The LIMINAL Fiction Prize
the 2019 LIMINAL Fiction prize
The LIMINAL Fiction Prize is a new literary prize for Australian Writers of Colour. With a theme of ‘the future’, we’re looking for fiction of a new world: not the stuff of flying cars or robots, but a future that pulls against or weaves together Australia’s many fabricated histories.
Australia is a nation that forgets. It forgets 60,000+ years of continuous culture; newspapers that once claimed ‘The Chinese’ brought ‘Vice and Vegetables’ (1891). Australia forgets that our first two prime ministers supported the White Australia Policy, and asks us to forget people caged in an offshore solution.
The LIMINAL Fiction Prize insists against amnesia. With this prize, we seek to promote fiction by writers whose voices are often ignored or elided— for the future of Australian fiction is here.
PRIZES
First prize of $2500 + publication in The Lifted Brow magazine
Runner up will receive $500
And all shortlisted pieces will be published in an anthology by Brow Books.
JUDGES
Evelyn Araluen, Julie Koh & Brian Castro
Submit to the
LIMINAL Fiction Prize
Guidelines
DEADLINE
Extended to APRIL 21, 11:59 AEST.
If you submitted for the April 1 deadline, feel free to revise and/or edit your submission.
The 2019 LIMINAL Fiction Prize has now closed.
THEME
The Future. This can be what you’d like it to be: we’re just looking for good short fiction that takes the future as its theme, regardless of whether you stare at it head on, or just out the corner of your eye. To quote our pals at Voiceworks, themed work is good, good work is better, and good themed work is best. We’re excited to read what you have to offer.
As we value liminality, we will accept anything that falls under the broad category of ‘fiction’: autofiction, a short story, a myth, a comic. Send us your best work.
WORD LIMIT
5000 words.
COVER SHEET
Please include a cover sheet on the first page of your submission. This must include:
Your name, your email, and phone number.
The title of your submission.
A bio, including a short publication history, website and social media handles.
A statement of positionality, 1-2 lines about why you’re eligible for the prize. We recognise the emotional toll for POC that often comes from having to 'prove' your identity, but for this prize, it is an unfortunate necessity. TLDR; we’re trying to avoid a Michael Derrick Hudson incident.
FICTION
The fiction submission must follow the cover sheet within the same document. As the LIMINAL Fiction Prize will be judged blindly, please only include your name on the cover sheet, and not in the text of your fiction submission.
FORMATTING
Word Document. 12pt, Times New Roman, 1.5 spacing.
ELIGIBILITY
Entries are welcome from writers who identify as a ‘Person of Colour’, who live in, or are citizens of, Australia. There is no age limit. We’re keen to read short fiction from writers we know and love, and writers we’ve never met. We want to hear from established authors, and from writers who have never been published.
To enter, email your submission to liminalfictionprize@gmail.com
by 11:59PM AEST, 21 April 2019.
Good luck!
