In a recent installment of our Writers Recommend series, Janine Joseph, author of Decade of the Brain (Alice James Books, 2023), writes about finding solace in computer scientist Neal Agarwal’s the Deep Sea website. Scrolling down the website, Joseph discovers animals and plant life at varying depths of the ocean, including the wolf eel, the chain catshark, and the terrible claw lobster. In the ocean’s midnight zone, where “creatures survive by their own light,” she finds inspiration in “what can and might exist at those disappearing depths.” Write an essay that meditates on the mysteries and profundities of the ocean. Does its depth inspire awe and wonder as it does for Joseph, or does it strike fear in you?
Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.