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.

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 not only ethnic and racial diversity, but also gender and sexual diversity, neurodiversity, physical diversity, religious diversity, cultural diversity, and diversity in all of its manifestations.

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 collections of vignettes or 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 February 1-March 15 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 madcreekbooks@osu.edu, or visit our website: https://ohiostatepress.org/madcreek.htm