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Book Prize winners ruling their worlds with groundbreaking works
When we started the Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize two decades ago, we aimed to, among other things, celebrate literary excellence and provide a launch pad for writers, especially emerging ones facing the grueling world of publishing. Each year, when we celebrate new winners, we look back with enormous pride at how previous winners continue …

New Issue of the Schooner! Editor’s Picks: 12 Years of Transformative Work
2025 Raz-Shumaker Book Prize Now Open for Submissions
Submissions for the 2025 Prairie Schooner Raz-Shumaker Book Prize for fiction and poetry are now open! The deadline for the contest is March 15, 2025, and writers can submit their entries through Submittable. The Prairie Schooner Raz-Shumaker Book Prize Series annually names two prize-winning manuscripts, one in poetry and one in short fiction, selected by the editor-in-chief of the Schooner with the help of …
Annual Prairie Schooner Award Winners Announced
With generous supporters of the literary arts, Prairie Schooner was able to award 13 writing prizes totaling $8,250 for work published by established and emerging writers in the 2023 editions. Hamza Rehman received the $2,000 Lawrence Foundation Award for the best short story published in Prairie Schooner for “The Interpreter,” published in the Spring 2023 issue. This prize is made …

Keya Mitra Wins Summer Creative Nonfiction Contest

Raz-Shumaker in Poetry Goes to Gbenga Adesina

Raz-Shumaker in Fiction Goes to Mi Jin Kim
Adesina, Kim win 2024 Raz-Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prizes
The winner of the 2024 Raz-Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry is Gbenga Adesina for “Death Does Not End At The Sea,” chosen by guest judges Joseph Millar and Hilda Raz with Kwame Dawes, Glenna Luschei Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner. Adesina will receive a $3,000 award and publication by the University of Nebraska Press. Joseph …
