Book Contests
2026/2027 Fiction, Non-Fiction & Memoir Contest
Memoir and Fiction Contest featured on Reedsy.com, in Poets & Writers Magazine, in The New York Review of Books, and in Writer’s Digest.
We are a boutique publishing company that is dedicated to amplifying the voices of contemporary writers who are nomads and explorers of language, form, and the psyche. High-quality “unpublished” manuscript—no self-published books allowed, no use of Chat GPT/ AI—submissions of memoir, fiction and non-fiction, as well as, a call for indigenous writers to submit (possible publication through Global Voice Foundation https://www.globalvoicefoundation.com/books) entrusted to us will be read, sorted and pondered by our angel team—Dr. Michael Lechuga and Jacqueline Gay Walley!
Entry Requirements for 2026/2027 Contests: 50 pages double spaced + a 1-page synopsis of story via email at “Enter here:”
Begin submission: November 1, 2026 (no early submissions please)
Deadline: December 20, 2026
Fee for Entry: $40
Fee for Indigneous Writers: $10
Finalists announced: January 30, 2027
Finalists Full book submissions up to 100,000 words due: February 28, 2027
Winners announced: April 30, 2027
Award: 1000 dollars in prizes (Note details below.*)
or Send your document to hello@imlpublications.com
or Pay through ZELLE or VENMO to hello@imlpublications.com
or mail CHECK to:
IML Publications c/o I. Murphy Lewis, 133 E. De La Guerra Street #160, Santa Barbara, CA 93101 USA
Announcing 2025 Winner of
Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Memoir Contest
Chinwe Mary Okoye’s Memoir: REDBONE
Finalists (in alphabetical order)
FICTION: Maria Clarizio’s Till Death Do Us Part, Helen Kweskin’s Slippery Slopes, Osman Njai’s Before We Became Men, Natalie Pilard’s Love Your Darkness, Patricia Rohner’s Two Poppins Lane
NON-FICTION: Shirley Glaettli’s Sylkie: Searching for Lady Sylvia Ashley, Terese Svoboda’s Hitler and My Mother-in-law, Wally Swist’s Wood and Nails, Ron Talarico’s Monday Afternoons at Three-Thirty
MEMOIR: Nicolle Goldman’s Keep Walking, Wheston Chancellor Grove’s I, Too, Shall Die, Sarah Hewitt’s Rainbows and Ravens, Maxine Meju’s I Can’t Sleep
Announcing:
Memoir and Fiction Winners and Finalists2023/2024
WINNER: Bromme Cole’s When Soft Voices Die
HONORABLE MENTION: Dawn Yackzan, Precious Crazy
FINALISTS: (in alphabetical order)
NOVEL: Barbara de la Cuesta’s The Twenty and One Nights; Lisa Friedlander’s The Bird Lover; James Makor’s Lightning in the Draught; Eliza Mood’s Under the Forbidden Tree; Osman Njai’s Before We Became Men; and Dawn Yackzan’s The Grasshopper Girls
MEMOIR: Michael Bauer’s Born Without a Race; Molly Gandour’s Vertigo: Sexual Assault Aftermath; Alyssa Osvog’s Stay: Connecting with Energy in Recovery; Dawn Service’s Not My Shame; Mike Shangkuan’s The Good Chinese Son: from the Ivy League to the Berlin Dungeons; and Dawn Yackzan’s Precious Crazy
Announcing:
Memoir and Fiction Winners and Finalists2022
Memoir Winners:
IML’s Nomad Motif: Sandra Botnen’s Body Unfolding, (to be published Fall 2025).
Grace in Writing Style: Victoria Adler’s When We Knew Nothing
Finalists in Alphabetical Order: Demetrius Butler’s Hoes Don’t Exist Monsters Do; Barbara de la Cuesta’s A Certain Height Above the Earth; Olivia Harris’s I’m Not Ready Yet; Jacqueline Monteath’s America Unmapped; Alysa Osvog’s Traipsing Down a Warpath of Addiction; and Dawn Yackzan’s Precious Crazy (First Alternate)
Fiction Winner:
Khaak by Mahdi (due to it’s indigenous content, published jointly in 2024 with IML and Global Voice Foundation)
Finalists: Eliza Mood’sVolcano Letters; Alysa Osvog’s Unforgettables; Katarzyna Janicka’s Maya; Annie Dawd’s Paradise Undone; Martha Novak Burgess’s Blood Mountain; and Marcia Peck’s The Unattended Moment (First Alternate)
*IML Publications, LLC is a hybrid publisher based on IBPA Publisher Criteria: https://www.ibpa-online.org/page/hybrid-publisher-criteria-download Indigenous book winner may be published in conjunction with https://www.globalvoicefoundation.org