Announcement: Beginning in the 2025 cycle, we are combining our Tamaqua Award for essay collections and our Panther Creek Award. The submissions will open August 15 and deadline on October 31, 2025.
Details about the consolidated Panther Creek Award:
Hidden River Arts offers an award of $1,000 and publication on Hidden River Press, an imprint of Hidden River Publishing, for an original, unpublished book-length work of non-fiction. (This includes creative non-fiction, memoir, biography -- all forms of non-fiction are welcome.) We will also consider collections of original essays, either linked or individual. Please note: Previous publication of portions of your non-fiction book-length project is acceptable, as is the publication of individual essays, as long as you include the list of the published essays or excerpts in your submission materials, the journals and magazines where they appeared, the date of the publication and authorization that all publication rights have reverted to you, as author.
Please include a synopsis of the entire book*, an outline, and the complete manuscript, IN THAT ORDER. Also include a bio and resume, and a contact sheet including name, address, email, telephone. Also, you should include certification of original work, no AI included (see below). Submissions that do not have all required materials will be discarded unread. All required materials must be included in ONE document. Submittable does not permit multiple uploads. Please note: manuscripts that have been self-published are considered published, and are not eligible.
*If you are submitting a collection of essays, please include 2-3 sentence descriptions of each essay.
NO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE can be used to create this work. You must include, with your submission materials, a statement certifying that the work is entirely original, and that no AI has been used in any way.
Reading Fee: $20.00 Submission window opens August 15, 2025 and closes October 31, 2025.
Important to note: We consider ALL forms of publication of your book as disqualification. Self-publishing is publication; if your manuscript has an isbn number, or if it is available for sale online and/or in brick and mortar stores, your book is "published".
The manuscript submissions will be accepted beginning August 15, 2025 and deadline October 31, 2025. Entry fee: $20 US. This competition is open to international submissions for all writers in English. We also accept translations to English from any language; but the author must submit the manuscript, which is to include the name of the translator and the original language. This is NOT a translation award. It is a writing award.
We accept simultaneous submissions, and ask only that you notify us immediately if your book has been accepted for publication elsewhere. We also accept multiple submissions; however, each submission must be entered separately. Please note: We accept work written ONLY by human beings. We do not accept any materials generated by any form of artificial intelligence.
All submissions must include name, address, telephone number, email, website (if you have one), a brief biography, a synopsis, outline, and full manuscript -- IN THAT ORDER. Please note that, when submitting online, all materials must be combined into ONE document before uploading.
All awards are decided by Hidden River staff, and decisions are final. We reserve the right to withhold the prize on any given year should our staff decide that no manuscripts meet the winning criteria or if the submissions receive fall below the number required by our by-laws.
The semi-finalists, finalists and winner will be announced on our blog, so please be sure to bookmark us there to keep up-to-date on our progress. Here is the blog page:
https://hiddenriverarts.wordpress.com/awards-deadlines-and-guidelines/panther-creek-book-award-in-nonfiction/