2017 Writing Contest

We will be accepting submissions for the 2017 TIFERET Writing Contest from January 1, 2017 – June 1, 2017.

$1,500 will be awarded in prizes

  • $500 for the best poetry submission
  • $500 for the best short story (fiction)
  • $500 for the best essay or interview (non-fiction)

One prize winner and two honorable mentions will be awarded in each category. Please read our normal submission guidelines for help in determining what kind of writing we seek.

A $15 fee is required for each entry. Entries are defined as follows:

  • Poetry: You may submit up to six poems. (Poems should be submitted in one document with each poem on a separate page and each page/poem titled.)
  • Fiction: You may submit a story up to 20 pages.
  • Essay/Interview: You may submit an essay or an interview up to 20 pages.

All submissions must be made electronically.

Specify the genre and pay your appropriate entry fee for each entry. Winners will be announced Fall of 2017. Only the winning entries will be published in a subsequent issue of TIFERET.

2017 JUDGES

Non-Fiction

Nonfiction Judge Dinty Moore

Dinty W. Moore is author of The Story Cure: A Book Doctor’s Pain-Free Guide to Finishing Your Novel or Memoir, the memoir Between Panic & Desire, and many other books. He has published essays and stories in The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, Harpers, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Arts & Letters, and The Normal School among numerous other venues. A professor of nonfiction writing at Ohio University, Moore lives in Athens, Ohio, where he grows heirloom tomatoes and edible dandelions.

Poetry

Poetry Judge Maria Mazziotti Gillan

Maria Mazziotti Gillan is winner of the 2014 George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature from AWP, the 2011 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers, and the 2008 American Book Award for her book, All That Lies Between Us. She is the Founder/Executive Director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College, editor of the Paterson Literary Review, and director of the creative writing program/professor of English at Binghamton University-SUNY. She has published 22 books, including What Blooms in Winter (NYQ Books, 2016) and Girls in the Chartreuse Jackets (Cat in the Sun Books, 2014). Visit her website at www.mariagillan.com.

Fiction

Fictiion Judge Bill Roorbach

Bill Roorbach’s next book is The Girl of the Lake, a collection of stories coming from Algonquin in July, 2017. Also from Algonquin are The Remedy for Love, a finalist for the 2015 Kirkus Prize, and the bestselling Life Among Giants, which won a Maine Literary Award in 2012. An earlier collection, Big Bend, won the Flannery O’Connor and O. Henry prizes in 2000. His memoir in nature, Temple Stream, just released in a new paperback edition by Down East Books, won the Maine Literary Award in nonfiction 2005. He’s just been named a 2018 Civitella Ranieri Foundation fellow. Bill lives in Farmington and Scarborough, Maine, with his wife, Juliet Karelsen, who is a visual artist, and their daughter, Elysia Roorbach, an aspiring ballerina and full-time teen.