ELIGIBILITY RULES
- Entrants must be current members of WritersNL with a completed, unpublished manuscript in any genre. Writers may join WritersNL at the time of submission.
- Entrants must have lived in Newfoundland and Labrador for the 12 months immediately prior to the call for submissions OR must have lived in Newfoundland and Labrador in any combination of 36 of the last 60 months
- Writers are permitted to submit only one entry per year, in any genre
- Manuscripts must be single-authored
- Manuscripts must be in English
- Manuscripts that contain other media in addition to writing (e.g., photos, CDs, graphics, illustrations) are eligible — however, the award will be given only to the author of the manuscript’s text and only for the writing
- Collected or selected works (e.g., poems, short stories) by a single author are eligible provided at least 50% of the text is previously unpublished material
- Manuscripts containing material not written by the author (e.g., letters, diaries, memoirs, blogs, oral histories, selected writings) are eligible provided at least 50% of the text is written by the author (e.g., introduction, exposition, commentary, reporting, narrative, footnotes, epilogue)
The following are not eligible for the Fresh Fish Award:
- Anthologies with more than one author
- Manuscripts from deceased writers
- Audiobooks
- Textbooks
- Self-help or how-to books
- Manuals or guidebooks on any subject (e.g., travel, nature, cookbook)
- Dictionaries, encyclopedias, reference volumes
- Manuscripts that use AI or LLMs in any capacity
- Entries from writers with a published book in any genre on any platform or in any media, or a book accepted for publication at the time of submission
The Fresh Fish Award will accept manuscripts that have been submitted once before. Entry forms for resubmitted manuscripts must identify the manuscript as such and must indicate the year it was first entered. Manuscripts submitted more than twice will not be accepted.
ASSESSMENT PROCESS
Assessment of all eligible submissions to the Fresh Fish Award will be adjudicated by an independent jury recruited and facilitated by WritersNL.
The independent jury will submit a shortlist of three books and a winning book from that shortlist.
The paramount consideration is excellence in writing. Jurors should reflect on creativity, writing skill and level, and originality.
A juror must disclose any conflict of interest. WritersNL defines conflict of interest in terms of whether a juror stands to gain any financial benefit through association with a submitted manuscript, or if the juror stands to gain from any moral or intellectual rights, or if the juror has a significant personal or editorial relationship with the author or submitted manuscript. If there is a conflict of interest the juror will be asked to step aside.
The decisions made by the Fresh Fish Award jury are final.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
- Each manuscript must be typed in 12 point font and double-spaced (poetry manuscripts do not have to comply with the double-space requirement)
- Handwritten manuscripts will NOT be accepted
- Submissions should be sent as either a PDF or a Microsoft Word document
- Pages must be numbered and the title should appear on every page
- All Fresh Fish submissions must be anonymous — your name must not appear anywhere in your submission
Entries that do not adhere to these guidelines will be disqualified.
Submission deadline: April 1, 2026 at 5 p.m. NST
Send your submissions to info@writersnl.ca
2026 Fresh Fish Timeline
• Fresh Fish Call for Submissions Announced – February 20, 2026
• Deadline for Fresh Fish Submissions – April 1, 2026
• Longlist Announcement – June 1, 2026
• Shortlist Announcement – June 5, 2026
• Shortlist Readings and Winner Announcement – June 11, 2026