Miami University Press Sets Novella Prize

by Edward Nawotka, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 8/14/2006

When exactly does a short story become a novella?

According to the Miami University Press in Oxford, Ohio, it's any piece of fiction that is "short enough to be read at a single sustained sitting" and between 18,000 and 40,000 words. The press, in an effort to promote a writing form that it says "falls between the cracks of short story collections and novels and wind up being published--if at all--not as individual volumes but as part of a collection of stories," has established an annual $1,000 prize just for novellas.

The first winner is "The Waiting Room" by Albert Sgambati, which describes the relationship between a male street performer, who cruises bars in disguise, and a manipulative, street-wise teenage girl. Miami University Press will publish it this September.

Submissions for the second prize are being accepted now and must be postmarked by October 15. More information is online at http://www.orgs.muohio.edu/mupress/novella.html