Story of the Week—Guidelines


We love finding and promoting well-written stories from talented writers. Each week a notable story is selected and featured prominently in the Story of the Week column on our Home Page. An announcement of each new Story of the Week goes out to our readers, and the story is also permanently available in our Library.

We accept fiction and nonfiction manuscripts up to 10,000 words in length, from both published and unpublished writers. We would love to see your stories.


Click here to submit your work.


Visibility: Each week an email announcement of the new Story of the Week goes out to our 300,000 readers and attracts attention to the writer’s work. Additionally, all Stories of the Week remain available in our online Library and are listed on the Story of the Week page.

Author Payment: Authors are paid $500 for a story published as a Story of the Week, and all the Stories of the Week written by new and emerging writers are eligible for our annual $4,000 Narrative Prize.

Submission Fee: There is a $23 submission fee for each entry.

Selection: The focus of the Story of the Week feature is on new works; however, on some weeks we will select a classic story or a notable story from our Library as the Story of the Week as a way of indicating a level of quality and interest that we seek in Stories of the Week and as a mark of continuity with long-standing literary values.

Submission Guidelines: Please read our Submission Guidelines for manuscript formatting and other information.

Other Submission Categories: In addition to Story of the Week, please review our other Submission Categories for areas that may interest you.

Please note: We do not accept work that includes machine-generated text.