Fractured Lit Micro Prize |$3500| Judged by Deb Olin Unferth

Fractured Lit has always been a place that celebrates the use of writing craft to tell small stories with big impacts. In the return of our Micro Prize, we want to honor stories of 400 words or fewer that tell a complete story and have us marveling at the depth of character and language. We’re looking for microfictions that demand more than one reading, invite us into their small containers, and awe us with the mysteries of being human.

We invite writers to submit to the Fractured Lit Micro Prize from October 01 to December 01. As an added opportunity, writers can also register for a generative workshop with Editor-in-Chief Tommy Dean called “Writing Micros with Urgency and Immediacy” from October 01 to October 31. The class will be held on November 7.

We're thrilled to partner with Guest Judge Deb Olin Unferth, who will choose three prize winners from a shortlist. We're excited to offer the first-place winner of this prize $2,500 and publication, while the second- and third-place place winners will receive publication and $600 and $400, respectively. All entries will be considered for publication.

 Want to know what our judge is hoping to read? Deb says, 

“I like being surprised—by language, sound, a twist in expectation. Microfiction is about voice expression, about capturing one’s own sound and letting the reader hear it, see it, be moved by it, feel joined to it, feel separation when it’s over.”

Good luck and happy writing!

Deb Olin Unferth is the author of six books, including the novels Barn 8 and Vacation, the memoir Revolution, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, two story collections, and the graphic novel I, Parrot. Her fiction and essays have appeared in over fifty magazines and journals, including Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Granta, and McSweeney’s. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, three Pushcart Prizes, a Creative Capital Fellowship for Innovative Literature, and fellowships from the MacDowell, Yaddo, and Ucross residencies. She’s a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center and the New Writers Project, and she also directs the Pen City Writers, the prison creative writing program at a south Texas penitentiary. Originally from Chicago, she lives in Austin with the philosophy professor Matt Evans.

GUIDELINES:

• Your $20 reading fee allows up to three stories of 400 words or fewer each per entry—if submitting more than one microfiction, please put them all in a SINGLE document.
• We allow multiple submissions—each set of three microfictions requires a separate submission accompanied by a reading fee.
• Writers from historically marginalized groups will be able to submit for free until we reach our cap of 25 free submissions. No additional fee waivers will be granted.
• Please send microfiction only—400 word count maximum per story.
• We only consider unpublished work for contests—we do not review reprints, including self-published work (even on blogs and social media). Reprints will be automatically disqualified.
• Simultaneous submissions are okay—please notify us and withdraw your entry if you find another home for your writing.
• All entries will also be considered for publication in Fractured Lit.
• Double-space your submission and use Times New Roman 12 (or larger if needed).
• Please include a brief cover letter with your publication history (if applicable). In the cover letter, please include content warnings as well, to safeguard our reading staff.
• We only read work in English, though some code-switching/meshing is warmly welcomed.
• We do not read anonymous submissions. However, shortlisted stories are sent anonymously to the judge.
• Unless specifically requested, we do not accept AI-generated work. For this contest, AI-generated work will be automatically disqualified.

The deadline for entry is December 01, 2024. We will announce the shortlist within 12-14 weeks of the contest's close. All writers will be notified when the results are final.

Some Submittable Hot Tips:

• Please be sure to whitelist/add this address to your contacts, so notifications do not get filtered as spam/junk: notifications@email.submittable.com.
• If you realize you sent the wrong version of your piece: It happens. Please DO NOT withdraw the piece and resubmit. Submittable collects a nonrefundable fee each time. Please DO message us from within the submission to request that we open the entry for editing, which will allow you to fix everything from typos in your cover letter to uploading a new draft. The only time we will not allow a change is if the piece is already under review by a reader.

OPTIONAL EDITORIAL FEEDBACK:

You may choose to receive editorial feedback on your piece. We will provide a two-page global letter discussing the strengths of the writing and the recommended focus for revision. Our aim is to make our comments actionable and encouraging. These letters are written by editors and staff readers of Fractured Lit. Should your story win, no feedback will be offered, and your fee will be refunded.