F(r)iction Contests
Opens: January 11, 2023
Deadline: April 27, 2023
Results: Announced September 6, 2023
Prizes: Win $2,100 in Prizes!
Guest Judges: Jennifer Wortman, Exodus Oktavia Brownlow, Charlie Claire Burgess and Kyle Carrero Lopez
Categories: Short Story, Creative Nonfiction, Flash Fiction, and Poetry
For full Submission Guidelines, please read the information on our Submittable page carefully. And please visit our formatting guidelines page to properly format your work for submission.
An insider tip for you all: We seek work that actively pushes boundaries, that forces us to question traditions and tastes. If your work takes risks, we want to read it. We like strong narratives that make us feel something and stories we haven’t seen before. To get an idea of the kind of work we look for, please check out this page from our editors detailing what we look for in our submissions.
We also strongly recommend checking out a past issue of F(r)iction before submitting to our contests to get an idea of our general publishing aesthetic. We have several pieces available online, but there’s nothing like holding a glossy, full-color issue in your hands. You can check out all of our issues in our shop.
Short Story Judge
$1,000 Prize
Jennifer Wortman
Jennifer Wortman is the author of the story collection This. This. This. Is. Love. Love. Love. Her work appears in TriQuarterly, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Glimmer Train, Electric Literature, Brevity, Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and elsewhere, and has been cited as distinguished in Best American Short Stories. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and MacDowell, she lives with her family in Colorado, where she teaches at Lighthouse Writers Workshop and serves as associate fiction editor for Colorado Review.
Creative Nonfiction Judge
$500 Prize
Charlie Claire Burgess
Charlie Claire Burgess is a queer and trans-nonbinary writer and illustrator with a focus on queerness, personal narrative, and tarot. They are the author of Radical Tarot (Hay House, 2023) and the creator of the Fifth Spirit Tarot deck (2022). Their creative nonfiction and fiction have appeared in F(r)iction, Joyland, Hunger Mountain, and elsewhere, and have received a Pushcart Prize Special Mention and notable mentions in two Best American anthologies. Charlie holds an MFA from Vanderbilt University and lives in Portland, Oregon, where they teach tarot, design card decks, and tell stories about the magic of queerness.
Flash Fiction Judge
$300 Prize
Exodus Oktavia Brownlow
Exodus Oktavia Brownlow is a Blackhawk, Ms native. She has been published with Electric Lit, West Branch, Denver Quarterly, F(r)iction and more. Her fiction has been selected for Wigleaf’s Top 50 (2022), Best Microfiction (2021/2022), and CRAFT’s Flash Fiction 2021 Contest Editors’ Choice Prize . Her debut collection of essays–“I’m Afraid That I Know Too Much About Myself Now, To Go Back To Who I Knew Before, And Oh Lord, Who Will I Be After I’ve Known All That I Can”–is set for publication with ELJEditions in Summer of 2023. You can find her at www.exodusoktaviabrownlow.com.
Poetry Judge
$300 Prize
Kyle Carrero Lopez
Kyle Carrero Lopez is the author of MUSCLE MEMORY, the chapbook winner of the 2020 [PANK] Books Contest. His poetry and prose is published in The Nation, POETRY, New York Magazine, The Atlantic, Jewish Currents, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in Poetry from NYU, where he was a Goldwater Fellow.
Please note: We are unable to offer refunds for contest submissions, so please read the options and choose your submission category carefully. For poetry and flash fiction, you can submit ONE ENTRY or a THREE PACK.
F(r)iction reserves the right to not award a winner in any categories if the submissions do not reach a publishable standard. In this case, reading fees will NOT be refunded and a winner will not be announced. Although this has rarely come to pass in our six-year-publishing history, our top priority must remain with the quality of work we publish.
No AI Submissions
We currently do not accept work from artificial intelligence (“AI”) generators or similar. By submitting your entry, you are attesting that your work was not created, in whole or in part, with an AI generator or similar. Should any portion of your work be discovered to be the product of an AI generator or similar, by submitting, you agree to indemnify Brink Literacy Project for all losses, fees, and damages it suffers relating to your submission and/or misrepresentation, including but not limited to, direct and indirect damages, loss of sale, reputational damages, attorney fees, and other expenses. You further agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Brink Literacy Project against any third-party claims relating to the work you submit.