Margarita Donnelly Prize for Prose Writing
Prize: $500 cash prize. Winner will be published in CALYX Journal Vol. 34:3, Summer/Fall 2024. Winner and up to two finalists will receive a one-volume subscription to CALYX Journal and publication on CALYX’s website.
Dates: July 1 – September 30, 2024, postmarked
Final Judge: Kellie Wells
Please submit up to 10,000 words of unpublished fiction or creative nonfiction. One piece of prose per submission. Simultaneous submissions are discouraged. The CALYX editorial collective reads all manuscripts first, then selects 5-10 finalists to send to the final judge.
For postal submissions:
Please send single submission, cover letter with name and contact information, and $20 reading fee (checks payable to CALYX, Inc.).
Send materials to:
CALYX, Inc.
Margarita Donnelly Prize
PO Box B
Corvallis, OR 97339
For online submissions:
Please upload one prose piece (10,000 word maximum) in a single .doc, .docx, .rtf, or .pdx file to our online submission manager. Reading fee ($20 + $1 PayPal processing fee) is payable with Visa or Mastercard through our secure online payment portal. Do not include your name on the submissions—each will be read blind.
Kellie Wells is the author of four books, God, the Moon, and Other Megafauna, winner of the Sullivan Prize for Fiction; Compression Scars, winner of the Flannery O’Connor Prize; and two novels: Skin and Fat Girl, Terrestrial. Her story “My Dog Lenny Bruce” won the 2022 Kurt Vonnegut Prize in Speculative Literature. She teaches in the graduate writing programs at the University of Alabama and Pacific University.
About the Contest
Margarita Donnelly was one of the four founders of CALYX, as well as its director, editor, manager, energy, and soul. Her incredible spirit and passion kept the journal running for nearly four decades. Now in its eighth year, the first contest in her honor highlights the love, talent, and skill she brought to the arts, especially in the world of prose.