2018 Rules: Dan’s Papers Emerging Young Writers Prize for Nonfiction

  • The Dan’s Papers Emerging Young Writers Prize for Nonfiction is open ONLY to writers age 25 years old and younger as of the closing date of the competition: August 8, 2018.
  • Entries will be accepted for the 2018 competition between April 23, 2018 and August 8, 2018.
  • There is a $10 fee per submission to enter the Emerging Young Writers Prize for Nonfiction. Individuals may enter up to 3 submissions.
  • Writers under 25 years of age may also enter up to 3 submissions in the Dan’s Papers Literary Prize for Nonfiction at a fee of $25 per submission.
  • All entries must be submitted digitally on DansLitPrize.com. Here are simple instructions for how to enter:
    • From DansLitPrize.com, click “ENTER” from the top navigation bar.
    • Then, click either “Enter Dan’s Papers Literary Prize” or “Enter Dan’s Papers Emerging Young Writers Prize” to begin the submission process.
    • You will be taken to a page where you can purchase your entry. After reviewing the information on the page, please use the add-to-cart button to proceed to the payment page.
    • Please enter your billing information and then click the ‘continue to payment’ button. A secure window will appear where you can make your payment using your credit card. A purchase receipt will be emailed to the address you provided.
    • After your payment is complete, you will be shown a confirmation message. Please click the button that says ‘Click to submit your story’ to proceed to the Entry Submission Form.
    • Type the title of your entry in the ‘Title’ field. Do not include the author’s name here.
    • Paste the text of your piece from your word processing program into the “Content” field. Please review carefully and make any formatting changes necessary as the entry will be seen by the judges exactly as you submit it here. Check spelling, spacing, line breaks, paragraphs, etc. and edit as needed.
    • Type the author’s first name in the ‘First Name Field’.
    • Type the author’s last name in the ‘Last Name Field’.
    • Type the author’s email address in the “Email Address” field.
    • Kindly Tick the box that confirms you are not a robot.
    • After you have reviewed everything carefully, click “Submit” to enter your piece. Once you click “Submit Entry,” NO CHANGES can be made to your entry!
    • You will be redirected to a page letting you know that your entry was received and that you are finished.
  • Entries must all be prose. No poetry, please.
  • Each work must be between 600 and 1500 words and can be any sort of nonfiction, including autobiography, biography, account of a day, opinion, history, profile of a person or institution, memoir, essay or humor. It may be an excerpt from a previously published work but can only be considered as an entry if permission is granted to the competition for its use.
  • The works must reference, in some meaningful way, eastern Long Island.
  • All works submitted will remain the property of the writer or their agents. However, writers submitting to win the Dan’s Papers $7,500 Literary Prize for Nonfiction and the Emerging Writers $1,000 Literary Prize for Nonfiction grants Dan’s Papers the right to publish the submissions in Dan’s Papers and any of its publications, on danspapers.com and its digital affiliates, understanding that the pieces will become part of the permanent archive of Dan’s Papers, its websites and its affiliates and may reappear in retrospective issues and in digital archives, and that in submitting each writer agrees to their pieces’ use in such ways.
  • The work of deceased writers will not be eligible. Entries by anonymous writers will not be eligible. Works by employees of Dan’s Papers and Manhattan Media will not be eligible. Works of poetry will not be eligible. All entrants must attest to the originality of the work submitted.
  • Winners will be determined by an independent panel of judges. One first-place award and two second-place awards will be given.
  • Dan’s Papers reserves the right to publish select entries, as determined by the editors, in Dan’s Papers and online at danspapers.com, together with an author biography and thumbnail photo, as promotion for the prize throughout the duration of the submission period. Such publication and usage in no way relates to the judging process nor implies that an entry has won any award.
  • All contestants grant Dan’s Papers the right to publish any entries to the Dan’s Papers Literary Prize for Nonfiction in forthcoming digital and print collections, including but not limited to the 2018 DAN’S HAMPTONS REVIEW literary journal.

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