The Missouri Review is now accepting entries for the 33rd annual Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize, which awards $5000 each to winners in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. In addition to the cash prize, winners will be published in the Spring 2024 issue of the Missouri Review, and widely promoted across our social media channels.
This opportunity is open to writers at all levels. We pride ourselves on focusing on the quality of the writing first and foremost—our allegiance is to discovering and supporting strong work. Past winners have ranged from established writers with long records of publication to beginning writers who have never published before. All entries are considered for publication. Contest finalists are often published in the magazine also, or in the web-exclusive features we offer on our website in prose and poetry, BLAST and Poem of the Week. Each entrant receives a 1-year digital subscription to TMR as well as The Talent: Stories of Authors and Artists, a free digital anthology from our imprint Missouri Review Books. For complete guidelines, please refer to our website, specifically this page: https://www.missourireview.com/contests/jeffrey-e-smith-editors-prize/.
We accept submissions online or by mail. The postmark deadline is October 1. Winners will be announced in January of 2024.
This year we are offering two contest entry options:
At the standard $25 level, entrants receive a year-long digital subscription to the Missouri Review ($24 value) as well as the fifth offering from Missouri Review Books, the digital anthology The Talent: Stories of Authors and Artists ($7.95 value) featuring stellar short fiction from past issues of TMR.
At the $30 all-access level entrants receive the same year-long digital subscription and The Talent, plus full access to our entire ten-year archive of value-added digital issues, complete with print and audio versions of the magazine.