CRAFT 2025 Memoir Excerpt
& Essay Contest

November 13, 2025 – January 25, 2026

$3,400 Awarded

Guest Judge: Roxane Gay

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Days are growing shorter, and the air is getting cooler. The season for reflection is upon us. Between the falling leaves and the first snow, CRAFT encourages you to carve out space for bold, brave creation. For the CRAFT 2025 Memoir Excerpt & Essay Contest, we want to read your best longform creative nonfiction, from 1,001 to 6,000 words total. Excerpts from book-length projects and stand-alone essays will both be considered. Joining us to judge this year’s contest is none other than Roxane Gay!

Please carefully review the guidelines below, then send us your most polished work. Three winners will receive $1,000 each along with publication and a set of six titles from Graywolf’s The Art Of series. Our team will also select two “editors’ choices” to publish alongside the three grand-prize winners. All fifteen shortlisted creative nonfiction writers will receive a $1,000 scholarship to PocketMFA. Send us your best work!

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GUIDELINES:

• The contest is open November 13, 2025, to January 25, 2026.
• CRAFT submissions are open to all writers, emerging and experienced.
• Submit creative nonfiction from 1,001 to 6,000 words only! (Please, no academic work, fiction, flash, or poetry.)
• International submissions are welcome. Work must be written primarily in English, but some code-switching/meshing is warmly welcomed.
• This contest is for creative nonfiction excerpts and essays between 1,001 and 6,000 words. Please do not submit flash prose.
• We review literary creative nonfiction, but are open to a variety of genres and styles including memoir excerpts, lyric essays, personal essays, narrative nonfiction, speculative nonfiction, and experimental prose—our only requirement is that you show excellence in your craft.
• Submit previously unpublished work only—we do not review reprints, or even partial reprints, for contests (including any form of self-publishing, blogs, personal websites, social media, et cetera). Reprints will be automatically disqualified.
• We allow simultaneous submissions—writers, please notify us and withdraw your entry if your work is accepted elsewhere.
• The $20 reading fee per entry allows one longform creative nonfiction piece (either memoir excerpt or essay).
• We allow multiple submissions—each entry should be accompanied by a separate reading fee.
• Creative nonfiction writers from historically marginalized groups are invited to submit for free until we reach the fifty free submissions allotted for this contest. No additional fee waivers will be granted.
• All entries will also be considered for publication in CRAFT.
• Please double-space your submission and use Times New Roman 12.
• Please include a brief cover letter with your publication history and any content warnings (if applicable).
• We do not require anonymous submissions, but the guest judge will review the shortlist anonymously.
• Please review our values before submitting.
• AI-generated or -assisted submissions will be automatically disqualified.
• Unless you’ve already secured the necessary permissions, please do not include quoted song lyrics in your submitted work.
• Any work that does not adhere to these guidelines will be automatically disqualified.
• We are always happy to help if you have questions. Email us: contact@craftliterary.com.

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AWARDS:

The writers of the three winning pieces will receive:

• $1,000 each;
• publication in CRAFT, each with an introduction by the guest judge;
• publication of an author’s note (craft essay) to accompany the piece;
• and a set of six titles of Graywolf’s The Art Of series.

The two writers chosen in the editors’ choice round will receive:

• $200 each;
• publication in CRAFT, each with an introduction by the editorial team;
• and publication of an author’s note (craft essay) to accompany the piece.

All fifteen shortlisted writers will also receive a $1,000 scholarship to PocketMFA.

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OUR GUEST JUDGE:

ROXANE GAY’s writing appears in Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many others. She is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. She is the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, The New York Times-bestselling Bad Feminist, the nationally bestselling Difficult Women and The New York Times-bestselling Hunger. She is also the author of World of Wakanda for Marvel. She has several books forthcoming and is also at work on television and film projects. She also has a newsletter, The Audacity and once had a podcast, The Roxane Gay Agenda.

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FINE PRINT:

• Friends, family, and associates of the guest judge are not eligible for consideration for the award.
• Our collaboration with editorial professionals in the judging of our contests and the awarding of our prizes does not imply an endorsement or recognition from their agencies, houses, presses, universities, etc.
• Read (and enjoy!) our 2024 contest winners for examples of work we’ve chosen to publish in the past.
• As we only consider unpublished writing, and will publish the winning pieces in June 2026, any work under contract to publish prior to September 2026 should not be entered in this contest.

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OUR CONTEST PARTNERS: