We are OPEN for general submissions. Our reading period for general submissions for 2017 is May 1 through September 15.
General Contest Guidelines:
All 2017 contests have an extended deadline of March 8 and a fee of $20 per entry. Please don't include your name on any entries; we read contest entries blind. First places winners receive $1000 and publication in Hunger Mountain online. Runners-up receive $100 and publication. Current students and staff at Vermont College of Fine Arts are not eligible. All other writers are eligible.
- Howard Frank Mosher Short Fiction Prize. This is a prize for fiction, up to 10,000 words. We welcome all types of fiction by all writers.
- Katherine Paterson Prize for Young Adult and Children's Writing. Enter Young Adult, Middle Grade, or Picture Book (or Writing for Young Children) manuscripts, up to 10,000 words. Entries can be complete stories or nonfiction writing, or excerpts from novels or longer manuscripts. We'll announce one overall winners, as well as winners in each of the categories (YA, MG, PB). The overall winner receives $1000. The category winners receive $100 each.
- Hunger Mountain Creative Nonfiction Prize. This is a prize for creative nonfiction, up to 10,000 words. We welcome all essays, memoirs, and other creative nonfiction, by all writers.
- Ruth Stone Poetry Prize. Please enter up to three poems per entry. There is no word count for poetry. Please put all three poems in one document--you'll only be able to upload one document per entry.
When submitting, there is a $3 maintenance fee for using Submittable, roughly the same cost as envelopes, printer ink, and postage for mailing a prose piece or three poems and an SASE. (Please note: we no longer accept submissions through postal mail.) Submittable is not a free service for us, so we charge a fee in order to cover our costs. However, we do happily waive the fee for subscribers. If you’ve subscribed or purchased a copy of Hunger Mountain in the past year, please submit free of charge by choosing the "Subscribers and Contributors" category.
We recommend that you read back issues of Hunger Mountain before submitting. Browse our online work, subscribe, or order back issues of the print journal.
Please scroll down and choose the genre category for your submission.
*Note: International orders that need to be shipped outside of the U.S. will receive one print issue.
Click on the "Submit" button below to purchase a subscription. Thank you!
This is a limited time price, after April 14th it will move up to $12.00
Click on the "Submit" button below to purchase an issue. Thank you!
We’re currently accepting creative nonfiction.
We welcome an array of traditional and experimental work, including, but not limited to, personal, lyrical, and meditative essays, memoirs, collages, rants, and humor. The only requirements are recognition of truth, a unique voice with a firm command of language, and an engaging story with multiple pressure points. We agree with Joy Williams that a “good piece of writing startles the reader back into Life...It can and should enchant while it explodes in the reader’s face.”
Please submit a double-spaced manuscript no more than 8,000 words.
We’re currently accepting fiction for our 2017 issue: "Masked/Unmasked"
We look for work that is beautifully crafted and tells a good story, with characters who are alive and kicking, storylines that stay with us long after we’ve finished reading, and sentences that slay us with their precision.
Please submit a double-spaced manuscript, no more than 8,000 words.
We’re currently accepting poetry.
We are looking for truly original poems that run the aesthetic gamut: lively engagement with language in the act of pursuit. Some poems remind us in a fresh way of our own best thoughts; some poems bring us to a place beyond language for which there aren’t quite words; some poems take us on a complicated language ride that is, itself, its own aim. Complex poem-architectures thrill us and still-points in the turning world do, too. Send us the best of what you have. Send us an experience for the reader that only you can give us.
Please submit one to five poems at a time, in one file. Thank you.
We’re currently accepting YA and Children's Lit.
We accept picture book, middle grade, young adult and YA crossover work (text only—for now). We’re looking for polished pieces that entertain, that show the range of adolescent experience, and that are compelling, creative and will appeal to the devoted followers of the craft, as well as the child inside us all.
