The George Garrett Prize
Established in 1998, The George Garrett Fiction Prize seeks to highlight one book a year for excellence in a short story collection or novel. Since 2019 the Prize comes with a $1,000 advance, a standard royalty contract, and 20 copies of the published book.
Submissions open each year on October 1 and close on December 31. To submit please visit our online submission manager
https://texasreview.submittable.com/submit/1487/the-george-garrett-fiction-prize
The George Garrett Fiction Prize
2020 Judge: Joe Wilkins
General Guidelines
- Submissions are open October 1 – December 31.
- A fee of $28 must be paid at the time of submission.
- Open to anyone writing in English. Translations are not eligible.
- Stories or excerpts may have been published individually in magazines or anthologies, but the collection as a whole must be unpublished.
- Simultaneous submissions are acceptable. Please notify TRP immediately by withdrawing the manuscript via Submittable if the manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
- Current and former students and faculty of Sam Houston State University are not eligible. Family or former students of the final judge are not eligible.
- Submissions are accepted through Submittable only.
- Winner receives a $1,000 advance, a standard royalty contract, and 20 copies of the published book.
- Winner will be announced in March 2020.
Manuscript Guidelines
- Manuscripts may be novels or short story collections with a total word count of between 40,000 and 120,000 words.
- Please include a table of contents, title page, and page numbers.
- Please double-space and use a 12pt. font.
- Do not include an acknowledgments page.
- Submissions are judged blind. Please remove any identifying information from the manuscript.
- Submit as a .pdf, .docx, or .doc file format.
- No revisions will be accepted once the manuscript is uploaded.
2020 Judge: Joe Wilkins
Joe Wilkins is the author of a novel, Fall Back Down When I Die, praised as “remarkable and unforgettable” in a starred review at Booklist and short-listed for the First Novel Award and the Pacific Northwest Book Award. He is also the author of a memoir, The Mountain and the Fathers, and four collections of poetry, including When We Were Birds, winner of the Oregon Book Award, and, most recently, Thieve. Wilkins grew up north of the Bull Mountains of eastern Montana and now lives with his family in western Oregon.
George Garrett (1929-2008), for whom this competition is named, is the author of thirty-two books and editor or co-editor of nineteen others. He earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees from Princeton University and taught for forty years at the University of Virginia. Among his honors and awards are the Rome Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Sewanee Review Fellowship in Poetry, fellowships from the Guggenheim, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He won the T.S. Eliot Award of the Ingersoll Foundation, the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, and an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Previous Winners:
2019: William Black – In the Valley of the Kings
2018: Susan Lowell – Two Desperados
2017: Jim Kelly – Pitchman’s Blues
2016: James Ulmer – The Fire Doll
2015: Jeff P. Jones – Love Give Us One Death
2014: Kathy Flann – Get A Grip
2013: Stephen March – The Gold Piano
2012: Tim Parrish – The Jumper
2011: Starner Jones – Purple Church
2010: David Armand – The Pugilist’s Wife
2009: Richard Spilman – The Estate Sale
2008: Mary Kuykendall-Weber – River Roots
2007: Jack Smith – Hog To Hog
2006: Meg Moceri – Sky Full of Burdens
2005: Jacqueline Bautista – Fiestas
2004: Gail Mount – Pitching Tents
2004: Mark Brazaitis – An American Affair
2003: Steve Sherwood – Hardwater
2003: John Cottle – The Blessings of Hard-Used Angels
2002: Thomas Cobb – Acts of Contrition
2001: Naton Leslie – Marconi’s Dream and Other Stories
2000: Roger Hart – Erratics
1999: Don Meredith – Wing Walking
1998: Peter Leach – Tales of Resistance