Dzanc Books/CNC DISQUIET International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal - July 1-13, 2012
Contest/Scholarships
DISQUIET 2012 Contest and Scholarship Announcement
The DISQUIET International Literary Program is proud to announce the winners of its 2012 International Literature Award and its scholarships for North American writers of Luso descent:
1. The International Literature Award seeks to honor the best submission of work by a North American writer that broadens the landscape of American literature outside of the borders of North America. The ILA partner is Guernica, which will publish the winning entry. The final judge was Colson Whitehead. The winner will also receive airfare*, accommodations, and a full tuition waiver to attend DISQUIET 2012 in Lisbon. Finalists, semi-finalists, and other distinguished entries will be offered partial scholarships to attend DISQUIET as well.
Winner:
“American Nurse” by Kaitlin Solimine
Although raised in New England, Kaitlin Solimine has considered China a second home for almost two decades. While an undergraduate, she was named a Harvard-Yenching scholar at Beijing University and later received a Fulbright Fellowship to China. She wrote and edited Let's Go: China (St. Martin's Press) and is finishing her first novel, Empire of Glass—an early draft was short-listed for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. She was the Donald E. Axinn Scholar in Fiction at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in 2010 and graduated in 2011 from the MFA program in writing at UC-San Diego.
Finalists:
“The Mad Gasser of Mattoon” by Brendan Bowles
“Man Smart / Woman Smarter” by David Garvin
“Gold” by Lindsay Merbaum
“Spirit of Gravity” by Jim Ruland
“The Fragrant Smoke of Aspand Seeds” by J. Kevin Shushtari
“Do You Realize?” by Tess Wheelwright
“Pilgrims to a Vanishing River” by Sarah Wetzel
“Monumental” by Monika Zobel
2. Scholarships for North American Writers of Luso descent. Through a partnership with the Luso-American Development Foundation, DISQUIET offers three full scholarships for writers to participate in the “Writing the Luso Experience” workshop**. Winners receive airfare, accommodations, and a full tuition waiver to DISQUIET 2012 in Lisbon. They were selected by a panel of Luso-American writers and Dzanc Books editors.
Winners:
Sarah Chaves is a nonfiction writer currently working on her memoir entitled Don' Be Scare'. Four years ago, on the island of Sao Jorge, Azores, her father died in a car accident, three days before the family would return to their home in the U.S. Since that day, Sarah's father's death has marked her and changed her. She hopes that this memoir will serve as a reminder to her and her family that death can tear open the cracks within a family structure, but it can also build a new foundation. She hopes to see her memoir put a stamp on the American literary world, but to also see one in the Portuguese community as well. Once her memoir is published, she hopes to have it translated into Portuguese so that all of her family, in the U.S. and in the Azores, may read it.
Jarita Davis is a poet and fiction writer who earned a B.A. in classics from Brown University and both an M.A. and a Ph.D. in creative writing from the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. She was recently the writer in residence at the Nantucket Historical Association and has received fellowships from the Mellon Mayes program, Cave Canem, and Hedgebrook. In addition, she was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Travel Research Grant as well as Neiheisel Phi Beta Kappa Award. Her work has appeared in the Southwestern Review, Historic Nantucket, Cave Canem Anthologies, and is forthcoming in the Crab Orchard Review. Her most recent project, There Should Be More Water, is a cycle of poems that focuses upon Cape Verdean and Cape Verdean-American culture. Her collaboration with linoleum-cut print artist, Alexandra Huttinger has been exhibited in galleries in Lafayette, LA, Washington, D.C. and Nantucket, MA.
Megan Fernandes is a PhD candidate in English at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a current poetry MFA student at Boston University. Her poems have been published in Upstairs at Duroc and Media Fields: Science and Scale. She is the poetry editor of the anthology Strangers in Paris (Tightrope Books) and is the author of two chapbooks, Organ Speech (Corrupt Press) and Some Citrus Makes me Blue (Dancing Girl Press). She was recently named the recipient of the 2012 "Writer's Room in Boston" Fellowship in Poetry.
Congratulations to all our scholarship winners and the contest winners and finalists!
The DISQUIET Team @ Dzanc Books
*Airfare costs are covered up to $1,000USD.
**Originally the competition intended to award four full scholarships, but changes in funding for the program required the reduction.
Don't Forget:
We are still accepting applications for the Disquiet International Literary Program and will continue to do so on a rolling basis until the program begins in July. Don't forget to apply early to secure a place in the workshop of your choice! The application is here.
2012 Contest Guidelines:
FINAL JUDGE: Colson Whitehead
Please note: The deadline for the contest has been extended to February 8, 2012!
