CRAFT Novelette Print Prize 2025

CRAFT 2025 Novelette Print Prize

January 15, 2025 – March 16, 2025

Awarding $3,000 + Print Publication

Guest Judge: ’Pemi AgudaAdd to Calendar

The novelette occupies a unique and enigmatic space in the literary landscape. Too expansive to be confined by the brevity of a short story, yet too concise to fully embody the scope of a novel or novella, the modern novelette stands on its own as a bold and ambitious form. But within its constraints lies the opportunity for daring experimentation, as seen in last year’s prize winner, Landing in Andonia by Philip Anderson. This year, we dare you to embrace the challenges and idiosyncrasies of the form and then send us your most mesmerizing novelette for consideration.

For the CRAFT 2025 Novelette Print Prize, we’re seeking submissions of polished novelettes from 7,500 to 15,000 words. One grand-prize winner will receive $3,000, print publication, royalties, and twenty author copies. The winner will have the option of international distribution through drop-shipping at Bookshop.org, Barnes & Noble, and other platforms, earning fifty percent of royalties on their published novelette.

Submissions will be open from January 15, 2025, until March 16, 2025. Entries will cost $30 and multiple entries will be welcomed. Guest Judge ’Pemi Aguda, a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award, will choose the winner and write the foreword for the print publication.

Here’s what ’Pemi expects from a winning novelette:

My ideal novelette would be swallowed in one sitting, swinging wickedly from sentence to sentence, image to image, until the ending proves that not one word could have been added or removed. Strangeness and disorientation—on the level of language or story—can be propulsive engines for this not-quite-short-but-not-quite-long form of the novelette because they provide an unmooring that makes one want to hold on tightly to the author for the ride. Whether traditional or experimental, ultimately, I love to be told a good story, to be surprised or cut, to remember the characters, while being delighted by the way a sentence spins out and curves back in, leaving me a little wrecked.

We are also partnering with The Loft Literary Center for this contest. The winner will receive a free class of choice in addition to the comprehensive publication package mentioned above.

Here’s what last year’s winner, Philip Anderson, has to say about his experience with CRAFT:

The CRAFT 2024 Novelette Print Prize especially appealed to me because the paragraph CRAFT included about what the guest judge, Hanna Pylväinen, expected. For example, “an excellent novelette will have some important reason for its length—maybe a complex background, or multiple settings, or a roving plot.” Landing in Andonia is the length it is to give a full understanding of the fictional town of Andonia, Illinois. A complex background, if you will. So I submitted my twelve-thousand-word story—with its chapters, footnotes, and particular formatting—to the Novelette Print Prize, and happily I won.

The process afterward involved regular contact with the wonderful editor in chief, Courtney Harler, who worked closely with me on copyedits in preparation for turning this story into its own little book. Courtney and I then discussed with Emelie Mano at Discover New Art’s Red Mare Press what that little book would become. Courtney, Emelie, and the interior designer, Julianne Johnson, were all very patient with me as I had certain ideas about how everything—from cover to titles—should look. Courtney kept me abreast of everything throughout, and I am forever grateful for the work she and the team at CRAFT did in getting this novelette made. I am honored to be the first novelette published by CRAFT, and I look forward to watching the print series grow over the years.

And finally, Editor in Chief Courtney Harler will be teaching a class with The Loft! Writers are invited to register (for a low fee) to learn more about the literary submission process in general and CRAFT’s behind-the-scenes logistics in particular. All are welcome to participate!

GUIDELINES:

The CRAFT Novelette Print Prize is open to all literary fiction writers from January 15, 2025, to March 16, 2025.
International submissions are welcome. Work should be written primarily in English, though stylistic code-switching/meshing is warmly welcomed.
Please send novelettes only—we’re looking for one very long short story for this contest, or what some may call a short novella. Your novelette should be complete and cohesive, though may be organized into chapters or sections.
Please adhere strictly to the 7,500 to 15,000 word-count requirement.
Please do not submit any form of creative nonfiction. Autofiction will work, however.
We review adult literary fiction, but are open to a variety of genres and styles. Work may lean toward speculative fiction or other genres, as long as it’s literary in its expression.
Submit previously unpublished work only—we do NOT review reprints or partial reprints for contests (including any form of self-publishing such as on blogs, personal websites, social media, et cetera). Reprints will be automatically disqualified.
Work generated by AI will be automatically disqualified.
We allow simultaneous submissions—writers, please notify us immediately and withdraw your novelette if your work is accepted elsewhere.
We allow multiple submissions—please submit each novelette as a separate submission accompanied by an entry fee.
Please note the $30 entry fee per submission.
Writers from historically marginalized or underrepresented groups can submit for a reduced price of $15 per entry until we reach fifty submissions in this special category. Please submit early if you qualify, as no additional fee waivers will be granted.
Kindly double-space your submission and use Times New Roman 12. (Feel free to contact us directly if you need to change these formatting requirements for better accessibility.)
Please include a brief cover letter with your publication history (if applicable) and any content warnings (to help safeguard our staff).
We do not require anonymous submissions, but the guest judge will read the shortlist of five novelettes anonymized.
We do not discriminate on the basis of age, ancestry, disability, family status, gender identity or expression, national origin, race, religion, sex or sexual orientation, or for any other reason.
Additionally, we do not tolerate discrimination in the writing we consider for publication: work we find discriminatory on any of the bases stated here will be automatically disqualified without complete review.
Submissions that do not adhere to the above guidelines will be automatically disqualified.
We are always happy to answer questions. Please email us at contact@craftliterary.com.

