Last Call: Submit Your Story to the 2025 Narratively Memoir Prize

Have a unique personal essay to share? Now's your chance to win $3,000, publication on Narratively—plus in print!—and have your story read by our incredible guest judge.

Collage by Yunuen Bonaparte

Writers are the world’s greatest procrastinators. There is nothing like a deadline to make us churn out our best, most exciting work…at the very last possible minute. If you’ve been thinking about submitting a story to the 2025 Narratively Memoir Prize and you’re worried it’s too late to get it done, it’s not—and trust me, you’re not alone. Every year we see the vast majority of entries come in riiiiight before the deadline. Honestly, it stresses me out a little every year. I am just not the type of person who can wait until 11:59 to hit that send button! But if you like living on the edge like that, consider this your official notice: As of this email send, you have exactly three and a half days left to submit your story. That’s 84 full hours. YOU GOT THIS!

This year’s prize will be judged by #1 New York Times bestselling memoirist

Susannah Cahalan

. The winning submission will receive a $3,000 prize, publication on Narratively.com, a virtual awards ceremony to celebrate — and for the first time, we’ll be publishing the winning story in a special limited print edition!

The prize is open for submissions through this Sunday, December 7 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

We cannot wait to start reading your submissions. All the details can be found here.

Happy writing, everyone!