The Fiddlehead and the Creative Nonfiction Collective Society have joined forces to bring you a Canada-wide creative nonfiction contest.
Contest Judge: Danny Ramadan
Danny Ramadan is a Lambda-award winning Syrian-Canadian author. His latest, Crooked Teeth: A Queer Syrian Refugee Memoir, is nominated for a Governor General Award. His novels, The Clothesline Swing and The Foghorn Echoes continue to receive accolades. His award-winning children’s books The Salma Series continues to grow. Ramadan has raised over $300,000 for LGBTQ+ refugees. He lives in Vancouver with his husband and two dogs.
THE CONTEST IS NOW OPEN!
CONTEST CLOSES Friday, February 14, 2025 at 11:59pm PST.
First place: $1,000 and publication in The Fiddlehead
Second place: $300 and publication on CNFC website
Third place: $200 and publication on CNFC website
At CNFC, we honour diversity and inclusivity without discrimination. We are keen to empower viewpoints from communities that include but are not limited to multiple dimensions of diversity such as race, ethnicity, religion, age, ability, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, class, socio-economic status, and neurodiversity.
WHAT: Original previously unpublished creative nonfiction – maximum word length 3,000 words (no minimum). Literary journalism, memoir, and the personal or lyric essay—all are welcome. Please take note of the contest rules below.
WHO: The competition is open to Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Canada.
WHEN: The competition is open from November 4, 2024 to February 14, 2025.
FEE: General public $30; CNFC members $15.
CNFC members receive a discounted entry fee. You can become a member by registering here.
HOW: Submissions will be accepted via CNFC’s event management system.
- The contest will be judged blind so please DO NOT put your name (first and/or last) or contact information anywhere within the submission.
- Submit work that is entirely your own. We strongly discourage including the creative work of another (poems, songs, quotes), unless it abides by Canadian copyright law and is essential to the creative element of the submission.
- Entries must not have been previously published, either in print or online, or been accepted for publication elsewhere.
- Simultaneous submissions are allowed but please advise us immediately should your work be accepted elsewhere.
- Multiple entries are allowed; however, each entry must be accompanied by its own $30 or $15 entry fee.
- Please take note of the word count and ENSURE that your entry is no more than 3,000 words (excluding the title).
- Include the word count in the top right corner of the first page of your entry (e.g., Word count: 2900).
- Proper formatting is required. Please ENSURE that your entry is double-spaced, with no less than 1-inch margins, using standard 12-point fonts such as Times New Roman, Garamond, or Arial, and submitted in one of the following file formats: .doc, .docx, .txt, or PDF.
Submissions that do not meet these rules will be disqualified.
To ensure your entry qualifies, please tick off the following boxes before submitting your entry:
❑ There is zero reference to my name (first and/or last) or my identity anywhere in the submission.
❑ The piece submitted is based on work that is entirely my own.
❑ My submission has not been published previously, nor has it been accepted for publication, either in print or online.
❑ I understand that each entry I submit must be supported by a payment of $15 or $30 depending on whether I am a CNFC member.
❑ I have carried out a word count and confirm that my submission is 3,000 words or less (excluding the title). The exact word count is entered on the top right corner of the first page.
❑ My submission has been checked to ensure that
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- the margins are no less than 1 inch (top, bottom, left, and right),
- the entire entry is double-spaced,
- is presented in either Times Roman, Garamond, or Arial, 12-point font, and
- is submitted in one of the following file formats: .doc, .docx, .txt., or PDF.
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SUBMIT HERE
Founded in 1945, The Fiddlehead is Atlantic Canada’s International Literary Journal. Its mandate is to enrich and support literary communities in Atlantic Canada and beyond by publishing engaging works of literature in a multiplicity of styles; it aims to publish new and established writers side-by-side, foregrounding diverse and underrepresented voices. The Fiddlehead is located on Wolastoqiyik territory (Fredericton, NB).
Past contest news:
How winning the 2015 CNFC contest changed me
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Getting Your CNF Writing into the Winner’s Circle
Nancy O’Rourke, for the CNFC Blog CNFC member and volunteer, Nancy O’Rourke, a former CNFC contest winner and jury reader, interviewed two jury readers from the 2022 contest, Allyson Latta and Becky Blake. The interview explores how potential contest writers can best prepare their submissions to improve their chances of winning. BECKY BLAKE is a two-time winner of the CBC Literary Prize (for non-fiction in 2017 and short fiction in 2013). More recently, she was the 2021 winner of the CNFC/Humber…
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The Creative Nonfiction Collective Society and The Humber Literary Review are pleased to announce the winner for this year’s creative nonfiction contest. Congratulations to Taslim Jaffer! Her submission Survival “is beautiful through and through, an elevated memoir that goes beyond rich storytelling into universal themes about motherhood and immigration. It takes great skill to weave together entomology and ethnography into a personal narrative, but the writer’s sharp voice and exquisite craft makes it seamless” according to our contest judge, Omar Mouallem…
CNFC and HLR Contest Longlist Announced!
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