The Malahat Review, Canada’s premier literary magazine, invites entries from Canadian, American, and overseas authors for our annual Open Season Awards. An exciting spring showcase of literary excellence, Open Season bestows a prize of $1,000 in each of three marquee categories: poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction.

2012 Deadline

The deadline for the 2013 Open Season Awards is November 1, 2012 (postmark date).

Guidelines

• Poetry: up to three poems per entry; maximum length for each poem is 100 lines.
• Short fiction and creative nonfiction: one story or article per entry; with a maximum length of 2500 words. Please indicate word count on the first page. Please double space your work.
• Entry fee required for all categories:
  • $35 CAD for Canadian entries;
  • $40 US for American entries;
  • $45 US for entries from Mexico and outside North America.
• Entrants receive a one-year subscription to The Malahat Review for themselves or a friend.
• Entrants may submit to any or all categories more than once; however, each entry must be accompanied by its own entry fee.
• Entrants’ anonymity is preserved throughout the judging. Contact information (including an email address) must not appear on the submission, but on a separate page, along with entry title (or titles in the case of poetry entries) and genre (for prose entries).
• Entries already published, accepted, or submitted elsewhere are ineligible.
• The Malahat Review makes no distinction between online and print publication. Work published by an online journal, on a personal website, or in a blog is considered to be previously published.
• No entries will be accepted by email.
• No entries will be returned, even if accompanied by an SASE.
• The winner and finalists will be notified via email.
• Other entrants will not be notified about the judges’ decisions even if an SASE is enclosed for this purpose.
• The winner and finalists in each category will be announced on The Malahat's web site and facebook page in January, 2013.
• All winners will be interviewed. Interviews will be published on The Malahat's web site and in the March edition of Malahat lite, the magazine's monthly electronic newsletter.
• Only the winning entries will be published in The Malahat Review’s Spring 2013 issue.
• Inquiries to malahat@uvic.ca.
• Send entries to:
The Malahat Review
Open Season Awards
University of Victoria
P.O. Box 1700
STN CSC
Victoria, B.C. V8W 2Y2
Canada


Entrants wishing to pay by credit card may download and complete our Credit Card Payment Form then enclose it with their entries.

Previous Prize Winners

• 2012
  • Poetry: J. Mark Smith
  • Web exclusive: Interview with J. Mark Smith
  • Fiction: Erin Frances Fisher
  • Web exclusive: Interview with Erin Frances Fisher
  • Creative Nonfiction: Tik Maynard
  • Web exclusive: Interview with Tik Maynard
• 2011
  • Poetry: Cynthia Woodman Kerkham
  Web exclusive: Interview with Cynthia Woodman Kerkham
  • Fiction: Philip Huynh
  Web exclusive: Interview with Philip Huynh
  • Creative Nonfiction: Jessica Hiemstra-van der Horst (Nominated for a 2011 National Magazine Award in the One of a Kind category)
  Web exclusive: Interview with Jessica Hiemstra-van der Horst
• 2010
  • Poetry: Lorri Neilsen Glenn
  • Fiction: Tricia Dower
  • Creative Nonfiction: Melissa Jacques