Writers anywhere in the world are invited to enter.
The prize is US$1000.
2024 Dates
The contest is open for submissions from April 15th to June 30th, 2024.
Prize Details
The winner of the International Amy MacRae Award for Memoir will receive a cash prize of US$1000.
Guidelines
The International Amy MacRae Award for Memoir is given to an exceptional work of memoir writing.
Memoir writing, or personal essay, is defined as a work of creative nonfiction that illustrates a personal experience using literary techniques and narrative devices such as dialogue, character, setting and scene. Rather than simply recounting past events, successful memoir tends to offer a higher perspective on that past, use personal experience as an illustration of universal themes and/or endeavour to derive meaning, understanding or wisdom from the story it sketches. The quality of the writing is as important as the content of the story. (Note: Travel writing told from a personal perspective does qualify as memoir.)
Submissions must be no longer than 2000 words.
All entries are judged anonymously.
Submissions must be made using the guidelines outlined HERE [“How to Submit”].
Entry Fee
US$25 per submission, payable in the writer’s home currency. Payable HERE.
Eligible Entries
Original, unpublished work that follows the definition of memoir [above] is eligible.
Work that has already been published or simultaneously submitted elsewhere is NOT eligible for consideration. This includes online publications.
Work that has been posted on forums such as Facebook or has appeared on a personal website or in a personal newsletter is still eligible for consideration.
Additional Entries
Additional entries are welcome. The same guidelines apply to additional entries as to the initial submission.
Suggestions
Submissions that do not follow the guidelines provided in the “How to Submit” document will be immediately disqualified, so please make an effort to follow these steps to the letter. Otherwise, all your hard work will have been in vain!
Remember that punctuation and grammar matter. You’ve worked hard on this story, so it would be a shame to let simple errors mar it (and the truth is, if it contains a lot of errors, your story will not be seriously considered). So, if you can, try to have someone proofread your story before you submit it.
Please note: raw, cathartic personal writing can be vital and satisfying for the writer, but writing that is ready to be read and appreciated by others has been polished, revised, given time and space, sculpted with an eye to its literary merits, and revised again(!).
Notification
The winner and shortlisted finalists will be notified by email in the fall of 2024. Other entrants will not be notified of the judge’s decisions.
The shortlisted finalists will be announced on Alison Wearing’s social media accounts in the fall of 2024.
The winner will be interviewed, and the winning story published on Alison Wearing’s website and featured in the Memoir Writing Ink course.
The winning and shortlisted stories will be published as an anthology, the proceeds of which will be donated to Amy MacRae's Living Legacy Fund to support ovarian cancer research.
