The Yale Nonfiction Book Prize

rules and submission guidelines
The winning manuscript will be selected by the series’ current judge: essayist, poet, and editor Meghan O’Rourke. The prize includes a payment in the amount of $15,000, publication of the manuscript by Yale University Press within the Yale Nonfiction Series, and first serialization in The Yale Review.

1. Submissions must be original, unpublished book-length nonfiction manuscripts (no illustrations) written in the English language by a single author who has not previously published a book of nonfiction. English-language translations are not eligible unless the translation is made by the author.

2. Authors may submit only one manuscript per entry year. Manuscripts submitted in previous years may be resubmitted; however, an author may win the competition only once.

3. Manuscripts that have been previously published are ineligible. This includes self-published works.

4. Manuscripts may not be under option, commissioned, or scheduled for production or publication at the time of submission. Simultaneous submissions are allowed, so long as we are notified immediately if and when there is serious interest from other parties.

5. Eligibility for the prize, including both the prize money and publication by Yale University Press, is contingent on the writer’s agreeing to the terms of the Press’s publishing agreement which is non-negotiable.

6. An entry fee of $25.00, payable by credit card or via PayPal, is required at the time of submission. Consistent with our belief that financial hardship should not be an impediment to submission, we have a limited number of fee-free submissions available. If for any reason the fee is an impediment, please write to yalenonfictionbookprize@gmail.com with “Fee Waiver” in the subject line.

8. Manuscript submissions must be under 80,000 words and should be accompanied by a 500–750 word pitch and/or summary. Manuscripts must be complete or substantially completed. For example, we cannot consider a manuscript that is half-written with an outline, but we can consider a manuscript for which the writer plans to revise an introduction or conclusion or add footnotes.

9. The manuscript must include a title page and a table of contents.

10. Manuscripts must be paginated.

11. In formatting the manuscript, please make legibility your first concern. Select a standard typeface (such as Bodoni, Garamond, or Times New Roman) in at least 12-point type. Manuscripts may be double-spaced or 1.5-spaced.

12. Please enter the title of your manuscript, your name and contact information, and a brief biography where indicated in the electronic submission form.

13. The Yale Review and Yale University Press reserve the right to reject any manuscript for any reason.

14. Once an author is notified that their manuscript has been selected as a finalist, the author has seven days to send written notice if they intend to accept or decline the prize and the Press will issue a publishing agreement for their signature. If the author does not return a signed contract within fourteen days of the date issued, they forfeit their entry and are ineligible to receive the prize.

15. The Yale Review and Yale University Press reserve the judge’s right not to choose a winner for any given year of the competition and the right to determine the ineligibility of a winner, in keeping with eligibility requirements of the competition.

Judge
The inaugural judge of the Yale Nonfiction Book Prize is Meghan O’Rourke, an award-winning poet, nonfiction writer, and editor. She is the author of the New York Times best-selling book The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness (2022), which was a finalist for the National Book Award in Nonfiction. She is also the author of the memoir The Long Goodbye (2011) and the poetry collections Halflife (2007), Once (2011), and Sun in Days (2017), which The New York Times named one of the 10 Best Poetry Books of the year. In an award citation the Whiting Foundation praised her “far-reaching and ambitious” work and noted that her “voice stands out for its power and originality.” Her essays and poems have appeared in magazines such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Book Review, Poetry, and Best American Poetry. She has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Radcliffe Fellowship, a Whiting Award, a Lannan fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, the May Sarton Poetry Prize, the Union League Prize from the Poetry Foundation, and a Front Page Award for her cultural criticism. She is the editor of The Yale Review and a Professor in the Practice of creative writing at Yale University.

FAQ
Do memoirs qualify for the prize?
To be eligible, memoirs should include a significant amount of research and/or reportage.

Do scholarly monographs qualify for the prize?
No. While we welcome work by academic writers, eligible manuscripts should be written for a non-specialized reader.

Does the prize accept incomplete manuscripts or book proposals?
No. Manuscripts should be completed or near completion to be eligible for the prize. For example, we cannot consider a manuscript that is half-written with an outline, but we can consider a manuscript for which the writer plans to revise an introduction or conclusion or add endnotes.

Are manuscripts that are under option eligible for submission?
No. Manuscripts may not be under option, commissioned, or scheduled for production or publication at the time of submission.