The Missouri Review’s Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize
Deadline: October 1, 2025
$5,000 Fiction | $5,000 Nonfiction | $5,000 Poetry
Winners receive a cash prize, publication in the Spring 2026 issue of the Missouri Review, and promotion across our social media channels.
Guidelines
- Submit one piece of fiction or nonfiction up to 8,500 words or any number of poems between 6 to 12 pages. Please double-space fiction and nonfiction entries.
- Multiple submissions and simultaneous submissions are welcome, but you must pay a separate fee for each entry and withdraw the piece immediately if accepted elsewhere.
- Entries must be previously unpublished.
- Standard Entry fee: $25. Each entrant receives a one-year subscription to the Missouri Review in digital format (normal price $24) and a digital copy of the latest title in our imprint, Missouri Review Books, a short story anthology by former contributors (normal price $7.95).
- "All Access" Entry fee: $30. In addition to the one-year digital subscription to the Missouri Review and TMR Books e-book, Life Support: Stories of Health & Medicine, entry fee grants access to the last 10 years of digital issues and the audio recordings of each digital issue.
Read prizewinning stories by Melissa Yancy, Rachel Yoder, and Thomas Dodson, essays by Peter Selgin and Dave Zoby, and a selection from poetry winners Katie Bickham, Kai Carlson-Wee, and Alexandra Teague. You can also check out readings and conversations with past winners on our YouTube channel.
