Contest Guidelines:
Word limit – 1,000-5,000. Any length less or more will not be considered.
Theme – Open. Any topic, theme, or idea is accepted.
Format –12 point Times New Roman, double-spaced, with numbered pages and no identifying information on the document other than on the title page. Title page should have the story title, name of writer, address, phone number and mailing address.
Fee – $25 payable through Eventbrite. Fee is non-refundable. See below to submit.
Requirements – Writer must be a resident of Texas, 18 years of age or older.
Disqualification – AI generated works will not be accepted. If an entry is found to be created through Chat GPT, Grok, or any other AI service, it will be disqualified.
Judging – Entries will go through three rounds of judging. The first panel of judges will decide the shortlist; the second panel will decide the on the finalists. The finalists will then be handed off to our top judge, Bret Anthony Johnson who will decide the overall winner.
Permissions – By submitting to the Hill Country Short Story contest, you acknowledge that, if your piece wins, the Friends of the Written Word maintain First North American Serial Rights to the work. You are granting a Friends of the Written Word the exclusive right to publish your work for the first time in print in North America, after which the copyright and all rights revert back to you.
Meet judge Bret Anthony Johnson
Bret Anthony Johnston is the internationally bestselling author of Remember Me Like This, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and winner of the 2015 McLaughlin-Esstman-Stearns Prize. The novel has been translated worldwide and is being adapted into a major motion picture.
He is also the author of the award-winning Corpus Christi: Stories, named a Best Book of the Year by The Independent (London) and The Irish Times, and editor of Naming the World and Other Exercises for the Creative Writer. His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Esquire, The Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Glimmer Train, The Best American Short Stories, and on NPR’s Selected Shorts.
In 2017, Bret won The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award, “the world’s richest and most prestigious prize for a single short story.” Other awards include the Pushcart Prize, the Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers, the Stephen Turner Award, the Cohen Prize, a James Michener Fellowship, the Kay Cattarulla Prize for short fiction, and many more. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he’s the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship and a 5 Under 35 honor from the National Book Foundation. He wrote the documentary film Waiting for Lightning, which was released in theaters around the world by Samuel Goldwyn Films.
After directing the creative writing program at Harvard University for eleven years, Bret is now the Director of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas in Austin.
How to enter
(1) Read the guidelines above;
(2) Go to the Eventbrite event and pay the $25 entry fee. Obtain and copy your order number;
(3) Go to the Google Form at the link below, fill out the information including your Eventbrite order number and upload your writing entry.
Winning entries will be announced at the 2026 Fredericksburg Book Festival, January 17, published on this website and in the Fredericksburg Standard Radio-Post newspaper with editing for space considerations.