Contest Guidelines
Submissions to the 2024-2025 Third Coast Fiction and Poetry Contests will open November 15, 2024 and close December 31, 2024. This year’s judges will be Misha Rai (Fiction) and Jamaal May (Poetry).
Third Coast accepts contest submissions exclusively via our Submittable account.
Winners receive $1,000 and publication in Third Coast. All contest entries will be considered for publication in Third Coast.
Submit one previously unpublished story of up to 9,000 words or up to three previously unpublished poems at a time, in one file. All manuscripts should be typed and fiction manuscripts should be double-spaced. Please include entry title and page numbers on all manuscript pages. Because judging is blind, the author’s name and identifying information (address, email, phone number, and bio) should appear only in the “cover letter” section of the Submittable form; identifying information must not appear anywhere on the manuscript itself. Manuscripts including identifying information will be disqualified.
Simultaneous submissions are permitted, though if work is accepted elsewhere, we ask that it be withdrawn from the contest immediately. If a piece is chosen as a finalist, we ask that it be withdrawn from other publications’ consideration until our judge selects a winner. Multiple entries are permitted, but each entry must be submitted separately.
The entry fee is $10 (payable online) and includes one issue of Third Coast. No money will be refunded.
Writers associated with the judges, WMU, or Third Coast are not eligible to submit.
more about the judges
Fiction: Misha Rai
Misha Rai is a Shirley Jackson Award nominated writer whose prose has been supported by the Kenyon Review Fellowship Program, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference, MacDowell, Ucross, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Dana Award in the Novel Category. Her short story, “Twenty Years Ago” is a Distinguished story in the 2021 Best American Short Story anthology. In 2022 her fiction was longlisted for the Disquiet Prize. Her essay, “To Learn About Smoke One Must First Light a Fire,” winner of the Dogwood Literary Prize in Nonfiction, is listed as a Notable Essay in the 2019 Best American Essays anthology. Her prose appears in a number of journals and anthologies. Misha was born in Sonipat, Haryana and brought up in India where she first worked as a journalist, and then, later, in human rights for the National Human Rights Commission, The International Labour Organization, and on projects run by the Ministry of Women & Child, India, and the UNICEF. She currently edits for the Kenyon Review and teaches Creative Writing at Sewanee: The University of the South.
Poetry: Jamaal May
Jamaal May is the author of Hum and The Big Book of Exit Strategies (Alice James Books). Individual poems appear nationally and internationally, and have been translated into multiple languages. He is the recipient of numerous honors including The Spirit of Detroit Award, The Benjamin Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, American Library Association’s Notable Book Award, and two finalist nods for the NAACP Image Award. Jamaal hopes his work can serve as a bridge between interior landscapes and various communities.