WE ARE EXTENDING THE DEADLINE TO April 1, 2025
Madville Publishing is looking for personal essays that touch upon the richness of the American folk music experience, from the perspective of those who, in some way, have helped to create it, perform it, and live it. Although American folk music is difficult to define, we embrace the largeness of this tradition, knowing that it might span any number of categories from traditional Appalachian to contemporary Taylor Swiftian. It may also include elements of jazz, gospel, rock, bluegrass, Indigenous drum circle, blues, reggae and beyond.
Whatever instrument you play and whatever genre you’ve traveled through to get there, we are interested in stories that capture a poignant element of what American folk music contributes to our lives. You need not be a full-time folkie, road warrior, or even a well-established performer to submit. We call for essays that engage with the richness of the American folk music experience—how it has shaped us as individuals, as Americans, and how it continues to give expression and meaning to our lives.
Submission guidelines:
● Submissions are open through April 1, 2025.
● A reading fee of $8 must be paid at the time of submission.
● All submissions must be in English.
● We accept previously published essays as long as the author discloses the publication history of the work in the cover letter accompanying the submission and retains publication rights.
● We accept simultaneous submissions, but please notify Madville immediately if the essay is accepted elsewhere and you wish to withdraw it from consideration. There will be no refunds of the reading fees.
● Writers may submit more than one essay, but each must be submitted separately.
● Submissions should be blind. The author’s name should not appear anywhere on the submitted document.
● Use 12 point, Times New Roman, double-spaced, with pages numbered.
● 4000 word maximum.
● Cash prizes for the two essays the editors like best. $200 for first prize, and $100 for second.
● For more information, visit https://madvillepublishing.com/submission/
The Editors
Bob Kunzinger is the author of works, including The Iron Scar: A Father and Son in Siberia (2022), A Third Place: Notes in Nature (2019), Blessed Twilight: The Life of Vincent van Gogh (2018), and Penance (2008), still a popular book in Prague, the subject of the narrative. He has taught American Culture in Russia, Prague, Amsterdam, and Norway, and Creative Writing, Art Appreciation, English, and Humanities in the Hampton Roads, Virginia, area for more than thirty years. While he owns several guitars and made a living playing the folk circuit during and after college, his callouses have retreated.
Drew Lopenzina is Professor of English at Old Dominion University who teaches in the intersections of Early American and Native American literatures. He is the author of Through an Indian’s Looking Glass: A Cultural Biography of William Apess, Pequot (2017), described as a “tour de force” by the journal Native American and Indigenous Studies. His other books include Red Ink: Native Americans Picking up the Pen in the Colonial Period (2012) and The Routledge Introduction to Native American Literature (2020). Lopenzina plays guitar and mandolin and is part of the duo Wine Dark Sea, known in the Tidewater area around Norfolk, VA, for their epic acoustic folk and harmonies.