The Leopold Bloom Prize for Innovative Narration

L'Esprit Literary Review 

Judged by Michael Nath  

L'Esprit seeks short fiction exhibiting exceptional ingenuity and vision in narration. $500 and publication in the journal awarded to the winner. All entries include a digital edition of our next full issue.

In a short story or novel excerpt of up to 5,000 words, we are searching for risk-adept narration that challenges the conventions of prose and composition. All excerpts must stand on their own. Both first- and third-person work will be considered. Pieces with emotional depth and urgency that take sophisticated narrative risks in terms of both sentence and story will be in the strongest contention. We are drawn above all to voice and style. Surprise us. We look for fiction that accelerates form irrevocably into content.

In the first round of judging, the L'Esprit team will assemble a shortlist--and potentially a longlist--based on technical-mechanical skill, acuity in blending verisimilar narrative elements with robust narrational architecture, and prosody. Longlist announcements will be made on a rolling basis.

At the close of submissions, the L'Esprit Editors will select from the longlist a group of finalists to be sent to the Guest Judge. Shortlist, Finalists, and any Honorable Mentions will be announced permanently on the journal website. All entries will be considered for paid publication in the journal. Our most recent contest received 238 total submissions.

$500 and publication to the Grand Prize winner; $150 and publication to Second Place; $50 and publication to three (3) Finalists. Shortlist, Finalists, and any Honorable Mentions will be announced permanently on the journal website. See the previous results–and read all five Finalist stories in the 2025 Prize–here.

The Grand Prize Winner and Second Place Award will be selected, via blind read, from this pool of finalists by Guest Judge Michael Nath; see more on Michael's background and interests below.

We have two options for entrance. A $10 fee includes a complimentary digital copy of L’Esprit Issue Seven, featuring writing from Kathleen Rooney, Christopher Linforth, Art O’Connor, Kat Meads, Robert Cunningham, and more. Issue Seven also features the Grand Prize Winner, Second Place Award, and Finalists from the 2025 Clarissa Dalloway Prize for Short Prose. This high-resolution version is optimized for reading on tablets and other devices, allowing the issue to be experienced as designed, immersive and rich.

A $15 fee includes the digital copy of I7 plus an Expedited Response; we will prioritize your submission and reply with a decision about the longlist phase within three days. This option may be ideal for those who are planning to submit their piece elsewhere and would especially benefit from a quick response. If the fee presents a genuine difficulty, please email us about a waiver.
 

We accept simultaneous submissions; please let us know right away if a piece has been offered elsewhere. Likewise, multiple submissions are welcome, with an individual submission and payment for each piece.
 

All proceeds directly help support the journal and pay writers; contests are vital to help us offset costs such as promoting our contributors at AWP, hosting live and virtual reading events, and paying for print copies for each issue. These expenses are never fully covered by contest proceeds--our editors pay for much of the journal's operating costs out of pocket--but are a significant help.

L'Esprit does not discriminate based on the background, education, or identity of those who send work to us. All work is evaluated solely on merit, without regard for any other consideration whatsoever. We encourage those of all backgrounds and experiences to send in their work, and look for writing exploring the range of the human condition.  

Please include the following with each submission:  

• A third-person bio, to be used as the contributor’s note should your work be accepted.
• Social media handles (Twitter and Instagram), if you’d like to be promoted online.
• An optional cover letter to introduce the work, yourself, provide some context to your submission, or mention how it celebrates narration; please note that this in no way impacts the likelihood of publication.
• Finally, we would appreciate knowing how you found the journal (social, ad listing, database search, reference, etc).  

See our complete guidelines on our website.  

Thank you for your support of fearless writing.

Michael Nath is a British author and academic. His first novel, La Rochelle (Route, 2010), was shortlisted for the James Tait Prize (2011). His second British Story (Route, 2014) was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His third novel, The Treatment, was published by Quercus (Riverrun) in 2020. Michael's fiction and articles have also appeared in Stand, New Welsh Review, Critical Quarterly, and various anthologies. Extracts from British Story were translated into Spanish (Argonauta 3, 2016). As an academic, he teaches at the University of Westminster, London, specializing in Creative Writing, Modernism, Shakespeare, and the Renaissance.

General Submissions to Issue Eight
 

Publication Date: Mid-April, 2026

L’Esprit Literary Review publishes writing that is fearless, risk-adept, and revolutionary. We accept short fiction, creative non-fiction, novel extracts, drama, literary criticism, autotheory, and book reviews. Pieces incorporating research, footnotes, and/or a works cited page are welcome.

We invite simultaneous submissions and work in translation. Please do let us know if a piece is under consideration elsewhere, and if it is accepted, it is the translator’s responsibility to secure all necessary permissions before submitting.

L'Esprit does not discriminate based on the background, education, or identity of those who send work to us. All work is evaluated solely on merit, without regard for any other consideration whatsoever. We encourage those of all backgrounds and experiences to send in their work, and look for writing exploring the range of the human condition.
 

Please include the following with each submission:
 

• A third-person bio, to be used as the contributor’s note, should your work be accepted.
• Social media handles (Bluesky and Instagram), if you’d like to be promoted online.
• An optional cover letter to introduce the work, yourself, or provide some context to your submission; please note that this in no way impacts the likelihood of publication.
• Finally, we would appreciate knowing how you found the journal (social, ad listing, database search, reference, etc), and your answer to the following: What is the most overlooked novel of all time?

