Nonfiction Archives • Page 5 of 23 • Eckleburg

December 12, 2015July 19, 2017

Submit to The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review

Please Check Out Our Free Submissions Guidelines Workshop

**Purchase a copy of Eckleburg No. 19 and submit to Eckleburg while supporting your favorite contributor!**

GS AWARD SUBMISSIONS OPEN

ECKLEBURG BOOK CLUB OPEN

SELFIE INTERVIEWS OPEN

“It’s a fantastic issue. The most exciting and adventurous and gutsiest new magazine I’ve seen in years.” Stephen Dixon

“Refreshing… edgy… classic… compelling.” Flavorwire

“Progressive….” NewPages

“Eye-grabbing… fun… bold… inviting… exemplary.” Sabotage

Listed among Wigleaf’s Top 50 (Very) Short Fictions 2012

“Eclectic selection of work from both emerging and established writers….” The Washington Post

“Literary Burroughs D.C…. the journal cleverly takes its name from the The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald….” Ploughshares

Proud member of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses.

Supporter of VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts.

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NOTICE BOARD

READ. If you plan to submit work to The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review, please read the journal first. Read not just one story but several. Eckleburg is eclectic, literary mainstream to innovative. There’s no way to sum us up in one story or even a single issue. SUBMISSION PHILOSOPHY. At Eckleburg, we recognize that writers grow in their crafts the more they read and write. If we do not accept your submission, it does not mean we will not accept a later submission. We do sometimes give personal feedback on declined submissions, though, this is not often, and should not discourage you from submitting to us again. We simply receive too many submissions to provide personalized feedback to everyone. FUNDRAISERS. During the winter and summer months, Eckleburg will shut down regular submissions and offer our SUBMITTERS ARE READERS FUNDRAISER where submitters/readers can support Eckleburg‘s nonprofit mission by purchasing a print or digital copy while submitting. Thank you to our submitters, readers and contributors for your support of Eckleburg. We are honored to have you.

FICTION

We accept previously unpublished and polished prose up to 8,000 words year round, unless announced otherwise. We are always looking for tightly woven short works under 2,000 words and short-shorts around 500 words. No multiple submissions but simultaneous is fine as long as you withdraw the submission asap through the submissions system. Please do not email the editors to withdraw your submission. The submissions link is at the bottom of this page. Please check out our free “Submissions Guidelines Workshop” prior to submitting.

Note: We consider fiction (and poetry) that has appeared in print, online magazines, public forums, and public access blogs as being published. Rarely do we accept anything already published and then only by solicitation. Once the piece is published in Eckleburg, the author is welcome to re-publish the work anywhere and everywhere. In these cases, we ask that the original publication be credited each time to The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review. One rare exception is our annual Gertrude Stein Award, which allows for submissions of previously published work.

ANNUAL GERTRUDE STEIN AWARD IN FICTION

1st Prize $1000 and publication. Accepting entries year round. Eligibility: All stories in English no more than 8,000 words are eligible. No minimum word count. Stories published previously in print or online venues are eligible if published after January 1, 2011. Stories can be submitted by authors, editors, publishers, and agents. Simultaneous and multiple submissions allowed. Each individual story must be submitted separately, with separate payment regardless of word count. Eckleburg editors, staff, interns and current students of The Johns Hopkins University are not eligible for entry. READ MORE & SUBMIT FOR THE GS AWARD HERE.

ANNUAL FRANZ KAFKA AWARD IN MAGIC REALISM

1st prize $1000 and publication. Accepting entries year round. Eligibility: All stories in English and magic realism no more than 8,000 words are eligible. No minimum word count. Stories published previously in print or online venues are eligible if published after January 1, 2011. Stories can be submitted by authors, editors, publishers, and agents. Simultaneous and multiple submissions allowed. Each individual story must be submitted separately, with separate payment regardless of word count. Eckleburg editors, staff, interns and current students of The Johns Hopkins University are not eligible for entry. READ MORE & SUBMIT FOR THE FK AWARD HERE.

