Nonfiction Contest

For the 2022 contest, the Autumn House staff as well as select outsider readers serve as the preliminary readers, and the final judge is Lia Purpura. The winner receives publication of a full-length manuscript and $2,500. The submission period opens January 1, 2022, and closes May 31, 2022 (Eastern Time). We will announce the finalists and the winner of the contest by October 1, 2022. 

• The winner will receive book publication, a $1,000 honorarium, and a $1,500 travel/publicity grant to promote their book
• All finalists will be considered for publication
• Nonfiction submissions should be approximately 200-300 double-spaced pages (50,000-75,000 words)
• The reading fee is $30 (We will waive the submission fee for those undergoing financial hardship or living with limited means. Before you reach out to request a waived fee, please read our full statement and instructions here. If the guidelines are not followed, we will not be able to offer a waived fee.)
• All nonfiction subjects (including personal essays, memoirs, travel writing, historical narratives, nature writing) or any combination of subjects are eligible
• Submission should be previously unpublished
• Do not include your name anywhere on the actual manuscript; if your name appears within the body of the text, please omit it or black it out (first name is fine, but last name must be omitted)
• You may include a brief bio in the “cover letter” section of Submittable
• Do not include a bio or an acknowledgments page in the manuscript
• Feel free to include a table of contents (This does not count a part of your final page count)
• Simultaneous submissions permitted
• Friends, family members, and former students of judges or Autumn House editors may not submit to the contest. Students do not include interactions at short-term residencies or fellowships.
• Former employees of Autumn House, including interns, may not submit to the contest.

If you have any questions, please check our FAQ page.

Winners of the Autumn House Nonfiction Prize

Year	Author	Title	Judge
2021	Emily Pifer	The Running Body	Steve Almond
2020	Nicholas Ward	All Who Belong May Enter	Jaquira Díaz
2019	Melissa Wiley	Skull Cathedral: A Vestigial Anatomy	Paul Lisicky
2018	Jennifer Renee Blevins	Limited by Body Habitus: An American Fat Story	Daisy Hernández
2017	Dickson Lam	Paper Sons: a memoir	Alison Hawthorne Deming
2016	Katherine McCord	RUN SCREAM UNBURY SAVE	Michael Martone
2015	Harrison Candelaria Fletcher	Presentimiento: A Life in Dreams	Dinty W. Moore
2014	Jill Kandel	So Many Africas	Dinty W. Moore
2013	Adam Patric Miller	A Greater Monster	Phillip Lopate
2012	Clifford Thompson	Love for Sale and Other Essays	Phillip Lopate

 

We strive to run our contests ethically and subscribe to CLMP’s guidelines. We encourage you to reach out if you are uncertain about a potential conflict of interest.