The competition is organized by the Restless Books, an independent, non-profit publisher located in Brooklyn, New York. Participants must be first-generation residents of their country. “First-generation” can refer either to people born in another country who relocated, or to residents of a country whose parents were born elsewhere.

The competition is open to both fiction and nonfiction submissions.

Fiction submissions can take the form of a novel or a book-length collection of short stories or some creative combination of the two. Nonfiction submissions can take the form of narrative nonfiction, memoir, polemic essay, a collection of essays, or some creative combination of these.

Applicants in both fiction and nonfiction categories must not have previously published a book-length work in English in the genre in which they’re applying.

All submissions must be complete manuscripts with a minimum of 45,000 words and written in English.

The winner receives $10,000, a writing residency from Millay Arts, and publication by Restless Books.

We are keen to encourage quality, so suggest writers to check their stories before submitting using Prowritingaid. They have free and paid versions and are the best writing software we know to help improve grammar, readability and check for repetition, ‘sticky’ sentences and suggest alternatives.