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Contest Submission Guidelines

Submit from May 1 - September 1, 2025.

Terrain.org 16th Annual Contest

More than $4,000 in prizes! $1,000 grand prize in each genre and $200 to finalists.

Deadline: September 1, 2025

The Terrain.org 15th Annual Contest is now closed. Semi-finalists, finalists, and others will be notified in December 2024.

We accept contest submissions from May 1 to U.S. Labor Day. The deadline for our 15th Annual Contest is September 1, 2025, for publication in February 2026.


Contest Details

Judges for 15th Annual Contest

Paisley RekdalPoetry: Paisley Rekdal
Paisley Rekdal  is the author of four books of nonfiction and seven collections of poetry, including Animal Eye, a finalist for the 2013 Kingsley Tufts Prize and winner of the UNT Rilke Prize; Imaginary Vessels, finalist for the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Prize; Nightingale, winner of the 2020 Washington State Book Award for Poetry; and West: A Translation, which was longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award in Poetry and just received the 2024 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. She is a distinguished professor at the University of Utah, where she directs the American West Center.

Taylor BrorbyNonfiction: Taylor Brorby
Taylor Brorby is the author of Boys and Oil: Growing up Gay in a Fractured LandCrude: Poems, and Coming Alive: Action and Civil Disobedience, and co-editor of Fracture: Essays, Poems, and Stories on Fracking in America. His work has been supported by grants and fellowships from the National Book Critics Circle, the MacDowell Colony, the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, Mesa Refuge, Blue Mountain Center, and the North Dakota Humanities Council. He is an assistant professor at the University of Alabama.

Manuel MuñozFiction: Manuel Muñoz
2023 MacArthur Fellow Manuel Muñoz is the author of a novel, What You See in the Dark, and the short-story collections Zigzagger and The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue, which was shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts.  He has been recognized with a Whiting Writer’s Award, three O. Henry Awards, and two selections in Best American Short Stories, and was awarded the 2023 Joyce Carol Oates Prize. His most recent collection, The Consequences, was published by Graywolf Press. It was a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize and longlisted for the Story Prize. He is a professor at the University of Arizona.

Submission Period

The contest submission period for our 15th Annual Contest is May 1, 2025 to 11:59 p.m. on September 1, 2025 (Labor Day in the U.S.). Winners and finalists will be announced in December 2025.

Prizes

A prize of $1,000 plus publication for the first-place winner will be awarded in each genre. Finalists in each genre will also receive publication and a $200 prize.

Selection Process

All submissions are considered for publication. Terrain.org’s editors will read all entries, passing the top entries in each genre to the judges, who will choose the first-place winners. Decisions of the judges are final. Judges and editors do not know the identity of the contestants.


How to Submit

You are not eligible to enter this contest if you are a current student of the contest judges or if you have been a winner in the contest in the last five years. Finalists are welcome to submit again.

Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but previously published material in any format, including blogs or social media, will not be considered. Submissions can be withdrawn through the submission system, though in that case contest entry fees will not be refunded. Individual components of submissions (i.e., a single poem in a poem set) may be withdrawn by sending a message through Submittable.

Cost

The cost to submit is $20 per story, essay or article, or set of 1-5 poems.

What to Submit

You may submit up to three entries (at $20/entry) in any or all genres:

Poetry
Submit 1-5 poems per entry. Combine all poems into a single document. For poetry, we are seeking the single best poem or set of poems. The entire submission must not exceed 7 pages. Poems must contain only the poem title(s) and poem(s) without the author name or contact information (including in the document header/footer).

Fiction
Submit one story, up to 5,000 words total, or up to 2 flash fictions, up to 1,000 words each, per entry. Stories must contain only the story title and story itself without the author name or contact information (including in the document header/footer).

Nonfiction
Submit one essay or article, up to 5,000 words total, or up to 2 flash essays, up to 1,000 words each, per entry. Essays must contain only the essay title and essay itself without the author name or contact information (including in the document header/footer). We will consider all nonfiction, but are most interested in creative nonfiction, including personal essays, lyric essays, memoir, literary journalism, and other literary forms.

The Submission Process

Submissions and payment for the 15th Annual Contest are conducted on our Submittable site.

Submit from May 1 – September 2!


