2025 Spring Writing Contests
PRIZES INCREASED FOR 2025
DEADLINE: APRIL 4, 2025
WINNERS ANNOUNCED: MAY 5, 2025
2025 JUDGES: SEE BELOW
***These awards are open to the entire university student population.***
GMU Rinehart Fiction Award | $1,000
GMU Rinehart Nonfiction Award | $1,000
GMU Rinehart Poetry Award | $1,000
Prolific in the early 20th century, Mary Roberts Rinehart was referred to as the "American Agatha Christie." In 1983, the Rinehart family established The Mary Roberts Rinehart Fund at George Mason University to assist aspiring writers. Open to the entire University Student Community, contestants for awards in fiction and nonfiction should submit a freestanding entry, such as a short story or a self-contained section of a book. No entry in fiction or nonfiction should exceed 20 pages. Writers of poetry should submit 1 single poem of 60 lines or less. The competition is open to currently enrolled George Mason students, graduate or undergraduate, majoring in any discipline or program of study. Students are limited to one submission. The work submitted cannot be previously published in any form, print or online.
Virginia Downs Ecopoetry Award | $1,000
The Virginia Downs Poetry Award was established by the family and friends of Virginia Downs (1916-1984), poet and George Mason University graduate. The award is given for a single poem of 60 lines or less, and this year, the subject matter focuses on ecopoetics, the Anthropocene, climate change, or the natural world. The competition is open to currently enrolled George Mason students, graduate or undergraduate, majoring in any discipline or program of study. Students are limited to one submission. The work submitted cannot be previously published in any form, print or online.
***The following awards are only open to currently enrolled MFA in CW students.***
Mary Roberts Rinehart Fiction Award (MFA Students Only) | $750
Honorable Mention: $250
To assist aspiring authors, the family of the late Mary Roberts Rinehart began a number of years ago awarding small grants to writers whose work showed particular promise. These awards were given to honor Ms. Rinehart, a writer of fiction and nonfiction, whose work was popular in the earlier decades of the 1900s. The prize is given for a single short piece of fiction 20 double-spaced pages or less. The competition is open to any currently enrolled MFA in Creative Writing student. Students are limited to one submission. The work submitted cannot be previously published in any form, print or online.
Mary Roberts Rinehart Nonfiction Award (MFA Students Only) | $750
Honorable Mention: $250
To assist aspiring authors, the family of the late Mary Roberts Rinehart began a number of years ago awarding small grants to writers whose work showed particular promise. These awards were given to honor Ms. Rinehart, a writer of fiction and nonfiction, whose work was popular in the earlier decades of the 1900s. The prize is given for a single short piece of nonfiction (essay, memoir, etc.) 20 double-spaced pages or less. The competition is open to any currently enrolled MFA in Creative Writing student. Students are limited to one submission. The work submitted cannot be previously published in any form, print or online.
Mark Craver Poetry Award (MFA Students Only) | $750
Honorable Mention: $250
This award honors Mark Craver, an MA and MFA alum as well as a popular Mason adjunct professor and area high school teacher until his death in January 2004. The award is given for a single poem of 60 lines or less, on any subject and in any form. The competition is open to any currently enrolled MFA in Creative Writing student. Students are limited to one submission. The work submitted cannot be previously published in any form, print or online.
Note: GMU-designated contest categories are open to any currently enrolled George Mason University undergraduate or graduate student, as established by the Mason Foundation and the directives of the honoree for whom the contest is named. In addition, there is one contest in each genre (fiction, nonfiction, and poetry) for which only currently enrolled MFA students are eligible.
Judges
See below.
Contest Submission Guidelines
1. Students are limited to one submission per contest and must submit a different work for each contest. (A poem or a story cannot be selected as winner of more than one contest.) Previously submitted winning entries cannot be re-submitted. Please check each contest for specific guidelines, such as word/page limit.
2. Students must submit an electronic copy of each submission in PDF format. Electronic copies in another format will not be accepted. Each entry should be saved with the title of the corresponding award + title of piece. (Ex. GMU Rinehart Fiction Award_Story Title).
3. Please use the following format for submission emails:
The SUBJECT LINE of the email should be: First Name Last Name_Spring Writing Contest 2025. (Ex. Pat Doe_Spring Writing Contest 2025)
Include your G# and First and Last Name in the body of the email.
Each attachment should be titled with the name of the contest to which the entry is being submitted and the title of the piece (Ex. Mark Craver Poetry Award_Poem Title).
No identifying information other than the entry's title should appear on the submission itself.
Electronic submissions should be emailed to Rafaella Silva at rsilva8@gmu.edu and must be received by the posted deadline. The deadline for 2025 is Friday, April 4 at 12PM ET; Noon.
New entries or new versions of previously submitted entries cannot be resubmitted after the initial noon deadline.
4. The purpose of these awards is to reward previously unrecognized work. Therefore, submissions must be previously unpublished. Submissions will be considered as "published" if they have been accepted for or have appeared in any publication, online or in print, including student magazines at this or other institutions. Work currently under submission will not be considered to be "published," and is eligible for these awards.
Winning/honorable mention pieces are NOT published on our website. If you submit a winning piece to one of our writing contests, you WILL be able to submit it for publication elsewhere after the contest has concluded.
5. At the discretion of the judges, an award may be divided between two or more writers, or, if no submission is found to be of sufficient merit, an award may be withheld.
