Introducing the relaunched Coppice Prize

The Coppice Prize is an annual short story competition run by the Redbud Writing Project. Every year, we invite writers around the world to submit a short story, up to 4000 words, for consideration. Past judges include Kelly Link, Clare Beams, Joanna Pearson, John Kessel, Makenna Goodman, Beth Morgan, Alison B. Hart, and Jill McCorkle. Winners receive a cash prize and publication in our Coppice Prize anthology.

In 2025, the Coppice Prize will be open from March 1-March 31. This year, thanks to a generous grant from United Arts, we are revamping the contest to have a special focus on uplifting marginalized and under-represented writers. Here’s what that looks like:

• The contest will only be open to writers who identify as belonging to marginalized or under-represented groups (e.g. cultural identity, income level of your family, racial identity, gender identity, disability, or something else). We will leave it up to individual contestants to decide if they identify as marginalized or under-represented. If you’d like to talk this out with us, please feel free to reach out.

• As always, the contest will be free to enter.

• To help writers prepare their work for submission, we will hold two sessions called the Contest Coaching Sessions. The first session will take place at RUMAH, located at 415 Hillsborough St. in Raleigh, on Saturday, Jan. 25 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The second session will take place online on Sunday, February 9 from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. Both of these sessions will be free and open to the public. Participants will learn the ins and outs of literary contests and receive advice and learn best practices for how to prepare their work for submission to the Coppice Prize or elsewhere.

• After the contest closes on March 31, first readers Emily Cataneo, Arshia Simkin, Diana Fenves and Taari Coleman will select ten finalists, which we will then pass on to three judges (to be announced soon!) for final review and selection.

• We will announce the three winners and one finalist in May 2025 and celebrate the winners with a public reading and anthology launch at So & So Books in June 2025.

• Winners and the finalist will receive review and feedback from a literary agent.

Meet our Judges

Anise Vance is a writer from the African and Iranian diasporas. His debut novel, Hush Harbor, was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Rutgers University-Camden. As a Mitchell Scholar, he received an MPhil in Geography from Queen's University Belfast. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College and currently lives in North Carolina with his wife and two children. 

Rafael Frumkin is the author of two novels, Confidence (Simon & Schuster, 2023) and The Comedown (Henry Holt & Co., 2018), as well as the short story collection Bugsy & Other Stories (Simon & Schuster, 2024). Confidence was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, one of the Washington Post’s Best Works of Fiction of 2023, and named one of the best books of the year by both CrimeReads and Them. The Comedown was optioned for small-screen adaptation by Freddie Highmore and Regina King, and then by SONY Trident. Raf spent five years as a professor of creative writing and is now a full-time novelist, essayist and screenwriter. 

Why did we decide to revamp the contest?

Oftentimes, the people who have the most access to the arts are the ones who need them the least. The arts are an incredible source of catharsis, healing, and empowerment, but too often, they are restricted to those who already hail from highly educated, upper middle class backgrounds. We've seen over and over again how our classes specifically serving writers who hail from marginalized communities have transformed those writers: our students have regularly told us that our classes have changed their lives. 

Having a deadline in the form of a contest, as well as an opportunity to win a cash prize and publication, is often incredibly motivating for writers. We believe that offering this contest, as well as the training sessions in winter 2025, will galvanize writers from this community and bring them further into the world of creative writing. In addition, this contest will give ten finalists the opportunity to have their work reviewed by nationally renowned judges, and three winners will have the opportunity to see their work published, share it with the public, and receive feedback from a literary agent. The publishing industry is still incredibly wealthy and white, and we're incredibly excited about the possibility of giving three marginalized writers the chance to launch a career.

Questions? Email us at ecataneo@redbudwriting.org to learn more. And watch this space for announcements on the coaching sessions and the judges!

We can’t wait to read your submissions!