Spiritual Nonfiction Competition: Ruminate

Editor's Note: After many requests from the Ruminate community, we are excited to announce our new Spiritual Nonfiction Prize. What we mean by "spiritual nonfiction" is, as author Phillip Zaleski put it, "prose that deals with the bedrock of human existence--why we are here, where we are going and how we can comport ourselves with dignity along the way." We welcome submissions that engage all world religions and all forms of expression of spirituality, faith, and doubt. We look forward to reading your work!

Enter this contest here.

We strongly recommend ordering a past copy of Ruminate to better understand the type of work we are looking for. You can order a nonfiction bundle of print issues featuring our nonfiction prize winners from past years. PDF versions of the magazine are available for $5 each. Issue 35, Issue 32, Issue 28, and Issue 24 all feature our nonfiction prize winners from past years.

Guidelines:
--The submission deadline for the prize is midnight October 15th, 2015.
--The entry fee is $15 (includes a free copy of Ruminate, which will include the winning piece).
--You may submit one nonfiction piece per entry and it must be 5500 words or less. There is no limit on the number of entries per person.
--$500 and publication in the magazine will be awarded to the winner.
--An anonymous reading of all entries will be conducted by a panel of Ruminate readers, who will select 10 nonfiction finalists. Those 10 finalists will then be read for our final judge, who will select a winner.

--Close friends and students (current & former) of the final judge are not eligible to compete, nor are close friends of the Ruminate staff or Ruminate blog contributors.
--All submissions must be submitted via our online submission form manager. We will not accept mail or email submissions. We do not accept previously published entries.
--All submissions must be previously unpublished.
--You may enter simultaneously submitted work, however, please withdraw your work via submittable immediately if it is accepted elsewhere.
--You may submit any type of spiritual nonfiction--personal essay, short memoir, literary journalism, etc.
--The winning piece will be published in the Summer Issue 2016.
--We will be notifying all entrants of submission status in late November 2016.
--Please remove your name, bio, and any contact info from the file that you submit.