Weike Wang will judge this year’s Summer Short Story Award for New Writers! We couldn’t be more excited. Submissions for this year’s contest open on July 1, and will close at 11:59pm PDT on August 30, 2026. The grand prize winner will receive $3,000, while second- and third-place finalists receive $300 and $200, respectively. All selected finalists will be published online and receive agency review from our partnered agents. Learn more below or on our contest page.
About the Judge
Weike Wang is the author of four novels, the most forthcoming Iris (Riverhead 2027). She is the recipient of a PEN/Hemingway, a Whiting Award, and is a National Book Foundation 5 under 35 honoree. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s Magazine, Best American Short Stories and has won two O. Henry Prizes. She earned her MFA from Boston University and her other degrees from Harvard. She currently lives in New York City and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, Barnard College, and Boston University. Weike is not on social media.
Guidelines
- The first-place winner receives $3,000, online publication, and agency review.
- The second- and third-place finalists receive cash prizes ($300/$200), online publication, and agency review.
- Submissions of fiction or creative nonfiction must be under 6,000 words.
- Submitted work must be previously unpublished. This includes personal blogs, social media accounts, and other websites. Previously published work will be automatically disqualified.
- The entry fee is $20.
- 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. No additional fee waivers will be granted.
- 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, but the guest judge will read 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interested in providing a platform to new writers; authors with books published by indie presses are welcome to submit unpublished work, as are self-published authors.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.
- The contest’s deadline is 11:59pm PDT on August 30, 2026.
- All entries are also considered for publication in New Voices.
- Every submission will receive a response by the end of December 2026. The winners will be announced by the end of January 2027.
- AI-generated or -assisted submissions will be automatically disqualified. This includes using LLMs (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or similar) to translate your work.
- Friends, family, and close associates of the guest judge are not eligible for this award. Consider submitting to the summer contest instead!