Essay in THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS 2018;
(cited in BAE 2015, 2016, 2020); PUSHCART poetry finalist
Annual Literary Contest
submissions are closed
Jabari Asim
$1,000
Fiction Prize, judge
Jabari Asim is a professor of creative writing at Emerson College. A recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, he is the author of several books, including A Taste of Honey: Stories, and the novels Only The Strong and Yonder.
Alysia Abbott
$500
Michael Steinberg Nonfiction Prize, judge
Alysia Abbott runs the Memoir Incubator program at Grub Street and is the author of Fairyland, A Memoir of My Father. She has written for Real Simple, TheAtlantic.com, Salon, Vogue, Dame, and the Boston Globe, among other venues. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Tomás Q. Morín
$500
Stephen Dunn Poetry Prize, judge
Tomás Q. Morín is the author of the collection of poems Machete and the memoir Let Me Count the Ways, as well as the poetry collections Patient Zero and A Larger Country. He is co-editor with Mari L’Esperance of the anthology, Coming Close: Forty Essays on Philip Levine, and translator of The Heights of Macchu Picchu by Pablo Neruda. He teaches at Rice University and Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Josh Neufeld
$500
Graphic Lit Prize, judge
Josh Neufeld is a Brooklyn-based cartoonist. He is known for his nonfiction narratives of political and social upheaval, told through the voices of witnesses. Neufeld has been a Knight-Wallace Fellow in journalism, an Atlantic Center for the Arts Master Artist, and a Xeric Award winner. His works include the bestsellers A.D: New Orleans After the Deluge and The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media. He is a faculty mentor in comics & graphics narrative for the Solstice Low-Residency Program.
Rules & Guidelines
Winners as well as finalists will be published in our Summer Awards Issue due out in August. All winners and finalists will be cited in future advertisements and announcements.
Previous judges have included Martha Collins, Andres Dubus III, Jennifer Haigh, Terrance Hayes, Robert Lopez, Celeste Ng, Jerald Walker, and Afaa Weaver.
FEE: $18.00/entry
GUIDELINES
- Cover sheet required with name, address, telephone number and email. Email and/or phone MUST be included to be considered. Please include cover sheet in the same file as the actual submission. Do not put your name on the manuscript itself. Final judges will be choosing on the basis of the quality of your work. Please indicate the genre of your piece next to the title.
- 12-point font. Microsoft Word attachment. Online submissions only.
- Each entry: Fiction or Nonfiction: 25-page maximum, double-spaced; free-standing excerpts from books also accepted. Poetry: 3-poem maximum. Graphic Lit: Original artwork, multiple panels (no single image pieces), original artwork, multiple panels (no single image pieces), 1-6 pages preferred, maximum 8-10 pages in JPG/PDF format.
- You may submit more than once but must pay a separate fee for each entry.
- You may submit simultaneously elsewhere, but please email us immediately if accepted at another journal.
- We will not accept previously published work. Solstice has first publication rights, but copyright reverts to you upon publication. We will publish the piece after the Summer Awards Issue in our Archives.
- If you won last year’s contest, you must skip a year before resubmitting to the contest, but we encourage you to submit work to Solstice for general publication.
- We will announce the winners on this page approximately 6-8 weeks after the contest deadline.
- After announcing the winners, all contest submissions will be automatically considered for standard publication unless you indicate otherwise.
- The $18.00 entry fee must be paid online at the time of entry.
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