2024/2025 Fiction and Memoir Contest

As of October 15, 2024, high-quality “unpublished” manuscripts submitted in the following categories of memoir, fiction and non-fiction have been entrusted to IML to be read, sorted and pondered by our esteemed author, Jacqueline Gay Walley. On December 15, 2024, finalists will be chosen and a date of February 1, 2025 is set for the submission of the full manuscripts of up to 120,000 word count. (Please note if you have not heard from us about your submission, email us at hello@imlpublications.com.)

2025/26 Fiction, Non-Fiction & Memoir Contest

Announcing 2023/2024

Winner of

Fiction and Memoir Contest

WINNER: Bromme Cole’s When Soft Voices Die

HONORABLE MENTION: Dawn Yackzan

FINALISTS: (in alphabetical order)

NOVEL: Barbara de la Cuesta’s The Twenty and One Nights; Lisa Friedlander’s The Bird Lover; James Makor’s Lightning in the Draught; Eliza Mood’s Under the Forbidden Tree; Osman Njai’s Before We Became Men; and Dawn Yackzan’s The Grasshopper Girls

MEMOIR: Michael Bauer’s Born Without a Race; Molly Gandour’s Vertigo: Sexual Assault Aftermath; Alyssa Osvog’s Stay: Connecting with Energy in Recovery; Dawn Service’s Not My Shame; Mike Shangkuan’s The Good Chinese Son: from the Ivy League to the Berlin Dungeons; and Dawn Yackzan’s Precious Crazy

Announcing:
Memoir and Fiction Winners and Finalists 2022

We are a boutique publishing company that is dedicated to amplifying the voices of contemporary writers who are nomads and explorers of language, form, and the psyche. High-quality manuscript submissions of memoir and fiction entrusted to us have been read, sorted and pondered by our esteemed author, Jacqueline Gay Walley, and are now aligned into the winners and finalists. Thank you to all the contestants for joining us!

Memoir Winners:

IML’s Nomad Motif: Sandra Botnen’s Body Unfolding

Grace in Writing Style: Victoria Adler’s When We Knew Nothing

Finalists in Alphabetical Order: Demetrius Butler’s Hoes Don’t Exist Monsters Do; Barbara de la Cuesta’s A Certain Height Above the Earth; Olivia Harris’s I’m Not Ready Yet; Jacqueline Monteath’s America Unmapped; Alysa Osvog’s Traipsing Down a Warpath of Addiction; and Dawn Yackzan’s Precious Crazy (First Alternate)

Fiction Winner:

Khaak by Mahdi (due to it’s indigenous content, to be published jointly with IML and Global Voice Foundation)

Finalists: Eliza Mood’sVolcano Letters; Alysa Osvog’s Unforgettables; Katarzyna Janicka’s Maya; Annie Dawd’s Paradise Undone; Martha Novak Burgess’s Blood Mountain; and Marcia Peck’s The Unattended Moment (First Alternate)