Announcing: The First Annual Treehouse Literary Loot Contest for Unusual Prose!

by Treehouse Editors

Deadline: April 30

To celebrate Treehouse’s first birthday—that’s right: we’re one!—we are holding our first ever contest.

But there will be no money involved in any part of this contest—no submission fee nor prize money.

“Then what’s the point?” you ask.

The point is, how about you shut your mouth and let me finish?

Thank you.

In lieu of prize money, we have assembled possibly the greatest literary grab bag since Flannery O’Connor stuffed a live peacock in a grocery sack with some early drafts of her stories and mailed it to Eudora Welty.

(Editor’s note: We have no evidence that proves this didn’t happen.)

The winning writer will not only be published in Treehouse, but will also receive:

The awesome lit journal package:

  1. A one-year subscription to Barrelhouse
  2. A one-year subscription to Booth
  3. A one-year subscription to Carolina Quarterly
  4. A one-year subscription to Ecotone
  5. Two latest issues from Gigantic
  6. A one-year subscription to Gulf Coast
  7. A one-year subscription to [PANK]
  8. A one-year subscription to REAL: Regarding Arts and Letters

The awesome indie publishing package:

  1. Two new fall titles from the new indie house everyone is buzzing about, A Strange Object—from the makers of American Short Fiction!
  2. Two new titles from Dzanc Books and a six-month subscription to the Dzanc e-book club.
  3. A copy of Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard) and a copy of
    First Year [An MLP Anthology] from Mud Luscious Press

The super-happening fashion package: (in the size of your choice—extra small not available; eat something already)

  1. A t-shirt from A Strange Object
  2. A t-shirt from [PANK]

Our favorite non-winning contest entries will also be published in Treehouse. The rules:

  1. We’re interested in prose that does unusual stuff. In the past we’ve published stories in the form of to-do lists, invisible text with footnotes, survival guides, landlord-tenant correspondence, recipes, and also all kinds of inventive work that was linguistically, but not necessarily structurally, experimental. So if you think your story, essay, prose poem, or genrebender fits the bill, send it our way. (Sorry, no poetry with line breaks for this one.)
  2. Entries are to be a maximum of 750 words.
  3. All entries must be emailed to treehouse.editors@gmail.com by April 30. Preferred format is .doc, but .docx and .pdf are also acceptable.
  4. Subject line of contest entries must say: CONTEST ENTRY. Otherwise, they will simply be filed as regular submissions and will have zero chance of receiving cool swag.
  5. Your name MUST NOT APPEAR ANYWHERE ON YOUR PIECE. Since we often get writing from people we kind of know, either via real life or the internet, we want to be extra careful that everything is getting read blind. We’re even going to implement our ultra secret “assigning numbers to stories and then not telling anybody what the numbers mean” system.
  6. In the interest of fairness, we can’t accept submission from editors at any of the magazines or publishing houses that are participating. UNCW students may submit work, so long as they’re not currently on staff at Ecotone.
  7. Former Treehouse contributors are invited to submit work.
  8. We also can’t accept submissions from anyone who has gotten past second base with any member of the editorial staff. (In this case, “second base” refers to urban second base; rural second base is okay.) However, if you have gotten past second base with a member of the editorial staff: why don’t you call us already? It’s been more than three days.
  9. One of the main things we’re trying to communicate with this contest is that literature is a community. We picked out the journals and publishing houses we’re most excited about because we wanted to share them with you—our favorite readers. (And pretty much everybody we asked to participate eagerly agreed.) As such, we’ll be featuring a different participating magazine or indie house every week. Please check out their sites and consider subscribing or buying books—not because they’re helping our contest, but because they’re sustaining a thriving literary community that you’re not going to get from mainstream publishing. And because they publish cool shit!
  10. We really believe in doing as much as we can without getting money involved. So even if you can’t afford to subscribe to any of our partners’ publications, consider spreading the word—about the contest and/or about any of the publishers you see that tickle your fancy—via facebook, twitter, or other social media. Or, you know, your mouth.

We’re very excited about this and looking forward to reading your work.

-The Editors