The George Garrett Prize
The George Garrett Fiction Prize
$1,000 + Publication
2022 Judge: Vi Khi Nao
Established in 1998, The George Garrett Fiction Prize highlights one book a year for excellence in a short story collection or novel. Since 2019 the Prize comes with a $1,000 advance, a standard royalty contract, and 20 copies of the published book.
Submissions open each year on July 1 and close on September 30.
Please note this new submission period.
Guidelines, Submissions, and List of Previous Winners
Winner of the 2022 George Garrett Fiction Prize:
Churn, by Chloe Chun Seim
Selected by Vi Khi Nao
Forthcoming Fall 2023
Submission Guidelines
To submit please visit our online submission manager:
https://texasreview.submittable.com/submit/1487/the-george-garrett-fiction-prize
General Guidelines
- Submissions are open July 1 - September 30.
- Submissions are accepted through Submittable only.
- A fee of $28 must be paid at the time of submission.
- Open to anyone writing in English. Translations are not eligible.
- Stories or excerpts may have been published individually in magazines or anthologies, but the collection as a whole must be unpublished.
- Simultaneous submissions are acceptable. Please notify TRP immediately by withdrawing the manuscript via Submittable if the manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
- Current and former students and faculty of Sam Houston State University are not eligible. Family or former students of the final judge are not eligible. Previous winners of this contest, and current or former TRP authors are not eligible.
- Winner receives a $1,000 advance, a standard royalty contract, and 20 copies of the published book.
- Winner will be announced in November/December 2022.
Manuscript Guidelines
- Manuscripts may be novels or short story collections with a total word count of between 40,000 and 100,000 words.
- Please include a table of contents, title page, and page numbers.
- Please double-space and use a 12pt. font.
- Do not include an acknowledgments page.
- Submissions are anonymous. Please remove any identifying information from the manuscript.
- Submit as a .pdf, .docx, or .doc file format.
- No revisions will be accepted once the manuscript is uploaded.
Vi Khi Nao
Vi Khi Nao is the author of six poetry collections: Fish Carcass (Black Sun Lit, 2022), A Bell Curve Is A Pregnant Straight Line (11:11 Press, 2021), Human Tetris (11:11 Press, 2019), Sheep Machine (Black Sun Lit, 2018), Umbilical Hospital (Press 1913, 2017), The Old Philosopher (winner of the Nightboat Prize for 2014), & of the short stories collection, A Brief Alphabet of Torture (winner of the 2016 FC2's Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize), the novel, Fish in Exile (Coffee House Press, 2016). Her work includes poetry, fiction, film and cross-genre collaboration. Her first play, Waiting for God, is out of Apocalypse Party in January 2022. She was the Fall 2019 fellow at the Black Mountain Institute: https://www.vikhinao.com
George Garrett
George Garrett (1929-2008), for whom this competition is named, is the author of thirty-two books and editor or co-editor of nineteen others. He earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees from Princeton University and taught for forty years at the University of Virginia. Among his honors and awards are the Rome Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Sewanee Review Fellowship in Poetry, fellowships from the Guggenheim, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He won the T.S. Eliot Award of the Ingersoll Foundation, the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Previous Winners
2022: Chloe Chun Seim – Churn
2021: J.E. Sumerau – Transmission
2020: Jenny Shank – Mixed Company
2019: William Black – In the Valley of the Kings
2018: Susan Lowell – Two Desperados
2017: Jim Kelly – Pitchman’s Blues
2016: James Ulmer – The Fire Doll
2015: Jeff P. Jones – Love Give Us One Death
2014: Kathy Flann – Get A Grip
2013: Stephen March – The Gold Piano
2012: Tim Parrish – The Jumper
2011: Starner Jones – Purple Church
2010: David Armand – The Pugilist’s Wife
2009: Richard Spilman – The Estate Sale
2008: Mary Kuykendall-Weber – River Roots
2007: Jack Smith – Hog To Hog
2006: Meg Moceri – Sky Full of Burdens
2005: Jacqueline Bautista – Fiestas
2004: Gail Mount – Pitching Tents
2004: Mark Brazaitis – An American Affair
2003: Steve Sherwood – Hardwater
2003: John Cottle – The Blessings of Hard-Used Angels
2002: Thomas Cobb – Acts of Contrition
2002: Clay Reynolds – Ars Poetica
2001: Naton Leslie – Marconi’s Dream and Other Stories
2000: Roger Hart – Erratics
1999: Don Meredith – Wing Walking
1998: Peter Leach – Tales of Resistance