SUBMISSIONS TO OPEN ON APRIL 15, 2019

Soon after its founding in 2011, Nation: International Crime Fiction became the internationally recognized home of crime fiction. For good reason. Noir Nation is often dark, sometimes creepy, and sometimes humorous but always fearlessly at the service of the literary imagination as it explores the darker regions of human experience—where the only crime is weak writing. 

The journal appears in print and digital formats once a year, publishing fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. It also confers the Golden Fedora Writing Prize, in alternating years for poetry and fiction. In 2019 the prize is for fiction. 

The Golden Fedora Prize - Fiction

The Golden Fedora Prize celebrates noir literature by contemporary writers. The medallion award, commissioned from the Northwestern Mint, the same mint that coins the Pulitzers, is awarded to anonymous entries selected by The Editors. If the editors identify a submitting writer from the style or through inadvertence, the work shall be sent for consideration by an external editor.  

• Unpublished realistic fiction up to 3,000 words that is either darkly themed or where a crime occurs or is promised. Stories must be set in the here and now or recent past. 
• No more than three works will be considered by an individual writer or a writing team submitting under a collective pen name. 
• Each work will be judged separately and read anonymously.
• Works in other languages are fine but only if submitted with translations and where the writer holds copyrights to both original and translation. Both would be published if among winners and honorable mentions. 
• Work must be submitted electronically via Submittable. 
• All submissions are considered for publication regardless of competition results.

Prizes 

• Medallions to top three works and publication in Noir Nation No. 8. There are no first, second, or third places. There is only one place: Golden Fedora Prize winner.
• Publication in Noir Nation No. 8 for Honorable Mentions

Deadline Work must be submitted by August 15, 2019. Announcements of winners will be made via the Noir Nation Mailing List (please be sure to sign up), our website, social media channels, and on Submittable in mid to late September.  

General Submissions to Noir Nation CLOSED ON MAY 15

Fiction should be realistic and set in the here & now or near past and involve a crime or the promise of one or transgression in some form. However, if the work is comedic or farcical, it can be set anywhere, any time but must be more than parody: it must be funny. Length of stories can vary from a 50-word paragraph, if Flash Fiction, to a maximum of 3,000 words, if short fiction. Most common length: 1,000 to 2,000 words.

Nonfiction should take the form of essays on the noir literary genre (focused on books and writers not films) or be in the creative true crime tradition (In Cold Blood, The Executioner's Song). Ideal length 2,000 words. Maximum: 3,000 words.

Poetry can take any form or style but should be 30 lines or less. The subject matter should be the same as for fiction, but the tone and treatment are more important than the subject matter. Were they still writing, Anna Akhmatova, Charles Baudelaire, Charles Bukowski, and Anne Sexton would find a comfortable home in Noir Nation.