2011 Prize
Jonathan Callahan's The Consummation of Dirk is the winner of the Starcherone Prize for Innovative Fiction, as selected by Final Judge Zachary Mason
Entering the 2012 Competition
The 2012-13 Starcherone Prize for Innovative Fiction, offering $1500 and publication with Starcherone Books, begins accepting entries October 1, 2011
Contest is open to story collections, novels, or indeterminate prose works up to 400 pages. Manuscripts will be blind-judged; the author's name should appear on the first of two title pages and nowhere else in the manuscript. Do not include an Acknowledgment page in your manuscript. There is an administrative fee of $35. Please do not send cash. The postmark deadline is February 17, 2012. The winner will be announced in August 2012. All finalists will be considered for publication with Starcherone Books. See our ad in the January-February 2012 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Final Judge Deb Olin Unferth
[photo credit: Margaret Olin]
We are thrilled to have Deb Olin Unferth as our final judge. Unferth has, in what is still a young career as a writer, shown her abilities in three different genres of prose narrative, in the collection of stories, Minor Robberies, the novel Vacation, both published by McSweeney's, and the memoir, Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War, published by Henry Holt. Her work has also appeared in Harper's, McSweeney's, The Believer, The Boston Review, Esquire, and other magazines. She is a frequent contributor to Noon. In 2009 she received a Creative Capital Grant from the Warhol Foundation and was also the recipient of the Cabell First Novelist Award for Vacation. She also has received two Pushcart Prizes and was chosen by Harper's Baazar as an "Editors' Choice: Names to Know in 2011." Unferth teaches creative writing at Wesleyan University.
As Final Judge, Unferth will make her selection out of a group of 5 finalists selected by our staff readers, and may request additional manuscripts from which to choose a winner.
As always, one manuscript will be selected as winner of our prize. Starcherone does not believe in holding competitions that do not select a winning book.
Entry Directions
Snail Mail
There will be a reading fee of $35. Please do not send cash. The contest
is blind-judged, so the author's name and contact information should appear
on title page and nowhere else in manuscript. (Please also remove mentions
of previous excerpt publications from manuscripts; do not include acknowledgment
pages.) A second title page with only the manuscript title should also be
included. A separate document should provide a short author bio/publication history. Please mail to:
STARCHERONE FICTION PRIZE, Starcherone Books, P.O.
Box 303, Buffalo, NY 14201-0303
Electronic
Send your reading fee of $35 to the above snail mail address. Then send
your manuscript as an email attachment to publisher@starcherone.com. Please
send the manuscript either as an Adobe pdf file or an MS Word file. In your
email, give your name and contact information, as well as the title of your
manuscript and a short author bio/publication history. Include only the
title on your manuscript, with no mention of the author's name. If you wish,
include a self-addressed postcard for notification that we have received
both your manuscript and fee, as well as the SASE for contest results. Any
questions may also be referred to publisher@starcherone.com.
Special Offer
a great book andcontest entry
$49.95
Purchase online our most recent contest-winning title, Sarah Falkner's novel, Animal Sanctuary, through this Buy Now offer and we'll enter you in our contest as well -- all for $49.95, which includes postage and handling (altogether, a $61 value)! You can also take advantage of this offer via US mail by sending a $49.95 check or money order to the above address. (Note: If you'd like to take advantage of this special offer but would prefer a different Starcherone book, you may substitute another Starcherone title -- simply add a note on your order and we'll make the substitution.)
CLMP Statement on Contest Ethics:
Starcherone Books endorses and agrees to comply with the following statement
on Contest Ethics released by the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses
in 2005. Starcherone Books helped develop this statement during virtual
roundtable discussions facilitated by CLMP in the summer of 2005:
CLMP's community of independent literary publishers believes that ethical
contests serve our shared goal: to connect writers and readers by publishing
exceptional writing. We believe that intent to act ethically, clarity of
guidelines, and transparency of process form the foundation of an ethical
contest. To that end, we agree to
1) conduct our contests as ethically as possible and to address any unethical
behavior on the part of our readers, judges, or editors;
2) to provide clear and specific contest guidelines -- defining conflict
of interest for all parties involved; and
3) to make the mechanics of our selection process available to the public.
This Code recognizes that different contest models produce different results,
but that each model can be run ethically. We have adopted this Code to reinforce
our integrity and dedication as a publishing community and to ensure that
our contests contribute to a vibrant literary heritage.
Starcherone's statements defining conflict of interest situations:
1) The winner of the Starcherone Fiction Prize cannot
be someone whose work that year's Final Judge recognizes during the blind
final-judging process.
2) In order that the best manuscript in the contest not be penalized simply
because a Final Judge recognizes some aspect of the writing or deduces the
author's identity based upon some circumstantial fact, Starcherone agrees
to offer to publish the best manuscript received in our contest each year,
even if this book is disqualified from winning our Prize. In such a circumstance,
the Final Judge agrees to choose a second book as the winner of the Prize,
in accordance with #1, above.
3) If anyone knows of any conflict of interest influencing a result in our
contest, please make us aware of it and we will investigate and report our
findings. Contest fees will be refunded upon request.
4) We ask that contestants realize we are a volunteer-run non-profit, and
need the receipts of our contest in order to pursue our mission to seek
the best innovative fiction and publish it for the purpose of public education
in the art and appreciation of serious fiction. Our contest fees cover costs
related to administering our contest and printing and publicizing the winning
book only. As a 501(c)(3) non-profit, financial statements which verify
these statements are subject to federal review.