Robert Watson Literary Prize

The regular submission period for the Robert Watson Literary Prizes is June 1 to August 1. If you are looking to submit work between November 1 – January 1, please see guidelines for our General Submissions.

Winners of the Fiction and Poetry Prizes will each receive a $1000 award and publication in The Greensboro Review.

Special Note on Entry Fees: We love our readers! Please subscribe (or purchase a one-year gift subscription) via UNC Press, our publishing partner. Then, go to Submittable to submit to the contest for no additional charge. You will need an active subscription to have your work considered for publication and to be eligible to receive the award and prize money.

Contest Guidelines:

  1. Entries must be previously unpublished. We do accept simultaneous submissions, but please let us know immediately via Submittable if your work is accepted elsewhere. Please submit only once per genre during each submission period.
  2. Length restrictions: Please include no more than 7,500 words or 25 typed, double-spaced pages for fiction. Each story counts as one entry. Poetry entries can include any number of poems up to 10 pages, but we recommend 5 to 7 poems per submission. (Please note that we rarely publish individual poems longer than 2 pages.)
  3. Please include your name, mailing address, email, and phone number in your cover letter and on the first page of your manuscript. Fiction submissions should also include word count and page numbers.
  4. Entry is free for new or current subscribers; writers must be active subscribers to be eligible for publication and for the prize money. Please visit https://uncpjournals.dukeupress.edu/the-greensboro-review to purchase your subscription ($15) via Duke University Press, then visit Submittable to submit your work.
  5. All manuscripts meeting the above requirements and submitted by August 1 will be considered for the award as well as for publication in The Greensboro Review. A group of finalists will be selected for publication in the issue, with awards in each genre awarded to works from those selected stories/poems.
  6. Winning manuscripts will appear in print in the Spring issue of The Greensboro Review and may be featured on greensbororeview.org.
  7. Official announcement of the prizes will be made when the Spring issue is released (with prizewinning authors notified upon selection).
  8. All manuscripts not accepted for publication by The Greensboro Review will be released to the authors by December 31. Entries must be submitted via Submittable; no email submissions are accepted.

Submittable

 

The Greensboro Review seeks new writing from authors representing a wide range of identities in terms of gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, ability, age, class, citizenship, nationality, regionality, education, and publication history. We love featuring the work of previously unpublished writers and showcasing those whose work may be risk-taking or overlooked. Our journal remains faculty- and student-run, with new graduate student editors on staff each year, so writing you submit will always be read by fresh eyes from a variety of editorial aesthetics. With that in mind, the work you’ll find in our pages rarely conforms to any one theme, subject, or style—and we encourage you to read a recent issue to get a sense of what we publish. We look forward to reading your work!