Willow Springs Books is a literary press housed in Eastern Washington University’s Inland Northwest Center for Writers in Spokane, Washington and operates under the direction of poet Jonathan Johnson. Each year, we host the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction and the Emma Howell Rising Poet Prize. Past judges have included Rick Bass, William Kittredge, Jess Walter, John Keeble, Shawn Vestal, Sharma Shields, Alexis Smith, and Molly Giles. Please view each category for guidelines or visit willowspringsbooks.org/submit.
All authors, regardless of publication history, are eligible. Manuscripts must contain page numbers and a table of contents.
Current Eastern Washington University Creative Writing MFA students and alumni who have graduated within the past five years from Eastern Washington University's Creative Writing MFA are not allowed to submit.
The prize for the winning manuscript is $2,000 and publication by Willow Springs Books. The press will retain reprint, film, electronic, anthology, translation, foreign publication, and sight and sound rights.
Submissions must be original, book-length fiction manuscripts written in English. There is no maximum page count. Translations are not accepted.
One manuscript per submission.
Submissions will only be accepted electronically, via Submittable.
Authors may submit one manuscript per year.
Simultaneous submissions are allowed. If you have submitted your manuscript elsewhere, we request that you notify us immediately if you have an offer for publication.
Manuscripts MUST CONTAIN page numbers and a table of contents. Individual poems may have been previously published in journals, chapbooks, anthologies, or limited-edition volumes, but please note which poems and where they have been published on an acknowledgments page. The collection as a whole must be previously unpublished.
Willow Springs Books reserves the right to reject any manuscript for any reason.