6. Award winners are contacted by email shortly before results are posted, usually in mid-April. Winners will be announced on the creative writing website.
Questions?
Please email Rafaella Silva, the English Department's Graduate Admissions Outreach Manager, at rsilva8@gmu.edu with questions.
CONTEST JUDGES
GMU Rinehart Fiction Award | Constance Sayers
Constance Sayers is the author of the #1 Amazon best-selling novel A Witch in Time (Redhook/Hachette), as well as The Ladies of the Secret Circus (Redhook/Hachette), which received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. A finalist for Alternating Current’s 2016 Luminaire Award for Best Prose, her short stories have appeared in Souvenir and Amazing Graces: Yet Another Collection of Fiction by Washington Area Women, as well as The Sky is a Free Country. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She received her master of arts in English from George Mason University and graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of arts in writing from the University of Pittsburgh. She attended The Bread Loaf Writers Conference, where she studied with Charles Baxter and Lauren Groff.
GMU Rinehart Nonfiction Award | Sean Murphy
Sean Murphy is the founder of the non-profit 1455 Lit Arts and directs the Center for Story at Shenandoah University. He has appeared on NPR's "All Things Considered" and been quoted in USA Today, The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and AdAge. A long-time columnist for PopMatters, his work has also appeared in Salon, The Village Voice, Washington City Paper, The Good Men Project, Writer’s Digest, and others. His chapbook, The Blackened Blues, was published by Finishing Line Press. His second collection of poems, Rhapsodies in Blue, was published by Kelsay Books in 2023. His third collection, Kinds of Blue, and This Kind of Man, his first collection of short fiction, both published in 2024. He has been nominated four times for the Pushcart Prize, twice for Best of Net, and his book Please Talk About Me When I'm Gone was the winner of Memoir Magazine's 2022 Memoir Prize.
GMU Rinehart Poetry Award | Reginald Harris
Reginald Harris won the 2012 Cave Canem / Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize for Autogeography. His first book, 10 Tongues, was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and the ForeWord Book of the Year. A Cave Canem Fellow, member of the National Book Critics Circle, and recipient of Individual Artist Awards for poetry and fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council, his poetry, fiction, reviews, and articles have appeared in numerous anthologies, journals, and online, including BuzzFeed, smartish pace, African-American Review, Beltway Poetry, Verse Daily, Split This Rock’s The Quarry: Social Justice Poetry Database, and the Of Poetry and Protest: Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin, This is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets, and Voices Rising: Celebrating 20 Years of Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Writing anthologies. He is a Lead Digital Navigator for Brooklyn Public Library’s Neighborhood Tech Help service.
Virginia Downs Ecopoetry Award | Elizabeth Bradfield
Elizabeth Bradfield’s seven books include Interpretive Work, which won the Audre Lorde Prize in Lesbian Poetry, Toward Antarctica, and the co-created Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry, winner of a Pacific Northwest Book Award and a ForeWord Indies Gold Medal. Editor-in-chief of Broadsided and a former Wallace Stegner Fellow, Liz teaches at Brandeis University and works as a naturalist and field assistant on Cape Cod. In August, 2025, Persea Books will publish her newest poetry collection, SOFAR.
Mary Roberts Rinehart Fiction Award (MFA Students Only) | Steve Almond
Steve Almond is the author of a dozen books, including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football. His first novel, Which Brings Me to You (co-written with Julianna Baggott), was made into a major motion picture starring Lucy Hale. His second novel, All the Secrets of the World, is being developed for television by 20th Century Fox. He’s the recipient of a 2022 NEA grant for fiction and teaches at Harvard’s Nieman Foundation. His stories and essays have been published in the Best American Short Stories, the Best American Mysteries, Best American Erotica, and the New York Times Magazine. His latest book is Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow: A DIY Manual for the Construction of Stories.”
Mary Roberts Rinehart Nonfiction Award (MFA Students Only) | Paul Lisicky
Paul Lisicky is the author of seven books including Song So Wild and Blue: A Life with the Music of Joni Mitchell, Later: My Life at the Edge of the World (one of NPR’s Best Books of 2020), The Narrow Door (a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a Finalist for the Randy Shilts Award), Unbuilt Projects, The Burning House, Famous Builder, and Lawnboy. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, Conjunctions, The Cut, Fence, The New York Times, Ploughshares, Tin House, and in many other magazines and anthologies. His honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Rose Dorothea Award from the Provincetown Library. He has taught in the creative writing programs at Cornell University, New York University, Sarah Lawrence College, The University of Texas at Austin, and elsewhere. He is currently a Professor of English in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers University-Camden, where he is Editor of StoryQuarterly.
Mark Craver Poetry Award (MFA Students Only) | Tonee Mae Moll
Dr. Tonee Mae Moll is a queer & trans writer & educator in Baltimore. Her debut memoir, Out of Step, won the 2018 Lambda Literary Award and was featured that year on the American Library Association’s annual list of notable LGBTQ+ books. Her latest poetry collection, You Cannot Save Here, won the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from Washington Writers’ Publishing House. Tonee Mae’s poetry has also received the Adele V. Holden Award for Creative Excellence and the Bill Knott Poetry Prize. She has been a finalist for the Baker Award, and her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of Net. She holds a PhD in English from Morgan State University and an MFA in creative writing and publishing art from the University of Baltimore. Her scholarly work explores feminist pedagogies & epistemologies, poetry, and punk.
