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.
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
Thank you for your interest in the Machete nonfiction series. Please include as much of the following information as you can when you submit your manuscript materials:
- Title of your manuscript
- General description/overview (1-2 pages) of your project as well as target audience
- At least two sample chapters (and expected date of completion), or the full manuscript.
- Word count of the project (typically we publish manuscripts that range from 45,000-80,000 words), along with information about any images you plan to include.
- Explanation of what makes the project unique or important (new form, different subject, new view on an old subject). You can include a round-up of competing books (if any exist), and a brief explanation of the uniqueness of your proposed book. Why would people want to read it? What makes it different and special?
- CV or Resume
If you are unsure if your project fits the series, please contact Kristen Elias Rowley at eliasrowley.1@osu.edu.
We make every effort to review submissions within 8-10 weeks, so please refrain from sending follow-up inquiries before the end of that time. Thank you!
More information about the series:
The series is explicitly interested in the full array of human identities and experiences. The machete enables path-clearing; it hacks new trails and carves out new directions. The Machete series celebrates and shepherds unique new voices into publication, providing a platform for writers whose work intervenes in dangerous ways.
The series is edited by Joy Castro and Rachel Cochran.
Joy Castro, Professor of English and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and author and editor of several books of nonfiction including Island of Bones: Essays, The Truth Book: A Memoir, and Family Trouble: Memoirists on the Hazards and Rewards of Revealing Family. Her books have won the Nebraska Book Award and an International Latino Book Award and she has been a finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award.
Rachel Cochran teaches at Marian University in Indianapolis. Her debut novel, The Gulf, was released in 2023 by HarperCollins. Her short stories and essays have appeared in the Masters Review, New Ohio Review, Glassworks, and others, and have won the Masters Review New Voices Award (second place) and the New Ohio Review’s nonfiction contest.
Editorial Advisory Board
Chris Abani, Rigoberto González, Daisy Hernández, Matthew Salesses, Ralph Savarese, & Ira Sukrungruang
Thank you for your interest in the Latinographix series. Please include as much of the following information as you can when you submit your manuscript materials:
- Title of your manuscript
- General description/overview (1-2 pages) of your project as well as target audience
- At least two sample chapters (and expected date of completion), or the full manuscript. Full manuscripts are welcome!
- Project details: page length; trim size; color profile (black and white, two color, or full color); any other information you wish to relay regarding design or layout
- Explanation of what makes the project unique or important (new form, different subject, new view on an old subject). You can include a round-up of competing books (if any exist), and a brief explanation of the uniqueness of your proposed book. Why would people want to read it? What makes it different and special?
- CV or Resume
If you are unsure if your project fits the series, please contact Kristen Elias Rowley at eliasrowley.1@osu.edu.
We make every effort to review submissions within 6-8 weeks, so please refrain from sending followup inquiries before the end of that time. Thank you!
More information about the series:
Projects in the series take up themes of all kinds, exploring topics from immigration to family, education to identity. The series provides a place for exploration and boundary pushing, and celebrates hybridity, experimentation, and creativity. Projects will be produced with quality and care, and will exemplify the full breadth of creative visual work being created by today’s Latinx artists. The series is edited by Frederick Luis Aldama, University Distinguished Scholar and Arts & Humanities Distinguished Professor of English, Spanish and Portuguese at The Ohio State University. He is the author, co-author, and co-editor of 24 books, including the graphic short story collection, Through Fences, winner of the 2025 Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education Outstanding Book Award in Fiction.