The Rumpus Fiction Prize (judged by Rachel Khong)
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Announcing the Inaugural Rumpus Prize for Fiction
The Rumpus has a long history of championing emerging and established writers, and we're pleased to announce a new way of bringing attention to great stories.
- $1,000 first-place prize and publication on therumpus.net
- Honorable mention receives $200 and publication
- All entries are eligible for publication in The Rumpus. Those published will be offered the standard contributor payment of $50.
The Rumpus will accept contest submissions from December 5, 2024, through March 2, 2025. Finalists will be contacted in May 2025. Winners will be announced publicly and published by June 2025.
We are honored to have RACHEL KHONG as our judge for the inaugural Rumpus Prize for Fiction.
Rachel Khong is the author of Goodbye, Vitamin, winner of the California Book Award for First Fiction, and named a Best Book of the Year by NPR; O, The Oprah Magazine; Vogue; and Esquire. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Cut, The Guardian, The Paris Review, and Tin House. In 2018, she founded The Ruby, a work and event space for women and nonbinary writers and artists in San Francisco’s Mission District. She was born in Malaysia and currently lives in Los Angeles. Her second novel Real Americans (Knopf 2024) was a New York Times bestseller. Her short story collection, My Dear You, will be published by Knopf in Spring 2026.
For FICTION submissions:
Submit one story, up to 5,500 words total, per entry. Stories must contain only the story title and story itself without the author’s name or contact information on the submission itself. Submissions should be at least 12-point font and double-spaced for readability.
Prizes
A prize of $1,000 plus publication for our first-place winner will be awarded in each of the three genres. Honorable mentions in each genre will receive $200 and will also be offered publication.
Selection Process
The Rumpus’s editorial teams will read all entries and pass along their top choices to the judges. Final selections will be made anonymously, and the judges will choose the winners and honorable mentions blindly. Decisions of the judges are final.
How to Submit
Writers age 18 and over are eligible to enter. Writers cannot be a current or former student of the contest judge in the genre to which they are submitting. Writers cannot be on The Rumpus's masthead as a current member of the editorial team or a volunteer reader, even if you're interested in submitting in a genre outside of your department.
Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but previously published material in any format (including blogs and social media) is not eligible. Submissions can be withdrawn from the submission system if accepted elsewhere. However, entry fees will not be refunded.
Fee
The cost to submit is $20 per story. Writers may submit multiple stories, but each entry will include a $20 submission fee.
Submissions Process
Submissions and payment for the inaugural Rumpus Prize for Fiction are conducted through this Submittable page. If you are interested in entering prose for our Poetry and/or Creative Nonfiction Prizes, please see those guidelines here. Do not combine submissions in multiple categories in the same entry.
We look forward to reading your work!