The Saturday Evening Post has launched the 2014 Great American Fiction Contest. One winner will receive $500 in prize money and publication in both the January/February 2014 edition of the magazine as well as the website.

Five other writers will be selected as runners-up; they will also be published on the website and collect $100 each.

Only previously unpublished writers are eligible to enter. Each written piece must contain 1,500-5,000 words. Those who enter will have to pay a $10 entry fee. A deadline has been set for 11:59 p.m. EST on July 1, 2013. Follow this link to read all the rules and learn all the details about this contest.

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In a special Google Docs demonstration online, you can collaborate on a story with Charles Dickens, Friedrich Nietzsche, William Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allan Poe.

As you type your text into the demo box, these writers will add little flourishes and quotes to your story.

We created a short story with the help of Dickens and Nietzsche, click on the image embedded above to see the collaboration in action. Who will you write with? (Link via)

The iconic actress Marilyn Monroe may have played the role of a ditzy blonde in many films, but she was actually quite the bookworm whose reading preferences included books by James Joyce and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Open Culture has more: “Once married to playwright Arthur Miller, Monroe stocked about 400 books on her shelves, many of which were later catalogued and auctioned off by Christie’s in New York City.”

Library Thing has made a list of 261 titles that were a part of Monroe’s personal library. Books on the list include: Out Of My Later Years by Albert Einstein; Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert; The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner; as well as poetry collections from Robert Frost, John Milton, and Edgar Allan Poe, among others. (Via Gothamist).

UPDATE: An earlier version of this post misspelled Edgar Allan Poe’s name.

Readers around the globe have unwrapped new tablets and eReaders this holiday season. Below, we’ve included a long, long, long list of free and legal eBooks you can download right now for any device.

Explore our Project Gutenberg lists and click “read this eBook online” to sample the book without downloading anything.

If you have an iPad, iPad Mini, iPhone or iPod Touch, you can download the ePub edition. If you have a Kindle or a Kindle Fire, you need to download the Kindle edition. If you have a Nook, Sony eReader or a Kobo, you should download the ePub edition.

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As Hurricane Sandy swept through New Jersey, Halloween celebrations were moved to November 5th. To celebrate, we are re-running 25 free horror books that you can download right now for your eReader, smartphone or tablet. Follow the links below to read.

If you want to help with hurricane relief, you can donate money to Red Cross disaster relief right now. You can also make an appointment to donate blood to the Red Cross.

In 2010, novelist Neil Gaiman created the “All Hallow’s Read,” literary holiday, a night to give someone you love a scary book. The writer explained the new tradition in the video embedded above–here’s more from the official site:

Obviously, we support bookshops and authors, but more than that, this is about making a holiday tradition of book-giving. So feel free to give second-hand books or books from your own shelves. And feel just as free to buy a beautiful new book from a small independent bookseller, or from online or… look, there’s no wrong way to buy a book. You can even gift it to their Kindle … If you do not know what scary book to give someone, talk to a bookseller or a librarian. They like to help. Librarians will not mind even if you admit that you are not planning to take out a book, but instead you are going to buy one and give it to someone.

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Is the work of Edgar Allan Poe still scary today? Undoubtedly.

We answered that question on New Hampshire Public Radio’s Word of Mouth show, along with some other Poe fans. New Hampshire’s Big Read project is sponsoring a month of Poe-related activities, follow this link to explore.

If you want to read Poe’s work for Halloween, we’ve linked to free eBook editions of his complete writings below–and check out the gorgeous edition of “The Raven,” illustrated by Gustave Dore (his art is pictured above).

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Halloween is almost here, and all GalleyCat readers should be planning their literary costume ideas. Below, we’ve collected five obsessive and brilliant costumes based on books or comic books.

What’s the best literary Halloween costume you’ve ever seen? Share all your ideas at the handy #literarycostumes hashtag created by Random House last year. They’ve already started a Pinterest page and a Facebook conversation dedicated to more costume ideas.

1. Make a wolf suit like Max from Where the Wild Things Are. For the child in your life, you can honor the legacy of the great Maurice Sendak with a homemade kid’s costume from Running With Scissors (photo embedded above).

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Today is the birthday of the late horror author H. P. Lovecraft. You can explore his life and work at The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society.

In honor of Lovecraft’s 122nd birthday, this GalleyCat editor collected some practical writing advice from the prolific author, all published in a 1920 essay called “Literary Composition.”

Here’s an excerpt; it still works after all these years: “All attempts at gaining literary polish must begin with judicious reading, and the learner must never cease to hold this phase uppermost. In many cases, the usage of good authors will be found a more effective guide than any amount of precept. A page of [Joseph Addison] or of [Washington Irving] will teach more of style than a whole manual of rules, whilst a story of [Edgar Allan Poe]‘s will impress upon the mind a more vivid notion of powerful and correct description and narration than will ten dry chapters of a bulky textbook. Let every student read unceasingly the best writers.”

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Hollywood has lots of new literary movies scheduled for 2012. Here are five upcoming literary movies to look forward to in the new year.

Walt Disney Animation Studios will rerelease Beauty and the Beast in 3D. The film’s story comes from Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont‘s version of the fairy tale called La Belle et la Bête. It arrives in theaters on January 13th.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, the sequel to the 2007 film, once again stars Oscar winner Nicholas Cage as the Marvel Comics antihero. The movie comes out on February 17th.

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The first official trailer for The Raven has been released, a thriller where actor John Cusack plays Edgar Allan Poe.

We’ve embedded the trailer above–what do you think? As we previously noted, James McTeigue directed and the cast includes John Cusack, Luke Evans, Alice Eve and Brendan Gleeson.

According to Deadline, the story features Poe teaming up with a detective “to hunt down a serial killer using Poe’s works as the basis for a string of brutal murders.” The film will hit theaters on March 9, 2012. (via Shelf Awareness)