Genre: Fiction

Memoir Prize

Narratively
Entry Fee: 
$20
Deadline: 
December 7, 2025
A prize of $3,000 and publication on Narratively’s storytelling platform is given annually for a short work of memoir written in the first person. Two runners-up prizes of $1,000 each and publication will also be awarded. The winner and two runners-up will also be included in a special digital collection. Using only the online submission system, submit an essay of 2,000 to 5,000 words with a $20 entry fee by December 7. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Prose Prize

Georgia Review
Entry Fee: 
$25
Deadline: 
January 15, 2026

A prize of $1,500 and publication in Georgia Review is given annually for a short story or an essay. Kiese Laymon will judge. Submit a story or essay of up to 9,000 words with a $25 entry fee by January 15, 2026; mailed submissions must include a cover page with contact information and a brief bio, a self-addressed envelope, and a check for entry-fee payment. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Pushcart Prizes

Pushcart Press
Entry Fee: 
$0
Deadline: 
December 1, 2025

Publication in The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses is awarded annually for works of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction published by literary magazines or small presses during the current year. Editors may nominate up to six poems, short stories, novel chapters, or essays published, or scheduled to be published, in 2025; submit one copy of each work by December 1. There is no entry fee. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Tags: 
essays | short stories | small press | literary magazines

California Book Awards

Commonwealth Club of California
Entry Fee: 
$0
Deadline: 
November 15, 2025
Five prizes of $2,500 each are given annually for a poetry collection, a book of fiction, a first book of fiction, a book of creative nonfiction, and a book dealing with a California-based issue, topic, or historical period. Books written by authors residing in California are eligible. Publishers may submit six copies of books published in 2025 by November 15. There is no entry fee. Visit the website for the required entry form and complete guidelines.

Hyde

Caption: 

Watch the trailer for the graphic novel series adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Developed by Ridley Scott and Mechanical Cake, the two-volume series will be released on Halloween and imagines a world where Hyde overtakes Dr. Jekyll. Written by Jesse Negron with Joe Matsumoto, and artists Gary Erskine and Chris Weston, Johnny Depp portrays the sinister character.

Genre: 
Fiction
Tags: 
Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson
book trailer
graphic novel
Jesse Negron
Joe Matsumoto
2025

Percival Everett on The Trees

Caption: 

In this Service95 Book Club conversation hosted by Dua Lipa, Percival Everett revisits his award-winning 2021 novel, The Trees, and talks about how the murder and image of Emmett Till urged him to write the story, and how important the relationship between author and reader is to art. “People find their truth in art. It’s not complete until the reader comes to it. That’s when meaning gets made,” says Everett.

Genre: 
Fiction
Tags: 
Percival Everett
The Trees
Graywolf Press
Dua Lipa
Service95 Book Club
podcast
interview
2025

In Vaim

The Time Is Now
10.1.25

In Vaim (Transit Books, 2025) by Nobel Prize–winning author Jon Fosse, translated from the Norwegian by Damion Searls, one might search for certainty and stability in vain as the fishing village from which the novel gets its title is not a place in the real world, and perhaps not even a real place within the world of the book. Ania Szremski, senior editor of 4Columns, describes the novel as a “a book of amphibolous belief” with a protagonist who “wavers between ‘yes’ and ‘no.’” Write a short story that revolves around a character who inhabits a place that may or may not really exist. In Fosse’s book, the protagonist’s motorboat grounds the reader while the use of shifting points of view and lack of punctuation can be unsettling. How do you inject your own story with both stabilizing and destabilizing elements to create tension and momentum?

Ten Questions for Jade Chang

by
Evangeline Riddiford Graham
Ten Questions
9.30.25

“I think I’m a natural maximalist, and I still enjoy orchestrating a complex, layered scene or sentence, but I often found myself paring down versus building up.” —Jade Chang, author of What a Time to Be Alive

Tags: 
procrastination | inspiration

Talking to the Dead

The Time Is Now
9.24.25

As reported in a recent piece in Smithsonian magazine written by Erin Donaghue, there is a small residential neighborhood in northwestern New York State with a population of about 300 inhabitants of which about forty are psychic mediums. Every summer, thousands flock to the hamlet of Lily Dale to engage in the practices of spiritualism, a philosophy and religion that believes that the living can communicate with the dead. This week write a short story in which one of your characters encounters a medium and attempts to establish a connection with someone in their life who has died. You might choose to include multiple voices or perspectives, or imbue your narrative with a tone of mystery, horror, tragedy, or comedy. Are the medium’s capabilities genuine or fraudulent, or perhaps somewhere in-between? What is revealed about your protagonist’s relationship with the person they’re trying to contact?

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