| $1,000 Writing Prize | $500 Illustration Prize |

Details for the competition are below, and full guidelines and online submission are available here: http://www.indigoinkpress.org/submissions/

The anthology Modern Grimmoire: Contemporary Fairy Tales, Fables & Folklore will be open to submissions from Apr. 1 to Sept. 1, 2012.

SUBMIT ONLINE

A single award of $1,000 and publication will be given to the best emerging author of an unpublished work, either a selection of poems, a short story, or short drama. The winning work will be selected by publisher’s editorial committee.

In addition, a $500 prize and publication will be awarded to the best illustration submitted.

Contest winners and finalists will be published in 2013. Winners and finalists will be announced in Oct. 2012. All finalists (authors and artists) published in the book will receive one (1) copy of the anthology. No other compensation aside from the two anthology awards, and these copies, will be paid to any authors or artists included in the anthology (see terms, below).


SUBMISSION DETAILS:

For a reader’s fee of $15, original, previously unpublished/unproduced works in English, and illustrations, may be submitted as follows:

• Three (3) poems (under 100 lines)
• One (1) short story (up to 5,000 words)*
• One (1) piece of short drama (not to exceed 35-minute running time)*
• Two (2) black & white illustrations (must be digitally created or scanned, and submitted at no less than 300 dpi)

*Please include a brief synopsis.

All submissions must be submitted electronically using the online form. Absolutely no mailed manuscripts will be accepted and any hardcopy submissions received will be discarded without being opened.

Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but please alert us ASAP if your work is accepted for publication elsewhere.

Winners and finalists will be notified and a full list will be posted online at IndigoInkPress.org in Oct. 2012.


CREATIVE GUIDELINES:

Fairy tales, folklore and fables are bound in magic and mischief, with entertainment and enlightenment, with savagery and anticipation, with romance and cruelty, with heroism and symbolism. We are seeking submissions for an anthology that captures modern, literary tales told through poetry, short fiction, short drama and illustrations.

Two hundred years ago, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, better known as The Brothers Grimm, published a collection of tales to ensure that the various German fables, tales and folklore of their age and before would not die out.

In 2013, two centuries later, we will publish our third book, Modern Grimmoire: Contemporary Fairy Tales, Fables & Folklore. The goal of the anthology is to offer emerging writers and artists the opportunity to showcase new literary tales, fables and folklore, weaving new threads into the literary fabric.

The recent resurgence in fairy tale fandom, evidenced by both silver screen and television screen debuts, the long-lasting success of the Disney-ified tales for our children, and the fact that new, modified and mollified editions of the Grimms’ tales spring up again and again throughout the generations, all begs the question, “why are fairy tales so enduring?” and perhaps, too, “why is storytelling so engrained in our culture?”

Though often reimagined and, in the end, unrecognizable to the Grimms’ original tellings, these tales and others like them are used to entertain, and of course, to educate, instill values, assurance and doubt.

And those tales you remember from childhood, for better or worse, inform subconsciously our present day motives and actions. All collected, the tales that were assembled by the Grimms during their lifetime cover almost the entire gamut of plot structures and character arcs that we see in literature today, albeit the settings may be a bit altered. These stories are undeniably a dynamic, entwined portion of our culture.

Our collection seeks not to reinvent or reimagine Grimm’s Fairy Tales (case in point: we’re not looking for Cinderella with a cell phone). Our goal is to collect, as the brothers did 200 years ago, tales by and for the current (and future) generation, and to see how our creative collection is inevitably informed by those that came before it. Tales and lore are enduring. They are transformational. Indigo Ink Press’s very reason for being is to publish the work of new and burgeoning writers and artists – those who have the power to transform us, but need the means. This anthology is one in a hopeful line of future of mode and means.

We won’t limit your creative executions with a list of “dos and don’ts,” and we won’t bore you with our interpretation of what defines fairy tales, fables and folklore, or denote their motifs, structures and content. We’ll leave that to you, urge you to pick up your copy of Grimms’ Fairy Tales for inspiration (only) and send to us your most original, creative pieces of writing and illustrations.

The only thing we ask is that your work embody your interpretation and fervor for modern fairy tales, fables and folkore.

Visit the website for details and enter: http://www.indigoinkpress.org/submissions/