2025 James A. Winn Nonfiction Prize
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The James A. Winn Prize will be awarded annually by the Michigan Quarterly Review to one nonfiction piece submitted for consideration.
The Michigan Quarterly Review established this prize in 2023 in honor of former English professor and inaugural director of the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities, James A. Winn.
Please submit one unpublished piece of nonfiction of 1,500-7,000 words. Simultaneous submissions are welcome but please withdraw your submission as soon as it is accepted elsewhere.
We ask entrants not to include their names or contact information within the document they upload to Submittable, its title, or its file name.
Preliminary judges for the prize will be the Helen Zell Writers’ Program students at University of Michigan who currently review submissions on behalf of the journal.
Submissions will go through two rounds of consideration before ten (10) finalists are passed on to the judge.
Current faculty and students as well as recent graduates (in the past three years) of the Helen Zell Writers’ Program will be barred from submitting. Close friends, relatives, and current and former students (in the past three years) of the Judge will be barred from submitting.
MQR’s staff and editorial board, as well as their immediate family members, are also excluded from the contest.
The 2025 Judge will be Elizabeth Goodenough. The winning story will be published in the Winter issue of the following year.
The prize will be in the amount of $1,500 and publication. All submissions will be considered for publication in MQR.
Submissions to the James A. Winn Prize include a one-year digital subscription for four issues of MQR beginning with the Summer 2025 issue.