Arts & Letters Prizes

Prize submission period February 1st – March 31st

25th Annual Arts & Letters Prize Judges Announced

2024 Prize Judges

Poetry: Chelsea Rathburn 

Creative Nonfiction: Beth Ann Fennelly

Fiction: Tiphanie Yanique

Poetry, Creative Nonfiction, and Fiction Winners will appear in next year’s Fall or Spring issue of Arts & Letters.

About the Prizes
For our prizes in fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction, we offer the winner a $1,000 prize and publication in the next year’s Fall or Spring issue. Our prizes are made possible through generous gifts to our prize endowments from Dr. Martin Lammon, Dr. Barry Darugar, Bahram and Fari Atefat, and other friends of Arts & Letters. If you are interested in contributing to our endowments, please contact us!

Submission Guidelines:

Please do NOT include your name on any part of the uploaded file you submit to any genre.  We accept most file formats (Word, .rtf, PDF).

We prefer, for the prizes, that your work not be simultaneously submitted. This helps us preserve the integrity of the contest(s). Our judges’ decisions are usually made by the end of May.

All fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction prize submissions will be considered for publication at regular payment rates.

All writers and poets writing in English are eligible to enter, excepting friends, relatives, or current and former students of the current-year judges.

The submission period for our annual prizes is February 1 – March 31st. The entry fee is $20.

Arts & Letters Prize for Fiction:

Submit a manuscript of up to 25 pages, typed, double-spaced

Susan Atefat Prize for Creative Nonfiction:

Submit a manuscript of up to 25 pages, typed, double-spaced

Rumi Prize for Poetry:

Submit a manuscript of up to 4 poems, typed, single-spaced (poems need not be thematically linked, though it is fine if they are)

All submissions are through our Submittable site:

Submit

24th Annual Arts & Letters Prize Winners

Rumi Prize for Poetry Judge: Rodney Jones WINNER: Owen Lewis, for “Something’s Wrong,” “Waking This New Year’s Day,” and “More Than Twice”

Arts & Letters Prize for Fiction Judge: Francesca Ekwuyasi WINNER: Patricia Grace King, for “Pax Americana”

Susan Atefat Prize for Creative Nonfiction Judge: Sue William Silverman WINNER: Jonathan VanBallenberghe, for “Winchester Street: Living with My Father’s Suicide”