Like many writers, I feel centered when I write, or it might be better to say, when I don’t write, when I can’t write for whatever reason, I feel, frankly, de-stabilized. It’s dangerous for me not to write.
—
Sigrid Nunez
Submit to BOMB’s 2021 Fiction Contest
BOMB’s biennial fiction contest is back! Guest judge Ottessa Moshfegh will select a winner of a $1,000 prize
BOMB Magazine’s 2021 Fiction Contest is now open for submissions, and we’re honored to have Ottessa Moshfegh join us as this year’s guest judge.
Moshfegh will select one winner to receive a $1,000 prize. The winning story will be published in BOMB’s quarterly magazine.
Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from New England. Eileen, her first novel, was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Man Booker Prize, and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Death in Her Hands, her second and third novels, were New York Times bestsellers. She is also the author of the short story collection Homesick for Another World and a novella, McGlue. She lives in southern California.
SUBMIT HERE.
Submission Guidelines
- Manuscripts must be fewer than 5,000 words and consist of a single work of short fiction.
- Submission period: March 8–May 3, 2021.
- All entries will be considered anonymously. Do not include author name on manuscript pages. Non-anonymous manuscripts will be disqualified.
- Reading Fee: $25. Includes a year-long subscription to BOMB for US entrants.
- Work must be uploaded via Submittable.
- Work must be previously unpublished.
- Simultaneous submissions are permitted as long as you notify us if your piece is accepted elsewhere, but the fee is non-refundable.
Email firstproof@bombsite.com with any questions.
The winner will be announced on July 31, 2021.
Related
In the tenth installment in BOMB’s literary podcast series, listen to Ben Ristow read his short story “Saint Jerome & the Dumpster Girls,” originally published in BOMB 114.