Contest

Enter the Novel Slices contest for a chance to be one of the 5 winners published in the fifth issue of Novel Slices. Each winner will receive $150, and a copy of the winning print issue. Further, we work with all winners to send literary agents & publishers copies of the issue with letters of support — currently, one third of our winners have secured either literary representation or a publisher following publication in Novel Slices.

Entry fee: $20 — includes a digital copy of issue #5.

To be judged by Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez

Santiago Vaquera-Vásquez is an unrepentant border crosser, ex-dj, writer, painter, and academic. He is the Author of Algún día te cuento las cosas que he visto (2012) / One Day I’ll Tell You the Things I’ve Seen (2015), Luego el silencio (2014), and En el Lost y Found (2016). An Associate Professor of Creative Writing and Hispanic Southwest Literatures and Cultures in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of New Mexico, he has also taught and lectured at universities across the United States and in Spain.

Contest Guidelines:

• All novel genres welcome except for Children's and Middle Grade
• Excerpts should be approximately 4,000 to 6,000 words in length (do not send us your entire manuscript)
• We recommend you buy a copy of the current issue for a sense of the types of excerpts published (although this will obviously change with different judges)
• Your name should not appear on the submission
• Excerpts do not have to be from the beginning of a manuscript
• Standard formatting: Title on first page, double-spaced, 12 point font
• Acceptable file types are PDF or Word documents (.pdf, .docx, .doc, .rtf)
• If needed, an introductory paragraph can be added giving any necessary background information (for excerpts not taken from the beginning)
• Excerpts need not feel complete, stand alone, or read like a short story
• Previously unpublished work only
• Simultaneous submissions accepted as long as you contact us to withdraw your submission if it is accepted elsewhere
• Multiple submissions allowed; each excerpt must be submitted with a separate entry fee
• ​Excerpts must be in English but can come from anywhere in the world; translations are allowed if the original has not been previously published
• All rights revert to the author on publication
• Novel Slices staff and their families cannot enter​
• We follow the contest code of ethics published by the Council of Literary Magazines & Presses

Photo by Berk Özdemir.

Photo by Pixabay.

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Why enter this contest?

While the $150 prize is lower than some other contests, your chances of winning are much higher, because there are five winners. Moreover, we do not expect you to carve your novel excerpt into the format of a short story, and so you are not starting out on uneven footing. Last but certainly not least, our publication is marketed directly to literary agents as well as both small and large publishers, in order to give winning entries the greatest possible exposure.

Photo by Martin Vorel.