Contest Submission - Fiction
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The annual BLR Prizes award outstanding writing related to themes of health, healing, illness, the mind, and the body.
2027 Goldenberg Prize for Fiction Judged by Daniel Mason
Daniel Mason is an associate professor in the Stanford University Department of Psychiatry, and author of works including A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; North Woods, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; and Country People (2026).
BLR PRIZE GUIDELINES - FICTION:
- Deadline: July 1, 2026 (11:59 p.m. EST)
- First prize is $1,000 and publication in the Spring 2027 issue of BLR. Honorable mention winners will receive $300 and publication in the Spring 2027 issue of BLR.
- Bellevue Literary Review seeks character-driven fiction with original voices and strong settings. We do not publish genre fiction (romance, sci-fi, horror).
- Our word max is 5,000, though most of our published stories tend to be in the range of 2,000-4,000 words. We have only occasionally published flash fiction. While we are always interested in creative explorations in style, we do lean toward classic short stories.
- Do not put your name or other identifying information on the manuscript document (or in the filename). Manuscripts are read blindly by reviewers, editors, and judges.
- Work previously published in print or electronically will not be considered. For BLR, “published work” means published in print in North America, or published on the Internet in electronic journals, e-zines, academic websites, and other “public” or “official” websites. Works posted on personal blogs or websites will be considered on a case-by-case basis. We ask that authors be honest about web postings. (If a work is discovered to have been posted or published elsewhere—and not openly acknowledged by the author in advance—we will remove it from consideration.
- Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but we ask that you notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere. We regret that there can be no refunds or substitutions for withdrawn work.
- All contest entries will also be considered for regular publication. If you submit to the contest, there is no need to submit the same piece again under the general submissions category.
- Students/friends/colleagues/relations of a judge are not permitted to enter submissions to that judge's genre.
- BLR acquires first-time North American rights, and the right to reprint in anthologies. After publication, all other rights revert to the author and the work may be reprinted as long as appropriate acknowledgement to BLR is made.
- Contest winners are usually announced in November. Decisions for the rest of Issue 52 (to be published in Spring 2027) will be made by the end of the year.
We encourage you to read BLR before you submit. Samples from each issue are available on our website.
We're happy to offer a 50% subscription discount to all authors who participate in the contest. (If you live outside the US, you must select the International option. Otherwise, we'll be unable to ship the journal to you. Thanks!)