NOVEL AND STORY COLLECTION MANUSCRIPTS

We publish short works at The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review. At this time, we do not publish novel, long memoir, essay collections, story collections or poetry collections at The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review. We do offer manuscript workshops at The Eckleburg Workshops. If you are looking to place a manuscript, we can suggest several excellent small and large presses whose excellent books are promoted through our Eckleburg Book Club — i.e., Random House, Graywolf Press, Coffeehouse, Tinhouse, St. Martins Press and more.

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POETRY

We are now accepting previously unpublished poetry of all forms. Please submit 1 – 5 poems as separate files in separate submissions. Please do not submit them all on one document. Please check out our free “Submissions Guidelines Workshop” prior to submitting.

Note: We consider poetry (and fiction) that has appeared in print, online magazines, public forums, and public access blogs as being published. Rarely do we accept anything already published and then only by solicitation. Once the piece is published in Eckleburg, the author is welcome to re-publish the work anywhere and everywhere. In these cases, we ask that the original publication be credited each time to The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review. The submissions link is below.

POETRY COLLECTION MANUSCRIPTS

NONFICTION

We accept polished creative nonfiction/essays up to 8,000 words year round, unless announced otherwise. Preferences veer toward shorter works under 1500 words with an arts and culture focus. If you wish to include a bio, keep it short, under 200 words. Please check out our free “Submissions Guidelines Workshop” prior to submitting.

ANNUAL ANAĬS NIN AWARD IN NONFICTION

Coming soon… Accepting entries year round. Eligibility: All stories in English and nonfiction no more than 5,000 words are eligible. No minimum word count. Essays published previously in print or online venues are eligible if published after January 1, 2011. Essays can be submitted by authors, editors, publishers, and agents. Simultaneous and multiple submissions allowed. Each individual story must be submitted separately, with separate payment regardless of word count. Eckleburg editors, staff, interns and current students of The Johns Hopkins University are not eligible for entry. Coming Soon…

ESSAY COLLECTIONS AND MEMOIR MANUSCRIPTS

GALLERY | Visual and Intermedia Artwork

Send us a link for your online portfolio that includes all the works (at least 3, 10 or more even better) that you would like us to consider for the Gallery. You can also send a 100 to 200 word bio. If accepted, we will request attached, high resolution jpegs of the chosen works. The submissions link is below.

Music, Film and Arts Commentary | Send a YouTube link via email along with a short 100 to 200 word bio. The submissions link is below.

REVIEWS

Eckleburg is not accepting ARCs or press releases for books at this time. Some members of our editorial staff and some of our contributors write reviews for other venues such as The New York Times, Washington Post, New York Journal of Books, Washington Independent Review of Books and more and will post notices of these reviews at Eckleburg; however, our editors work directly with the outside venue editors in acquisition and assignment of these reviews. It is a common practice at these venues that reviewers review only work by authors who the reviewer does not know personally or work with personally. Please do not contact our editors about press releases or reviews of your book for Eckleburg. You should contact the review venues directly. We are, however, very happy to consider your book for our Book Club and/or an excerpt of your published book for Eckleburg publication, please see below information at Book Club. Please check out our free “Submissions Guidelines Workshop” prior to submitting. We also offer several review writing workshops.

THE ECKLEBURG BOOK CLUB

Send your book cover, publication information and short excerpt to the Eckleburg Book Club.

Please forward a jpeg of just the front cover, not the full jacket;
Do not ask us if you may send us your book cover and information, etc., just submit it through the submissions system;
Please forward publisher, cover artist, blurbs, a short excerpt (a chapter, short story or poem) we may run with the book, as well as all copyright information typed into the email, not as part of the back cover;
We are not accepting self-published books, etc. If you own the publishing company or work integrally as a regular staff editor (as opposed to guest editor) with the publishing company that published your book, Eckleburg considers your book to be self-published;
SUBMIT to The Eckleburg Book Club.

