2020 curt johnson prose awards

Submissions are CLOSED. Thank you for your submissions. We look forward to reading your work!

We are pleased to announce Dorothy Allison (Fiction) and Brittney Cooper (Nonfiction) will judge our 2020 Curt Johnson Prose Awards. Prizes are $1,500 and publication in our Fall/Winter 2020 issue for First Place (fiction and nonfiction); $500 and publication in our Fall/Winter 2020 issue for honorable mention (fiction and nonfiction). All finalists will be listed in the awards issue.

Dorothy Allison is the award-winning writer of the best-selling novel Bastard Out of Carolina, which was a finalist for the 1992 National Book Award. She is the author of the poetry collection The Women Who Hate Me: Poems 1980–1990. Her story collection Trash won two Lambda Literary Awards and the American Library Association’s Prize for Lesbian and Gay Writing. Her novel Cavedweller was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She is also the author of the essay collection Skin: Talking about Sex, Class & Literature and the memoir Two or Three Things I Know for Sure. She received the Robert Penn Warren Award for Fiction in 2007. www.dorothyallison.com 

Dr. Brittney Cooper is co-editor of The Crunk Feminist Collection (The Feminist Press 2017). She is author of Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women (University of Illinois Press, May 2017) and Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower (St. Martin’s, February 2018). Dr. Cooper is co-founder of the Crunk Feminist Collective, is a feminist-of-color/scholar-activist group. Three members of the CFC were recently profiled in Essence Magazine‘s list of Young, Black, and Amazing women under age 35 (August 2012 issue). A native of Ruston, Louisiana, Dr. Cooper considers herself a small-town Southern girl at heart, which explains her affinity for soul food, crunk music, and warm weather.


Our submission period is CLOSED. Submissions are open from March 1 to May 1.

SEE CURRENT AND PAST WINNERS HERE

Guidelines:

Maximum of 8,000 words for fiction and non-fiction.  Name and address on cover letter only.  $20 entry fee includes copy of Awards issue.

AUTHOR NAME OR OTHER IDENTIFYING INFORMATION SHOULD NOT APPEAR IN YOUR TITLE OR ANYWHERE ON YOUR UPLOADED OR HARD COPY DOCUMENT.

december accepts submissions online through Submittable.

We do not accept simultaneous submissions, but we generally provide a response within six weeks.

december also accepts submissions through the U.S. mail. If submitting by mail, please enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE) with sufficient postage, your $20.00 entry fee (check or cash), and indicate if you would like your manuscript returned. Multiple entries accepted with additional $20.00 entry fee per submission.
december assumes no responsibility for delayed, lost, or damaged manuscripts.

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Address postal submissions and correspondence to:

december
P.O. Box 16130
St. Louis, MO 63105