The Calvino Prize

The Calvino Prize is an annual fiction competition sponsored by the Creative Writing Program in the English Department of the University of Louisville. They will be awarded to outstanding pieces of fiction in the fabulist experimentalist style of Italo Calvino. Please note that these prizes are meant to encourage experimental writing, in the mode of Calvino, and are not meant to encourage merely imitative work.

First Place: $1000 and Publication
Second Place: $300

The first place entry will be published in the Salt Hill Journal of Syracuse University.

Further, the winner will be invited to read the winning entry, all expenses paid, at the Twentieth Century Literature Conference held at the University of Louisville every February. The 15 finalists will be posted on the website

Submission Guidelines

2007 Calvino Prize Winners

Kentuckiana Metroversity 2008 Writing Competition

Entries will be accepted in four categories: poetry, short fiction, creative nonfiction/essay, and academic writing. You may enter up to 2 works in each category, except for poetry, up to 3 poems. Prose entries must not exceed 40 pages in length.

NEW INTERNATIONAL CATEGORY! This category will honor the words and experiences of people who have come to our community from all over the world. This category is open only to undergraduate students whose native language is NOT English. The writing may be in any form--poetry, up to 3 poems, or prose, 1 piece up to 40 pages, and must be in English.

Submission Guidelines

Deadlines- You may submit your entry to your campus coordinator, Paul Griner, by the deadline February 15, 2008. You mail also mail your entry to either of the competition coordinators, Jean Tucker or Bryan Scichilone; mailed entries must be postmarked by February 14, 2008 at the latest.

Award- In each general category, prizes of $200, first place, and $100, second place, will be awarded in two separate divisions- undergraduate and graduate. In the international category, prizes of $200 for first place, $100 for second place, and $50 for third place will be awarded.

Winners will be notified by email and honored at an awards ceremony and public reading in April 2008. Winning entries will also be published in an anthology and winners will receive complimentary copies.