The Gina Berriault Award was inaugurated by Peter Orner in conjunction with Fourteen Hills Press to pay homage to the eponymous writer, a former SFSU professor and PEN/Faulkner award-winning fiction writer, whose work embodied a strong sense of selflessness and compassion. 

Selected by an external judge, the award is given annually to an emerging prose writer with a similar spirit, one who has shown a love of storytelling and commitment to the larger writing community.

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Submit your prose entry for the 2023 GBA here.

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DETAILS OF THE AWARD:

 

• An excerpt from the winning work-in-progress will published in a forthcoming issue of Fourteen Hills: The SFSU Review

• The winning writer will receive $1,500 and a complimentary copy of the issue in which their work appears.

• The winning writer will be invited to read at the Fourteen Hills release party for the issue in which their work appears.

 

GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION:

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1. You must not yet have published a full-length manuscript in prose

2. Your submission must be at least 50 pages in length, and no more than 150 pages in length.

3. The cover letter field must include your name, the title of your manuscript, your phone number, mailing address, and email.

4. Your submission document must include a table of contents if there are multiple works (such as short stories or essays) within your manuscript.

5. No revisions to the manuscript will be accepted after submission.

6. Individual works may have been previously published in magazines or journals, but the entire manuscript, in its current state, must be unpublished and unfinished. Manuscripts that have been previously self-published are ineligible.

7.  Manuscripts will be judged anonymously. Therefore, the author's name, other identifying information, and publication information must not appear within the manuscript. Only your uploaded manuscript is visible to the judge. 

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Find out more about Gina Berriault here.

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ABOUT THE JUDGE:

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Vanessa Hua is an award-winning, best-selling author. Her novel, A River of Stars, was named to the Washington Post and NPR’s Best Books of 2018 lists. Her short story collection, Deceit and Other Possibilities, a New York Times Editors' Choice, received an Asian/Pacific American Award in Literature and was a finalist for a California Book Award, and a New American Voices Award. Her novel, Forbidden City is a national bestseller.

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Previous Gina Berriault Award Winners

In past years, the award was given annually to a writer with a similar spirit who had a love for storytelling and a commitment to helping young writers. Winning authors were honored with an award ceremony and reading, and their writing along with an accompanying interview are featured in the winter issue of Fourteen Hills.

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2022-Nawaaz Ahmed

2021-Angie Cruz

2020 - Gabby Rivera

2019 - Tommy Orange

2018 - NoViolet Bulawayo

2017 - Cristina Garcia

2016 - Suzanne Rivecca

2015 - Alexai Galáviz-Budziszewski

2014  Ella Leffland  Fourteen Hills 21.1

2013  Michael Alenyikov  Fourteen Hills 20.1

2012  Melanie Rae Thon  Fourteen Hills 19.1

2011  Susan Straight  Fourteen Hills 18.1

2010 Adam Johnson  Fourteen Hills 17.1

2009  Yiyun Li  Fourteen Hills 16.1

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