Salamander 2024 Fiction Contest

SUBMIT: May 1 through June 2, 2024 | READING FEE: $15

SUBMIT ENTRIES NOW

Marge Farrell

poetry
  —after I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)   Who giveth this woman in marriage? Outside the Wee Kirk Chapel, in my coronet of white myrtle. Then, the…

Kat Harvey

poetry
  —after Casper (1995)   In Friendship, Maine, in the mansion of Whipstaff I waft in eyelet lace, floor-length out the steamer trunk.   There are steeples and myrtle and…

The Green Streetlight

poetry
  The ineffable… I’ve walked into your trap. I went to a spring late at night and froze like an armless statue in the middle of an autumn garden. What…

Night Sky

poetry
  Our troubles show up like stars disturbing the blank night, petty compared to the moon, jewel in a black velvet case, but grouped in constellations, what satisfying tales. The…

Everything I Let Go of

poetry
  One of us is dead. One of us sleeps in his van, parked at the curb in front of his sister’s house. I’ve just retired.   In the morning…

Let Me Copy the Rest of That Poem

poetry
  Oh what longing, my dear young friend Each prison night I dream of your smile— Kissing my sleeve, I imagine your hair My lips are bitter, my body icy…

Rainy Season in the Highlands

poetry
  A swallow, a hazardous stretch of road A tall waterfall, heard through a long night Step quickly across a vanished river Wait for rain in the flutter of butterflies…

Seiche

poetry
  The rift lake, too, refuses coherence of any sort. Its ice encircled by trees—dark though sloeless—   whose unleafed limbs yaw untroubled by snow in its own right dense…

War Poem

poetry
  “You will get through this hard time. There will be other hard times.” —Siku   Harrow harder, asper. The rude heart must continue to blurt & bluster & batter.…

The Mihrab

poetry
  is the closest you can get to God. When I was young I was in the habit of rolling up pages from the Quran and pushing them into my…

Portrait of Us Burning

poetry
  If the morning scaffolds, then night prayers come. If years ago, Mother & Father ate only rice & beans, then we slept in one bunk bed & Saturdays were…