Each year, American Short Fiction proudly hosts the Insider Prize, a writing award that recognizes excellent work by incarcerated writers in Texas. Launched in 2017 in collaboration with writer and American Short Fiction Advisory Board member Deb Olin Unferth and coordinated by American Short Fiction assistant editors Emily Chammah and Maurice Chammah, the winners of the Insider Prize are selected each year by a guest judge and are published by American Short Fiction.
Submissions:
Contestants must be housed in a Texas penitentiary at the time of submission. Only unpublished manuscripts are considered (though pieces that have appeared in publications for the prison population only will be accepted). As we are unable to return manuscripts submitted to the prize, entrants should send copies of their work, not the originals.
Read the winners of the 2025 Insider Prize, selected by guest judge Manuel Muñoz, here.
Read the winners of the 2024 Insider Prize, selected by guest judge Peter Orner, here.
Read the winners of the 2023 Insider Prize, selected by guest judge Nickolas Butler, here.
Read the winners of the 2022 Insider Prize, selected by guest judge Lauren Hough, here.
Read the winners of the 2021 Insider Prize, selected by guest judge Mitchell S. Jackson, here.
Read the winners of the 2020 Insider Prize, selected by guest judge Justin Torres, here.
Read the winners of the 2019 Insider Prize, selected by guest judge Joyce Carol Oates, here and here.
Read the winners of the 2018 Insider Prize, selected by guest judge Lydia Davis, here.