2027 FC2 Catherine Doctorow Innovative Fiction Prize (fee waived)

Eligibility

The FC2 Catherine Doctorow Innovative Fiction Prize is open to writers of, from, or in the United States writing in English with at least three books published. 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appeared in magazines or anthologies may be included in collections, provided that the collection as a whole is unpublished.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, FC2 authors and employees 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 $15,000 and publication by FC2, an imprint of the University of Alabama Press, with an Introduction by the final judge. 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 Doctorow Prize will be chosen by the FC2 Editorial Board. The winning manuscript will be chosen from the finalists by our final judge. Past judges include Kazim Ali, K-Ming Chang, Amina Cain, Matt Bell, Cristina Rivera Garza, Joyelle McSweeney, Renee Gladman, Shelley Jackson, Mary Caponegro, Rikki Ducornet, Percival Everett, Laird Hunt, Stephen Graham Jones, Ben Marcus, Carole Maso, Stacey Levine, and Sam Lipsyte. 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, and aesthetic commitments, please visit our website.

The final judge for the 2027 contest will be Khadijah Queen. Khadijah Queen is the author of eight books of poetry and prose, most recently Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, a memoir about her service in the U.S. Navy alongside brief histories of maritime women, published by Legacy Lit/Hachette Books in August 2025. With K. Ibura, she co-edited Infinite Constellations (FC2 2023), a multi-genre anthology of speculative writing by authors from the global majority. Individual works appear in Ploughshares, Poetry, Gulf Coast, American Poetry Review, Harper’s Magazine, Fence, LitHub, The Poetry Review (UK), and widely elsewhere. In 2025 the Foundation for Contemporary Arts recognized her work with the Cy Twombly Award in Poetry. Queen teaches creative writing, literature, and literary theory, and divides her time between the US and Europe.

Guidelines

Submissions for the 2027 contest will be open 15 August 2026 – 1 November 2026.

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, your name and contact information, and the ISBNs of three previously published books, in the space allotted on the submission form. This cover letter will not be shared with the screeners or judge.
4. Optionally, we invite you to share a brief note discussing your identity, experience, and/or process with the contest screeners and judge. Since this statement will be shared, please do not include your name or other identifying details. In addition, if any part of the manuscript that you are submitting was generated by AI, please state that and explain how the use of AI supports your artistic project.
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.