Hyphen magazine - Asian American arts, culture, and politics

Contest begins: March 1, 2011
Contest deadline: June 3, 2011

Hyphen and The Asian American Writers’ Workshop proudly present the 2011 Asian American Short Story Contest. We're teaming up again to put on this national, pan-Asian American writing competition -- the only one of its kind.

Grand Prize: $1,000, publication in Hyphen magazine and the honor of short story of the year.

Now in its fourth year, the 2011 Asian American Short Story Contest will name eight finalists, one runner up and one grand prize winner (cash prizes: $350 and $1,000, respectively). The winner will have his or her story published in an upcoming issue of Hyphen.

Judges for the 2011 contests include prominent writers:

• Yiyun Li, a 2010 MacArthur Genius Award winner; author of A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, and, The Vagrants, winner of the gold medal of California Book Award for fiction.
  
  
• Porochista Khakpour, author of Sons and Other Flammable Objects, a New York Times "Editor's Choice," Chicago Tribune "Fall's Best," and a 2007 California Book Award winner.

Our first contest winner, Preeta Samarasan, was discovered based on her contest-winning story. She went on to write the acclaimed novel Evening is the Whole Day (Houghton Mifflin), which was long-listed for the Orange Prize.

What will your story do for you?

Prizes

One (1) GRAND PRIZE WINNER

• $1,000 cash prize
• Publication in Hyphen to 10,000 eager readers
• Four-issue subscription to Hyphen magazine
• One-year membership to AAWW, the premiere literary arts nonprofit in the country dedicated to Asian American literature.

One (1) Second Place Winner

• $350 cash prize
• Web exclusive publication on hyphenmagazine.com
• Four-issue subscription to Hyphen magazine
• One-year membership to AAWW, the premiere literary arts nonprofit in the country dedicated to Asian American literature.

Eight (8) FINALISTS

• Four-issue subscription to Hyphen magazine
• One-year membership to AAWW, the premiere literary arts nonprofit in the country dedicated to Asian American literature.

Qualifications and Guidelines

• Open to all writers of Asian descent living in the United States and Canada. Previous employees, consultants, or volunteers of Hyphen or AAWW are not eligible.
• Limited to unpublished short stories; no novellas or excerpts from novels. No required theme.
• Up to 6,000 words in length.

Instructions

• Contest begins March 1, 2011
• The submission process has two easy steps, both of which must be completed by June 3, 2011 and accompanied by a $20 entry fee (June 3 postmark deadline). 
• First, register here and pay the $20 entry fee by buying one ticket. You will receive a registration email with a Transaction ID, so please double check that you are typing your email correctly.
• Next, mail us TWO COPIES of your short story with the title, page numbers, and Transaction ID on the top right of every page. The story should not feature any other identifying information, such as your name, phone number, or email address. Submissions should be double-spaced and mailed to:
  
  Asian American Short Story Contest
  Hyphen
  6023 Chabolyn Terrace
  Oakland, CA 94618

Note: Manuscripts may be under consideration elsewhere, but please notify us immediately if your story is accepted for publication. Hyphen retains first publication rights and the right to publish a portion of the story on its website. All rights revert to the author upon publication.

Entrants will be notified by or on November 1, 2011. Winner will receive award and payment when story is published in Fall 2011 issue of Hyphen, to be published in November 2011.

For more details, including information on the judges of the competition, please contact Caroline Kim-Brown at caroline.kimbrown[at]hyphenmagazine[dot]com or Dian Pan at dian.pan[at]hyphenmagazine[dot]com

Judges' Bios

Yiyun Li, a winner of the 2010 MacArthur Genius Award, grew up in Beijing and came to the United States in 1996. Her stories and essays have been published in The New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, O Henry Prize Stories, and elsewhere. Her debut collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, Guardian First Book Award, and California Book Award for first fiction. Her novel,The Vagrants, won the gold medal of California Book Award for fiction. She is a contributing editor to the Brooklyn-based literary magazine, A Public Space, and teaches at University of California, Davis.

Porochista Khakpour was born in Tehran and raised in Los Angeles. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, The Village Voice, and The Chicago Reader, among other publications around the world. She has been awarded fellowships from Johns Hopkins University, Northwestern University, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The Sewanee Writers' Conference, The Ucross Foundation, and Yaddo. Her debut novelSons and Other Flammable Objects (Grove/Atlantic) -- a New York Times "Editor's Choice," Chicago Tribune "Fall's Best," and 2007 California Book Award winner -- is out in paperback. She is currently on the faculty of Fairfield University’s low-residency MFA and is an assistant professor of creative writing and literature at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design.

2010 Contest Results

Hyphen and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop are pleased to announce the winner of the 2010 Asian American Short Story Contest: Sunil Yapa for "Pilgrims."

"Pilgrims" was chosen by judges Alexander Chee and Jaed Coffin. Yapa was awarded $1,000 and "Pilgrims" was published in the Fall 2010 issue of Hyphen.

Congratulations to the finalists, who receiveed a four-issue subscription to Hyphen and a one-year membership to AAWW:

Viet Dinh for "Lucky Dragon"

Soma Mei Sheng Frazier for "Antique"

Marjan Kamali for "Tehran Party"

Stellar Kim for "Dissolution"

Tsering Lama for "The Greatest Tibetan Ever Born"

Jenie Pak for "Something Out There"

JK Shushtari for "The Sweet Dry Fruit of the Lotus Tree"

Shilpi Suneja for "The Simpleton"

Shruti Swamy for "Blindness"

We received a record-breaking number of submissions for the contest this year and would like to thank all entrants for allowing us to review their work. We wish them the best in their writing endeavors. Past winners of the Asian American Short Story Contest include Preeta Samarasa and Shivani Manghnani.

Thank you also to the judges, Alexander Chee, Whiting award-winning author of Edinburgh, and Jaed Coffin, author of A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants. A special thank you to reader Maria X. Isip-Bautista.

We also would like to give a special thanks to our media and community sponsors: Angry Asian Man, AsianWeek, Center for Asian American Media, Fiction Writers Review, Kearny Street Workshop and the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance.