Ploughshares Emerging Writers’ Contest

Ploughshares’ Emerging Writers’ Contest reinforces the journal’s long-standing commitment to elevating early-career voices by awarding publication, a two-thousand-dollar prize, and agency mentorship to one writer each in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. The contest, which reopens in February 2026, maintains strict eligibility rules to ensure a proper focus on unpublished talent, including a blind review process and limits on prior book or chapbook publication. With submissions accepted only through the online portal and judged by established authors, the program offers emerging writers a structured, equitable path to national recognition and entry into a respected literary tradition.

Ploughshares has spent more than fifty years widening the doorway for new literary talent, and its annual Emerging Writers’ Contest remains the journal’s most visible commitment to that mission. The contest reopens on February 1, 2026, and offers early-career writers in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry a rare combination of publication, mentorship, and national visibility. Each year, one writer per genre is selected for a prize package that includes two thousand dollars, publication in the Winter issue, and a career conversation with Aevitas Creative Management, a literary agency known for championing new voices with long-term potential.

The contest defines an emerging writer as someone who has not yet published or self-published a book in any of the contest genres. Writers with chapbooks remain eligible as long as the print run stayed under three hundred fifty copies and no new chapbook or book is forthcoming before January 31, 2027. Ploughshares also maintains strict guidelines regarding affiliation. Anyone connected to Emerson College or the journal through employment, internships, volunteer screening, coursework, or anticipated future enrollment is ineligible until after that same date. This separation preserves the contest’s blind reading process and ensures that every manuscript receives the same equitable consideration.

Submissions run from February 1 through March 31 at noon Eastern. Fiction and nonfiction entries may reach sixty-five hundred words. Poetry submissions can include three to five pages, and judges read both for the individual poem and the overall quality of the portfolio, which allows them to publish one, several, or all of the winning poems. Excerpts from longer works are welcome if they function independently. All manuscripts are read anonymously, must be previously unpublished, and cannot be generated by artificial intelligence. Writers may submit only once per year, regardless of genre, though simultaneous submissions are allowed with prompt notification if work is accepted elsewhere. Ploughshares cannot accept mailed entries, emailed entries, or revisions after submission, though accepted writers will have the opportunity to revise before publication.

The 2025 contest was judged by R. O. Kwon in fiction, Joshua Bennett in poetry, and Elisa Gabbert in nonfiction. Their selected works will appear in the Winter 2025–26 issue. For writers working in hybrid or image-inclusive forms, the journal recommends securing permissions in advance and using high-resolution files. Standard manuscript formatting is strongly encouraged, including double-spacing for prose and numbered pages.

Entrants who already subscribe to Ploughshares can submit to the contest at no cost by logging into their accounts before proceeding through the submission manager. Non-subscribers pay a thirty-dollar fee, which includes a one-year print and digital subscription and free submissions to the journal’s regular reading period from June 1 through November 15.