Nonfiction Contest Submissions
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Thank you for your interest in submitting nonfiction to the Terrain.org 17th Annual Contest, judged by Lia Purpura. You may view our full submission guidelines at www.terrain.org/submit/contest-guidelines.
Submission deadline: Labor Day, Monday, September 7, 2026, 11:59 p.m.
$20 entry fee per essay/article or set of 2 flash essays. $1,000 grand prize. $200 for finalists. All submissions are considered for publication.
Submit one essay or article, up to 5,000 words total, or 2 flash essays, up to 1,000 words each, per entry. Essays must contain only the essay title and essay itself without the author name or contact information (including in the document header/footer/summary). We will consider all nonfiction, but are most interested in creative nonfiction, including personal essays, lyric essays, memoir, literary journalism, and other literary forms.
We do not accept submissions created by or with the assistance of artificial intelligence.
View our recent nonfiction at www.terrain.org/category/nonfiction.
Submittable is now requiring email validation. If you have difficulty validating your email, you may complete the form at www.submittable.com/help/submitter.