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Publishing exquisite fiction since 1991.

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The Halifax Ranch Fiction Prize: Now Open

by ASF Editors | April 15, 2025

We’re so pleased to announce that our judge for this year’s Halifax Ranch Fiction Prize will be Eric Puchner, author of the 2025 New York Times bestselling novel Dream State as well as the novel Model Home, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and two story collections. Puchner lives in Baltimore, where he is the director of the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.

In addition to publication and a $2,500 prize, we are excited to partner again with the Tasajillo Residency, an idyllic artist residency that neighbors the Halifax Ranch just outside of Austin in Kyle, Texas, and offer the winning writer an all-expenses-paid writing retreat at the Tasajillo’s beautiful cabin.


submit

General Guidelines

— Submit your entry online between April 15, 2025, and June 1, 2025. 

— The winner will receive a $2,500 prize and publication in an upcoming issue of American Short Fiction. In addition, the winner will receive a week-long all-expenses-paid writing retreat (optional—dates TBD) at the Tasajillo Residency, which neighbors the Halifax Ranch just outside of Austin in Kyle, Texas. The residency must be scheduled within a year after the winner is announced. All submitters will receive a copy of the prize issue.

— Please submit your $20 entry fee and your story through Submittable. We no longer accept submissions by post. International submissions in English are eligible. The entry fee covers one 6,500 word fiction submission.

— All entries must be single, self-contained works of fiction, between 2,000-6,500 words. Please DO NOT include any identifying information on the manuscript itself.

— You may submit multiple entries. We accept only previously unpublished work. We do 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.

*     *     *

About Eric Puchner

Eric Puchner is the author of four books, including the new novel Dream State, an Oprah’s Book Club pick and a New York Times bestseller, and the novel Model Home, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. His short stories and personal essays have appeared in GQ, Granta, McSweeney’s, Tin House, and The Best American Short Stories 2012 and 2017. He has received an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is an associate professor in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and lives in Baltimore with his wife, the novelist Katharine Noel, and their two children.

 

 

 

American Short Fiction is grateful to The Burdine Johnson Foundation for their grant in support of this prize.

Filed Under: NOTEBOOK Tagged With: American Short Fiction, burdine johnson foundation, dream state, Eric Puchner, Fiction, fiction contest, halifax ranch fiction prize, short story, short story contest, writing contest

Primary Sidebar

Issue 81

Guest-edited by Fernando A. Flores, featuring new stories by Yvette DeChavez, Julián Delgado Lopera, Carribean Fragoza, Alejandro Heredia, Carmen Maria Machado, Ruben Reyes Jr., and Gerardo Sámano Córdova.

You can preview the issue here.

NEWS

Read the winners of the 2024 Insider Prize

Read the winners of the 2024 Insider Prize

By ASF Editors

“Memories are a nuisance,” Peter wrote to one of our writers after reading his short story, “but nonetheless they seem to make us who we are, as this story confirms.” This year’s submissions told many stories burdened with memory, but just as many stared bravely into the face of hope, satirized the state of politics, speculated on the future of the world, or else built entirely new worlds to inhabit. In short, the stories written on the inside reflected the stories we wrote this year on the outside. Stories of human toil and dreams and everything in between.
 

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