Submissions are currently open for the 2019 Louise Meriwether First Book Prize. An award of $5,000 and publication by the Feminist Press is given annually for a debut book of fiction or nonfiction by a woman or nonbinary writer of color.
Submit a story collection, novel, memoir, biography, or manifesto of 30,000 to 80,000 words via e-mail by June 30. There is no entry fee. Visit the website for complete guidelines. The winner will be announced in February 2019, and the winning collection will be published in Spring 2020.
Established in 2016, the prize honors author Louise Meriwether, whose 1970 novel, Daddy Was a Number Runner, was one of the first contemporary American novels to feature a young black girl as its protagonist.
The inaugural prize was awarded to writer YZ Chin in 2017 for her story collection, Though I Get Home. The 2018 prize was awarded to Claudia D. Hernández for her nonfiction fusion of poetry and narrative essay, Knitting The Fog (April 2019).