Congratulations to Shastri Akella, winner of the 2025 Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize, for "The Border Ghosts", a ‘tender and haunting’ story of queer love on the Kashmir border that explores ... [Read More]
Competitions
Interview with Sukie Wilson, 2024 Desperate Literature Prize Winner
Meet Sukie Wilson, winner of the 2024 Desperate Literature Prize for their short story, Leaving Night Country. How did you decide to submit for the Desperate Literature Prize? My friend Char ... [Read More]
One Week Left! Enter Desperate Literature’s Prize for Short Fiction
Submissions close April 30th! The 2025 Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize is open for submissions. The de Groot Foundation is delighted to partner with The Desperate Literature Short ... [Read More]
Congratulations Zoë Bossiere!
Congratulations to Zoë Bossiere, the 2021 First Pages Prize Readers' Pick for the release of their book, Cactus Country: A Boyhood Memoir. Bossiere's debut chronicles their experiences growing up ... [Read More]
Congratulations Pallavi Sharma Dixit!
Congratulations to Pallavi Sharma Dixit, one of the 2023 First Pages Prize winners for the release of her book, Edison. Edison is a Bollywood-style love story brimming with song and dance, action ... [Read More]
Congratulations 2024 First Pages Prize Winners!
Congratulations to the 2024 Creative Nonfiction Winners Julie Moon, Sarah Giragosian, and Starr Davis, and Fiction Winners Sandy Nietling, Stephanie Ramlogan, and Hope Kokot, as well as Sandra ... [Read More]
Sukie Wilson Wins 2024 Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize!
Congratulations to Sukie Wilson, winner of the 2024 Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize, for "Leaving Night Country". ‘From the first paragraph, "Leaving Night Country" catches us with its ... [Read More]
First Pages Prize Fiction Shortlist
Congratulations to the ten writers selected for the First Pages Prize Fiction Shortlist! Congratulations Megan Lui, Joanna Theiss, Prachi Kamble, Megan Ritchie, Sandy Nietling, K.D. Walker, Hope ... [Read More]
First Pages Prize Creative Nonfiction Shortlist
Congratulations to the nine writers selected for the First Pages Prize for Creative Nonfiction Shortlist! Congratulations Wiam El-Tamami, Jiadai Lin, Katerina Vasiliou, Siavash Saadlou, Julie Moon, ... [Read More]
Desperate Literature’s 2024 Shortlist
Desperate Literature is thrilled to announce the 2024 Short Fiction Prize Shortlist. "Change is a Good Thing!" God's of Fathers Hölle in the insect colony Leaving Night Country Nicodemus No ... [Read More]
2024 First Pages Prize
Entries are now closed. First Pages Prize is thrilled that Edwidge Danticat will judge both fiction & creative nonfiction for the 2024 prize! Edwidge Danticat is the author of seventeen books, ... [Read More]
The Desperate Literature Prize for Short Fiction closes April 30th
The aim of the Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize is to celebrate the best of new short fiction and give winners visibility for their writing. This prize works to give shortlisters the ... [Read More]
Desperate Literature’s ‘Eleven Stories 2023’ is Out Now!
Desperate Literature's 2023 Short Fiction Prize Anthology is now published! 'Eleven Stories 2023' collects the Shortlist Selection from Desperate Literature's sixth short fiction prize. The de ... [Read More]
Hadley Franklin Wins 2023 Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize!
Congratulations to Hadley Franklin, winner of the 2023 Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize, for her work Falling. Hadley Franklin holds an MFA in fiction from New York University’s Creative ... [Read More]
2023 First Pages Prize Winners Are Announced!
Congratulations to the 2023 First Pages Prize Winners! The First Pages Prize mission is to discover, recognize and encourage emerging voices through the annual creative nonfiction and fiction FIRST ... [Read More]
Entries for the FIRST PAGES PRIZE have now closed.
Submissions for the 2023 FIRST PAGES PRIZES in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction have now closed. There will be three winners announced in each category. Winners will receive cash awards, ... [Read More]
Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize is now closed.
Submissions for the Desperate Literature Prize short fiction prize have now closed. The deadline was April 30, 2023! Prizes include: – A week’s residency at the Civitella Ranieri ... [Read More]
Elise Thi Tran Wins 2022 First Pages Prize!
Congratulations Elise Thi Tran, winner of the 2022 First Pages Prize with Dredged From the Courtyard Pond, a collection of vignettes drawing from the oral history of a family’s escape from Vietnam and ... [Read More]
Jay Gao wins 2022 Desperate Literature Prize!
Jay Gao, a Chinese Scottish poet and fiction writer, wins the 2022 Desperate Literature Short Story Competition with The Baron and His Volcano. Jay is the author of Imperium (2022), forthcoming ... [Read More]
FIRST PAGES PRIZE winners to be announced soon!
The 2022 FIRST PAGES PRIZE winners will be announced in the next few weeks. Open to un-agented writers worldwide, the FIRST PAGES PRIZE invites you to enter your FIRST FIVE PAGES (1250 ... [Read More]
Care of Strangers wins the Miami Book Fair/de Groot Prize…
Ellen Michaelson’s novella, The Care of Strangers wins the Miami Book Fair/de Groot Prize. This moving story about vulnerability and friendship has earned critical praise since its release. “An ... [Read More]
P.J. McKay, 2020 First Page Prize Winner
New Zealand author P. J. McKay, won with the opening of her historical novel, The Telling Time (Polako Press, 2020). She is now represented by Highspot Literary and was shortlisted for the 2020 NZSA ... [Read More]
Angela Finn wins the 2020 Desperate Literature Short Story Prize
Winner: Angela Finn wins the 2020 Desperate Literature Short Story Prize for Excerpts from a Pale Blue Notebook with Silver Stars. Runners-up: Jelle Cauwenberghs for Bottles and Jenah Shaw for ... [Read More]
An interview with C.E. Smith
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, C.E. Smith studied English at Stanford and medicine at Vanderbilt. His short stories have appeared The Best of the Bellevue Literary Review,The Carolina Quarterly, and ... [Read More]