Gerstler, Gordon to judge 2012 contests

Amy Gerstler & Jaimy Gordon

THE TUSCULUM REVIEW 2012 PRIZE IN FICTION:  JAIMY GORDON

Jaimy Gordon is best known as a fiction writer and is the 2010 National Book Award winner for her novel, Lord of Misrule. She is the author of three previous novels, Shamp of the City-SoloShe Drove Without Stopping, and Bogeywoman, which was on the Los Angeles Times‘ list of Best Fiction of 2000. She writes short fiction, poems, and essays,  which have appeared in the Colorado ReviewMissouri Review, Ploughshares, Antioch ReviewMichigan Quarterly ReviewPoetry International, and many other places, such as Best American Short Stories. She also translates the fiction of Maria Beig from the German, most recently Hermine, an Animal Life. Gordon has been a Fellow of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and the Bunting (now Radcliffe) Institute at Harvard. In 1991 she received an Academy-Institute Award for her fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Born in Baltimore, she now lives in Kalamazoo, and teaches at Western Michigan University and in the Prague Summer Program for Writers.

THE TUSCULUM REVIEW 2012 PRIZE IN POETRY:  AMY GERSTLER

Amy Gerstler is a writer of poetry, nonfiction and journalism. Her book Dearest Creature (Penguin 2009) was named a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year, and was short listed for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry. Her previous twelve books include Ghost Girl, Medicine, Crown of Weeds, which won a California Book Award, Nerve Storm, and Bitter Angel, which won a National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry. Her work has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including The New Yorker, Paris Review, American Poetry Review, several volumes of Best American Poetry and The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry. She was the guest editor of the anthology Best American Poetry 2010.

2012 CONTEST GUIDELINES—FICTION & POETRY

The prize is $1,000 and publication.

The deadline is March 15, 2012 (postmarked).

Send contest submissions to:
The Tusculum Review
P.O. Box 5113
60 Shiloh Road
Greeneville, TN 37743.

Mark envelopes:  “FICTION CONTEST” or “POETRY CONTEST.”

The entry fee is $15 per manuscript. We accept checks and money orders made payable to The Tusculum Review.

Each manuscript entered should consist of no more than twenty-five pages of fiction or no more than five poems (we will allow up to 10 pages total of poetry).  You may enter more than one manuscript and/or more than one genre contest (as long as you include a $15 reading fee with each contest submission).

Please send a cover letter with your contest entry.  The cover letter should include the title(s) of your entry, genre of the work—fiction or poetry—your name, postal address, phone number, and e-mail address. Please do NOT include your name on your actual submission.

Previously published stories (including web publications) are not permitted for submission.

Entry fees include a one-year subscription to The Tusculum Review (an annual publication) and consideration for publication. We consider all works submitted for publication.

Manuscripts will not be returned; they will, instead, be recycled.

The judges for the 2012 prizes will be Jaimy Gordon for fiction and Amy Gerstler for poetry. Family, friends, and previous students of the judges, or those with reciprocal professional relationships with the judges, will be disqualified from the contest. Submissions will be screened by the staff of The Tusculum Review, and finalists (one short story manuscript and one poem from each poetry finalist’s manuscript) will be forwarded for judging.

Manuscripts will be numbered, and all names on the manuscripts will be removed before they are read and work is presented to the judges. In the event that judges do not deem any submissions worthy of the prize, The Tusculum Review reserves the right to extend the call for manuscripts or to cancel the award.

All contestants will receive the 2012 issue of The Tusculum Review and a letter listing the winner and finalists. The new issue will be mailed to all contest entrants before June 1, 2012. The winners and finalists will be listed on The Tusculum Review companion website.