2017 Contest Open: Remember in November Contest for Creative Nonfiction to Award $1,200+ (Deadline August 31)

Hippocampus Magazine is giving away more than $1,200 in cash and prizes this November in our seventh annual creative writing contest, the Remember in November Contest for Creative Nonfiction.

 

QUICK CONTEST OVERVIEW:

• Memoir excerpts and personal essays up to 4,000 words accepted — there is no theme.
• Deadline: August 31, 2017. extended to Sept. 15, 2017
• $12 entry fee

Complete rules and details below.

PRIZES:

• $1,000 grand prize (1) + free registration to HippoCamp 2018
• $150 runner-up (1)
• $25 $40 honorable mention (3-4) (regular contributor payment)
• $25 reader’s choice winner; added to contributor payment (doubles as the most memorable designation of the month)

 

ENTER NOW | LAST YEAR’S WINNERS

Now let’s get to some of those details.

CONTEST DEADLINE AND RULES

Submission Info

• Enter between April 1 and August 31, 2017. extended to Sept. 15, 2017
• Previously unpublished memoir excerpts and personal essays of up to 4,000 words are eligible.
• A$12 entry fee (supports prizes; $10.63 goes to Hippocampus after Submittable fee)
• Entries must be submitted through Submittable in the 2017 Remember in November Contest for Creative Nonfiction category, and it must meet the submission requirements outlined on the submission page, most importantly that your full name is not listed on the title page, headers/footers or in file name. Please read submission guidelines carefully before submitting to us, or to any paid contest.
• If you presently have a story under consideration at Hippocampus and would like to enter it into the contest instead, you may withdraw your current submission through Submittable and resubmit under the 2017 Remember in November Contest for Creative Nonfiction category.
• Participants may enter the contest as many times as they wish. Also, participants can win more than one prize as we have a blind reading process.
• Hippocampus staff members and their current students are not eligible to enter.

Selection Process

• The Hippocampus reader panel and founding editor will select five finalists from all submissions.
• A panel of special guest judges will select the winners from these finalists.
• Finalist stories are published in the November 2017 issue.
• Timeline: We review contest submissions after the deadline in August, so please expect our contest turnaround time to be longer than our usual three months since we open for submissions in April.

Publication

• Winning stories will be published in the November 2017 issue of Hippocampus Magazine.
• All entries will automatically be considered for publication in other forthcoming issues; last year, we published more than a dozen stories that made our contest short list!

Prizes

• Prizes are in USD. Winners must provide mailing address or PayPal email address to receive prize. (A check or PayPal transfer are the only two methods of prize delivery.) Prizes will be awarded by January 31, 2018.
• The Reader’s Choice Award winner and Reader Participation Award winners will be announced in the December 2017 issue.

 

Good luck to all!

 

Meet our Judging Panel

Laurie Jean Cannady

Laurie Jean Cannady has published an array of articles and essays on poverty in America, community and domestic violence, and women’s issues. Her memoir, Crave: Sojourn of a Hungry Soul was named one of the best nonfiction books by black authors in 2015 by The Root online magazine. A Kirkus review describes Crave as a “bold, honest, and courageous memoir.”

She serves as a professor of English at Lock Haven University and creative writing faculty in the Wilkes University low-residency Creative Writing Program.

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Dina Honour

Dina Honour is an American writer living with her husband and two sons in Copenhagen, Denmark. Her work has appeared in Hippocampus, Paste, and Puchnel’s as well as on popular parenting and expatriate media sites. Lately she’s been parked at the intersection of feminism and life where she has been exploring the role of women as storytellers. She dreams of hosting a literary space for women to share their stories, as well as finding a home for her first novel, a coming of age story which pairs adolescence and myth. She writes at Wine and Cheese (Doodles) and @DinaHonour.

 

 

 

 

[Editors note: This posted was updated on 8/23/2017 to include judge information and to note extended deadline. We’re extending the deadline two weeks due to a few forthcoming articles and podcasts featuring Hippocampus in early Sept., just a tad past our original deadline; we wanted to allow people learning of us the first time the chance to consider this year’s contest as well.]