RIGHTS & COMPENSATION

RIGHTS | If accepted, you are granting Eckleburg first North American serial, promotional, non-exclusive anthology (online and possibly print), and archival rights. Copyright reverts to the author upon publication. If the piece is subsequently published in another venue, we ask you to source The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review as first publication. All fiction, poetry, nonfiction and visual art submissions will be considered for our annual print. Authors of works that are accepted for the print will be contacted by the editors.

PAYMENT | Print contributors receive a free copy. Print contributors who are also Eckleburg award winners receive award prize money up to $1000.

ADOPT A WRITER | We are running the Adopt a Writer program, where writers, poets and artists published in our online archives can sign up and receive 60% of reader gifts made through the individual contributor’s work url. To participate, the contributor must have a PayPal email and account. Contributors can sign up upon acceptance and also afterward on their site url page. If you have a work published at Eckleburg, go to your work’s url and submit your information there.

RESPONSES | Response times are now running three months or longer. If we haven’t responded by six month’s time, please send us an email here.

AWARDS | Editors will nominate works at appropriate times through the year. Individual authors/poets who are nominated will be contacted privately.

WITHDRAWALS | Please withdraw your submission through your personal Submittable account created upon submitting. This is your personal account and Eckleburg editors do not have access to it.

THE SELFIE INTERVIEW | All contributors past, present and future are invited to complete The Selfie Interview. The Selfie Interview is also open to readers/writers who have not been published at Eckleburg.

SUBMISSIONS OPEN: SUBMITTERS ARE READERS, TOO, FUNDRAISER

**Purchase a copy of Eckleburg No. 19 and submit to Eckleburg while supporting your favorite contributor!**

Proud member of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses.

Supporter of VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts

Subscribe to the Eckleburg Newsletter

Advertise with Us

Submit Your Event

November 22, 2015April 23, 2017

WRITE. HARD. Create with Dawn S. Davies

Eckleburg: What is most rewarding about teaching the craft of writing?

Dawn S. Davies: I love lending an ear to people who have something to say and are learning how to say it. I am so happy to see progress, to watch a writer learn a concept, then practice it, then finally….nail it in a story or essay. I love re-gifting the writing treasures my mentors gave me, and watching my students insert these skills into their own work, their own ways, and take them with them on their own writing journeys. I remember the skills my favorite mentors taught me, and think of them when I use their teaching in my own writing today, and I hope my student will do the same with me. It’s like a long game of “Telephone” that takes years to play.

Eckleburg: What was/is the most rewarding experience as a student of writing?

Dawn S. Davies: I can remember the first time someone responded to my writing personally. I was in eighth grade, and Mrs. Whatserface passed out papers with a little doodle in the middle of it. We were to turn the doodle into a drawing and then write a story about it. I worked for several days on my story as if nothing else mattered. When I got it back, Mrs. Whatserface had written something like, “You should do this more often. I like what you had to say,” and this feedback both thrilled and changed something in me.

I become excited to see what comments my teachers would leave on my writing assignments. I wanted to move them. I wanted them to leave me better comments than they gave other students. I was competitive with my writing and I began to work hard at it. I love getting feedback from mentors. I loved marginal comments. I was happy for the criticism, even. I loved knowing that someone took the time to think about my writing, and that someone was invested enough in my work to tell me what was wrong with it, and what was working. I will never forget the thrill I felt turning to the last page of a paper or story or essay to see what my teacher had written, and I have been blessed by teachers who gave beneficial feedback that didn’t crush my soul.

I am still a student of writing, with far fewer opportunities to receive marginal comments in my work, but when I give feedback to my students, I remember what it feels like to get it, so I give very good, detailed feedback that never makes my students question their raison d’être.

Eckleburg: What is your favorite writing exercise or habit?

Dawn S. Davies: I am teaching “Funny Weird or Funny Ha Ha: the Right Comedic Angle for your Fiction” and “Awkward Turtle: Turning Life Experience into Comedic Creative Nonfiction.” Both focus on how to incorporate humor into your writing, whether you write short stories, novels, or various forms of essays. I like humor. I like thinking about why things are funny, and I love the truth that humor illuminates.

