2025 Knoxville Writers Guild Short Fiction Contest

The Knoxville Writers Guild is accepting submissions during September 2025 for the annual short fiction contest. Submissions must be received electronically by 11:59 p.m. on September 30. Please direct questions regarding the contest to knoxvillewritersguild.org/contact and choose Contest Questions.

General Contest Guidelines

Please read the guidelines carefully.

Who can submit?

  • Anyone EXCEPT KWG Board members and Contest Committee members and last year’s first-prize winner. Winners from prior years other than last year are eligible.

Is there a limit on submissions?

  • No, but there is a separate submission fee for each entry. See the “Submission Fees” section below.

What is a submission?

  • An unpublished work of fiction 5,000 words or less. Submission of previously published works will result in disqualification from the contest and forfeiture of the submission fee.

 

How do I submit my submission?

  • Member free submission: Click here!
  • Member additional submissions: Click here!
  • Non-member submissions: Click here!
    • Submissions must be made on-line via the appropriate link. No submissions by electronic mail or regular mail will be accepted.
    • Each submission must be entered separately as an individual submission with the applicable fee.
    • You will receive an automated email confirmation that the committee has received your submission. Please send a follow-up inquiry if you do not receive an email confirmation for receipt of your submission.
  • Deadline for Submission: All submissions must be posted by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on September 30, 2023, through this on-line submission process.
  • Identifying Information: The title of your attachment should match the title of your submission, and should not contain your name or any identifying information other than the title of the submitted story. Inclusion of your name in the title of the attachment or in the submitted document will result in disqualification.
  • Format: Black text on a white background, double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman or Courier font.
  • Again, do not include your name, pen name, or any other identifying information in the title or in the body of the submission itself. Doing so will result in your submission being rejected and forfeiture of your submission fee.

 

What are the submission fees?

  • For members, the first submission is free; each additional submission is $10.
  • For nonmembers, the fee for each submission is $15. If you’d like to become a KWG member, you may join at org for only $35/year ($20/year for students).
  • Submit your electronic payment via the online submission process. Payment by check or cash is not allowed.

Prizes

  • First Place Prize, $300. Second Place Prize, $100. Prizes may not be awarded if an insufficient number of eligible submissions are received. Prize checks will be mailed to the address connected to the submission unless a different payment address is provided.
  • Winners will be notified by phone and/or email in early November, 2025.
  • The First Place winner in each category will be invited to read a selection from the winning submission at the November, 2025 meeting of the Knoxville Writers Guild, when the winners will be announced. We expect the meeting will be in-person at Addison’s Book Store in Knoxville.
  • The Knoxville Writers Guild will publish the first and second place submissions on its website for two months and will be published in the Guild’s on-line literary journal, Re/View, unless a prize winner requests otherwise.

Judge

 

We are honored to have Niles Reddick as our judge for this year’s contest.

Niles Reddick is author of the Pulitzer nominated novel, Drifting too far from the Shore, four short fiction collections, Who’s Going to Pray for Me Now?, If Not for You, Reading the Coffee Grounds and Road Kill Art and Other Oddities, and two novellas, Lead Me Home and Forgiven.

His work has been featured in over thirty anthologies and in over five hundred publications all over the world including The Saturday Evening Post (ranking him for the Top Ten Most Popular New Fiction of 2019), Forth Magazine, Cheap Pop, Flash Fiction Magazine, Citron Review, Hong Kong Review, and Vestal Review (the longest running flash fiction magazine in the world), among many others. He is an eight-time Pushcart nominee, a two-time Best of the Net nominee, and a three-time Best Microfiction nominee and has been a finalist for an EPPIE, a ForeWord Award, and American Book Award. He is a regular reader for the Global Flash Bomb in New York City, Flash Fiction Forum in California, and the Pat Conroy Literary Center in South Carolina.

Niles Reddick holds a BA from Valdosta State, a MA from the University of West GA, and a Ph.D. from Florida State University. He is a retired COO and Dean and professor emeritus from the University of Memphis and currently teaches literature and writing at Carson-Newman University.

Website: http://nilesreddick.com/

Twitter: @niles_reddick

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/niles.reddick.9

Instagram: nilesreddick@memphisedu

Equal Opportunity:  The Knoxville Writers Guild does not discriminate against any person because of race, age, gender, handicap, or country of national origin.