Today is the final day to get those submissions in to this year’s Winter Short Story Award for New Writers! We’re looking for your best—up to 6,000 words. The winners will receive cash prizes, publication and agency review. Submissions may be up to 6,000 words, and must be previously unpublished. Full details can be found below or on our contest page. Morgan Talty will be selecting this year’s finalists!
Winter is coming! The Masters Review’s Short Story Award for New Writers is a bi-annual contest that recognizes the best fiction from today’s emerging writers. Judging 2022-2023’s winter contest is Morgan Talty, author the story collection Night of the Living Rez. Winners and honorable mentions receive agency review from five agencies as well as publication. The winning story earns $3000, while the second and third place runners up receive $300 and $200, respectively. Participating agents include: Nat Sobel from Sobel Weber, Victoria Cappello from The Bent Agency, Andrea Morrison from Writers House, Sarah Fuentes from Fletcher & Company, and Heather Schroder from Compass Talent. Our mission from day one has been to support emerging writers. We want you to succeed. We want your words to be read.
Guidelines:
-
Winner receives $3000, publication, and agency review
-
Second and third place prizes ($300 / $200, publication, and agency review)
-
Stories under 6000 words
-
Previously unpublished stories only
-
Simultaneous and multiple submissions allowed
-
Emerging writers only; writers with book-length work published or under contract with a major press are ineligible. (We are interested in offering a larger platform to new writers. Authors with short story collections are free to submit new, unpublished work, as are writers with books published by indie presses or self-published.)
-
International English submissions allowed. No translations.
- Double-spaced, 12 pt easy-to-read font (i.e., Times New Roman, Garamond, etc.) please!
-
$20 entry fee
-
Deadline: January 31, 2023
-
All stories are considered for publication
- All submissions will receive a response by the end of April
- Winners will be announced by the end of May
- Friends, family and associates of the final judge are not eligible for this award. Consider submitting to the Summer contest!
-
A significant portion of the editorial letter fees go to our feedback editor, according to the rates established by the EFA
We don’t have any preferences topically or in terms of style. We’re simply looking for the best. We don’t define, nor are we interested in, stories identified by their genre. We do, however, consider ourselves a publication that focuses on literary fiction. Dazzle us, take chances, and be bold.
Judging
Morgan Talty is a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation where he grew up. He is the author of the critically acclaimed story collection Night of the Living Rez from Tin House Books, which won the New England Book Award, was a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers, and is a finalist for the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. His writing has appeared in Granta, The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, TriQuarterly, Narrative Magazine, LitHub, and elsewhere. A winner of the 2021 Narrative Prize, Talty’s work has been supported by the Elizabeth George Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts (2022). Talty is an Assistant Professor of English in Creative Writing and Native American and contemporary Literature at the University of Maine, Orono, and he is on the faculty at the Stonecoast MFA in creative writing as well as the Institute of American Indian Arts. Talty is also a Prose Editor at The Massachusetts Review. He lives in Levant, Maine.
