Cai Emmons Short Fiction Contest

Honoring the Legacy of Cai Emmons

Cai Emmons, a beloved author and teacher, captivated readers with imaginative stories exploring deeply human themes and complex characters. Her stories often centered strong female protagonists, environmental consciousness, and the emotional intricacies of grief, loss, and family dynamics. 

Cai’s ability to blend the extraordinary with the everyday—through magical realism, environmental climate fiction, and nuanced explorations of the human condition—earned her critical acclaim and devoted readers.

Throughout her life, Cai championed the power of storytelling to inspire, connect, and transform. 

Contest Overview

The Cai Emmons Short Fiction Contest celebrates the legacy of Cai Emmons by recognizing and supporting diverse authors from Oregon and Washington, nurturing emerging writers, and promoting storytelling aligned with the themes in Cai’s work.

Submission Guidelines

Open submission window: August 1 to November 30, 2026

  • Writers residing in Oregon and Washington.
  • Original, unpublished short fiction.
  • 1,000–3,000 words
  • One submission per person.
  • Simultaneous submissions to other contests are allowed, but you must notify us and immediately withdraw your work from the contest if it’s accepted elsewhere.
  • Do NOT include identifiable information in your submission file.
  • Upload your submission in a Word doc using standard manuscript formatting: 1-inch margins, double-spaced, 12-point serif font (Times, Georgia, Palatino).

Themes

Submissions must reflect themes central to Cai Emmons’s work, including interconnectedness, grief and loss, family dynamics, environmental/climate concerns, magical realism, and women’s experiences and identities.

Entry Fees

  • $7 ($5 for Wordcrafters members)
  • Fee waivers are available for BIPOC, QTGNC, and disabled writers by filling out this form.
  • Entry fees help us, as a non-profit organization, offset the cost of running the contest.

Award Categories and Prizes

Grand Prize

Cai Emmons Short Fiction Contest Winner – $700

Category Awards

To honor Cai’s commitment to diverse themes and genres, prizes of $200 ($100 for honorable mentions) will also be awarded in categories such as:

  • Magical Realism Award
  • Environmental/Climate Award
  • Female Protagonist Award
  • Family Dynamics Award
  • Experimental Fiction Award
  • Aftermath of Loss Award

Additional goodness:

The Cai Emmons Short Fiction contest is sponsored by Chill Subs through their contest transparency partnership. 

  • All entrants will receive a free month of Chill Subs membership.
  • Category award winners and honorable mentions receive a 1-year membership ($200 value)
  • The Grand Prize Winner receives a 5-year membership ($1,000 value)

Publication

All finalists’ stories will be published by Wordcrafters Press in an anthology (in paperback and e-book), reflecting the contest’s themes and showcasing the best short fiction from the Pacific Northwest. 

We ask for English First North American Rights and digital First World Rights.

The anthology will be published in April 2027, and all winners will receive a copy of the anthology.

Judging

Stories are first screened by Wordcrafter’s staff for eligibility and contest suitability, then blind-read by a pool of volunteer judges, with the top-scoring stories moving on to our final judge for award placement.

Screening criteria to advance to volunteer judging round includes:

  • Entrant’s residence in either Oregon or Washington.
  • Adhering to submission formatting guidelines.
  • No identifying information in submission or file name.
  • Core requirements of a coherent narrative, character presence, sense of purpose, readable prose, and a bit of spark (voice, imagery, authenticity, originality).

Round two judging criteria includes:

  • Connection to at least one of the contest’s themes
  • Originality and creativity of ideas, structure, language, voice, and other deliberate artistic choices
  • Depth of character development
  • Emotional impact of the story
  • Strong sense of place or atmosphere
  • Overall quality of writing

Round three judge: Debra Gwartney

Debra Gwartney (she/her) is the author of two book-length memoirs, Live Through This, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and I Am a Stranger Here Myself, winner of the RiverTeeth Nonfiction Prize and the Willa Award for Nonfiction. 

Debra has published in such journals as Granta, The Sun, Tin House, American Scholar, The Normal School, Creative Nonfiction, the NYT Modern Love column, and others. She’s the 2018 winner of the Real Simple essay contest. 

Her work was recognized with Pushcart prizes in 2021 and 2022, and her essays were selected for Best American Essays in 2022 and 2023. 

She is retired from the Pacific University MFA faculty, and formerly taught at Portland State University, University of Oregon, and for many national and international writing conferences. 

Debra is a contributing editor for Poets & Writers, and is co-editor, with her late husband Barry Lopez, of Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape. She lives in Western Oregon.

Eligibility

Staff and board members of Wordcrafters in Eugene are ineligible for consideration or publication.

Wordcrafters adheres to the CLMP Contest Code of Ethics.

Submissions

Submissions are open Aug 1 to Nov 30, 2026.

Got questions? Email us at bewriting@wordcrafters.org.

Cai Emmons Short Fiction Contest, Vol 1 winners and judge

The Cai Emmons Short Fiction Contest is made possible through the support of the Emmons-Calandrino Family Trust and in partnership with the fab folks at Chill Subs.