[Submissions window now CLOSED] Announcing the inaugural Rumpus Prize for Poetry, Fiction, and Creative Nonfiction! Submissions were open December 5, 2024 to March 2, 2025. The Rumpus has a long history of championing emerging and established poets, fiction writers, and essayists, and we’re pleased to announce a new way the magazine will bring attention to great writing.
All submissions will be read by The Rumpus‘s editorial team, and our final judges will be Kaveh Akbar (Poetry), Rachel Khong (Fiction), and Megan Stielstra (Creative Nonfiction).
$3,600 in prizes
- $1,000 first-place prize and publication in three genres: poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction
- Honorable mentions receive $200 and publication in each of the three genres
All submitters can opt-in if they’d like to be considered for publication by The Rumpus, regardless of whether they’re named a winner or finalist.
The Rumpus accepted contest submissions from December 5, 2024 through March 2, 2025. Finalists will be contacted in May 2025. Winners will be announced publicly and published by June 2025.
We are honored to have the following judges for the inaugural Rumpus Prize:
POETRY JUDGE: Kaveh Akbar
Kaveh Akbar‘s poems appear in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Paris Review, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. He is the author of two poetry collections: Pilgrim Bell (Graywolf 2021) and Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James 2017), in addition to a chapbook, Portrait of the Alcoholic (Sibling Rivalry 2016). He is also the editor of The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse: 100 Poets on the Divine (Penguin Classics 2022). Martyr! (Knopf, 2024), Kaveh’s first novel, was a New York Times bestseller, the 2024 recipient of the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize for Fiction, a 2024 Discover Prize Finalist, and a 2024 National Book Award Finalist.
In 2020 Kaveh was named Poetry Editor of The Nation. The recipient of honors including multiple Pushcart Prizes, a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship, and the Levis Reading Prize, Kaveh was born in Tehran, Iran, and teaches at the University of Iowa and in the low-residency MFA programs at Randolph College and Warren Wilson. In 2014, Kaveh founded Divedapper, a home for dialogues with the most vital voices in American poetry. With Sarah Kay and Claire Schwartz, he wrote a weekly column for the Paris Review called “Poetry RX.”
[Kaveh Akbar pictured, photo credit Beowulf Sheehan]
FICTION JUDGE: Rachel Khong
Rachel Khong is the author of Goodbye, Vitamin, winner of the California Book Award for First Fiction, and named a Best Book of the Year by NPR; O, The Oprah Magazine; Vogue; and Esquire. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Cut, The Guardian, The Paris Review, and Tin House. In 2018, she founded The Ruby, a work and event space for women and nonbinary writers and artists in San Francisco’s Mission District. She was born in Malaysia and currently lives in Los Angeles. Her second novel Real Americans (Knopf 2024) was a New York Times bestseller. Her short story collection, My Dear You, will be published by Knopf in Spring 2026.
[pictured: Rachel Khong, photo credit Andria Lo]
CREATIVE NONFICTION JUDGE: Megan Stielstra
Megan Stielstra is the author of three essay collections: Everyone Remain Calm, Once I Was Cool, and The Wrong Way to Save Your Life. Her work appears in the Best American Essays, New York Times, The Believer, Poets & Writers, Tin House, LitHub, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. A longtime company member with 2nd Story, she has told stories for NPR, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and theatres, festivals, and classrooms across the country. She teaches creative nonfiction at Northwestern University and is the senior editor for Northwestern University Press where she acquires fiction, nonfiction, and genre-bending narrative.
[pictured: Megan Stielstra. photo credit Jess Tschirki]
Submissions period:
The contest submission period is from December 5, 2024 to March 2, 2025 (11: 59 p.m. ET). Finalists will be contacted in May 2025. Winners and honorable mentions will be publicly announced in June 2025.
Prizes
A prize of $1,000 plus publication for our first-place winner will be awarded in each of the three genres. Honorable mentions in each genre will receive $200 and publication. $3,600 in prizes will be award in total.
Selection Process
All submissions include an opt-in option to be considered for publication. The Rumpus’s editorial teams will read all entries and pass along their top choices to the judges. Final selections will be made anonymously, and the judges will choose the winners and honorable mentions blindly. Decisions of the judges are final.
HOW TO SUBMIT
Writers 18 and over are eligible to enter. Writers cannot be a current or former student of the contest judge in the genre to which they are submitting. Writers cannot be on The Rumpus‘s masthead as a current member of the editorial team or a volunteer reader, even if you’re interested in submitting in a genre outside of your department.
Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but previously published material in any format (including blogs and social media) are not eligible. Submissions can be withdrawn from the submission system if accepted elsewhere. However, entry fees will not be refunded. Individual parts of a poetry submission (i.e. a single poem in a set) can be withdrawn by sending a message through Submittable. However, additional work will not be permitted as replacement.
Fee
The cost to submit is $20 per story, essay or creative nonfiction piece, or set of 2–4 poems. Writers may submit multiple works of prose or groups of poems, but each entry will include a $20 submission fee.
WHAT TO SUBMIT
Poetry
Submit 2–4 poems per entry. Combine all poems into a single document. For poetry, we are seeking to publish the single best poem or set of 2–3 poems. The entire submission should not exceed 10 pages. Poems must contain only the poem title(s) and poem(s) without the author’s name or contact information anywhere on the submission document.
Fiction
Submit one story, up to 5,500 words total, per entry. Stories must contain only the story title and story itself without the author’s name or contact information anywhere on the submission document. Submissions should be 12 point font and double-spaced for readability.
Creative Nonfiction
Submit one essay or creative nonfiction piece, up to 4,000 words total, or up to 3 flash nonfiction pieces, up to 4,000 words total for all pieces combined, per entry. Entries must contain only the title(s) without the author’s name or contact information anywhere on the submission itself. We are open to all forms of creative nonfiction, but are most interested in personal essays, lyric essays, memoir, and other literary forms. Submissions should be 12 point font and double-spaced for readability.
Submissions Process
Submissions and payment for the inaugural Rumpus Prize are conducted through The Rumpus‘s Submittable page. All writers will be notified by May 2025, regardless of whether they’ve moved on to the finalist round. Winners and honorable mentions will be announced publicly by June 2025.