All submissions will be considered for both Issue Eight--to be published in print, digital, and online formats--and upcoming Quarterly Features, which will appear online only. Accepted pieces will be placed in one of these releases, with all such decisions made at the sole discretion of the editors.
 

See our complete guidelines, including genre-specific notes and details about personalized feedback options, on our website.
 

Thank you for your support of fearless writing.

Indirect Books will source the majority of our published work from the slush pile, building relationships with talented authors and championing their work at all stages. We are open to submissions of novels, story collections, essay collections, memoirs, and hybrid projects. ​We only consider literary fiction.

See our website for more detailed guidelines. We are seeking risk-adept, language-driven writing that pushes the boundaries of form and rests comfortably beyond convention.

Substantive Guidelines

Please send us sample pages from a section of your manuscript, beginning with the opening, up to 5,000 words. To accompany your submission, please include a brief author bio, including publication history, alongside a query letter with the following information:

• Word count
• 1-2 sentence pitch
• 2-3 paragraph synopsis
• Comp titles

We respond to all submissions, and we work to do so within six weeks. If you need to edit your submission (query letter or sample pages), please use the 'request edit' feature on Submittable. Minor errors and typos will not affect the result of your query.

If we feel your submission may be a fit with our acquisition interests and production capacities, we will request a full manuscript. At that stage, we will do our best to read and reply to material within 1-2 months. We estimate a publication timeline of 1-2 books per year.

Formatting Guidelines 

• All submissions should be in Times New Roman, 12pt font, double spaced, one-inch margins.
• Please include page numbers.
• We can only consider work written in English, but welcome British, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand English in addition to American English.
• Please proofread and only send us polished, completed work.

We look forward to reading your work. Thank you for your support of fearless writing.

Indirect Books seeks a volunteer Social Media Manager to lead marketing and publicity surrounding the launch of our first title, Talbot & The Fall, in Spring 2026!

This is an excellent opportunity to be involved in a young independent press, learn and develop skills in social media management, communications, and marketing, and gain volunteer experience--all while helping to support fearless writing.

To apply, please fill out the Submittable form *or* send an email to indirectbooks@gmail.com, with a resume and a brief (1-2 paragraph) account of why you'd like to take on this position and what makes you a good fit for it. We'd also love to know a couple of your favorite books and writers!

A few more details about the position:

• The role will involve approximately 8-10 hours per week, flexibly arranged.
•  We're looking for someone who can create engaging, eye-catching posts that fit the established brand and aesthetic of Indirect Books and our sister journal, L'Esprit Literary Review.
• We're primarily active on Instagram and Bluesky. We still have a Twitter account, although we don't use it as much anymore. We also have a very new YouTube channel and a growing Substack.
• You'd be working closely with the editorial team and would be involved on the ground floor of our novel launch, helping to shape the publicity campaign and get the book in the hands of readers from all walks of life.
• Although more acutely we're gearing up for the launch of Talbot, we hope that whoever takes on this role will be with us beyond Summer 2026, and, ideally, grow with us.

Who we're looking for:

• A highly motivated, organized, and dedicated self-starter with extensive familiarity with social media platforms, first and foremost Instagram. 
• A reader and lover of books--a fan of Modernism is a plus!
• Someone who can bring a dedicated mindset and work ethic. We are all volunteers at Indirect and L'Esprit, and do what we do for the love of literature. Whoever takes on this role will be integral to our day-to-day operations and needs to treat the position with that level of seriousness.
• A passion for championing fearless writing and expanding the opportunities for writers to reach the world. Someone who wants to grow with a young, upstart, maverick press that has an abundance of exciting developments on the horizon.

A bit more about Indirect and L'Esprit:

Indirect Books is a publisher of risk-adept literature in the revolutionary spirit of High Modernism. We seek to champion fearless books that operate beyond marketplace convention, celebrating the art and craft of literature as form.

We are an entirely independent operation, run on a volunteer basis by a staff who are creative writers themselves and prioritize editorial-aesthetic vision over marketability. Our foundational raison d’être is to help bring urgent literature of the highest artistic value into being, and infuse it into the world.

While we eschew the conventions of the marketplace in building our list, we place the utmost work into promoting our projects and authors, promoting books at events such as the AWP conference and in-person readings. The network and literary community we’ve established through L’Esprit aids us in getting our books into stores and into the hands of readers and reviewers around the world.

Indirect is a sister publication of L’Esprit Literary Review. L’Esprit was founded in February 2022, the centenary month of the publication of Ulysses. The journal was thus born in celebration of the literary revolution of consciousness represented by High Modernism, and seeks to publish work in that spirit.

Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. Find out much more about the press at indirectbooks.org and the journal at lespritliteraryreview.org.

We look forward to hearing from you!

L’Esprit Literary Review accepts visual art to accompany stories in print, digital, and online. 

This form is for artwork and photography only.

Images should be high-resolution, 300+ DPI images, in black-and-white. Both landscape and portrait orientation accepted.Please see past issues (beginning with Issue One) for a sense of the type of work we seek.

Please include the following with each submission:
 

• A third-person bio, to be used as the contributor’s note should your work be accepted.
• Social media handles (Bluesky and Instagram), if you’d like to be promoted online.
• An optional cover letter to introduce the work, yourself, or provide some context to your submission; please note that this in no way impacts the likelihood of publication.
• Finally, we would appreciate knowing how you found the journal (social, ad listing, database search, reference, etc).

Thank you for your support of fearless writing.