Trafika Europe Corner with Clayton McKee: TE’s Prizes for Prose and for Verse

Trafika Europe is so excited to announce that we are now taking submissions for our first-ever literary prizes! Our submissions are now open and will close on December 20^th at 11:59 pm EST. There is a $10 submission fee, which can be paid on our website. For any translator requiring assistance with the fee, please email editor@trafikaeurope.org to request submission-fee support. Here are some more details about our profile and our prizes.

Trafika Europe publishes original and translated literature from contemporary Europe. For these submissions, we are looking for pieces translated into English from any language or original pieces written in English language. The author of a submitted piece must have some connection to Europe—i.e. the author must be European, in Europe, or primarily based in Europe even if they are not a citizen or born-native of a European country. In the past, we have published European authors who now live outside of Europe as well as non-European authors who live or publish in Europe.

Furthermore, we have begun altering our view of contemporary. All submissions must have never been published prior to being submitted to the contest. For translations, if the original language was published further in the past but a translation was never published, the original can be from the 1400s or from 2024. For any original pieces written in English, our sole condition is that they have not been previously published whether on a blog, in a journal, or in physical print.

We are pleased to offer two prizes: Trafika Europe’s Prize for Prose and the Trafika Europe’s Andrew Singer Prize for Verse. We are pleased to honor our former director by naming our verse prize after the poet himself. At the time being, we are restricting it to these categories without any genre restrictions. We accept novel excerpts, short stories, poetry, graphic novels, verse novels, epics, etc. Our judges panel will select a first-place winner as well as two runners-up for each prize. Winners will be awarded $500 each, and runners-up will be awarded $250 each.

For full details on submission, you can visit www.trafikaeurope.org/prize-submissions for more details. Here are some general guidelines to help you get started:

Prose submissions should be between 3,000 and 5,000 words. Exceptions can made for micro fictions or pieces of shorter prose if the author/translator finds that the piece can stand alone and truly represents their style. An option is to submit multiple micro fictions/shorter prose pieces that may or may not connect.
Poetry submissions should consist of ten poems, or 10–20 pages if the poem(s) is/are long.
Drama pieces and graphic literature (whether verse or prose) should not exceed 20 pages.
Submissions Requirements:
- Submission must be in English (either translation or original language)
- For any translations, you should include the corresponding excerpt in original language
  - NOTE: We will not be publishing this issue bilingually as we will not be awarding prizes to both translators and authors.
- An email or permission form from the original author or publisher granting permission to submit the translated excerpt.
- A photo and a bio for the translator and/or the author. Bios should be written in the third person and no more than 150 words.
- Links to social media of the author and/or the translator (if applicable).
- A receipt or receipt # of your submission fee.
Once all of these components are finished, you should do the following:
- Pay your submission fee (https://www.trafikaeurope.org/product/submission-fee/).
- Put all components into one document. You can send a .docx or a .pdf.
- Save you document with the following format: LASTNAME_FIRSTNAME_TYPEOFSUBMISSION
  - For example: EUROPE_TRAFIKA_VERSE
- Send your submission to editor@trafikaeurope.org