The George Garrett Fiction Prize

About

$2,000 + Publication

2024 Judge: Kaveh Akbar

Established in 1998, The George Garrett Fiction Prize highlights one book a year for excellence in a short story collection or novel. Starting 2024, the Prize comes with a $2,000 advance, a standard royalty contract, and 10 copies of the published book.

Recent judges include Manuel Muñoz, Vi Khi Nao, Selah Saterstrom, Joe Wilkins, and John McNally.

Submissions open each year on July 1 and close on September 30.

Winner of the 2023 George Garrett Fiction Prize:

Lady Without Land / Señorita Sin Tierra, by Krystal Anali Vazquez

Selected by Manuel Muñoz

Submission Guidelines

Submit to 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or excerpts may have been published individually in magazines or anthologies, but the collection as a whole must be unpublished.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 and current or former students* of the final judge or TRP staff are not eligible.
Current and former TRP authors are not eligible.
Submitters must be 18+ years of age.
Winner receives a $2,000 advance, a standard royalty contract, and 10 copies of the published book.

*Writers who studied with TRP staff or the final judge for a semester-length period are not eligible. Writers who studied with TRP staff or the final judge for two-week residencies, single workshops, or other instances less than a semester in length are eligible, provided the work submitted is previously unseen by TRP staff or the final judge.

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.

Contest Judge: Kaveh Akbar

Kaveh Akbar’s novel Martyr, published by Knopf in 2024, is a New York Times bestseller and was named “Best Book of the Year So Far,” by The New York Times Book Review. He is the author of two poetry collections: Pilgrim Bell (Graywolf 2021) and Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James 2017), in addition to a chapbook, Portrait of the Alcoholic (Sibling Rivalry 2016). He is also the editor of The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse: 100 Poets on the Divine (Penguin Classics 2022), and with Paige Lewis, co-editor of Another Call: Poems on Addiction and Deliverance (Sarabande Books 2023).

In 2020 Kaveh was named Poetry Editor of The Nation. The recipient of honors including multiple Pushcart Prizes, a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship, and the Levis Reading Prize, Kaveh was born in Tehran, Iran, and teaches at the University of Iowa and in the low-residency MFA programs at Randolph College and Warren Wilson. In 2014, Kaveh founded Divedapper, a home for dialogues with the most vital voices in American poetry. With Sarah Kay and Claire Schwartz, he wrote a weekly column for the Paris Review called "Poetry RX."

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 & Judges

2023: Krystal Anali Vazquez – Lady Without Land
Judged by Manuel Muñoz

2022: Chloe Chun Seim – Churn
Judged by Vi Khi Nao

2021: J.E. Sumerau – Transmission
Judged by Selah Saterstrom

2020: Jenny Shank – Mixed Company
Judged by Joe Wilkins

2019: William Black – In the Valley of the Kings
Judged by John McNally

2018: Susan Lowell – Two Despe rados
Judged by Michael Gills

2017: Jim Kelly – Pitchman’s Blues
Judged by Steve Yates

2016: James Ulmer – The Fire Doll
Judged by Eric Miles Williamson

2015: Jeff P. Jones – Love Give Us One Death
Judged by Eric Miles Williamson

2014: Kathy Flann – Get A Grip
Judged by Eric Miles Williamson

2013: Stephen March – The Gold Piano
Judged by Eric Miles Williamson

2012: Tim Parrish – The Jumper
Judged by Eric Miles Williamson

2011: Starner Jones – Purple Church
Judged by Eric Miles Williamson

2010: David Armand – The Pugilist’s Wife
Judged by Eric Miles Williamson

2009: Richard Spilman – The Estate Sale
Judged by Eric Miles Williamson

2008: Mary Kuykendall-Weber – River Roots
Judged by George Garrett

2007: Jack Smith – Hog To Hog
Judged by George Garrett

2006: Meg Moceri – Sky Full of Burdens
Judged by George Garrett

2005: Jacqueline Bautista – Fiestas
Judged by George Garrett

2004: Gail Mount – Pitching Tents
Judged by George Garrett

2004: Mark Brazaitis – An American Affair
Judged by George Garrett

2003: Steve Sherwood – Hardwater
Judged by George Garrett

2003: John Cottle – The Blessings of Hard-Used Angels
Judged by George Garrett

2002: Thomas Cobb – Acts of Contrition
Judged by George Garrett

2002: Clay Reynolds – Ars Poetica
Judged by George Garrett

2001: Naton Leslie – Marconi’s Dream and Other Stories
Judged by George Garrett

2000: Roger Hart – Erratics
Judged by George Garrett

1999: Don Meredith – Wing Walking
Judged by George Garrett

1998: Peter Leach – Tales of Resistance
Judged by George Garrett