
ART&WRITINGCONTESTS

Our 2024 contests are now open.
The Southeast Review offers four annual contests with cash awards: the Southeast Review Art Contest, the World's Best Short-Short Story Contest, the Ned Stuckey-French Nonfiction Contest, and the Gearhart Poetry Contest.
The winner in each category receives $750!
Winners and finalists in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry will be published in our biannual issue in Fall 2024, and the winner of the Art Contest will be published in the biannual or online. Winners and finalists will be notified in Spring 2024.
See below to submit and for this year's judges and guidelines. The entry fees are $16.
2023 JUDGES
Southeast Review Art Contest
Naz Cuguoğlu is the Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art & Programs at the Asian Art Museum. She has curated exhibitions and programs internationally such as documenta fifteen and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo as well as participated in panel discussions at institutions including Tate Modern.

World's Best Short-Short Story Contest
Winner of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize in fiction for A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Robert Olen Butler has authored twenty-four novels and short story collections, including two collections of short-short stories. His most recent book, Late City, published in 2021. Butler is the long-standing judge of our short-short story contest.


Ned Stuckey-French Nonfiction Contest
CJ Hauser is a multi-genre, non-binary, queer amphibian of a person who splits time between rural Central New York and Brooklyn. Their memoir, The Crane Wife is published by Doubleday in the US and Viking in the UK. They teach creative writing at Colgate University.

Gearhart
Poetry Contest
Natalie Shapero is the author of the poetry collections Popular Longing, Hard Child, and No Object; her recent pamphlet, Today Hamlet, was published in 2023 by Out-Spoken Press (UK). Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and elsewhere. She lives in Los Angeles and teaches at UC Irvine.
Contest Guidelines
Southeast Review Art Contest
2020 was the inaugural year of our art contest, and we are thrilled to continue it in tandem with our journal’s goal of drawing attention to and supporting the work of a wide variety of artists and art forms.
We welcome art submissions in all art genres: drawing, painting, illustration, photography, comics, video art, and so on—if you can name it, we’re interested. Artists should send in a portfolio of 8 of their best works and include a list of titles, dates, materials, and dimensions. These works can be previously advertised or published in other journals or previously exhibited in galleries. Do not include personal identification information within your submissions.
World's Best Short-Short Story Contest
In 1986, Jerome Stern, the then-director of Florida State University’s creative writing program, founded this contest to celebrate micro fiction. Submissions had to be under 250 words, and the winner received a crate of oranges as well as a check. Stern passed away from cancer in 1996, and though the guidelines and prize have changed since, we continue holding the contest in Stern’s memory, with a modern master of the short-short story judging the entries annually.
Please send up to three short-short stories per submission. Each short-short should be no more than 500 words. Do not include personal identification information within your submissions.
Only withdraw your entire submission if none of your submitted short-shorts remain available. To withdraw a single short-short, please add a note to your submission with the title you would like to remove from consideration. (Please notify us via Submittable only.)
Ned Stuckey-French Nonfiction Contest
Our nonfiction contest was established in honor of Dr. Ned Stuckey-French, whose legacy will last as one of service to the literary community, his students, hospital workers’ unions, and beyond. His spirit of selfless service is a model we aspire to, and his unflinching dedication to truth and its telling inspires the nonfiction we publish and produce.
We seek submissions in this vein: nonfiction that prods and pressures expectations; that speaks to the personal against the powerful; and that prioritizes soul, heart, and service. Please send essays of up to 10 pages. Do not include personal identification information within your submissions.
Gearhart Poetry Contest
Our poetry contest began in 1996 to honor Michael Wm. Gearhart, a Ph.D. student in creative writing at Florida State University who died suddenly at the age of 39 as he was completing the final steps of his degree. The contest continues today in his memory.
Please send up to three poems, no more than 10 pages total. Include no more than one poem per page. Do not include personal identification information within your submissions.
Only withdraw your entire submission if none of your submitted poems remain available. To withdraw a single poem, please add a note to your submission with the title you would like to remove from consideration. (Please notify us via Submittable only.)
Submissions for Currently or Formerly Incarcerated Writers
If you are a currently or formerly incarcerated writer, or if you are submitting on behalf of one, you may submit to the contest for free via mail (see address below), or by contacting the Editor at southeastreview@gmail.com.
Address
Southeast Review
Department of English
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306
ANNOUNCING OUR 2022 CONTEST WINNERS!
Gearhart Poetry Contest Winner
"Closed Circuit" by Carling McManus
Finalists
"Anthropause Abecedarian" by Su Hwang
"Pit" by Renée Lepreau
World's Best Short-Short Story Contest Winner
"The Smell of Muskoka Pomade" by Jacob Moniz
Finalist
"This Paradise of Air" by Genevieve Abravanel
Ned Stuckey-French Nonfiction Contest Winner
"Cauterize" by Samantha Moe
Finalist
"Of Wormholes and Junk Monsters" by L.I. Henley
Southeast Review Art Contest Winner
Philana Oliphant
Congratulations to these incredible winners and finalists! The winner in each category will receive $500, and winners and finalists will be published in our biannual issue, Vol. 41.2.