Categories of Eligibility
(A-2) Poetry written by sophomores.
POETRY. Students may compete for the Academy of American Poets Prize, the Albert Stanburrough Cook Prize, and the Gordon Barber Memorial Prize. Poems submitted must be unpublished or they may have been published in a university magazine. Poems written in imitation of the style of canonical poets will be considered. A student who has won a prize for poetry may not, in a later year, submit the same poems for our poetry competition. A student who has previously competed but who has not won a prize should limit resubmission to one of the poems from the earlier packet; the rest should be new.
(B-2) Fiction written by sophomores.
FICTION. Sophomores may submit one work of fiction. Entries should be of reasonable length—in most cases a single short story, although the committee will consider a unified cycle of short stories or even a novel or a play. If you choose to submit a whole novel or cycle of stories, the Prizes Committee needs to be able to compare submissions of similar sizes. You must therefore attach a note specifying which story of the cycle or which 20-or-so page piece of the novel you choose for such consideration.
(C-1) One piece of nonfiction, 2500-5000 words.
(C-3) One piece of nonfiction, longer than 5000 words.
(C-4) An expository or creative nonfiction essay of fewer than 2500 words written by sophomores.
NONFICTION. A single general nonfiction piece (i.e., descriptive, imaginative, or journalistic article) of 2500 to 5000 words should be submitted to C-1. A piece of nonfiction longer than 5000 words should be submitted to C-3. Essays of fewer than 2500 words written for 120/1020 or 121/1021, or general expository or creative non-fiction essays of fewer than 2500 words for other courses or no course should be submitted to category C-4.
(E) Essays by sophomores.
ESSAYS. The prizes awarded for literary essays written by sophomores are named for C. Wyllys Betts and John Hubbard Curtis. Course work may be revised by the student for this competition.
Submission Deadline
Thursday, April 17, 2025 at NOON.
We regret that we cannot accept late submissions.
Length and Number of Submissions
Upload a single pdf document for each category to which you are applying. Please submit four to six pages for poetry; poems may be of any length and number. There is no page limit for fiction or essays. Please follow the nonfiction limits stated above. (Recommended: 12 pt font, double-spaced.) One submission is allowed per category unless you have received a faculty nomination.
Pseudonym and Title Page
Your name must not appear on the entry. Instead, choose a unique pseudonym containing more than one word to avoid possible duplication, and put the letters ps (for “pseudonym”) in parentheses after it. A new pseudonym should be chosen from year to year.
On the title page of your entry, provide your pseudonym (followed by ps), Yale class or graduate status, title of the piece, and the course for which it was written, if it was written for a course. In the upper-left corner of the title page, write the appropriate category (A through E, as described above), not the names of prizes. Please take responsibility yourself for entering your work in the appropriate category. For example:
E
Eli Whitney (ps)
BK ’23
“A Reading of To the Lighthouse”
English 3811
Submitting Your Entry
Follow the link below to upload your prize submission. PDF is recommended. The filename for each entry must include two pieces of information in this order: 1) prize category; 2) your pseudonym (ps).
Note: for Category A-2 submissions only, please do not provide your status or college year on the title page.
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