Contest Winners

14th Annual Contest Winners

Poetry
“Prayer of a Nonbeliever” by Tim Raphael
Judged by Ross Gay

Nonfiction
“Equations for a Falling Body” by Katie Duane
Judged by Toni Jensen

Fiction
“Bust” by Hannah Smith
Judged by Talia Lakshmi Kolluri


13th Annual Contest Winners

Poetry
Two Poems by Maura High
Judged by Sean Hill

Nonfiction
“Loon Boy” by Yelizaveta P. Renfro
Judged by Janisse Ray

Fiction
“Chiara, Chiara” by Anna Farro Henderson
Judged by Kali Fajardo-Anstine


12th Annual Contest Winners

Poetry
Two Poems by Jennifer K. Sweeney
Judged by Ellen Bass

Nonfiction
“The Snake and the Sanctuary” by Melina Walling
Judged by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Fiction
“The Frontier” by Sean Sam
Judged by Maurice Carlos Ruffin


11th Annual Contest Winners

Poetry
Five Science Poems by Susan Cohen
Judged by Arthur Sze

Nonfiction
“Notes on Building a Somewhat Bearable Space for Disbelief” by Kristina Moriconi
Judged by Julian Hoffman

Fiction
“Star, Fish” by Cameron Walker
Judged by Joy Castro


10th Annual Contest Winners

Poetry
“In the Forest,” “The Water, the Truth, the Water,” and “Grounded” by Stacey Balkun
Judged by Camille T. Dungy

Nonfiction
“Hysteresis” by Cara Stoddard
Judged by Alison Hawthorne Deming

Fiction
“The Night of the Day of the Dead” by Michael McGuire
Judged by Tara Lynn Masih


9th Annual Contest Winners

Poetry
“Tallow,” “Exhibit: ‘Song of Lost Species’,” and “armadillo” by Jane Lovell
Judged by Jane Hirshfield

Nonfiction
“The Violence of the Given World” by Sarah M. Wells
Judged by Elizabeth Dodd

Fiction
“Out of Good Ground” by John Thomson
Judged by Daniel Orozco


8th Annual Contest Winners

Poetry
Two Poems by Edward Harkness
Judged by Robert Wrigley

Nonfiction
“Ghost Trees” by Jennie Goode
Judged by Nicole Walker

Fiction
“N-Place Exiting” by Thomas Ausa
Judged by Padma Viswanathan


7th Annual Contest Winners

Poetry
One Poem in Four Parts by William Wright
Judged by Eamonn Grennan

Fiction
“Varya’s Black Suede Shoes” by Peter Justin Newall
Judged by Kate Bernheimer

Nonfiction
“Geography of the Self” by Catherine Mauk
Judged by Lauret Savoy


6th Annual Contest Winners

Theme: (Dis)placement

Poetry
Four Poems by G. L. Grey
Judged by Pattiann Rogers

Fiction
“Contrition” by William Cass
Judged by Luis Alberto Urrea

Nonfiction
“Of No Ground: Late Days in the Country of Eighteen Tides” by Lawrence Lenhart
Judged by Scott Russell Sanders


5th Annual Contest Winners

Poetry
Anne Haven McDonnell
“The Underworld is Alive” and “Emerging View”
Judged by Derek Sheffield

Nonfiction
Nancy Campbell
“The Library of Ice”
Judged by Julian Hoffman


4th Annual Contest Winners

Issue No. 34 : Elemental

Poetry
Rob Carney
“Seven Pages from The Book of Sharks
Judged by John Daniel

Fiction
Eloise Schultz
“The Water Cycle”
Judged by Teague Bohlen

Nonfiction
Nancy Geyer
“(Dis)Appearances”
Judged by Kathryn Miles


3rd Annual Contest Winners

Issue No. 31 : Ruin and Renewal

Poetry
Genevieve Leet
“[when I died they found a nest of snakes in my intestines, their backs]” and “Somewhere beyond the curve of the earth, there is a ceremonial bamboo boat”
Judged by Suzanne Frischkorn

Nonfiction
Sonya Huber
“Love and Industry: A Midwestern Workbook”
Judged by Christopher Cokinos

Fiction
Courtney Amber Kilian
“Color Has History”
Judged by Skip Horack


2nd Annual Contest Winners

Issue No. 28 : Image

Poetry
Rebecca Dunham : “Morning: Joplin, MO”
Judged by Alison Hawthorne Deming

Nonfiction
Julian Hoffman : “Faith in a Forgotten Place” + Image Gallery
Judged by Elizabeth Dodd

Fiction
GE Tallant : “Song of the Turkey Vulture”
Judged by Andrew Wingfield


Inaugural Contest Winners

Issue No. 26 : The Signal in the Noise

Poetry
Laura-Gray Street : “Goya’s Dog”
Judged by Jessie Lendennie

Nonfiction
Elizabeth Dodd : “Sinuous”
Judged by David Rothenberg

Fiction
Andrew Wingfield : “Right of Way”
Judged by Aurelie Sheehan


For further information or assistance, please contact us.