Deadline Extended to May 14, 2023!
The Annual Memoir Prize awards Memoir and Creative Nonfiction book-length works of exceptional merit in the categories of traditional, self-published, and previously unpublished prose.
- Categories: traditionally published, self-published works, and unpublished manuscripts
- On any subject matter
- Deadline:
April 30, 2023May 14,2023 - Total prizes: $5,000
- Enter via Submittable
Submit your full-length memoir for the Memoir Prize and a chance to win cash, a feature in Memoir Magazine, and a year’s worth of free advertising. The only contest of its kind dedicated exclusively to the Memoir genre. This is a real opportunity for outstanding independently and self-published memoir authors to get the recognition they deserve. Unpublished manuscripts will have the remarkable chance to present a prize-winning manuscript for consideration by agents and publishers.
You may submit a full-length book of memoir or creative nonfiction, a collection of essays, or graphic narrative as a single entry. There is no restriction on length, age of the author, type of publisher, or on the year of publication.
“Therefore I would ask you to write all kinds of books, hesitating at no subject however trivial or however vast. By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourselves of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip deep into the stream.”
—VIRGINIA WOOLF, “A Room of One’s Own”
Question: are memoirs published by university presses eligible For the prize?
Absolutely!
Hello, do you accept entries from people in the UK?
Yes we do! All English language memoirs are encouraged to submit.
If an unpublished manuscript wins/is accepted 1) is it considered published 2) are the agents and editors viewing it specifically invited to view it, or it is just chance who sees it?
I am currently getting my book formatted for Amazon. Does it need to be double spaced with pages for the contest? I don’t think they offer this in formatting on this particular platform. So far it is single spaced and no page numbers. Will you accept this?
Yes, we will accept a book that has been professionally formatted for publication. Double-spacing is for manuscripts.
Hello Katie, 1. No, unpublished manuscripts are not considered published even if they win, nor do we obtain any rights to the manuscript. 2. Yes and yes, agents and editors are specifically invited to view it.