The Headlight Review presents the third annual Anthony Grooms Prize in Short Fiction: a literary award honoring the work and literary contributions of former Kennesaw State University’s MAPW Director, Anthony Grooms.
SUBMISSION PERIOD
October 1 - January 31
GUIDELINES
Entry Fee: $20 (via Submittable, payable by debit/credit)
Manuscripts must not exceed 12,500 words. Any submission that exceeds this word count will not be considered.
Manuscripts may include a single story, multiple stories, multiple flash stories or a stand-alone novel excerpt.
Stories may have appeared previously as individual publications; however, they must not have been included in any prior collection. A novel excerpt cannot have been part of a previously published novel.
All manuscripts are anonymously submitted. First-round judging will be conducted by staff from The Headlight Review. Finalists will be revealed by March 31 and will be judged by Tina Mozelle Braziel and James Braziel.
Winner will be announced by May 1 with publication scheduled for Fall 2027.
WINNING ENTRY
First prize of $750 is awarded to the winning writer, along with 20 copies of the winning chapbook, published by The Headlight Review Press. The chapbook will be perfect-bound and feature a four-color cover.
CONTEST JUDGES
3rd Annual Tony Grooms Short Fiction Contest
Tina and James Braziel
Tina and James Braziel are a husband-and-wife writing team. Their book Glass Cabin (Pulley Press) chronicles the thirteen years they spent building a home from salvaged tin, tornado-snapped power poles, and church glass on a ridge in rural Alabama. A meditation on hope, frustration, and humanity’s place in the wilder parts of the world, Glass Cabin was named the 2024 Poetry Book of the Year by Southern Literary Review.
James is also author of This Ditch-Walking Love (Livingston Press), Birmingham, 35 Miles (Bantam) and Snakeskin Road (Bantam), and is the winner of the Tartt Fiction Award. His shorter works have appeared in the New York Times and he has received fellowships from Hot Springs National Park, Alabama State Council on the Arts, and Georgia Council for the Arts. He has been a writer-in-residence at the Lowrey Guest House at Auburn University, and he currently teaches creative writing at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Tina is the author of Known by Salt (Anhinga Press) and Rooted by Thirst (Porkbelly Press), and is the Winner of the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. As an Alabama Poetry Delegate, she partners with the Alabama Rivers Alliance to enable local poets to create eco-poetry films as part of the Southern Exposure film series. She has been awarded fellowships from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the first Eco-Poetry Fellow for Magic City Poetry Festival. She serves on the Board of Directors for Alabama Rivers Alliance and The Friends of Big Canoe Creek. Currently, Tina is a teaching writer for the Writing Our Stories project, a program for juvenile offenders created by the Alabama Writers’ Forum.
