Student entries are now being solicited for the forty-eighth annual Nick Adams Short Story Contest, which offers a prize of $1,000 for the best story by an ACM student. The prize, named for the young hero of many Hemingway stories, was given by an anonymous donor to encourage young writers who are students at ACM colleges.
The results will be announced by April and the $1,000 prize awarded to the winner. In 2019, “Coming of Age in the Modern Midwest” by Catherine Johnson, a student at Carleton College, was awarded first prize. The winning stories from past years are listed on the ACM website at https://www.acm.edu/nickadams.
Each entrant may submit as many as two stories to their campus English Department. The story need not have been written especially for the competition, but it cannot have been previously published off-campus or reached finalist status in this contest.
Each department will select the four best stories to send to the ACM office; a small committee of faculty drawn from colleges throughout the consortium will then select the finalists.
The winner will be chosen by a professional writer. Past judges have included such writers as Maya Angelou, Saul Bellow, Larry Heinemann, Bharati Mukherjee, Joyce Carol Oates, Anne Tyler, John Updike, Stuart Dybek, Audrey Niffenegger, and Bonnie Jo Campbell.
Stories must arrive at the ACM office, from the English Department, no later than February 14, 2020. For more information or to learn your on-campus submission deadline, please contact the chair of your college English Department.