We are excited to announce the second annual The Bird in Your Hands Prize: a contest that centers and celebrates BIPOC voices. This is a no-fee contest accepting poetry, fiction, and nonfiction in any form under 500 words. The winner of the contest will be awarded $1000, published in Thin Air Magazine, and interviewed for Thin Air Online. The winner will also be invited to read the winning entry, all expenses paid for, at the Northern Arizona Book Festival held in April 2022. First and second runners up will also be awarded an honorarium. The deadline for submission is 11:59pm (MST) on Tuesday, December 1.

This contest is open to new, upcoming, and established BIPOC writers alike. Simultaneous submissions are allowed, and we carry no expectations for the content or tone of submissions. All submitted works must be previously unpublished.

The judge for this year’s contest is Raquel Gutiérrez. Gutiérrez is an arts critic/writer, poet and educator. Born and raised in Los Angeles Gutierrez credits the DIY queer and feminist post-punk ‘zine culture of the 1990s plus County and Getty paid arts internships with introducing her/them to the various vibrant art & music scenes and communities throughout Southern California. Gutierrez is a 2021 recipient of the Rabkin Prize in Arts Journalism, as well as a 2017 recipient of the Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. Her/Their writing has recently appeared in or is forthcoming in Art In America, NPR Music, Places Journal, and The Georgia Review. Gutierrez is Visiting Faculty in the English department at the University of California, Riverside and is Program Faculty for Oregon State University-Cascades Low Residency Creative Writing MFA Program. Her/Their first book of prose, Brown Neon, is an ekphrastic memoir that considers what it means to be a Latinx artist during the Trump era and will be published by Coffee House Press, June, 2022. Gutierrez currently resides in Tucson, Arizona.

Formatting Specifications:

Please use Times New Roman, 12pt., double-spaced, 1 inch margins for all submissions except poetry, which should remain single-spaced.

Please include page numbers and a word count at the top of your manuscript.

Please do not put your name in your manuscript.

If unique formatting is critical to the submission, you may upload it as is (but please note that we may have to collaborate to translate your formatting onto the physical restraints of our pages).

Click here to submit: Submittable.