Fall Contest 2026 (Continued)
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Polyphony Lit Fall Contest 2026:
Nostalgia
An old sweater tucked away in the back of a closet. A song you haven’t heard in years. The smell of rain on a familiar street or the rust-stained, creaking swing you remember from your childhood. Nostalgia has a way of finding us when we least expect it. It can comfort us, haunt us, or remind us of people and places we thought we had left behind. It helps us understand who we were, and who we are becoming. The moments we return to are rarely unchanged. Instead, they grow alongside us, carrying new meanings each time we look back. In remembering the past, we often discover something unexpected about the present.
This Fall, we invite you to explore the many faces of nostalgia. What memories do we choose to preserve, and which ones do we reshape with time? Is nostalgia a refuge, a burden, or something in between? Whether you write about a childhood home, a forgotten friendship, a future you already miss, or a world that exists only in memory, we encourage you to uncover the emotions that linger long after a moment has passed. Share what nostalgia means to you, what weight memory and remembrance hold for you.
Have fun with your story and don't be afraid to experiment. Nostalgia doesn't have to be sentimental—it can be joyful, bittersweet, unsettling, or even hopeful. Follow the memories that call to you, question the ones that don't, and discover what they reveal about the people who carry them. After all, nostalgia lives in the stories we choose to remember, and we can't wait to read yours.
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Summer Contest Guidelines
- Submissions will open on September 1st and will remain open until November 30th. The first 200 submissions to the contest are free, but the contest will not close entirely after we reach 200 submissions. Once the contest collects 200 submissions, there will be a $4 submission fee for additional submissions, but the contest category will remain open.
- Please note that this is a separate submission category from Polyphony Lit Volume 22. Submissions that were submitted to Polyphony Lit Volume 22 will receive feedback from the editors, but for the seasonal contests, only the winning submissions will receive feedback from the judge.
- If you have already submitted your work to the Volume 22 category, then please do not send the same submission to the contest category.
- If you submit to the contest category first and your work is declined, then you may submit it to the Volume 22 category or future contests after this contest is finished.
Writer Qualifications
- High school students (aged 14-18) from anywhere in the world are eligible to submit.
- We do not accept submissions from any editors who currently serve on the staff of Polyphony Lit.
- Submit a maximum of three pieces.
- If submitting multiple pieces, please upload as separate submissions. Multiple pieces submitted in a single document may be withdrawn, and you will be asked to resubmit your pieces separately.
- We accept simultaneous submissions and work that has been published elsewhere. If submitting previously published work, please send a message in Submittable noting where and when your work has been published, and if it is eligible for republication. If it is accepted for publication elsewhere after submitting to Polyphony Lit, please notify us immediately but do not withdraw your submission if you are still interested in publication at Polyphony Lit. If we accept a previously published submission for publication, we will acknowledge the place of the original publication.
- Previously published pieces are not eligible for the Claudia Ann Seaman Awards
Length
- Poetry must be 80 lines or less.
- Fiction and creative nonfiction must be 1,800 words or less.
Formatting
- Do not put your name on the piece, as all work is blind juried.
- We accept submission in .doc, .docx or .rtf formats.
- We prefer common conventions:
- Color: Black & white
- Font Size: 12 pt throughout, including titles
- Font Type: Times or Times New Roman
- Margins: 1-inch at the top and bottom, and 1.25 inch at the left and right. One space after periods. There should be no extra returns after paragraphs unless you have a meaningful reason for the extra space.
Using Submittable
- Please upload submissions through Submittable. We do not accept email submissions or hard copies via mail.
- Upload only one piece per submission file; to submit more than one piece, make more than one submission file.
- The first 200 submissions for this contest are free. Once the contest collects 200 submissions, there will be a $4 submission fee for additional submissions, but the contest category will remain open. For this reason, we recommend submitting early.
Prize
There will be one winner and two finalists. The winners/finalists will receive:
- Publication in Polyphony Lit Volume 22
- Eligibility for the Claudia Ann Seaman Awards (if work is previously unpublished)
- Editorial feedback from the Contest Judge
- A full scholarship for Polyphony Lit’s "How to be a Literary Editor" course. Upon completion of the course, students will be eligible to join the editorial staff of Polyphony Lit!
- Please note that only the three winners will receive feedback from the Judge.
Additional Guidelines for Creative Nonfiction
- At Polyphony Lit, we look for creative nonfiction pieces that are written in the style of short personal memoirs. We are looking for pieces that are informal, flexible in form, and most importantly, personal. Personal discovery is the keystone of a personal essay. Self-revelation, human experiences, humor, and flexibility of form are all aspects that we look for in pieces we publish as creative non-fiction.
- We do not look for op-ed pieces, critical analyses, research papers, or academic essays.
- We would advise reading some samples of our work, in order to understand the material that we publish. Here are some samples of creative nonfiction that we have published:
- Memories of the Boy I Didn't Know
- responses to love
- Holiday in a Burning City