th of January 2023. Only writers with three or fewer publications are eligible to apply (self-publication is excluded from this restriction). Entrants must be African. Also, they must be currently resident in an African country; writers who are serious about writing creatively; and emerging writers who intend to take the writing workshops seriously.

Deadline is November 30, 2022. For details, go here.

12 x 12 2023 Scholarship Program

Three scholarships will be awarded in each of the following two categories: financial need; and authors of diverse ethnic, cultural, and/or other backgrounds underrepresented in the canon of children’s picture book literature. Scholarship recipients will receive full membership tuition for the Little GOLDen Book level ($357) for 2023 and FREE access ($297) to The Complete Picture Book Submissions System. If you qualify for both scholarships, you may apply for both scholarships, but you can only win one. Please send a separate submission for each scholarship following the respective instructions.

Deadline is November 30, 2022. For details, go here.

The Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers

The Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers is an annual contest for poets who are sophomores and juniors in high school. The poems by the winner and runners-up will be published in the Kenyon Review, and the winner receives a full scholarship to the Kenyon Review Young Writers workshop. Please submit only one poem to the contest. Only unpublished work will be considered for the prize. Submissions submitted simultaneously to the contest and other publishing opportunities cannot be considered.

Deadline is November 30, 2022. For details, go here.

SCBWI Grants

The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) has announced the following opportunities for their members:

1. The Independently Published Pre-publication Grant is awarded annually and provides $2,500 to help off-set the price of self-publishing. Winners will be announced on January 20, 2023. Details here.

2. The Spark Award is an annual award that recognizes excellence in a children’s book published through a non-traditional publishing route. The Spark winner will receive a $1,000 cash prize. The winner and honor recipients (if applicable) will receive: Spark seals to display on their book, the opportunity to teach a digital workshop about their publishing journey, the chance to be featured in the SCBWI online bookstore and publicized through SCBWI social networking sites. The winners will also get the opportunity to attend any conference of their choice tuition-free (other than for extras such as critiques and intensives). Details here.

Both opportunities have November 30, 2022 as the deadline.

Fees-Free Entry for the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition 2022

In a social justice initiative, the Munster Literature Centre is offering free entries of two poems each for thirty poets currently residing in a developing country (Africa, Central and South America, South East Asia, the Philippines, in the main) who do not have the financial means to pay the entrance fee for this year’s Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition. The places are offered on a trust basis. If you can afford the fee, please do not use this facility as you will be depriving someone who really needs it.

Deadline is November 30, 2022. For details, go here.

The Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry

The Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry is awarded annually to an African poet who has not yet published a collection of poetry. The winner receives $1000 and book publication through the University of Nebraska Press and Amalion Press in Senegal. The Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets will only accept “first book” submissions from African writers who have not published a book-length poetry collection. This includes self-published books if they were sold online, in stores, or at readings. Writers who have edited and published an anthology or a similar collection of other writers’ work remain eligible. An “African writer” is taken to mean someone who was born in Africa, who is a national or resident of an African country, or whose parents are African. Only poetry submissions in English can be considered. Work translated from another language to English is accepted, but a percentage of the prize will be awarded to the translator.

Deadline is December 1, 2022. For details, go here.

The RSL Ondaatje Prize 2023

The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) Ondaatje Prize is an annual award of £10,000 for a distinguished book of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place. Books may be entered only by trade publishers based in the UK or RoI. Each publisher, or imprint of a publisher, may enter one book only and up to three call-in titles. Authors may not enter themselves. All prize winners also receive a paperweight clock, which they are awarded at a celebratory dinner.

Deadline is December 2, 2022. For details, go here.

The New York Times Newsroom Fellowship Program

The New York Times Fellowship is a paid, one-year work program aimed at cultivating the next generation of journalists. The fellowship represents a unique opportunity to do great journalism for The Times. It incorporates speakers, feedback and training opportunities. The program’s goal is to benefit not only the participants and The Times, but also other newsrooms. They expect most of their fellows will graduate to positions around the country and world. The program incorporates reporters, editors, and visual journalists across a range of departments.

Please note, “Applicants must be authorized to work in the United States. Applicants to positions in London must be authorized to work in the United Kingdom. We will not sponsor new work visas for the fellowship, but we may consider you if you have an existing work visa or a valid student visa that can be extended via Optional Practical Training.”

Deadline is December 2, 2022. For details, go here.

The Kemper Human Rights Education Foundation’s 2022 Essay Contest For High School Students

This year the Kemper Human Rights Education Foundation (khref.org) is offering first, second, and third place prizes of $3000, $1500, and $750 to high school students judged to have written the best answers to the following question: “Respect for human rights seems to be eroding in many countries. Do you agree?  If so, provide examples and explain what you think is the major cause of the problem and how it should be addressed?  If you disagree, explain the reason you disagree.”

There are two contests: one for students in the U.S. and one for students who are citizens and residents of other countries. Essays will be judged according to how well they answer the question posed and the extent to which they are supported by research.

Deadline is December 10, 2022. For details, go here.

Self-Editing Your Novel Course Bursary

With thanks to tutors Debi Alper and Emma Darwin, Jericho Writers are able to offer a fully-funded place for an under-represented writer on their most popular tutored course – Self Editing Your Novel. This six-week online course will give you self-editing skills you need for your novel, before pitching to agents, or self-publishing. Every applicant for the Self-Editing Your Novel Course bursary will also be considered for a free annual membership to Jericho Writers. They give out a minimum of three free memberships for each bursary course application – that’s a total of twelve free memberships – each year. To be eligible, an applicant must have a finished draft of a novel, be available for the dates included in the six-week ‘Self-Edit Your Novel’, and be an underrepresented writer.