AWARD:

$3,000,
online excerpt publication,
print publication with foreword by the guest judge,
royalties on optional international drop-shipping with our partners,
twenty author copies,
and a free class at The Loft Literary Center!

FINE PRINT:

Friends, family, and close associates of the guest judge are not eligible for consideration for the award.
Our collaboration with literary professionals in the judging and awarding of our contests does not imply an endorsement or recognition from their agencies, houses, presses, universities, et cetera.
Work already contracted for publication is not eligible for contest consideration. CRAFT will require first serial rights for one year for the print publication.
We hope to publish the winning print novelette and its online excerpt in January 2026.

GUEST JUDGE:

Photo Credit: IfeOluwa Nihinlola

’PEMI AGUDA is from Lagos, Nigeria. She has an MFA from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. Her writing has been published in Granta, Zoetrope: All-Story, Ploughshares, and One Story, among others, and won O. Henry Prizes. Her novel-in-progress won the 2020 Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award. She was a 2021 Fiction Fellow with the Miami Book Fair, a 2022 MacDowell Fellow, and is the current Hortense Spillers Assistant Editor at Transition Magazine. Her collection of stories, Ghostroots (Norton, 2024), a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award in Fiction, is her first book. Find her on Instagram @pem.i.

CONTEST PARTNER:

THE LOFT’s mission is to advance the power of writers and readers to craft and share stories, to create and celebrate connections, and to build just, life-sustaining communities. Founded in 1974, The Loft started as a grassroots gathering space for poets and writers to share their work and improve their craft. Over the years, we have grown to become one of the nation’s leading independent literary centers. Annually, The Loft offers hundreds of classes, readings and events, awards and grants for writers, major festivals and conferences, and other resources for readers and writers. Find them on Instagram @loftliterarycenter.

OPTIONAL EDITORIAL FEEDBACK:

You may choose to receive editorial feedback on your submission—either on the first 6,000 words of the novelette or the full manuscript. We will provide marginal notes, as well as a two-page-minimum global letter discussing the strengths of the writing and the recommended focus for revision. While editorial feedback is inherently subjective, our suggestions are always actionable and encouraging. We aim to have feedback completed within twelve weeks of the close of the contest. Please note that work we critique is not eligible for future CRAFT contests. If your novelette is chosen for publication, feedback will not be given and your feedback fee will be returned.

Editorial Feedback Team:

JOANNA ACEVEDO (she/they) is the Pushcart-nominated author of three books and two chapbooks. Her work has been seen across the web and in print, including Free State Review, The Rumpus, and The Adroit Journal. She received her MFA in fiction from New York University in 2021 and also holds degrees from Bard College and The New School. Find her on Twitter @jo_avocado.

MELISSA BENTON BARKER is the flash fiction section editor at CRAFT. A graduate of the MFA program at Antioch University Los Angeles, her writing appears in Longleaf Review, Moon City Review, Wigleaf, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Best Small Fictions 2021. She has received Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations. She lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

KATE BLAKINGER is a writer and editor. Her short stories and essays have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Epiphany, The Gettysburg Review, The Iowa Review, The Offing, and other journals. She is a Tin House Workshop alumna and holds an MFA from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan. The Elizabeth George Foundation, MacDowell, Jentel, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center have supported her writing with fellowships. She lives in Philadelphia with her family.

ALYSE BURNSIDE is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn. She holds an MFA from University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Nation, The Believer, and elsewhere. She’s working on a book.

