Quarter After Eight Writing Contests
Quarter After Eight Short Prose Contest
2nd Annual Summer Poetry Chapbook Contest
Judge: Hieu Minh Nguyen
Prize: $1000, plus 25 published copies of your chapbook.
Submissions Open: June 1, 2024
Closing Date: August 15, 2024
2023 Winner: Lyndsey Kelly Weiner, "Occupy Frogs"
Judge: Kaveh Akbar
We're seeking captivating poetry manuscripts that leave us in awe, wishing we had written them ourselves. Whether you're experimenting with form or evoking strange and mesmerizing auras, we want chapbooks that make us upset we didn’t write them ourselves. We especially welcome submissions from underrepresented groups. Open to new, emerging, and established writers. Please submit your chapbook manuscripts of up to 25 poems.
31st annual Robert J. DeMott Short Prose Contest
Judge: Lily Hoàng
Prize: $1,008.15 + Publication
Submissions Open: Oct. 1, 2024
Closing Date: Nov. 30, 2024
2023 Contest Winners, judged by Diane Seuss
Winner: Nicole Adabunu, "Teeth"
First Runner Up: Theresa Dietrich, "Yazoo"
Second Runner Up: Alyson Gold Weinberg, "Gwen’s Luncheonette"
Submit up to three previously unpublished pieces of 500 words or fewer. Send us your best prose poems, short-short stories, micro-essays, etc. The entry fee is $15 for three pieces. Include a title page with your email address, mailing address, phone number, and the title(s) and genres of your submission. All entries will be considered for publication in Quarter After Eight. We no longer accept submissions by mail. All entries must be made online through our Submittable page.
Our 2024 Contest Judge: Lily Hoàng
Lily Hoang is the author of six books, including Underneath (winner of the Red Hen Press Fiction Award), A Bestiary (PEN/USA Non-Fiction Award finalist), and Changing (recipient of a PEN/Open Books Award). She has two books forthcoming in 2024—The Mute Kids (micro-tales) and A Knock at the Door (fairy tales)—and her collaborative collection Timber & Lụa with Vi Khi Nao is forthcoming in 2025. She is a Professor of Literature at UC San Diego, where she teaches in their MFA in Literary Arts.