The Beautiful Pause Prize…

is a yearly prize of $1,000 and the print publication of a full-length manuscript awarded to a writer of exceptional talent and heart. 

One runner-up will receive $500 and publication of an excerpt in one of our biannual print volumes.

Contest Timeline

Submissions are open for our inaugural prize November 15th, 2023 - May 1st, 2024 for FICTION manuscripts. Short story collections, novellas, and novels are all welcome.

• A shortlist and the winner and runner-up will be announced in August 2024
• Publication and release of the winning manuscript in December 2024.
• Submissions will reopen for POETRY on November 15th, 2024.

Guidelines

18 and older to submit.

This contest is judged by Press Pause editors, and submissions are anonymized. Remove any identifying information from your manuscript. If there is identifying information anywhere on your manuscript, it will not be considered. 

Please submit complete manuscripts between 25,000 and 100,000 words. 

Only one attachment/manuscript per submission. A single author may submit multiple manuscripts but must pay the $25 reading fee for each submission. 

If submitting a collection of stories, it is okay if some or all are published elsewhere separately, but not if they have been published as a collection before.

What Makes a Beautiful Pause?

We are looking for original, honest, beautiful stories from humans. We have no gates to keep. Haunt us from every corner of every place. Send us stories that make us pause, slow down, think, laugh, cry, and feel more connected to our fellow humans. As we always say: Send us whatever is in your hearts. 

Note for Genre Writers

We typically don’t publish fantasy. 

We have been known to publish literary fiction with speculative and/or magically real elements, and would also consider outstanding:

• literary sci-fi
• literary horror
• historical fiction