HENRY CHRISTOPHER is an Ohioan writer living in Seattle, Washington. He received his BA from Mount Vernon Nazarene University in 2018, and his MFA from the University of Washington in 2023. While attending school in Mount Vernon, Ohio, Henry served as editor in chief for Penmarks Journal of Literature and Art, news writer for The Viewer, and presented in a roundtable conference on small press lit journals at the Sigma Tau Delta International English Honors Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio. In the past, he has worked with CRAFT as section editor for critical essays and interviews, art and marketing assistant, and fiction reader; currently, he works as a marketing assistant for Fernwood Press. His creative writing has been presented at events such as Cleveland Drafts, Black Jaw, and Castalia, and has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. Henry’s debut novel, No One Dies in Palmyra Ohio, was published in October 2022 through What Books Press. He feels strongly about experimental works and queered forms, with passion for those composed outside traditional literary backgrounds. Currently, he publishes his writing through handmade, freely distributed zines around the Seattle area.

KYLE COCHRUN (he/him) is a writer living in Seattle, Washington. He is a contributing writer for PopMatters, where he writes features, interviews, and album reviews. His essays and creative nonfiction have appeared in The Akron Anthology, Watershed Review, Echo, and CRAFT. He received an MFA in creative writing from the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts graduate program.

ALEXA DORAN recently completed her PhD in poetry at Florida State University. Her full-length collection DM Me, Mother Darling won the 2020 May Sarton New Hampshire Poetry Prize and was published in April 2021 (Bauhan). She is also the author of the chapbook Nightsink, Faucet Me a Lullaby (Bottlecap Press 2019). Look for work from Doran in recent or upcoming issues of Pleiades, Witness, Salt Hill Journal, and Gigantic Sequins, among others.

BRANDON DUDLEY is the author of Hazards of Nature: Stories, selected by Sigrid Nunez as the winner of the 2020 Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance Chapbook Contest. His writing, interviews, and criticism have appeared in New South, The Millions, The Forge, Fiction Writers Review, North by Northeast 2, and others. He holds an MFA from the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe. He lives in Maine with his wife and two sons. Find him on Twitter @brandondudley8.

ROSS FEELER’s fiction has appeared in Electric Literature’s “Recommended Reading,” The Common, New South, Potomac Review, Story | Houston, Hypertext, and others. His novel-in-progress received the Marianne Russo Award from the Key West Literary Seminar and was a finalist for James Jones First Novel Award. He teaches English at Texas State University.

B. B. GARIN is a writer living in Buffalo, New York. Her echapbook, New Songs for Old Radios, is available from Wordrunner Press. Her work has appeared in Hawaii Pacific Review, Luna Station Quarterly, Palooka, 3rd Wednesday, Crack the Spine, and more. She is currently a prose reader and blog contributor for The Masters Review. She continues to improve her craft at GrubStreet Writing Center, where she has developed several short fiction pieces, as well as two novels. Connect with her online @bb_garin.

ELIANA GRUVMAN is a passionate reader, editor, and writer. She graduated from Fordham University with a degree in English and Spanish language and literature. She is currently a flash fiction editorial assistant at CRAFT and previously interned for Gallery Books at Simon & Schuster and for Ladderbird Literary Agency. Her work has been published on Fordham’s platforms—the Ampersand, MODE Magazine, Bricolage, and RELISH—and has been performed by Free Pizza Sketch Comedy.

COURTNEY HARLER (she/her) is a queer writer, editor, and educator based in Las Vegas, Nevada. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing (fiction) from the University of Nevada, Reno at Lake Tahoe (2017) and an MA in English (literature) from Eastern Washington University (2013). Courtney is currently editor in chief of CRAFT and editorial director for Discover New Art, and has read and written for UNT’s Katherine Anne Porter Prize, The Masters Review, Funicular Magazine, Reflex Fiction, and Chicago Literati in recent years. She cohosted the literary podcast PWN’s Debut Review, and teaches and edits for Project Write Now, a nonprofit writing studio in New Jersey. For her creative work, Courtney has been honored by support from Key West Literary Seminar, Writing By Writers, Community of Writers, Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, and Nevada Arts Council. Courtney’s work has been published in multiple genres in literary magazines around the world. Find her on Instagram @CourtneyHarler.

KATELYN KEATING (she/her) was the editor in chief of CRAFT from 2018 to 2021 and now serves as editor at large. She was a 2017 fellow of the LA Review of Books Publishing Workshop and has been on their faculty since 2018, overseeing PubLab, leading the magazine track as a program manager, and serving as the publisher coordinator for LITLIT: The Little Literary Fair. She is a production manager with Berrett-Koehler Publishers, and was the production and operations manager at Prospect Park Books until it left California in 2021. Her essays appear in Crab Orchard Review, Flyway, Lunch Ticket, Tahoma Literary Review, and elsewhere. Katelyn has an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles, where she worked for two years on Lunch Ticket, serving as editor in chief for issues 11 and 12. Find her on Twitter @katelyn_keating.

