Showcasing new writers. Offering a quality platform for new talent. Novel Excerpt Contest open until November 8, 2026!
Portland, OR
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Our Novel Excerpt Contest is back!
Guest Judge Chinelo Okparanta will select three finalists. The first place winner receives $3,000, online publication, and a one-hour consultation with literary agent Marin Takikawa of The Friedrich Agency.
Learn more: mastersreview.com/novel-exce…
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"When the women on the island started changing, people at first called it a mutation."
—Emily Mathis, "When Women Walked on Land"
Winter Short Story Award 2nd Place
mastersreview.com/winter-sho…
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...and the latter’s playfulness its twin protagonists’ mordant acceptance of whatever stunning transformations are going to come down the pike.
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More from Jim: Both protagonists have been through a lot, still have some of their compassion intact, and do what they can to accommodate their fellow beings even as they prepare to accept their isolation.
mastersreview.com/winter-sho…
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"The first thing I see through this new head of mine is Jenny’s smiling face, red-nosed and tear-crusted, gazing down at me in the hospital bed."
—Michael Hughes Wesner, "The Big Reboot"
2025-2026 Winter Short Story Award 3rd Place
mastersreview.com/winter-ssa…
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—even as he refuses to confront—just how much pain and disconnect lies beneath his relationship to both his family and the world he’s so deftly satirizing, especially when it comes to his wife.
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Theoretically, the spiral is designed to give you time for dedicated contemplation and prayer, to bring the brothers closer to God. This is a story.
—Clare Fielder, "The Brothers"
2025-2026 Winter Short Story Award Honorable Mention
mastersreview.com/winter-sho…
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Today's listing of the day is: The Masters Review Novel Excerpt Contest @MastersReview (fee-based) duotrope.com/contest/the-mas… #WritingCommunity
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"To want, then to have; to hunger, then to satiate. What a beautiful, perfect thing."
—Stephanie Isan, "Hulijing"
2025-2026 Winter Short Story Award Honorable Mention
mastersreview.com/winter-sho…
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"There is no compass for this journey. No logic. No north, east, south, or west. Only The Traveler’s Stone. Only Felix and Felix and Felix and Felix."
—Erin Jean, "The Traveler's Stone"
mastersreview.com/new-voices…
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Holding the cockroach, Zahra imagined entire towns underground. She laid it on a bed of cherry pits and drew a mother and father cockroach beside it.
—Pegah Ouji, " A Town of Cherry Pits"
mastersreview.com/new-voices…
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Celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay is chatting up the hostess, begging her to work some magic and get him and his mates a table at the overbooked downtown hotspot.
—Vivian Wolfson, "Assemblage"
mastersreview.com/new-voices…
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"You are invited."
—Nick Otte, "The Snag"
Novel Excerpt Contest 1st Place
mastersreview.com/novel-exce…
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Guest Judge Nick Fuller Googins on this extraordinary excerpt: "The writing is sharp. The plotting is near perfect. Narrative “fuses” are lit early on, and with a confidence that ensures they’ll go off on precisely the right pages."
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"My women camped out in my frontal lobe. But it could have been my hippocampus."
—Cecilia Beard, "Timeline of Events in Lieu of a Lobotomy"
Novel Excerpt Contest 2nd Place
mastersreview.com/novel-exce…
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Nick Fuller Googins: Some of the best explorations into mental illness, in my humble opinion, are those that approach the topic with a sense of humor. In this sense, “Timeline of Events in Lieu of a Lobotomy” is a masterclass in the delicate balance between the light and dark.
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