Bird's-eye view of a desk with stack of journals that say AWP Intro Journals Project

AWP Intro Journals Project

The AWP Intro Journals Project is a literary competition for the discovery and publication of the best new works by students currently enrolled in AWP member academic programs. Program directors are invited to nominate student work, and winners are selected for publication in participating literary journals. The 2026 journals are Colorado Review, Florida Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, Mid-American Review, Puerto del Sol, Quarterly West, Reed Magazine, and Tampa Review.

Nominations are open October 1–November 30 each year. Contact [email protected] for more information.

 

See the 2026 AWP Intro Journals Project winners!

2026 AWP Intro Journals Project Judges

AWP is honored to introduce Christina Rivera (creative nonfiction), Allegra Solomon (fiction), and Han VanderHart (poetry) as this year’s judges for the AWP Intro Journals Project. Read their bios below and nominate your students’ work via our online submission portal by November 30, 2025.

Creative Nonfiction

Headshot of Christina Rivera

Christina Rivera is a Pushcart Prize–winning essayist and the author of MY OCEANS: Essays of Water, Whales, and Women (Northwestern University Press, March 2025), which was longlisted for the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize and a finalist for the Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literature. Her work has won the annual John Burroughs Nature Essay Award and appeared in Orion, The Kenyon Review, Longreads, The Cut, and Terrain.org, among other places. Rivera credits the fragmentation of her writing to her two young children and is also the grateful recipient of creative residencies at Millay Arts, Craigardan, and the Wellstone Center. You can learn more about Rivera and MY OCEANS at ChristinaRivera.com.


Fiction

Headshot of Allegra Solomon

Allegra Solomon is a fiction writer from Columbus, Ohio. She got her MFA from the University of Kentucky and her BA in creative writing from Ohio University. Her debut short story collection won the Kimbilio National Fiction Prize and was a finalist for the Iron Horse Literary Review/TTU First Book Prize. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and has appeared in The Georgia Review, TriQuarterly, American Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Lolwe, and more. Her debut short story collection, There’s Nothing Left for You Here, is out now with Four Way Books. She lives in Lexington, Kentucky.


Poetry

Headshot of Han VanderHart

Han VanderHart is a queer writer living in Durham, North Carolina. They are the author of Larks (Ohio University Press, 2025), winner of the 2024 Hollis Summers Poetry Prize; the chapbook Hawk & Moon (Bottlecap Press, 2025); and What Pecan Light (Bull City Press, 2021), and have essays and poetry published in Poetry Daily, The Boston Globe, The Kenyon Review, The American Poetry Review, Poetry Foundation, Poetry Northwest, Poet Lore, AGNI, and elsewhere. VanderHart hosts Of Poetry Podcast and, alongside Amorak Huey, coedits River River Books.

Both graduate and undergraduate student work is eligible. Each member program is free to devise its own method for nominating student work, but only students currently enrolled in AWP member academic programs may be nominated. Each program may submit one essay, one short story, and up to three poems. A student who has won in any given year is not eligible to be nominated for the next two years.

If your program does not have an active AWP membership but you would like to sign up, please email [email protected].

Nominations must be uploaded via our online submission portal between October 1 and November 30. Entries can be submitted by the program director or an admin, but they should all be submitted by one representative for the program. Submitters will be asked to provide the following:

  1. The name of the program and its director
  2. The name, contact info, and expected graduation date of each student being nominated
  3. A separate file (Word doc or PDF) for each work being nominated; these files should NOT include the author’s name or any other identifying information.

Nominated works must be unpublished. The author or nominator must notify [email protected] immediately in the case of acceptance elsewhere. Individual poems may be retracted from submissions of multiple poems.

Each program may nominate no more than one work of nonfiction, one work of short fiction, and three poems (poems do not have to be by the same author).

No submission may exceed 5,000 words. Prose must be double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman.

Each participating journal will publish one winning piece each in prose and poetry. In addition to publication, each winner receives a $100 honorarium and promotional opportunities via AWP’s website and social media platforms. View past winners.