Mad Creek Books is the literary trade imprint of The Ohio State University Press. With a mission to foster creativity, innovate, and illuminate, Mad Creek Books champions diverse and creative literary nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. Submissions are currently closed as we catch up on current submissions.

21st Century Essays

A vehicle to discover, publish, and promote some of the most daring, ingenious, and artistic new nonfiction work being done in the essay.

David Lazar and Patrick Madden, series editors 

Submissions to the series are accepted annually March 1 - April 30.

The Gournay Prize

The Gournay Prize selects one book length collection of essays each year to receive $1,000 and publication in the 21st Century Essays series. The award is open to all writers for first books of essays (writers may have published books previously in other genres).

Submissions to The Gournay Prize are accepted annually March 1 - April 30.

Judges: Patrick Madden, David Lazar, and Kristen Elias Rowley

Machete

This series showcases fresh stories, innovative forms, and books that break new  ground in nonfiction—memoir, personal and lyric essay, literary journalism, cultural meditations, short shorts, hybrid essays, graphic pieces, and more—from authors whose writing has historically been marginalized, ignored, and passed over. The series is explicitly interested in the full array of human identity and experiences.

Joy Castro and Rachel Cochran, series editors.

Latinographix

This series showcases graphic novels, memoir, nonfiction, comic books, and more by Latinx writers and artists. The series welcomes projects with ANY balance of text and visual narrative, from larger graphic narratives to prose memoirs with images, from collections of vignettes to serial comics, in color or black and white, fiction or nonfiction.

Frederick Luis Aldama, series editor.

Other Prize Series on Mad Creek Books

The AWP Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction

Winner of this annual prize competition receives publication by Mad Creek Books and $5,500. Submissions accepted annually January 1-February 28 through AWP. For more information about this prize, or to submit, see AWP's Submittable page: https://awp.submittable.com/submit.

The Journal Non/Fiction Collection Prize

Winner of this annual prize competition receives publication by Mad Creek Books and $1,500. Submissions accepted annually March 15th-April 15th through The Journal. For more information on submitting, or about this prize, see The Journal website: http://thejournalmag.org/book-prizes/prose-prize.

The Journal/Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize

Winner of this annual prize competition receives publication by Mad Creek Books and $2,500. Submissions are accepted annually September 1-October 12 through The Journal. For more information on submitting or about this prize, see The Journal website: https://thejournalmag.org/book-prizes/wheeler-prize

For more information contact Mad Creek Books Editorial Director Kristen Elias Rowley at eliasrowley.1@osu.edu, or visit our website: https://ohiostatepress.org/madcreek.htm