Voyage YA by Uncharted Anthology Contest - Uncharted
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Voyage YA by Uncharted Anthology Contest

By Josh Roark

Thank you to everyone who submitted short stories! 

Check back in mid-July for the results!


Big changes are at work for Voyage this year! We are moving all of our prize opportunities to two biannual anthologies dedicated to top-notch YA writing. We want to give our incredible contributors a chance to see their name in print! We will be publishing hardcover, paperback, and ebook editions. 

Our guest writer for the second anthology is Aaron H. Aceves, acclaimed author of This Is Why They Hate Us! While the anthology will be edited by Voyage’s editorial staff, Aaron will share publication space with all of the emerging voices coming through our submissions. This upcoming anthology is a unique opportunity for emerging writers to potentially publish alongside an award-winning YA author!

Winners of the Novel Excerpt Contest & Creative Nonfiction Contest will be published in Fall 2023, alongside the winners of the Short Story Award and the Poetry Prize.

Have you written a gripping and captivating YA novel? Enter our Novel Excerpt Contest for a chance to showcase your talent! We warmly invite you to send us your favorite chapters from your YA novels! We want the chapter that makes us hungry for the rest of the book, that makes us desperate to spend more time in the world of your creation!

Submitting to our Creative Nonfiction Prize gives you a chance to showcase your unique voice and perspective! We are looking for personal stories that capture the nature of the teen experience. True stories that read like fiction are preferred. We read widely in YA, and we’re simply looking for a well-told personal story. 

We’re so excited to read your submissions and to discover all the wonderful books waiting for their readers!

For the anthology, we are flexible with the number of winners, but all contributors will be compensated accordingly:

          Novel excerpts: $800
          Creative Nonfiction: $500

Voyage Novel Excerpt Contest
It’s that wonderful time of year when books are forged from the creative energy brought on by springtime. We want to see all that hard effort rewarded, and we warmly invite you to send us your favorite chapters from your novels! Roll up your sleeves, write relentlessly, and send us your best!

Voyage Creative Nonfiction Prize
There’s no story like a true story! Do you have a creative nonfiction piece that speaks to the teen experience, and is told from a teenager’s point of view? We’d love to read it! 

 Guidelines

  • Submissions are open from April 3 to June 1, 2023. 
  • Voyage submissions are open to all writers working in English.
  • International submissions are allowed.
  • Submission must be an original novel excerpt that would be categorized as young adult fiction (from the point of view of a young adult, meaning through the lens of a teen protagonist).
  • Please adhere to the 5,000-word count maximum.
  • We’re open to any YA subgenre or style you can throw at us—just send us the best you’ve got.
  • Submit previously unpublished work only, please.
  • Simultaneous submissions are fine—just notify us and withdraw your entry if it’s picked up by someone else.
  • Please include a $20 reading fee per entry.
  • Multiple submissions are okay—please submit each as a separate submission.
  • Every entry will be considered for our regular publications as well.
  • Please: 1) double space, 2) use Times New Roman 12, 3) have one-inch margins, and 4) put the page number in the top right-hand corner.
  • Tell us in a brief cover letter your publication history (if applicable, no worries if not), along with any relevant information about your writing career.

For reference, some of our favorite YA anthologies include: Fresh Ink, edited by Lamar Giles; Welcome Home, edited by Eric Smith; Our Stories, Our Voices, edited by Amy Reed; Three Sides of a Heart, edited by Natalie C. Parker; Because You Love to Hate Me, edited by Amerie; Meet Cute and Summer Days and Summer Nights/My True Love Gave to Me, both edited by Stephanie Perkins. 

Note: To ensure the protection of our volunteer readers, and to keep Voyage a safe space, please let us know in your cover letter if your work can be triggering in any way. This will have no bearing on your submission or our decision—we just want to ensure the best possible environment for our readers. Thank you for your understanding. 

Editorial Feedback Options

The single feedback letter option costs $79 and will provide you with two pages of detailed and actionable feedback on your submission. The three-letter option will provide three separate letters (two pages each) from three different editors at $199, a 16% discount. Our guest editors are paid a significant portion of the fee and all are incredibly astute professionals.

Voyage Values

Voyage YA is committed to diversity and inclusivity. We do not discriminate on the basis of age, ancestry, disability, family status, gender identity or expression, national origin, race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation. Voyage has a zero-tolerance policy for any work that is discriminatory or harmful in any way, whether intentional or unintentional. Hate speech of any kind will not be tolerated and any work that violates our values will be immediately declined. Voyage maintains the right to further ban authors if problematic behavior persists and/or deplatform authors should there be problematic behavior via other platforms. 

As the landscape of publishing changes, Voyage acknowledges that there is still much work to be done. Systemic racism and structural inequality have been problems for a long time, and Voyage will actively work to dismantle them. We have joined the global movement to fight for equality and will consciously work to amplify marginalized voices of authors who have been historically underrepresented in publishing. We urge authors and readers alike to visit some of the resources we have found helpful—and seek out others: 

About Our Guest Writer

Aaron H. Aceves (he/him) is a bisexual, Mexican-American writer born and raised in East LA. He graduated from Harvard College and received his MFA from Columbia University. His fiction has appeared in Epiphany, The Florida Review, and Passages North, among other places. He currently lives in Texas, where he serves as an Early Career Provost Fellow at UT Austin, and his debut young adult novel, This Is Why They Hate Us, was released by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. It received multiple starred reviews and was named a Best Young Adult Book of 2022 by Kirkus Reviews.