JILL KOLONGOWSKI writes the Substack Tiny True Stories and is also the author of the essay collection Life Lessons Harry Potter Taught Me (Ulysses Press, 2017). Her work also appears in Electric Lit, Insider, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Brevity, River Teeth, and elsewhere. Her essays have won Sundog Lit’s First Annual Contest series and the Diana Woods Memorial Prize in Creative Nonfiction at Lunch Ticket, and she earned her MFA from St. Mary’s College of California. Jill teaches writing at the College of San Mateo, and lives in Northern California with her husband and daughter. Find her on Twitter @jillkolongowski.

VAL M. MATHEWS is a big-hearted, fun-loving editor who teaches courses in developmental editing for the University of California Berkeley Extension, Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, and the Editorial Freelancers Association in New York City. Val also freelances on the side and works as an editorial consultant for CRAFT and The Masters Review. Previously, she was an editor for The Wild Rose Press, a small traditional publishing house in New York. She earned an MA in professional writing from Kennesaw State University and a BFA from the University of Georgia. Fun fact about Val: She’s been an FAA-certified flight instructor for over twenty-five years, and in the past, she flew Lear jets for a living.

GABRIEL MOSELEY is a writer from Seattle, Washington. He holds an MFA from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and certificates in both editing and literary fiction from the University of Washington. His short story, “A Man Stands Tall,” was awarded The Masters Review Anthology Prize in 2017, selected by Roxane Gay. He received the General Motors’ Future Fiction Scholarship to attend Aspen Summer Words in 2023 and was chosen for the Jack Straw Writers Program in 2024. He has been selected for residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Centrum Artist Residency, and Seattle Public Library’s Writers’ Room Residency. He has also been named as a finalist for the Made at Hugo House Writing Fellowship, LitMag’s Virginia Woolf Award for Short Fiction, and the Haleakalā National Park Residency. He has attended the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and Disquiet International, among others. His work appears in The Masters Review, Stratus, and Nordic Kultur Magazine.

JUSTINE PAYTON is an MFA candidate at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington where she is a recipient of the Philip Gerard Graduate Fellowship and the Bernice Kert Fellowship in Creative Writing. She has been published or has work forthcoming in the Bellevue Literary Review, Isele Magazine, The Masters Review, The Keeping Room, and others. She is currently the managing editor of ONLY POEMS, an editor for Ecotone, and an editorial intern with Tin House. Find her on Instagram @just_a_rose4.

REBECCA REYNOLDS has an MFA in creative writing. Her short fiction has been published in various literary magazines, including Ascent, MudRoom, and The Boiler, and her story collection This Is How We Speak is forthcoming with Cornerstone Press. She lives outside Boston with her husband and three boys, and by day she is a children’s librarian. Find her on Twitter @rsreynolds611.

GAGE SAYLOR is the assistant director of creative writing at Oklahoma State University. His fiction and poetry have appeared in Passages North, Tampa Review, Crab Creek Review, Iron Horse, and elsewhere. He has won the Katherine Anne Porter Prize at Nimrod and is a previous semifinalist for the Kurt Vonnegut Speculative Fiction Prize at North American Review. He received his MFA at McNeese State University, where he was awarded the Robert Olen Butler Prize for Fiction.

CHLOE CHUN SEIM is the author of CHURN, an illustrated novel-in-stories, which won the 2022 George Garrett Fiction Prize and was named a finalist for Publishing Triangle’s Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. Texas Review Press published CHURN in late 2023. Chloe’s fiction has appeared in LitMag, where she won the 2021 Anton Chekov Award for Flash Fiction, and in Split Lip Magazine, The McNeese Review, Potomac Review, and more. She lives in Lawrence, Kansas.

After retiring from full-time work, DAVID K. SLAY completed a two-year program of short fiction writing workshops in the University of California, Los Angeles, Writers’ Program. His short stories, flash fiction, and microfiction can be found in a group of diverse literary journals, including Door Is A Jar, Gold Man Review, ImageOutWrite, The Magnolia Review, Random Sample Review, Ginosko Literary Journal, American Writers Review, and others. Nonfiction craft articles are in CRAFT and Submittable’s “Content for Creatives,” and he has served as a guest editor for Vestal Review. He has been a submissions reader for CRAFT since 2019, and is currently an associate editor for the short fiction section.