CLICK HERE to see this year’s winner.

Submissions open: June 1, 2014 – February 28, 2015

Prize: $500 + Publication no later than early 2016 by Vine Leaves Press + 20 copies
Guest Judge: Sara Sargent

Sara Sargent is an Editor at Simon Pulse, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. She acquires young adult fiction. Most recently she was an Associate Editor at Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Children’s Books. Sara started her publishing career as an intern at Miramax Books at the age of 17 before eventually interning at Disney/Hyperion Books for Children, getting her Master of Science in journalism from Northwestern, and joining the editorial team at Harper. She is also Chair of the Young to Publishing Group. Sara has a soft spot for sweeping romance and kissing in YA. You can sometimes find her eating takeout and reading on the couch. You can always find her on Twitter and Instagram at Sara_Sargent. Sara lives in Brooklyn.

The Vine Leaves Vignette Collection Award includes a cash prize of $500, publication by Vine Leaves Press (paperback and eBook), 20 copies of the paperback, worldwide distribution, and promotion through Vine Leaves Literary Journal and staff websites. Author will receive a 70% net royalty on all eBook and print sales. A copy of the publishing contract for your perusal can be downloaded HERE.

Manuscripts are judged by Vine Leaves Literary Journal staff, and guest judge, Sara Sargent. This competition is open to vignettes in English (poetry and/or prose), written by authors anywhere in the world. Individual pieces in a manuscript may have been previously published in magazines, print or web journals, or anthologies, but the work as a whole must be unpublished (this includes previously self-published books.)

Employees of Vine Leaves Literary Journal are not eligible to enter.

Manuscript Requirements

Submit a 50 to 60 page manuscript, plus $25 fee via Submishmash (poetry: 60 poems max; prose: approx 800 words maximum per piece, 20,000 words max in total; each vignette must begin on a new page. Collections may be a mixture of both poetry and prose.)

Manuscripts should be submitted with a table of contents and acknowledgments. Include two cover pages, one with your name, address, email address, and title of the manuscript, and a second with only the title of the manuscript. The author’s name should not appear elsewhere on the manuscript.

Simultaneous submissions to other publishers or contests are permitted, as long as you withdraw your manuscript from Submishmash immediately upon acceptance elsewhere.

Before you submit a manuscript, please consider exploring the work published in the Vine Leaves Literary Journal to familiarize yourself with the kind of work we are looking for.

Kindly refrain from requesting an individual response to confirm receipt of your manuscript. The electronic submission manager offers automated confirmations. We receive thousands of submissions each year and can no longer offer individual acknowledgments beyond these. Thank you for your understanding.

Results will be announced on, or before, the following dates:

Quarter-Finalists: March 30, 2015
Semi-Finalists: April 30, 2015 (will also be considered for publication)
Grand Finalist: April 30, 2015

Online Submission

The online submission system will be accepting Vine Leaves Vignette Collection Award manuscripts between June 1, 2014 – February 28, 2015., 12 PM, EET.

Visit the website to submit online:  http://www.vineleavesliteraryjournal.com/contests.html

*We are an independent, nonprofit literary journal. Submission fees help cover, though not fully, the prize money, publishing costs, and time reviewing manuscripts.