Genre: Fiction

The Story Prize

The Story Prize
Entry Fee: 
$75
Deadline: 
November 15, 2025

A prize of $20,000 is given annually for a story collection written in English and first published in the United States in the current year. Two runners-up will receive $5,000 each, and one entrant will receive the $1,000 Story Prize Spotlight Award, given for a collection that merits further attention. Larry Dark and Julie Lindsey will select the three finalists and the Spotlight Award winner; three independent judges will choose the Story Prize winner. Publishers, authors, or agents may submit two copies of a book (one of which may be an electronic copy) published between July 1, 2025, and December 31, 2025, with an entry fee of $75 by November 15. The deadline for books published during the first half of the year was July 1. Visit the website for the required entry form and complete guidelines.

W.Y. Boyd Literary Award

American Library Association
Entry Fee: 
$0
Deadline: 
December 31, 2025
A prize of $5,000 is given annually for a novel published in the current year that is set in a period when the United States was at war. Publishers or authors may submit seven copies of a book published in 2025 by December 31. There is no entry fee. Visit the website for the required entry form and complete guidelines.

Jesmyn Ward Prize in Fiction

Michigan Quarterly Review
Entry Fee: 
$25
Deadline: 
November 30, 2025

A prize of $2,000 and publication in Michigan Quarterly Review is given annually for a short story. Kevin Wilson will judge. Using only the online submission system, submit a story of 1,500 to 7,000 words with a $25 entry fee by November 30. All entries are considered for publication. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Danahy Fiction Prize

Tampa Review
Entry Fee: 
$20
Deadline: 
December 31, 2025

A prize of $1,000 and publication in Tampa Review is given annually for a short story. Using only the online submission system, submit a story of 500 to 5,000 words with a $20 entry fee, which includes one copy of the next issue of Tampa Review, by December 31. All entries are considered for publication. Visit the website for 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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