ProForma Contest
ABOUT THE CONTEST
Every summer, Grist welcomes submissions of unpublished creative work for our ProForma contest in fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and/or hybrids that explore the relationship between content and form. Our contest is open to all forms of literary expression.
“Pro forma” often means an established way of doing things. For the contest, we look for work that makes the most of its form, whether that’s an essay that breaks from traditional expectations, a set of poems from a sonnet sequence, a short story that blends or bends its genre, a hybrid text or a genre-less piece. However you define the relationship with form in your writing, we want to see your best work.
PRIZES
First Prize: $1,000 plus publication in the print journal
Runners Up: publication online (along with normal payment rates)
ENTRY
Contest entry fee: $20 (includes one back issue of Grist)
For longer works: no more than 5000 words
For shorter works: no more than 5 pieces
Reading will be done anonymously, so please remove your name or any other identifying information from both the file name and the manuscript itself. Otherwise, we will be unable to consider it. Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please notify us if the submission is accepted elsewhere. Multiple submissions are also fine, but you will be charged the full reading fee per submission. We cannot refund the fee if the submission is withdrawn. No one currently or recently affiliated with the University of Tennessee is eligible to enter. Additionally, former students of our final judge and close associations of current Grist staff are also ineligible. All submissions will also be considered for publication outside of the contest feature.
IMPORTANT NOTE
Please indicate in the comments section on Submittable if your manuscript should be considered in a certain way (if three flash pieces or poems should be grouped together rather than read as separate pieces, for example).
SUBMISSIONS WINDOW
Submissions open: June 1, 12:01 EST
Submission deadline: July 15, 11:59 EST
Please submit your manuscript through the Submittable link below.
Current Winner
This Year’s Judge
Beth Ann Fennelly, a 2020 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow, was the poet laureate of Mississippi from 2016-2021 and teaches in the MFA Program at the University of Mississippi. She’s won grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the United States Artists, a Pushcart, and a Fulbright to Brazil. Fennelly has published three books of poetry and three of prose. Her seventh, The Irish Goodbye: Micro-Memoirs, is forthcoming from W. W. Norton. She lives with her husband, Tom Franklin, and their three children in Oxford, MS. Learn more on her website.
Code Of Conduct
Grist is committed to diversity, inclusivity, cultural interchange, and respect for all individuals. In the case of all submitted and/or accepted work, if an author behaves or speaks publicly—or is revealed or accused to have behaved or spoken, even in private—in ways that contradict these expressed values of the journal, then we reserve the right to disqualify an author’s submission, release the author from any contract, and/or remove their work from our archives.
We adhere to the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses’ Contest Code of Ethics:
CLMP’s community of independent literary publishers believes that ethical contests serve our shared goal: to connect writers and readers by publishing exceptional writing. We believe that intent to act ethically, clarity of guidelines, and transparency of process form the foundation of an ethical contest. To that end, we agree to 1) conduct our contests as ethically as possible and to address any unethical behavior on the part of our readers, judges, or editors; 2) to provide clear and specific contest guidelines—defining conflict of interest for all parties involved; and 3) to make the mechanics of our selection process available to the public. This Code recognizes that different contest models produce different results, but that each model can be run ethically. We have adopted this Code to reinforce our integrity and dedication as a publishing community and to ensure that our contests contribute to a vibrant literary heritage.
Previous Winners
Prunus Alleghaniensis
Brung up in West-by-God Virginia, Christina Craigo earned BFA and MFA degrees in painting and fine arts in Philadelphia and New York City. After a few decades of teaching, making, and exhibiting art (including a year in India supported by the Fulbright Foundation), she earned an MBA degree and took a more active role in managing a family business. She settled in Boulder, Colorado, and her creative inclinations shifted to writing fiction. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Exposition Review, Hobart, Eclectica, Post Road, and Pembroke Magazine. She is seeking representation for her first novel and developing a second. For more information, please visit christinacraigo.com.
Origin Story
Danielle Cadena Deulen is the author of four books. Her most recent poetry collection is Desire Museum (BOA Editions, 2023). Her previous books include Our Emotions Get Carried Away Beyond Us,which won the Barrow Street Book Contest; The Riots, which won the AWP Prize in Creative Nonfiction and the GLCA New Writers Award; and
Shara Lessley is the author of The Explosive Expert’s Wife and Two-Headed Nightingale, and co-editor of The Poem’s Country: Place & Poetic Practice, an anthology of essays. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow, her awards include an NEA fellowship, the Mary Wood Fellowship from Washington College, the Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, an Olive B. O’Connor Fellowship from Colgate University, and a “Discovery”/The Nation prize, among others. Shara’s poems and essays have appeared in Ploughshares, The Gettysburg Review, The Kenyon Review, and IMAGE, and have been included in the Pushcart and Best American Poetry anthologies. She is Consulting Editor for Acre Books.
Previous Runners Up
Most Non-Compete Clauses are Legally Unenforceable
Robert Walikis is a writer, playwright, poet, and songwriter. His short stories “Terrafir” and “Peak Child” were semifinalists for the North American Review‘s 2023 and 2022 Kurt Vonnegut Speculative Fiction Prizes. His very short story “Funerary Rumors” was second runner-up for PRISM International‘s 2022 Grouse Grind Lit Prize for V Short Forms. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Post Road, PRISM International, Bridge Eight, and elsewhere. Rob lives in Maine with his wife-partner-writer Diana Mullins. He makes maps and tells stories. Read more at www.robertwalikis.com.
We Could Fix You
Alan Sincic teaches at Valencia College. His fiction has appeared in the New Ohio Review, Greensboro Review, Saturday Evening Post, and elsewhere/ His short stories have won contests sponsored by the Texas Observer, Driftwood Press, Prism Review, Westchester, American Writer’s Review, Broad River Review, and Pulp Literature. The opening chapter of his novel, The Slapjack, won the 2021 First Pages Prize.