Submitting to Boudin
2025 Boudin Flash Fiction Contest details below, as well as on Submittable.
Black History Month (Guest Editor Meilyn Woods)
In celebration of Black History Month, Boudin is looking for fiction, poetry, CNF, and hybrid work from historically underrepresented writers. We are open to all writing but are particularly interested in the idea of surveillance. What systems exist that make us feel like we are being watched, examined, and perceived? How do those eyes affect the way we view ourselves?
Deadline February 15th, 2025. No fee! Aim to keep the fiction/CNF under 5,000 or so words. You may submit up to three poems/microfictions (under 500 words).
Boudin’s Second Annual Pet Writing Contest (Guest judges Lucinda Kempe and Mark Williams)
Thank you for your interest in Boudin‘s Second Annual Pet Writing contest! $7 entry fee; all proceeds will donated to Do Good Dogs and Hobo Hotel for Cats rescues in Lake Charles, LA.
The winner will receive a $50 prize. The winner and one of the runner-ups will be offered the opportunity to serve as final guest judges for our third annual contest in 2026.
Boudin is looking for your best fiction, CNF, poetry, and hybrid work about pets. Our staff will read and decide upon the final ten, which will then be read blind by Lucinda Kempe and Mark Williams (2024’s runner-up and winner).
Deadline March 7th, 2025. Aim to keep the fiction/CNF under 5,000 or so words. You may submit up to three poems/microfictions (under 500 words each) on one document. You may submit as many times as you like but must pay the entry fee for each submission.
2025 Boudin Flash Fiction Chapbook Contest
Final judge: Roxane Gay
Deadline: April 15th, 2025
Prizes: The winner will receive $1,000, 25 author copies, an author-signing at AWP 2026, inclusion of one or more pieces in The McNeese Review’s 2026 issue, promotion in monthly issues of Boudin (“the spicy online cousin of The McNeese Review”), and a three-year subscription to The McNeese Review. The winning manuscript will be published as a special issue of The McNeese Review and distributed by TRP: The University Press of SHSU.
Two runners-up will be offered publication of individual pieces in a monthly issue of Boudin, and will receive a three-year subscription to The McNeese Review.
Fee: $15
Manuscript details: 25-40 manuscript pages of flash fiction (no more than one piece per page) in a readable font like 12-point Times New Roman. It’s fine if some of the individual works have been published elsewhere (aside from Boudin or The McNeese Review), but the manuscript can’t have been published as a whole. Please acknowledge these publications in your cover letter, but not in your manuscript. Include only a title page and a table of contents.
Your name and contact info should NOT appear anywhere on the manuscript. Please include a cover letter and third-person bio on the Submittable submission form, and acknowledge any individual pieces of the chapbook that have been published elsewhere.
Judging: The first round will be read anonymously by McNeese State University’s MFA students and faculty. The final round will be read anonymously by Roxane Gay, who will determine the winner and two runners-up.
Roxane Gay is an American writer, professor, editor, and social commentator. Gay is the author of The New York Times best-selling essay collection Bad Feminist (2014), as well as the short story collection Ayiti (2011), the novel An Untamed State (2014), the short story collection Difficult Women (2017), and the memoir Hunger (2017).
Other: Co-authored manuscripts are fine. Submitting multiple manuscripts is fine with entry fees for each. Simultaneous submissions are fine; please withdraw immediately through Submittable if your work is accepted elsewhere. Please note that the AWP author signing will take place at the Boudin/McNeese Review booth, and does not include travel expenses.
Boudin fine print
Please only submit original work. If your work borrows from or quotes another writer, please make explicit mention of this with your submission, giving full attribution to any material you’re using from another source.
Please limit your submissions to four issues per calendar year.
In all genres, we are particularly interested in seeing work from women, people of color, LGBTQ writers, non-binary writers, people with disabilities, and other underrepresented groups.
No material published in Boudin may be reprinted or reproduced, in whole or in part, without the permission of the authors. Writers retain all rights to their work. We ask for ourselves only that Boudin be credited with first publication. Unfortunately, we are not a paying market; contributors to Boudin will receive our thanks and the promise that we’ll promote your work.
We encourage you to simultaneously submit your work while it’s under consideration at Boudin. If your submission is accepted by another publication, please email boudin@mcneese.edu to withdraw your work.
We look forward to seeing your work! Surprise us. Spice it up!
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To learn more about applying to McNeese State University’s Creative Writing MFA program, please visit Submissions for details.