Image from Wired.

The US-based magazine Boston Review has announced short story and poetry contests, each worth $1,000 and publication, both based on “a new contest model shaped by social justice and accessibility concerns.” The magazine, among whose editors is Junot Diaz, is most noted in the African literary scene for having published “Hitting Budapest,” the short story by NoViolet Bulawayo which received the 2011 Caine Prize and became the opening chapter of her Booker Prize-shortlisted novel We Need New Names.

The Aura Estrada Short Story Contest will be judged by Ivelisse Rodriguez, while the Annual Poetry Contest will be judged by Alexis Pauline Gumbs. Both Rodriguez and Gumbs are American. Both contests have the same theme: “Ancestors.” The contests were last year judged by the Kenyan novelist Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor and the Somali poet Ladan Osman.

The magazine’s new model ensures that entrants for the prizes who live outside the US, Canada, and Western Europe are exempted from the $20 submission fee.

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