The 2022 Gulf Coast Prizes

We are now accepting entries for the 2022 Gulf Coast Prizes in Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry.

DEADLINE EXTENDED: April 22, 2022

Judges: Micah Dean Hicks (Fiction), Jennifer Chang (Poetry), and José Vadi (Nonfiction).

Entries for the Gulf Coast Prizes in Fiction and Nonfiction should be a single prose work not exceeding 7,000 words. Entrants for the Gulf Coast Prize in Poetry may submit up to five poems not exceeding 10 total pages in length. We only accept submissions via Submittable. Entrants may submit more than once or in more than one genre, but each new entry must be accompanied by a separate $26 entry fee.

Contest Guidelines

  • Click here for online submissions accepted via Gulf Coast’s Submittable 
  • Submit your work as a single .doc, .docx, or .pdf file.
  • Only previously unpublished work will be considered.
  • The contest will be judged blindly, so please do not include your cover letter, your name, or any contact information in the uploaded document. This information should only be pasted in the “Comments” field in Submittable.
  • Submittable accepts all major credit cards for the $26 entry fee, which includes a one-year subscription to Gulf Coast.

 

Entries for Gulf Coast Prizes in Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry are accepted annually between February 15 and April 8. The contest awards $1,500 and publication in Gulf Coast to the winner in each genre. Two honorable mentions in each genre are awarded $250. All entries are considered for publication and the entry fee includes a one-year subscription to Gulf Coast.

Micah Dean Hicks is the author of the novel Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones and the story collection Electricity and Other Dreams. He was awarded a 2020 National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship, the Calvino Prize, and has been a two-time finalist for the Nelson Algren Award. His writing has appeared in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Kenyon Review, Lightspeed, and elsewhere. Hicks grew up in rural southwest Arkansas. He teaches creative writing at the University of Central Florida.

Jennifer Chang is the author of The History of Anonymity and Some Say the Lark, which received the 2018 William Carlos Williams Award and was longlisted for the Julie Suk Award and the PEN Open Book Award. Her poems have been featured on NPR, the PBS NewsHour, and The Slowdown and have appeared in numerous publications, including American Poetry Review, The Believer, Best American Poetry, The Ecopoetry Anthology, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Yale Review. She co-chairs the advisory board of Kundiman, serves as the poetry editor of the New England Review, and teaches in the creative writing programs at the University of Texas in Austin.

José Vadi is an award-winning essayist, poet, playwright, and film producer. He is the author of Inter State: Essays from California. His work has been featured by the Paris Review, The Atlantic, Catapult, Stranger’s Guide, the PBS NewsHour, the San Francisco Chronicle, Free Skate Magazine, Quartersnacks, and Pop-Up Magazine.