2024 Robert J. DeMott Short Prose Contest

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Contest Submission Guidelines 

Prize: $1,008.15 + publication in the next edition of Quarter After Eight.

Judge: Lily Hoàng

Submission Period: October 15, 2024 through December 1, 2024

Instructions: Submit up to three previously unpublished pieces. Each piece must be 500 words or fewer. Any genre is acceptable as long as the work is written in prose. Send us your best short-short stories, micro-essays, and prose poems (lineated poems will not be considered). Combine all pieces into one document. Our preferred file types are doc, docx, and pdf. DO NOT include your name or other identifying information on your submission. Please include a brief cover letter with your name, address, phone number, email address, mailing address and the title(s) of your submission. Please also include your bio in the third person and (optional but appreciated) social media handles (Twitter, Facebook, if applicable). 


The entry fee is $15 for three pieces. Online submissions close at 12:00 midnight EST on December 1, 2024. Submissions received after this time will not be considered. All entries will be considered for publication in Quarter After Eight. The top ten submissions will be chosen by QAE staff and the winning piece will be selected by guest judge Lily Hoàng. The winner and 2 runners-up will have their pieces published in the next edition of Quarter After Eight.

Lily Hoàng is the author of five books of prose, including Changing (recipient of a PEN Open Books Award) and A Bestiary (winner of the Cleveland State University Poetry Center's Non-Fiction Book Prize). With Joshua Marie Wilkinson, she edited the anthology The Force of What's Possible: Writers on Accessibility and the Avant-Garde. In Summer 2017, she was Mellon Scholar in Residence at Rhodes University in South Africa. She is Editor of Jaded Ibis Press and Executive Editor of HTML Giant.

We use Submittable to accept and review our submissions.