2026 FC2 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize (fee waived)

Eligibility

The FC2 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Contest is open to writers of, from, or in the United States writing in English who have not previously published with FC2. Submissions may include a collection of short stories, one or more novellas, or a novel. There is no length requirement. Translations and previously published or self-published works are not eligible, although shorter works that have previously appeared in magazines or anthologies may be included in collections, provided that the collection as a whole is unpublished. To avoid conflict of interest, employees and Board members of FC2, as well as former or current students or close friends of the final judge, are not eligible to enter.

FC2 remains dedicated to recruiting new and diverse makers of the images of tomorrow and to forging an ever more representative and provocative collective to challenge and overwrite the brutal conventions of our insufficient now. We particularly encourage submissions from writers who dismantle assumed points of view and dominant narratives.

We encourage submissions from writers who are Black, Indigenous, people of color, disabled, LGBTQIA+-identifying, immigrant, or from communities otherwise underrepresented in United States literary publications. In an effort to remove barriers to access, we offer this fee-free submission form to writers for whom the submission fee would represent a significant obstacle. If you are in a position to afford the $25 submission fee, we ask that you use our paid submission form instead.

Prize

The Prize includes $3,000 and publication by FC2, an imprint of the University of Alabama Press. In the unlikely event that no suitable manuscript is found among entries in a given year, FC2 reserves the right not to award a prize.

Judge

Finalists for the Sukenick Contest will be chosen by the FC2 Editorial Board. The winning manuscript will be chosen from the finalists by our final judge. Selection criteria will be consistent with FC2’s mission to publish fiction considered by America’s largest publishers too challenging, innovative, or heterodox for the commercial milieu, including works of high quality and exceptional ambition whose styles, subject matter, or forms push the limits of American publishing and reshape our literary culture. For more information on FC2’s mission, history, aesthetic commitments, authors, events, and books, please visit our website.

The final judge for the 2026 contest will be Alvin Lu. Alvin Lu lives in San Francisco. He is the author of the novels Daydreamers, from Fiction Collective 2, and The Hell Screens. He is an MFA recipient from Brown University and winner of the John  Williams Prize for Prose. Recently he was guest Prose Editor at the  literary magazine Your Impossible Voice. Other writings have appeared in 3:AM Magazine, The Dodge, Denver Quarterly, Firmament, new_sinews, Rain Taxi, ZYZZYVA, and the Akashic Books anthology San Francisco Noir.

Guidelines

Submissions for the 2026 contest will be open 15 August 2025 – 1 November 2025.

1. The manuscript must be unpublished. Shorter works that have previously appeared in magazines or anthologies may be included in collections, provided that the collection as a whole is unpublished.
2. The manuscript must be anonymous. The author’s name or address must not appear anywhere on the manuscript. The title page should contain the title of the manuscript only.
3. Please include a cover letter, including a brief biography and your name and contact information, in the space allotted on the submission form. This letter will not be shared with the screeners or judges.
4. Optionally, we invite you to share a brief note discussing your identity, experience, and/or process with the contest screeners and judges. Since this statement will be shared, please do not include your name or other identifying details.
5. No submission fee is due with this form. If you are in a position to afford the $25 submission fee, we ask that you use our paid submission form instead.
6. Simultaneous submissions to other publishers are permitted, but FC2 must be notified immediately if the manuscript is accepted elsewhere.