The submission period for the 2025 Great American Fiction Contest has passed. The 2026 contest will open for submissions on January 1, 2025.
In its two centuries of existence, The Saturday Evening Post has published short fiction by a who’s who of great American authors, including Ray Bradbury, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Louis L’Amour, Sinclair Lewis, Jack London, Joyce Carol Oates, Edgar Allan Poe, Anne Tyler, and Kurt Vonnegut, among so many others.
“This contest is a tribute to the Post’s legacy of featuring the most renowned American fiction writers,” says Steven Slon, former editorial director and associate publisher for The Saturday Evening Post. “Our goal is to continue the tradition of finding and featuring compelling stories and the authors behind them.”
The winning story will be published in the January/February 2025 edition of The Saturday Evening Post, and the author will receive $1,000. Five runners-up will each receive $200 and will also have their stories featured online.
Submission Guidelines
- Stories must be between 1,500 and 5,000 words long.
- All stories must be previously unpublished (excluding personal website and/or blog publication).
- No extreme profanity or graphic sex scenes.
- All stories must be submitted by their author in print or in Microsoft Word or PDF format with author’s name, address, telephone number, and email address on the first page.
- Entries should be character- or plot-driven pieces in any genre of fiction.
- Think local. The Post has historically played a role in defining what it means to be an American. Your story should in some way touch upon the publication’s mission: Celebrating America — past, present, and future.
- All entries must be received electronically or be postmarked by July 1, 2024.
- There is a $10 entry fee, which helps defray a portion of the cost of operating the contest.
Electronic entries are preferred, but we understand that they are not always possible. To enter by mail, send your manuscript, cover letter, and a check for $10 made out the The Saturday Evening Post to
The Saturday Evening Post
Great American Fiction Contest
3520 Guion Road
Indianapolis, IN 46222
Manuscripts will not be returned.
Read previous years’ winning stories:
- 2023 Great American Fiction Contest Winners
- 2022 Great American Fiction Contest Winners
- 2021 Great American Fiction Contest Winners
- 2020 Great American Fiction Contest Winners
- 2019 Great American Fiction Contest Winners
- 2018 Great American Fiction Contest Winners
- 2017 Great American Fiction Contest Winners
- 2016 Great American Fiction Contest Winners
- 2015 Great American Fiction Contest Winners
- 2014 Great American Fiction Contest Winners
- 2013 Great American Fiction Contest Winners
Get all of the collected works below plus more of the best short stories now.
2023 Winners
Winner:
- “Shush, Shush”
by Michael Mack
Runners-up:
- “Daddy, Play That Babalu”
by Doug Lane - “The Undertaker’s Wife”
by Lisa Lebduska - “The Ripening”
by Alan Sincic - “Scablands”
by Gay Degani - “Beast of Argento”
by Caroline Frost
2022 Winners
Winner:
- “Dust”
by Dana Fitz Gale
Runners-up:
- “Francine”
by Ginger Dehlinger - “Candle”
by Jackson Jodie Daviss - “Misquoting T.S. Eliot”
by Pamela McFarland - “Cassidy Crook Plays the Villain”
by Mary Liza Hartong - “Waiting”
by Kevin Sandefur
2021 Winners
Winner:
- “The House on Willow Street”
by Lynn K. Sheridan
Runners-up:
- “The Piney Vista”
by Alan Sincic - “Pipe Dream Paste”
by Robert Morgan Fisher - “The Kitchens”
by Barbara Briggs Ward - “Katianna Milena Bovinich”
by Christine Benedict - “The Self-Made Man”
by Jennifer Slee
2020 Winners
Winner:
- “Thornhope, Indiana”
by Jon Gingerich
Runners-Up:
- “Fifty Million Cents”
by Amanda Irene Rush - “All Happy Families”
by Jesse Sherwood - “Don’t Have to Be Crying”
by Patricia Perry Donovan - “The Silhouette”
by Kate Brett Lewis - “A Man of Few Words”
by Cathy Mellett
2019 Winners
Winner:
- “Mount to the Sky“
by Michael Caleb Tasker
Runners-Up:
- “Charlotte’s Mother”
by Jeffrey Ricker - “Fishing for Owls”
by Aimee Parkison - “Parting”
by Marlene Olin - “Rising to the Surface”
by Rachel Rigolino - “Immigrant/Emigrant”
by James Vescovi
2018 Winners
Winner:
- “Open Season at the Café Rumba”
by Julia Rocchi
Runners-Up:
- “Into Each Life”
by Benjamin Kilgore - “Lloyd and Mary”
by Michelle Reiter - “Shackled”
by Myrna West - “Skyscrapers”
by Bari Lynn Hein - “A Landing Called Compromise”
by Donna Baier Stein
2017 Winners
Winner:
- “Crack”
by Myles McDonough
Runners-Up:
- “The Awkwards”
by Joyce Barbagallo - “Artist in Residence ”
by Christine Venzon - “Long Past Time”
by James Reed - “Getting Home”
by Mark Fabiano - “Sherry at the Knights of Columbus ”
by Steve Young
2016 Winners
Winner:
- “Zelda, Burning”
by Celeste McMaster
Runners-Up:
- “The Magic Circle”
by Ruth Knafo Setton - “A Ring, Some Pearls, Perhaps a Watch”
by Marlene Olin - “Welcoming Death”
by Jake Teeny - “Five in the Fifth”
by Eileen M. Hopsicker - “A Short Ride to Mercy”
by Jim Gray
2015 Winners
Winner:
- “Omeer’s Mangoes”
by N. West Moss
Runners-Up:
- “Sideshow ”
by Sarah Gerard - “Party of Two”
by Mathieu Cailler - “Nothing but the Truth”
by Jim Gray - “1939 Plymouth, or The Bootlegger’s Driver”
by Lisa Trank - “The Three of Us”
by Myrna West
2014 Winners
Winner:
- “The War at Home”
by Linda Davis
Runners-Up:
- “This Elegant Ruin”
by Erin Bartels - “Auld Lang Syne”
by Stephen G. Eoannou - “The Answer Box”
by Morgan Hunt - “The Talent Scout”
by Christine Venzon - “Twelve Miles, 48 Stops”
by Robert Steven Williams
2013 Winners
Winner:
- “Wolf”
by Lucy Jane Bledsoe
Runners-Up:
- “The Decline and Fall”
by PJ Devlin - “The Wolf Boy of Forest Lawn”
by Stephen G. Eoannou - “Surface Tension”
by Andrew Hamilton - “The Battle of the Pewhasset Pie Palace”
by Cynthia McGean - “A Corner Room at the Y”
by Marvin Pletzke - “The Conch Shell”
by Caroline Sposto