One of the promises I make in my own writing is a commitment to be squirmfully honest about whatever it is I am trying to illustrate. Often honesty delivered in an unexpected way is what makes people laugh, and I like that shocking, surprising angle. I want my readers to feel like they know something about me (or my characters) that no one else knows. I strive to bring them into the inner circle, the place where the lines get blurred between voyeur and participant and best friend. For me, finding this place means being “wide open ” with my writing, to where I get past worrying what people will think about something I reveal to them, and more important, what they will think about me. I have stopped caring and it is a lovely way to live and write.

I like to tell my students to open the faucets wide open when they write. If you think it, write it down, even if it is odd-bird whacko, even if it is tangential, even if you think it might hurt someone’s feelings or show yourself in a bad light, even if it seems to make no sense. Don’t edit that dark voice that we are all told to damper down in order to be socially acceptable. Get it down on paper without apology and see what connections you can make. You can always take it out later.

Join Dawn S. Davies at The Eckleburg Workshops.

Dawn S. Davies (www.dawnsdavies.com) has an MFA from Florida International University. She was the 2013 recipient of the Kentucky Women Writers Gabehart Prize for nonfiction and her essay collection, Mothers of Sparta, received the 2015 FIU UGS Provost Award for Best Creative Project. She was recently featured in the Ploughshares column, “The Best Short Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week.” She has been awarded residencies with the Vermont Studio Center and Can Serrat and was finalist in nonfiction for both the 2015 SLS Disquiet Contest and the Fourth Genre Steinberg Essay Contest. Her work can be found in The Missouri Review, Fourth Genre, Ninth Letter and many other places. She is a proud member of VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts, and AWP. She currently teaches writing at USC Upstate.

November 20, 2015July 19, 2017

SELFIE INTERVIEW | Dawn S. Davies

Eckleburg: What drives, inspires, and feeds your artistic work?

Dawn S. Davies: Jaco Pastorius, Richard Fenyman, my family, people who jump off bridges for fun, people who can make art out of blocks of ice, bees, Mark Knopfler, the memory of my childhood Big Wheel, the person who told me I would never amount to much, Lorrie Moore, David Gilmore, Tony Levin, regular folks who don’t identify as artists, the boys who said I was too tall to date, small things I see that I want others to notice, my failures, Reader’s Digest, fur boots, several shades of blue, my fear of running out of time, my poodle, hot mugs of stuff, small children, big sound, people who take the time for old ladies and gentlemen, people who have not yet read my work, fire pits, Major Dick Winters, surgeons, deadlines, the truth, people who want to feel the feelings.

Eckleburg: If you had to arm wrestle a famous writer, poet or artist, either living or dead, who would it be? Why? What would you say to distract your opponent and go for the win?

Dawn S. Davies: I would practically rip the arm off of Fernando Pessaoa with very little effort. First, I’m pretty sure I’d outweigh him. My body is larger, my arms are longer, and I’ve heard he wasn’t much of an athlete. I do push-ups every day. Girly knee push-up, but still, it’s more than a lily-livered flaneur typically finds time for.

I would choose an American language venue. A crowded bar. I would distract Pessoa with fine-bodied, over-sexualized college students, both male and female. As well, I would have strategic plants in the crowd, paid to shout out distracting phrases in Portuguese, such as, “Desculpe, minha nádegas cheiro ruim!” And, “Eu apenas comi carne de cachorro!” This would insult his tender sensibilities, rendering him distracted enough to trounce him so hard his glass fly off his face and into my pocket. All I’ve ever wanted was those glasses.

Eckleburg: What would you like the world to remember about you and your work?

Dawn S. Davies: I want people to remember my humor, my lack of sentimentality, that there was nothing I was afraid to write about, that I wrote wide open, unimpeded, like a superconductor, and that I wrote for them.