Best Emerging Writers Anthology: April 10 – June 8, 2025

Submissions closed. Thank you!

It’s that time of year again! The Masters Review’s long-running anthology series returns for the fourteenth year. If you’re a writer of fiction or creative nonfiction who has not yet published a novel or memoir with a major press, this is the contest for you. Best Emerging Writers 2025 will showcase a collection of prose from ten writers who are on their way to greatness. Selecting this year’s best emerging writers is the terrific Andrew Porter, author of The Disappeared, the forthcoming novel The Imagined Life, and more. Each of our ten winners will receive a $700 award and a print copy of the book.

What Andrew Porter is looking for: “As a reader, I’m interested in writing that convinces me of its characters, whether it’s realism or speculative fiction or something wildly experimental. I’m interested in that genuine emotional connection between reader and character, and I’m interested in writing that feels honest. In a really good short story, you can always sense the presence of another soul on the other side of the words, and that’s the type of story I’m interested in, one that excites me, moves me, haunts me.”

This year, our winners will be published both in print and online! Our anthology has been at the heart of our mission to provide a platform for emerging writers since day one, and we’re excited to share these stories and essays in a variety of forms, to meet our audience wherever they are. The book will be available for purchase at Bookshop.org and other online distributors. Submissions will be open April 10 and close June 8, 2025. As always, we don’t have any preferences topically or in terms of style. We’re simply looking for the best.

Guidelines:

• Submissions of fiction or creative nonfiction must be under 8,000 words.
• This contest is for emerging writers only. Writers with single-author book-length work published or under contract with a major press are ineligible. We are interested in providing a platform to new writers; authors with books published by indie or university presses and self-published authors are welcome to submit unpublished work.
• Submitted work must be previously unpublished, which includes publication on personal blogs, social media accounts, and other websites. Previously published work will be automatically disqualified.
• The entry fee per submission is $20.
• Simultaneous submissions and multiple submissions are allowed, though each submission requires a $20 fee.
• Writers from historically marginalized or underrepresented groups are invited to submit  for free until we reach fifty submissions in this category.
• If your submission is accepted elsewhere, please withdraw your submission on Submittable, or contact us otherwise to let us know the piece is no longer available.
• We do not require anonymous submissions for this contest, though the guest judge will review the shortlist anonymously.
• International submissions are allowed, provided the work is written primarily in English. Some code-switching/meshing is warmly welcomed.
• No translations, please.
• All submissions must be double-spaced with one-inch page margins and use Times New Roman or Garamond 12 (or larger, if needed for accessibility).
• The contest’s deadline is 11:59 p.m. PDT on June 8, 2025.
• All entries are considered for publication in New Voices.
• Every submission will receive a response by the end of September 2025. The winners will be announced in October 2025.
• Friends, family, and associates of the guest judge are ineligible for this award.
• Writers whose work appears in previous editions of our anthology are ineligible for this award.

Ten winners will receive:

• a $700 award;
• publication in our internationally distributed anthology and on our website;
• a contributor’s copy;
• and exposure to over fifty literary agencies as part of our exclusive mailing. We send our anthology to editors, writers, and literary institutions across the country.

About the Judge

ANDREW PORTER is the author of the story collections The Disappeared (Knopf) and The Theory of Light and Matter (Vintage) and the novels In Between Days (Knopf) and The Imagined Life (Knopf). A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has received a Pushcart Prize, a James Michener/Copernicus Fellowship, and the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. His work has appeared in One Story, Ploughshares, American Short Fiction, Best American Short Stories, and on Public Radio’s Selected Shorts. Currently, he teaches fiction writing and directs the creative writing program at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.

Editorial Letter Option

If you’re interested in getting feedback on your writing, utilize our editorial letter add-on option. Our response to your submission will be accompanied by a one- to two-page letter from an experienced guest editor, who will offer observations on the strengths of the piece as well as opportunities for revision. Your editor may also offer further submission and reading suggestions, or other comments on craft. A significant portion of the additional fee is paid directly to your feedback editor. See a sample editorial letter.

Congratulations to the writers selected for Best Emerging Writers 2024:

“[Volume XII] rings with vivid voices that are exploring realism’s fascinating edges. They showcase stories of work and everyday life, of both ritual and celebration—and in each incantation, these familiar situations are reborn in the fresh language sung by these writers. I was especially struck by the compassionate characterization that invested me in both horrifically fraught relationships as well as such movingly sweet ones. Beauty, blunder, and style abound in this powerful collection of masterful new voices.” –Dustin M. Hoffman, author of No Good for Digging and One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist, and The Masters Review contributor

“This latest anthology from The Masters Review sparks with something extraordinary: the full range of human experience in just ten short pieces. From our mid-life crises to our marital affairs, from our burning addictions to the pains and joys of caring for those we love and hate the most, the tales spun by these talented emerging writers remind us of every desire, disappointment, and surprise that accompanies the journey of life.” –Nick Fuller Googins, author of The Great Transition, and The Masters Review contributor

“I read your issues like clockwork! I’m a literary agent, and there’s such a great cast of emerging writers on this site that I’m always checking in to see if there’s anyone who might be looking for representation for longer form work.” – Victoria Marini, Gelfman Schnieder / ICM Partners