1) Place your story in the body of an e-mail.
The editorial staff only reads stories displayed as text inside an e-mail. Attached files will be automatically deleted. Please be mindful of your text presentation. Remember to include adequate paragraph breaks and/or spacing. Submissions with special coding and other illegible characters will be returned unread. You may nominate one unpublished work of fiction or creative nonfiction each year, as long as it fits our prose nomination guidelines.

2) Place your personal information at the end of the story.
Place your contact information, including name, address, and phone number, after your story text and not at the beginning. Your name should appear nowhere else in the submission.

3) Place the word "submission" and your title in the subject line.
The word "submission" in the subject line of the e-mail lets us know that you are using our e-mail address to nominate a story. The title helps our editors collate the stories. All other e-mails will be automatically deleted.

4) Send your e-mail nomination to submission@BestNewWriting.com.
This e-mail address has been reserved for nominations only. Submissions are read quarterly following the last day of March, June, September, and December. You will receive a response within two weeks of those dates. If your story is promoted to the next level, it is being considered for the Hoffer prize. We will notify you of the judging progress between May and July, if not much sooner.

Note: If you skip any of the above steps, the editors may never get to read your story. Thank you and good luck!