General Instructions:
1. Payment by major Credit Card or PayPal for contest entry can be made on this form. A contest entry without proper payment will be discarded. Click blue button at the bottom of the page to pay for entry and to submit this form. You can also mail your payment by regular mail by filling out and submitting this form and by sending your check to: Texas Institute of Letters, P.O. Box 130294, Spring, TX 77393.
2. Submissions of works must be mailed to the appropriate committee members at the addresses listed on the TIL's website: Contest Details and Judges. Since each committee has three members, you will need to send a copy of the work to each judge in the category for which you are entering. Include a brief note inside each copy of the book or clipped to the article explaining for which contest the work is being entered.
3. Authors or their representatives should not have any contact with judges other than to submit work to each judge.
4. A book can only be entered in one category.
5. Submissions must be postmarked no later than January 6, 2025.
6. All works entered must be published in a print format during 2024, with the exception of the Girón / Valez, Cattarulla, and Shrake awards. Works for the biennial Girón / Valdez award can have been published in print during 2023 and 2024. Submissions for the Cattarulla and Shrake awards must be published in print OR digital format during 2024. See special instructions for No. 9 below. Unpublished manuscripts will not be considered.
7. To be considered, an entry must be the first published version of the work.
8. A person or publisher may enter only one work per author per contest category for the writing contests; a person or publisher may enter only one work per translator for the book translation contest. In other words, a publisher may enter different works by different authors or translators in one category but cannot submit more than one book by the same author or translator in one category.
- The only exception to the ‘one work per author per contest category’ rule is the Shrake Award for Short Nonfiction: “This prize is for the best article or essay appearing in newspapers, journals, or magazines. Multiple articles by a single author may be submitted — with a total not exceeding 10,000 words.”
9. The Cattarulla and Shrake awards allow for the submission of works that have been published in print OR digital formats during 2024. Eligible digital publications should be: refereed and edited journals with an acceptance/rejection policy (not self-publishing); stand-alone digital publications (e.g. Narrative Magazine) or online publications of established print magazines or newspapers (e.g. Atlantic Monthly); and digital publications with a discernible publication date. The digital publication of the short story or short nonfiction should be the first published version of the work. Special submission instructions: print the digital entry, with URL at the top of first page, and submit work to judges by regular mail.