SmokeLong began offering workshops in person in 2019. We toured the UK–London, Norwich, Birmingham, and Manchester (which is definitely NOT in the Midlands)–and we had the best time. Then COVID came, and we simultaneously moved online–not actually because of COVID, but COVD contributed to our decision ultimately to offer workshops exclusively online. Since 2019, over 700 people have participated in our workshops, and many of you have shared on social media that your work has subsequently been published. Well, this slays us and we want to up the stakes, sweeten the pot, slap a cherry on it.
Have you taken part in a SmokeLong workshop? A SmokeLong webinar? If you have and you have published a narrative that began with SmokeLong, you are eligible to win The SmokeLong Workshop Prize. Here are the guidelines:
- Your narrative–fiction or nonfiction or anywhere in between–must have begun in a SmokeLong workshop (from 2019 to the present) and be published by November 1, 2023. You’ll be required to indicate the workshop, the workshop leader, and the writing task when you submit.
- Your narrative must of course be 1000 words or fewer.
- You must be 18 years of age or older.
- You may enter all narratives that qualify, but you must enter each separately as an acceptable file on Submittable. Please do NOT send us links to publications.
- Due to the nature of this competition, we won’t be able to assure that entries are blind. Your work might have already won a prize, for example. With this in mind, however, we do ask that you remove your name from the story document itself. We will transfer the top 50 entries to our guest judge, Jasmine Sawers.
- This competition is separate from The Grand Micro Contest, which will be opening for submissions this summer! You may enter both if you want. The Grand Micro Contest will be open to previously published work as well.
- Staff members of SmokeLong are not eligible.
- Deadline: November 5, 2023.
The Judging:
Your entry or entries will be judged initially by the SmokeLong editors. The top 50 will be handed over to our special guest judge, Jasmine Sawers.
Jasmine Sawers is a Kundiman fellow and Indiana University MFA alum. Their fiction and creative nonfiction has appeared in such journals as Ploughshares, Foglifter, and Wigleaf. Their book, THE ANCHORED WORLD, was a finalist for the 2023 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. They serve as an associate fiction editor for Fairy Tale Review and teach creative writing outside of academia. Originally from Buffalo, Sawers now lives outside St. Louis.
The Prizes:
First prize: $500
Second prize: $100
Third prize: $50
Competition Fees:
What competition fees? This one’s on us.