Deadline is December 18, 2022. For details, go here.

Howard G. Buffett Fund for Women Journalists – Rolling Deadline

Promoting the work and advancing the role of women and nonbinary journalists in the news media across the globe is critical to transparency and a diversity of voices. The Howard G. Buffett Fund for Women Journalists, the first funding initiative of its kind, enables the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) to dramatically expand its support of women journalists. Established with a $4 million gift from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, the Fund will support projects including educational opportunities, investigative reporting and media development initiatives. The Fund for Women Journalists accepts applications on a rolling basis. Applications may take up to 6 weeks to process.

For details, go here.

The 2023 Penguin Random House Creative Writing Awards 

Public high school seniors in the United States are invited to apply to win one of five $10,000 awards in the following categories: the Michelle Obama Award for Memoir; the Amanda Gorman Award for Poetry; the Maya Angelou Award for Spoken Word; fiction/drama; and NYC entrant award. See the eligibility and award information here.

The deadline is February 1, 2023, 3:00 pm CT—or when 1,000 applications have been received. For details, go here.

Bio: NmaHassan Muhammad is a 2022 Ebedi Fellow and a regular contributor to the Authors Publish magazine. He was longlisted for the 2022 African Writers Awards and Wakini Kuria Prize which he feels has honored the memory of his son, Abdullateef Hamood. NmaHassan  writes from Minna, Nigeria. He tweets @NmaHassanM

As writers, we’re constantly bombarded with new and enticing ideas. Although it can be tempting to drop any other project we’ve already begun working on to focus on a new project — that can lead to a routine of abandoning your current work in progress in favor of whatever idea is freshest in your mind.

That doesn’t necessarily mean working on multiple projects is a bad thing. There are a lot of benefits to having these different creative outlets; however, it’s important to understand how it’s helpful and the pitfalls to avoid when you’re considering developing not just a second but a third or fourth story concept.

The Benefits

One of the best aspects of managing multiple writing projects at the same time is that it keeps your creative juices flowing. Whether it’s novels, short stories, flash fiction or a combination of mediums, if you get stuck, you have a back-up project to work on. For novel writers, especially, having a side project can be therapeutic when you’ve hit writer’s block. It helps you maintain your writing routine because you’re still showing up, and your brain can work through a different set of challenges. That space away from your main project will hopefully help you cultivate answers or motivation that you can bring back to that story.

This strategy works best though when you’re in different writing stages. If you’re starting both ideas from scratch, it can be trickier to switch between projects because you’re pulling from the same creative well. But if you’re halfway through a draft of a novel and want to start plotting a new idea, or if you’re knee-deep in edits and missing drafting something new, keeping that as a side project will help you from getting frustrated with the phase you’re at with your main project.

A lot of writers find success with this, particularly when there’s a degree of separation between the projects. Outside of being at a different phase, if the projects are in unrelated mediums or genres, that can help provide a further level of distinction. Especially if you’re a mood or vibe writer, having projects that evoke alternative writing styles can help you maintain your focus on whatever story you’re currently working on.

What it really comes down to is giving your muse permission to create. If you set too rigid restrictions around what you’re writing and how, it can be trickier to work through any challenges because you don’t have anything to distract you or expand your imagination.

Pitfalls & How To Avoid Them

There are still things to consider when it comes to working on multiple projects, however. At a certain point, working on too many stories will keep you from making adequate progress on any draft. Setting a limit to the number of side projects you’re working on at once is one way to ensure you’re not drowning in works of progress. Balancing two projects at once is the most sustainable, although some authors will juggle up to three. While I certainly wouldn’t recommend writing any more than that at one time, if you’re also not trying to write three novels all at once — that’s an easier workload to swing.

Another problem writers encounter with multiple projects is a lack of prioritization. If all of your projects are on equal footing, it can be hard to establish attainable goals around one project. At a certain point, it’s going to make your life easier if you can choose one story to give the bulk of your energy to finishing and keeping the other idea simmering on the back burner. You can always return and give it a good stir, but this way you’re not getting burnt out on both stories at once.

Too often when writers are working on multiple projects at the same time that are both long-form or similar genres, the writer will get bored or stuck and look to develop another side project to help distract them from whatever is currently on their plate. If you’re constantly jumping ship for the next shiny idea, you’re using side projects as a way of procrastination, and avoiding your unfinished projects won’t help you actually finish anything.

This is why it’s important to be selective in choosing what you’re side project is. If you’re working on one fantasy novel and you have an idea for a YA fantasy story as well as a contemporary story, it might make more sense for you to shelve the second fantasy idea and develop the contemporary idea.

Of course, if you’re a writer who prefers to focus on one project at a time, you know what’s best for your writing routine. But if you’ve been toying with a certain idea and have been worried about how it’ll impact the progress you’re making on your primary project — consider the side story as a way to supplement your writing energy and a further investment in your craft.

Bio: Aliya Bree Hall is a freelance journalist and writer based in Portland, Ore. She is currently editing her first novel, an adult F|F science fantasy. When she’s not writing, she’s hosting Sapphic Stories Bookclub (and Other Queer Tales) or cohosting the podcast Shit We Wrote.