The sixth annual Novel Excerpt Contest opens for submissions next week, and we’re thrilled to announce that Chinelo Okparanta will serve as this year’s guest judge! One winning excerpt will receive a $3,000 prize, publication online, and a consultation with Marin Takikawa, a literary agent with The Friedrich Agency. Second- and third-place finalists will receive $300 and $200 respectively, along with publication and written feedback from Takikawa. You can find out more about the contest, as well as what our judge is looking in submissions, below or on our contest page.
About the Judge
Chinelo Okparanta was born and raised in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Her new novel, This Impossible Life, will be published on November 10 by Mariner. Her debut short story collection, Happiness, Like Water, was nominated for the Nigerian Writers Award, longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, and the Etisalat Prize for Literature. Her first novel, Under the Udala Trees, won a Lambda Literary Award, was a finalist for the International Dublin Literary Award, was nominated for the Kirkus Prize and Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice. She was a finalist for the 2025 Dos Passos Prize and the Caine Prize for African Writing. She has published work in The New Yorker, Granta, Harper’s Bazaar, Lit Hub, Tin House, the Kenyon Review, AGNI, and was named one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists. She received her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and she is currently Associate Professor of English Literature and Director of the Creative Writing Program at Swarthmore College.
There’s nothing I enjoy more than immersing myself in a good book. For me, it’s about a captivating voice, an alluring tone, beautiful language throughout, and an original premise. It’s also about how compelling I find the characters. But mostly, it’s about how focused the novel is where the main conflict is concerned. What primary narrative thread should I be following? Too many novels lose their way with a scattering of unfulfilled and unfulfilling plot strands. In reading these excerpts, I’ll be looking for a unique voice and tone, a compelling cast of characters, gorgeous sentences, and an original premise. More than that, I’ll be keeping an eye out for an expertly handled and affecting central plotline.
—Chinelo Okparanta
Submission Guidelines
- The winner receives $3,000; online publication; and a consultation with Marin Takikawa, a literary agent with The Friedrich Agency.
- The second- and third-place finalists receive cash prizes ($300/$200), online publication, and agent feedback.
- Submitted excerpts must be under 6,000 words.
- Submitted work must be previously unpublished. This includes personal blogs, social media accounts, and other websites. Previously published excerpts will be automatically disqualified.
- Simultaneous and multiple submissions are allowed, though each submission requires a $20 entry fee.
- Writers from historically marginalized or underrepresented groups are invited to submit for free until we reach fifty submissions in this category.
- If your excerpt is accepted or contracted 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, but the judge will review the shortlist anonymously.
- 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 presses are welcome to submit unpublished work, as are self-published authors.
- International submissions are allowed, provided the work is written primarily in English.
- No translations, please.
- All submissions must be double-spaced with one-inch page margins and use 12pt Times New Roman or Garamond font.
- Excerpts from novels under contract for 2026 or 2027 are ineligible, but novels under contract from 2028 and beyond are eligible.
- The contest’s deadline is 11:59pm PST on Sunday, November 8, 2026.
- All entries are also considered for publication in New Voices.
- Every submission will receive a response by the end of March 2027. The winners will be announced in May 2027.
- AI-generated or -assisted submissions will be automatically disqualified.
- Friends, family, and associates of the guest judge are not eligible for this award, nor are past winners of the Novel Excerpt Contest.