There are three contest deadlines from the New Letters magazine coming up, each with a prize of $1,500 and publication in the magazine.

Entries must be postmarked by May 18 (this Friday).

Awards:
Alexander Patterson Cappon Fiction Prize: $1,500 for the best short story
New Letters Poetry Prize: $1,500 for the best group of three to six poems
Dorothy Churchill Cappon Essay Prize: $1,500 for the best essay

Link to the New Letters website for more information.

From This Is North Scotland:

Aberdeen University has been accused of dumbing down by allowing secondary pupils to use text language in a literature competition.

The What’s the Story competition asked them to enter stories in the language they felt most comfortable with, including abbreviated language used in text messages on mobile phones.

There were no entries entirely in text-message form, but some included phrases like "c u later".

Full story here.

• Entry fee: $5 for the first poem, $3 for each additional poem.
• Poems must not have been published in a nationally-distributed print publication.
• No entry form required. Put your name and address on each page (email and phone optional)
• Please include a stamped, self-addressed envelope for notification of the results.
(Outside U.S., just a self-addressed envelope. No IRC required.) No entries will be returned.
• Make checks payable to Atlanta Review. Checks in your national currency are acceptable
at the current exchange rate. We also accept uncancelled stamps from your country.
• Entries must be postmarked by May 11, 2007. (The postmark is all that matters.
Don’t waste money on express mail–buy a subscription instead!)

Despite having a site which sports one of the worst web designs I’ve seen in a while, the grand prize is a respectable sum of $2,007.

Link (via the Poets & Writers, inc. contest calendar)

The Howard Frank Mosher Short Fiction Prize will be judged by Wally Lamb this year. Lamb is the author of She’s Come Undone and Oprah Book Club selection I Know This Much Is True, and served as editor of the best-selling Couldn’t Keep It to Myself, an anthology of stories written by female inmates at Connecticut’s only maximum-security prison for women. The deadline for the Howard Frank Mosher Short Fiction Prize is June 1, 2007. The prize awards $1,000.00 and publication. For complete guidelines, click here.

Two honorable mentions also receive prizes of $100 each.  Entry fee is $15.

Via the Poets & Writers, inc. contest calendar

For a change, schools are being encouraged to use comic books in their curriculums:

The state worked with Disney Publishing Worldwide and its educational division last year to develop a pilot project to put Mickey and Donald in eight third-grade classrooms. Disney took Maryland’s reading standards and created comics-based lesson plans, incorporating skills students needed to learn, such as how to understand plot and character.

The kids loved it, educators said.

Comic books and graphic novels should not replace other forms of literature, but they can be an entry point for some reluctant readers, Grasmick said.

Link to the Yahoo News article