The charge went that American literature is too insular, that it’s neither concerned with nor does it engage the outside world. The critic was the Secretary of the Swedish Academy that decides the Nobel Prize. You can be sure that Canadian literature was lumped in there as well. We’re afraid that, to a degree, he was right.
Also, of course, in many ways he was wrong. Maybe a certain stripe of North American literature is too insular. Maybe a certain stripe does not engage the outside world. But the rivulets of work that do engage and which are anything but insular—these rivulets run deep.
The ILP hopes to encourage this tradition with its annual contest, which seeks to award the author of the winning entry airfare, accommodations, and tuition to the Disquiet program in Lisbon, Portugal in 2012 AND publication of the winning piece in the magazine of art and politics Guernica. Finalists and other entrants deemed to be of the highest quality will be offered partial tuition scholarships and may be considered for publication.
What to submit: We wish to cast the net wide in our definition of eligible entries. Work of any genre (poetry, fiction, nonfiction) that broadens the landscape of North American literature outside of the borders of North America is eligible. Examples of eligible entries, to give you an idea, might include a poem about a Hungarian grandmother; an essay based on your time in some foreign land--maybe travel writing, maybe more conventional journalism, maybe something in between; a short story featuring a North American abroad a la, perhaps, Paul Bowles... But these should not be read as sign posts. We wish to be surprised. In general, if your work flies in the face of this charge of insularity, submit it.
Eligibility: Entries must be in English. Writers must live or have lived in Canada or the United States but need not necessarily be citizens or permanent residents. Entries may not be previously published.
Length: One entry may include three poems or a single prose piece up to thirty double-spaced pages in length. Multiple entries must be accompanied by multiple reading fees. Poets wishing to submit more than three poems may do so by including additional reading fees. Prose submissions more than thirty pages are ineligible.
Judging: The final judge is Colson Whitehead:
Colson Whitehead is the author of The Intuitionist (2000), John Henry Days (2001), The Colossus of New York (2003) Apex Hides the Hurt (2006), Sag Harbor (2009) and the forthcoming Zone One (Oct. 2011). John Henry Days was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Fiction Award, and the Pulitzer Prize, and received the Young Lions Fiction Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. Apex Hides the Hurt was a recipient of the PEN/Oakland Award. His reviews, essays, and fiction have appeared in publications including the New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Harper’s and Granta. Colson Whitehead has received a MacArthur Fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, and a fellowship at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.
Reading fee: $15USD (Checks made payable to Dzanc Books; if check is drawn in Canadian funds, please use converter here for the proper amount.) Reading fee may be applied to ILP tuition in the event entrant does not win.
Deadline: Extended! Postmark or electronic mail date stamp of February 8, 2012.
How to enter:
By regular mail: Send the entry and the reading fee, to one of the following addresses
Dzanc Books
ILP International Literature Award
1334 Woodbourne Street
Westland, MI 48186
USA
Electronically:
Save your entry in Rich Text Format (RTF).
Fill out the online application.
Questions: disquietinternational@gmail.com
*In the event that a winner is not chosen, all entrants will receive refunds in full on their entry fees. Though unlikely, the ILP reserves the right to award the winner a cash prize of $1,000USD in lieu of the ILP related prize (airfare, accommodations, and tuition).
Scholarships
A collaboration between Dzanc Books and the Luso-American Development Foundation (FLAD) has made possible four full scholarships for writers of Luso descent from North America to attend the ILP in Lisbon in 2012.
To be eligible for the scholarship, entrants must be residents of the United States or Canada who have a genealogical link to a Lusophone country.
The four winners will receive airfare, accommodations, and full tuition to the 2012 ILP in Lisbon to attend Frank Gaspar’s multi-genre workshop “Writing the Luso Experience” with other writers from Portugal and North America.** Runners-up will be offered partial tuition scholarships.
What to submit: 1) A 250-word statement about your background and what the scholarship would mean to you. 2) A maximum ten page writing sample in any genre (poetry, ficion, nonfiction).
Reading fee: $20USD (Checks made payable to Dzanc Books; if check is drawn in Canadian funds, please use converter here for the proper amount.) Reading fee may be applied to ILP tuition in the event entrant does not win.
Deadline: Postmark or electronic mail date stamp of Jan. 31, 2012.
How to enter:
By snail mail: Send the entry and the reading fee to
Dzanc Books
ILP Scholarship for Writers of Luso Descent
511 Avenue of the Americas
#023
New York, NY 10011
USA
Electronically:
Save your entry in Rich Text Format (RTF).
Fill out the online application.
**In the event that a winner is not chosen, all entrants will receive refunds in full on their entry fees. This prize is contingent on funding allotments from FLAD and while it is unlikely it is possible that the number or the amount of individual awards may be reduced. In this eventuality winners will be notified in advance.
Questions: disquietinternational@gmail.com
