The Arkansas International is inviting entries for its third annual emerging writer’s prize. The winner will receive US$1000 and publication. The prize is only open to writers who have not yet published a full-length book.
The Arkansas International is a journal of literature from the University of Arkansas Program in Creative Writing and Translation. Its first issue was published in Fall 2016 with the aim of publishing the best fiction, poetry, essays, comics and works in translation from the United States and abroad.
The Arkansas International Emerging Writer’s Prize is open to works of fiction up to 7500 words in length. All entrants must not have yet published a full-length book, and have no book forthcoming before 1 May 2020. Writers with chapbooks or self-published books with a print run of under 500 copies are allowed to enter. Close friends of the judge, as well as anyone recently affiliated with the University of Arkansas, which includes those who have studied or worked there within the past four years, are ineligible.
The judge of The Arkansas International Emerging Writer’s Prize for 2019 is Sigrid Nunez. Nunez is the author of several novels, most recently The Friend, as well as Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. Her work has also appeared in several anthologies, including four Pushcart Prize volumes and four anthologies of Asian-American literature.
Anthony Blake, Managing Editor of The Arkansas International, said they launched the Emerging Writer’s Prize because they “believe an important part of good literary citizenship, and one of the most thrilling, is helping to discover and cultivate new voices . . . we’re hoping to see a wide range of comforting, disturbing, hilarious, heartbreaking, traditional, experimental stories from a diverse group of emerging writers.”
An entry fee of $20 is payable with each entry (multiple entries are permitted) and all entrants receive a one-year subscription to The Arkansas International. All entries will be considered for publication.
Entries for the 2018 prize close on Saturday 19 October 2019. For full entry details visit The Arkansas International website.
The Arkansas International also accepts unsolicited submissions between 1 September and 1 April and both established and emerging voices are encouraged to submit their work. Prose submissions may be up to 8000 words and poem can be submitted in packets of up to five. Excerpts from longer works should be self-contained and simultaneous submissions are accepted. The current payment rate is $20 per printed page, capped at $250.