The Larry McMurtry Prize in Fiction $1,000
Judged by Clare Beams
The Max Apple Prize in Nonfiction $1,000
Judged by Esmé Weijun Wang
The Susan Wood Prize in Poetry $1,000
Judged by Jess Smith
The Paul Otremba Award for Literary Citizenship $1000
Judged by Rice Creative Writing Faculty
Overview
The Fondren Library Awards for Undergraduate Literary Excellence honor Rice undergraduates who show exceptional literary promise through writing in the genres of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry; or through literary citizenship. The awards will be given every spring.
Contest Rules:
Creative Writing
- Currently enrolled undergraduates may submit in as many genres as they’d like within the following page limits: one short story up to twenty pages double-spaced 12pt Times New Roman font, one piece of creative nonfiction up to twenty pages double-spaced 12pt Times New Roman font, up to five poems not to exceed ten pages total. Submit works in different genres separately. Students who have graduated are not eligible.
- Submissions must be original literary works written while Rice students, and students must be the sole author of their submissions. Any use of generative AI should be thoroughly explained as part of the writing submission (i.e. not on the cover page). Any language generated by AI should be explicitly denoted as such.
- Each submission (in each genre) must include a cover page with your name, email, phone, and your submission’s genre. This cover page will be removed and the entry anonymized before being sent to the judge. Please number all pages of your submission. Include all poems in a single document with a cover page. You may submit word processor documents or PDFs.
Literary Citizenship
The Paul Otremba Award for Literary Citizenship is given in memory of the beloved teacher and poet, Paul Otremba, and celebrates an outstanding graduating senior who embodies Paul’s spirit of literary service, engagement, and activism. It comes with a $1000 prize and is selected by Rice Creative Writing faculty members.
To apply for this award, please describe your activities in literary citizenship, service, and community engagement while a student at Rice. Write up to 3 pages, double-spaced Times New Roman font, and include a cover page with your name, NetID, phone number and the name of the award.
You may also include supplementary material and/or links with your submission-– such as to podcasts, magazines you helped edit, projects you designed and executed, etc.
Submission Guidelines
- Submit your entry using the form below, entering a URL to a cloud service such as Google Drive, Box or Dropbox. If your document is set to Private, please share it with jeg3@rice.edu
- The deadline for submissions is 11:59 PM on Sunday March 8, 2026.
Winners will be announced by April 2, 2026.
Questions? Please contact Joe Goetz ( jeg3@rice.edu)
Application
Judges' Bios
The Larry McMurtry Prize in Fiction judged by Clare Beams
Clare Beams is a novelist and short story writer. Her latest novel, The Garden, was published by Doubleday in April of 2024 and was a New York Times Editors' Choice and a best book of 2024 at Vanity Fair and Kirkus. Her novel The Illness Lesson, published in February of 2020 by Doubleday, was also New York Times Editors’ Choice and was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her story collection, We Show What We Have Learned, was published by Lookout Books in 2016; it won the Bard Fiction Prize, was longlisted for the Story Prize, and was a Kirkus Best Debut of 2016, as well as a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award. Clare's short fiction appears in One Story, n+1, Ecotone, Conjunctions, The Common, The Kenyon Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading, and has received special mention in The Pushcart Prize and twice in The Best American Short Stories. Clare lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and two daughters.
The Max Apple Prize in Nonfiction judged by Esmé Weijun Wang
Esmé Weijun Wang is a New York Times-bestselling and award-winning author of The Collected Schizophrenias and The Border of Paradise. Her work has garnered the Whiting Award, Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, and selection as one of Granta's Best of Young American Novelists in their once-a-decade list. After being diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and later with physical conditions including fibromyalgia, Wang developed innovative approaches to sustain her writing—often working from bed using her iPhone. This experience inspired her to create The Unexpected Shape Writing Academy, a program specifically designed for writers navigating limitations. As both an educator and public speaker represented by the Tuesday Agency, Wang has helped hundreds of writers develop sustainable creative practices that honor their constraints while achieving meaningful publication goals. Her work consistently demonstrates that powerful writing emerges not despite limitations, but through them. Find her online at esmewang.com.
The Susan Wood Prize in Poetry judged by Jess Smith
Jess Smith is the author of Lady Smith (University of Akron Press, 2025). Originally from Georgia, she is an Associate Professor of Practice at Texas Tech University, where she also directs the MFA in creative writing. Her poetry, essays, and criticism can be found in Prairie Schooner, The Cincinnati Review, Waxwing, 32 Poems, The Rumpus, and other journals. She received her MFA from The New School and is the recipient of support from the Sewanee Writers' Conference and the Vermont Studio Center.