Ember Chasm Review Fiction & Poetry Winter Contest
After months of deliberation, we’ve narrowed down hundreds of submissions, hundreds of heart-wrenching, hard-hitting stories and poems to our top ten finalists and sent them off to the judges. While we wait for the results of the first contest, we’re excited to announce that Ember Chasm Review’s second Fiction & Poetry Summer Contest is now open for submissions—and you can win a hand-made, unique trophy, crafted by us! Here’s a breakdown of what we’re offering:
- First Place in each category receives:
- a physical trophy
- $100 PayPal
- a print copy of the contest issue
- an interview with Ember Chasm.
- Second Place in each category receives:
- $50 PayPal
- a print copy of the contest issue
- an interview with Ember Chasm.
- Third Place in each category receives:
- $25 PayPal
- a print copy of the contest issue
- an interview with Ember Chasm.
- Honorable Mentions in each category:
- a print copy of the contest issue
We are thrilled to announce our phenomenal judges for this quarters contest.
Fiction will be judged by Matt Bell. Matt Bell’s next novel, Appleseed, is forthcoming from Custom House/William Morrow in July 2021. His craft book Refuse to Be Done, a guide to novel writing, rewriting, & revision, will follow in early 2022 from Soho Press. He is also the author of the novels Scrapper and In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods, as well as the short story collection A Tree or a Person or a Wall, a non-fiction book about the classic video game Baldur’s Gate II, and several other titles. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Tin House, Conjunctions, Fairy Tale Review, American Short Fiction, and many other publications. A native of Michigan, he teaches creative writing at Arizona State University.
Poetry will be judged by Amy Lerman. Amy Lerman is a residential faculty member in the English department at Mesa Community College. Her poems have been published in Rattle, The Gila River Review, ABZ, Generation,; Garbanzo, Prime Number, Euphony, Stories That Need to Be Told, and Irises. She took second place in the 2014 Prime Number Magazine Award for Poetry, won the 2015 Art Young Memorial Award for Poetry, received an honorable mention in Glimmer Train‘s February 2015 Short Story Award for New Writers, and was a finalist in poetry for the 2017 Princemere Poetry Prize.We can’t wait to be moved by what you send us—for what matters most than the stories we tell?
Submissions are now open for Issue Four
We want stories that scream in libraries, stories that veer us down a hidden road in a well-known city—we want the stories you construct outside your comfort zone. Diversity of content is appreciated: play with genre, form. Break walls and show us the mold sprouting beneath. We especially encourage submissions from emerging, unpublished, and undergraduate writers.
Issue Four submissions will close in August.
Into the Caves
Saint Maud: A Cinematic Marriage of Heaven and Hell
With a blend of eroticism and repulsion, possession and madness, Rose Glass sires one of the richest films in recent horror history.
Promising Young Woman: The Most Holistic Film of the #MeToo Era
If you ever wanted every single question answered about the nature of American culture when it comes to the issue of sexual assault, then look no further than Emerald Fennell’s astonishing debut.
Review of Past Lives, Future Bodies by Kristin Chang
Past Lives, Future Bodies by Kristin Chang is a sharp and vivid poetry collection. Each poem feels like a fish flowing through brightly colored, corral-speckled waters, sunken ships of family relationships rusting in the distant sandy depths, plunges into the inky waters of family relationships, sexuality, and race lurking just around dark seaweed bends. TheseContinue Reading
Review of Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney
Like its title implies, Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney encourages us all to speak, share our feelings, and delve into our experiences. Set in Dublin, this novel follows twenty-one year old Frances and her former girlfriend/current best friend/artistic partner, Bobbi, when they form a bond with an older couple—Nick and Melissa—at a literary event.Continue Reading
3 Ways The Last of Us Can Improve Your Writing
Videogames tell stories—unique stories, ones that are far more interactive than films or books, and that have the potential to take you through some truly heart-wrenching narrative experiences. The Last of Us is one such experience. Actually, it’s arguably the experience. With over 200 award wins and nominations, The Last of Us holds the podiumContinue Reading
Review of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender
In The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake a young girl named Rose is suddenly able to taste her mother’s feelings in the lemon cake she makes after school—and then she tastes her brother’s feelings (or the empty void thereof) in his sandwich, then the feelings of everyone else who makes any of the food sheContinue Reading
7 Books To Read to Support Black Lives Matter
With the murder of George Floyd by police, protests have sparked all over the world. All fifty states, more than seven hundred U.S cities, and at least seventeen countries have united in protest, calling an end to systematic racism and police brutality. Black Lives Matter now marks a civil rights movement—one of the largest inContinue Reading
Citizen by Claudia Rankine – A Must Read
“I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background.” One of many powerful quotes in Citizen, Claudia Rankine’s heart-wrenching, genre-bending, rage-inspiring 2014 collection. With the current abhorrent human rights violations inflicted upon George Floyd acting as the most recent entry in a blood-soaked history of racism in this country, this book, now more thanContinue Reading
Review of Knots by Gunnhild Øyehaug
Øyehaug’s collection of short stories—the shortest being one page and the longest twenty two—is an odd and anxious experience. Everything is quite normal, but slightly off: the spaghetti is slimy and cold, the wallpaper looks red and pimpled, the snow outside blows in, twirling like a dizzying hula hoop. She gives you only the detailsContinue Reading
Review of The World Isn’t the Size of Our Neighborhood Anymore by Austin Davis
Austin Davis’s poetry collection, The World Isn’t the Size of Our Neighborhood Anymore, is an intricate and honest love letter to growing older. It pulls us deep into an abyss of memories that are warm and cold, caring and painful, benign and violent, but above all necessary. Weaving together both moments of nostalgia and yearning,Continue Reading
Marlon James: “Reclaiming the Fantasy Novel”
Image credit to Megan Potter, ASU Now Marlon James has made waves in the Fantasy world for a while now. He won the Man Booker Prize for A Brief History of Seven Killings in 2015, and if you’ve read his work, you know why. Jame’s prose, especially in his most recent publication, Black Leopard, RedContinue Reading