Jenny Molberg, “Exstasis” (Poetry)
Rebecca Bernard, “In Plato’s Cave No. 1” (Fiction)
Jenny Molberg’s third poetry collection, The Court of No Record (LSU Press, 2023), was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist. Her poems and essays have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, The American Poetry Review, AGNI, The Kenyon Review, The Missouri Review, Oprah Quarterly, and other publications. Her work has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the Hambidge Center, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Longleaf Writers Conference. She is Professor of Writing, Literature, and Publishing and Editor-in-Chief of Ploughshares at Emerson College.
Editor’s Statement:
“Present, future, past selves, and their interlocutors associatively click together in this revelatory poem. Molberg writes toward the process of discovery and remembrance, emblematic of the work’s movement: ‘Healing is not linear so it swirls at the drain. // Every line knows.’ We are moved by the earnestness, the violence, the humor, the ekphrastic collisions—how it uncovers a new boundary.”
Rebecca Bernard’s work is forthcoming or has recently appeared in Oxford American, Alaska Quarterly Review, Southern Indiana Review, and The Cincinnati Review, among other places. She is the author of the story collection Our Sister Who Will Not Die (Mad Creek Books, 2022), winner of the 2021 Non/Fiction Prize held by The Journal. She is an Assistant Professor of English at East Carolina University and serves as a Fiction Editor for The Boiler.
Editor’s Statement:
“Told in a voice that’s both tender and powerful, this story is a meditation on what it means to inhabit a body, and even transcend it. It’s about the fragility of love, things that test it and the extraordinary moments in which it mends itself.”
2025 Editor’s Prize Finalists:
Elizabeth Graver (Fiction)
Chloe Honum (Poetry)
Weijia Pan (Poetry)
A.J. Rodriguez (Fiction)
Corey Van Landingham (Poetry)
Patrick J. Zhou (Fiction)
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GENRES & ELIGIBILITY
- Poetry: Submit 1–3 poems in a single document.
- Fiction: Submit 1 short story (max 6,000 words recommended).
- All entries must be previously unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are accepted, provided you disclose your submission as such. Note: If your work is accepted elsewhere, just let us know right away—use the MESSAGES tab in Submittable, not the Notes tab (which we do not receive).
- Writers may enter in both the Poetry and Fiction categories.
- Writers of all backgrounds, nationalities, ages, and stages are welcome to submit.
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DATES & DEADLINES
- Submissions Open: The 2026 Editor’s Prizes will open in Summer 2026.
- Submission Deadline: The 2026 Editor’s Prizes will open in Summer 2026.
- Result Announcement: The 2026 Editor’s Prizes will open in Summer 2026.
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SUBMISSION PORTAL
All entries must be submitted via our Submittable portal.
Please note: We do not accept submissions via post or email, except in the case of accessibility accommodations. Writers with disabilities that do not allow for Submittable entry may email us at editors[at]theadroitjournal[dot]org.
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IMPORTANT: SUBMISSION CAP!
We will only consider the first 300 submissions received in each genre. Once 300 submissions are received, the submission category will automatically close. We encourage you to submit early—once our submission quotas are met, we will be unable to accept additional entries.
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ENTRY FEE
- The Editor’s Prize submission fee is $15/submission.
- All proceeds will support The Adroit Journal‘s editorial operations, including our ongoing commitment to offering contributor stipends to each issue contributor.
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JUDGING
All entries will be read and evaluated by members of The Adroit Journal‘s editorial staff. To learn more about our staff, please click here.
Please note that you may submit revisions of work previously submitted to the journal’s general submissions windows, as well as to previous cycles of the Adroit Prizes and Djanikian & Veasna So Scholars.
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