Book Prizes

In partnership with The Ohio University State Press and the MFA program in Creative Writing at The Ohio State University, The Journal offers two annual full-length book prizes, The Journal/Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize, which runs from September 1 – October 17th, 2022, and the Non/Fiction Collection Prize, formerly known as the Sandstone Prize and The Ohio State University Prize in Short Fiction, which runs from February 1 – March 15, 2023. In addition to publication, each award carries with it a cash prize.

Please direct all inquiries to: prize@thejournalmag.org


For complete Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize guidelines, click here.

Submissions for the 2022 Wheeler Poetry prize are currently open.

The 2022 judge for The Journal/Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize is Marcus Jackson.

Marcus Jackson is a poet and photographer who studied in NYU’s graduate creative writing program and as a Cave Canem fellow. His poems and photographs have appeared in such publications as The American Poetry Review, The New Yorker, and The New York Times Magazine. His second book of poems, entitled Pardon My Heart (Northwestern University Press/TriQuarterly Books), was released in 2018. Of Pardon My Heart, Jeff Gordinier for The New York Times writes, “Jackson’s collection confirms the arrival of a thrilling new voice in American poetry, one whose writing, on page after page, has the fullness and glow of a jubilee.” Jackson lives with his wife and child in Columbus, Ohio, and he teaches in the MFA program in creative writing at Ohio State.

 

 


For complete Non/Fiction Prize Guidelines, please click here.

Submissions for the 2021 Non/Fiction Prize open February 1st.

The 2022 judge for the Non/Fiction Prize is Michelle Herman.

Michelle Herman is the author of three collections of personal essays, a collection of stories and novellas, and four novels, including her newest, Close-Up. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in The SunAmerican ScholarO, the Oprah MagazinePloughsharesCreative NonfictionConjunctionsThe Southern Review, and many other journals, and she writes a weekly column for Slate. A co-founder of the MFA program at Ohio State, where she has taught since 1988, she also founded and directs a graduate interdisciplinary program across the arts at OSU.