We are thrilled to announce that the brilliant Tony Tulathimutte—author of the 2024 National Book Award longlisted novel Rejection—will judge the 2025 American Short(er) Fiction Prize. The prize recognizes extraordinary short fiction under 1,500 words. The first-place winner will receive a $1,000 prize and publication. Previous winners of the Short(er) Fiction Prize have gone on to be anthologized in places such as The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. All entries will be considered for publication.
**Please note we raised the word count from previous years from 1,000 to 1,500.**
General Guidelines
• Submit your entry online between November 12, 2024 – February 1, 2025.
• The first-place winner will receive a $1,000 prize and publication in a future issue of ASF. All entries will be considered for publication.
• Please submit your $18 entry fee and your work through Submittable. We no longer accept submissions by post. International submissions in English are eligible.
• Stories must be 1,500 words or fewer. You are allowed to include up to two stories per entry. Please submit all stories in one document. Each story must begin on a new page and be clearly titled. For the title of your submission list the story titles, separated by a comma. (If you’ve submitted in the past, please note that we raised the word count from previous years from 1,000 to 1,500.)
• DO NOT include any identifying information on the manuscript itself.
• You may submit multiple entries. We accept only previously unpublished work. We allow simultaneous submissions, but we ask that you notify us promptly of publication elsewhere.
Conflicts of Interest
Staff and volunteers currently affiliated with American Short Fiction are ineligible for consideration or publication. Additionally, students, former students, and colleagues of the judge are not eligible to enter. We ask that previous winners wait three years after their winning entry is published before entering again.
American Short Fiction adheres to the CLMP Contest Code of Ethics. You can find the CLMP Code of Ethics and our contest procedures here.
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Tony Tulathimutte is the author of the novels Private Citizens and Rejection. A graduate of Stanford University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he’s received a Whiting Award and an O. Henry Award, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and has written for The Paris Review, N+1, Playboy, The New York Times, The New Republic, and others. He also runs CRIT, a writing class in Brooklyn.
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From “Processing: How Tony Tulathimutte Wrote Rejection,” an interview on Lincoln Michel’s Substack Counter Craft.
LM: Any advice for a reader going through rejection in life and/or literature?
TT: In general, don’t dispute or haggle. Also, when you’re not ready for, correct about, or deserving of the thing you want, acceptance is worse than rejection.
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We can’t wait to read your submissions!