2027 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appeared in magazines or anthologies may be included in collections, provided that the collection as a whole is unpublished.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 2027 contest will be Vanessa Saunders. Vanessa Saunders is a Professor of Practice at Loyola University New Orleans. Her feminist, experimental novel, The Flat Woman, won the Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize with FC2 and was published by University of Alabama Press. This book was ranked as a recommended title with Kirkus Reviews and received praise from Electric Literature, Debutiful, The New Orleans Advocate, and other journals. She has published over sixty creative pieces and craft essays in Writer’s Digest, Seneca Review, Los Angeles Review, Sycamore Review, Passages North, The Writer’s Chronicle, and [PANK] among others, and has been offered residencies at Vermont Studio Center and Château d’Orquevaux. Recently her novel Invisible Illnesses was the runner-up for the Faulkner-Wisdom Contest for the Book-In-Progress category. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, she received her MFA from Louisiana State University. She is at work on a novel.

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 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. 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.