Deadline: November 1, 2014 (postmarked or emailed)
Prize: $3,000 over three categories: poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction
Entry fee:
$35 CAD for residents of Canada
$40 USD for residents of the USA
$45 USD for entries from elsewhere

*$15 for each additional entry (mixing genres is acceptable), regardless of where you live

(entry fee for first entry only includes a one-year subscription or renewal extension to The Malahat Review)

The Open Season contest deadline is fast approaching!

Send us your best poetry, fiction, and/or creative nonfiction by November 1. With $3,000 in prizes, it's no wonder this is our most popular contest all year!

Enter either three poems (100 lines max. each), one work of short fiction (2500 words max.), or one work of creative nonfiction (2500 words max.).

Full contest guidelines available on the Malahat website.

Read a Catch-up Interview with Kelly Cooper, Last Year's Winner for Creative Nonfiction

Malahat volunteer Melissa Stephens catches up with Kelly Cooper one year after winning the Open Season Award for Creative Nonfiction in 2014.

MS: What are the benefits of submitting your work to a literary contest?

KC: It is especially satisfying, of course, to have your work recognized if you are lucky enough to be a finalist, but there are benefits beyond the opportunity to win. I am a person who is uncomfortable moving out of the revision stage with a piece of writing. A contest deadline forces me to end, at least temporarily, the editing process. If the contest entry fee includes a subscription, as the Malahat’s does, then at the very least you get a year’s worth of great reading. I’ve encountered writers whose work is very inspiring, writers whose work I would have missed, had I not entered contests I didn’t win.

Read the rest of Kelly's interview on the Malahat website.