1. Submit one previously unpublished story of up to 9,000 words or three (3) previously unpublished poems with a $15 reading fee payable to Third Coast.  Please send each entry separately and clearly mark whether it is a poetry or fiction entry. 

Send entries and reading fee to:

Third Coast 2010 Fiction or Poetry Contest

Department of English

Western Michigan University

Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5331

2. Each $15 entry fee entitles entrant to a 1-year subscription to Third Coast, an extension of an existing subscription, or a gift subscription. Please indicate your choice and enclose a complete address for subscription.

3. All manuscripts should be typed (fiction entries should be double-spaced), and accompanied by a cover letter with the author's name, contact information (address, telephone, and email address), and entry title(s). Please include entry title(s) and page numbers on all manuscript pages.  The author’s name and  identifying information should only appear on the cover letter; identifying information must not appear anywhere on the manuscript itself.

4. Simultaneous submissions are permitted; if accepted elsewhere, we ask that they be withdrawn from the contest immediately. If a poem or story is chosen as a finalist, Third Coast requires that it be withdrawn from any other publication considerations until the winner is selected. If the poem or story is scheduled to be published elsewhere before September 2010, please do not submit it.

5. Winners will be announced in February 2010 and published in the Fall 2010 issue of Third Coast.  All contest entries will be considered for regular inclusion in Third Coast.

6. Writers associated with the judges or Third Coast are not eligible to submit work to the contest.

7. No money will be refunded. Submissions will not be returned; send SASE for results only.

About the Judges

Fiction judge Ann Beattie received the 2000 PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the short story. Called "one of our era's most vital masters of the short form" by The Washington Post, Beattie is author of several short story collections and novels, including, most recently, Follies: New Stories (2005).

Poetry judge David Wojahn is author of seven books of poetry and the recipient of an NEA Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Wojahn's Interrogation Palace: New and Selected Poems 1982-2004 was one of two finalists for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.