2019 Writing Contest

We will be accepting submissions for the 2019 TIFERET Writing Contest from March 15, 2019 – May 31, 2019.

$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 work up to 3,000 words or 12 double spaced pages.
  • Non-Fiction: You may submit an essay or an interview up to 3,000 words or 12 double spaced 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 2019. Only the winning entries will be published in a subsequent issue of TIFERET.

2019 JUDGES

Non-Fiction

Lisa Romeo is the author of the memoir Starting with Goodbye (University of Nevada Press, 2018). Her work is listed in Best American Essays 2018 and 2016, and has appeared in the New York Times, Longreads, Under the Sun, Brevity, Hippocampus, Harpur Palate, and other places. She teaches with Bay Path University MFA, The Writers Circle, at conferences and literary events. Lisa is an essays editor for Cleaver Magazine and was creative nonfiction editor for Compose.

Poetry

A Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Poet in the Schools, Charles H. Johnson was a second-place winner of the 2013 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards for his poem “Sunday Comics” and won the 2011 New Jersey Poets Prize for his poem “Leaving.” He received the 2010 Paterson Poetry Prize for Literary Excellence for his third book “Smoke Signals.” He is a high school poetry instructor for the N.J. Arts & Education Center, a visiting poet for the Paterson, N.J., school system and a poetry judge for the New Jersey Teen Arts Festival. His website is www.charleshjohnsonpoet.net

Fiction

Susan Tepper is the author of seven published books of fiction and poetry. Her stories, poems, interviews and essays appear in journals and zines worldwide. Honors and awards include the Zoetrope shortlist for a Novel (2006), Second Place Winner in The Million Writers Award, Best Story of 17 Years of Vestal Review (2017), eighteen Pushcart Prize Nominations, and a Pulitzer Prize Nomination for the Novel. Her latest book WHAT DRIVES MEN is forthcoming from Wilderness House Press.