Miami University Press Novella Contest
About the novella and our contest
The novella form has had a long and distinguished place in American literature, and has triumphed in the hands of Herman Melville, Henry James, Katherine Anne Porter, Stanley Elkin, Cynthia Ozick, Jane Smiley, Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, William Gass, John Gardner, Andrea Barrett and Tobias Wolff, to name just a few.
As commercial publishers are driven more and more by marketplace concerns, novellas, by nature of their length, often fall between the cracks of short story collections and novels and wind up being published—if at all—not as individual volumes but as part of a collection of stories. Because the form is such a pleasure for readers and writers alike—short enough to be read at a single sustained sitting, but long enough to allow the writer greater freedom in character and plot development than does the short story—we are happy to present a rare venue for publishing individual novellas as stand-alone volumes.
Manuscripts submitted for the award will be read and evaluated by our creative writing faculty, all of whom are active publishing writers. The manuscripts will be read “blind;” in other words, all identifiers will be stripped from the pages before the manuscripts are read, and the author’s history of previous publication will not be available to readers. Each year a different member of our faculty will serve as the final judge and will decide from among the list of finalists submitted by the other readers.
Students, former students, faculty, former faculty, or anyone connected to Miami University will not be considered for the award. Though we believe strongly in the talent of those we have worked with and taught, we will do everything we can to assure that this prize is administered impartially, fairly, and without regard to association.
Miami University Press is a non-profit organization. Though we are requiring an entrance fee (currently $25), we wish to make it clear that this money will be used to pay for the administrative costs of the contest, to help with the costs of publishing a book of high quality, and to allow each entrant to receive a copy of the winning volume. We want that book to be a pleasure to hold in the hands and to read. The winning volume will be distributed nationwide.
Submission rules and guidelines
We expect to announce specific information about the 2010 contest by late March. Please check back.
2009 winners
The 2009 contest resulted in a deadlocked jury, so to speak—so we broke with tradition and awarded two authors the prize. Both novellas will be published in summer 2010.
- The Old Whitaker Place by David Chambers
- Under the Small Lights by John Cotter
Runners-up
- A River So Long by Vallie Lynn Watson
- Committed by Varsha Kukafka
- The Music Lover by Emily Adelsohn Corngold
Winning novella descriptions
The Old Whitaker Place
In The Old Whitaker Place, we walk with Tom Whitaker through the last years of his long life. He lives alone in a Vermont farmhouse built by his great-grandfather shortly after the Civil War and struggles with blizzards and squatters, with aphids and storm windows, and with Ben, his only child. But most importantly, he struggles with himself and with the indignities of advancing age. Too infirm to live on his own but fiercely attached to the family land, he devises various schemes to permit him to remain at home. His situation looks increasingly hopeless until he meets Teresa, a strong, like-minded woman thirty years his junior. Told in Tom’s dry, cranky, sardonic voice, this short novel reveals much about life’s richness—and absurdity—in the face of adversity.
Under the Small Lights
Jack wants Corinna, Star wants Jack, Paul wants fast money, Jack and Bill want immortality in art. On a freezing January day Jack and Bill construct elaborate theatricals on the shores of Walden Pond. In burning July, Jack attempts to insinuate himself into the life Corinna’s picked with another man, the moneyed town and overgrown garden she was born to, the wealthy poet next door, and the distant world of artistic success. Fireworks misfire. A summer party and a winter confrontation heat into harsh words, violence. Long-held secrets are revealed.
Under the Small Lights is a lyrical take on the lives of lost 20-somethings, lust, and the state of art. Jack, Bill, Star, and Corinna grow up without roadmaps, with dubious role models, and with more pills and gin than they know what to do with. They are actors in search of roles, and they are betrayed in these roles by real life. This is a novel about the doubtful possibility of collective love and the painful experiences which, once having endured them, we wouldn’t be without.
2008 winner
- The Guide to the Flying Island by Lee Upton
2007 winner
- A Fight in the Doctor’s Office by Cary Holladay
2006 winner
- Badlands by Cynthia Reeves
2005 winner
- The Waiting Room by Albert Sgambati