Summer Writing Competition
The deadline for submitting to our 2021 summer writing competition has passed. The contest will return again in 2022. The information below remains as an archive.
Our upcoming sinθ #20 marks another year of Sine Theta! To celebrate, we are bringing back our summer writing competition for its third iteration. We are delighted to announce RF Kuang (author of THE POPPY WARS trilogy) as this year’s Fiction judge and Chen Chen (author of National Book Award-longlisted WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE A LIST OF FURTHER POSSIBILITIES) as this year’s Poetry judge.
Submit by June 27th for a chance to be published in sinθ #20 and receive feedback from established writers! First place in each category will receive a $50 USD cash prize.
We’re accepting entries for both fiction (prose) and poetry. We invite you to reflect on the following three prompts as inspiration for your pieces. You may reflect on the prompts separately or as a collective, drawing themes and ideas that resonate with you. Entries must engage with the prompt(s), but can do so either directly or indirectly. You may only submit one entry per category, so send us your best work!
Set your written piece on a horizon.
“黑夜给了我黑色的眼睛,我却用它寻找光明。”–故城,‘一代人’(1979
“The night gave me black eyes, but I used them to search for the light.” –Gu Cheng, ‘A Generation’ (1979)
“We are wiped of age first thing in the morning
sleep is a light wash / and don’t we know it
we are wrung and wrung”
– Jenny Xie, ‘Letters to Du Fu’ (2017)
Email sinethetamag@gmail.com with “Writing Competition - NAME - CATEGORY” as the subject line. Attach your submission as a PDF or Word document. Do not include your name on the document, as entries will be judged anonymously. If you are entering a poetry and a prose piece, please submit each piece separately via email.
Please include the following completed form with your submission in the body of your email:
Rebecca F. Kuang is a Marshall Scholar, Chinese-English translator, and the Astounding Award-winning and the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Award nominated author of the Poppy War trilogy and the forthcoming Babel. Her work has won the Crawford Award and the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel. She has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford; she is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale.
Chen Chen is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (BOA Editions, 2022) and the forthcoming book of essays, In Cahoots with the Rabbit God (Noemi Press, 2023). His debut book of poems, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017), was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the Thom Gunn Award, among other honors. He teaches at Brandeis University.
2020:
Poetry: “etymology of ‘moon’” by Stella Li
Short fiction: “The Girlfriend Place” by Ariel Chu
Judged by Sally Wen Mao and K-Ming Chang.
2019:
Poetry: “Self-Portrait as the Dead Fish in Some Guy’s Tinder Profile Picture” by Erin Jin Mei O’Malley
Short fiction: “Auntland” by K-Ming Chang
Judged by Sharlene Teo and Nancy Huang.