Submissions are currently open for two essay prizes: the Notting Hill Editions Essay Prize and the Southampton Review’s Roger Rosenblatt Comic Essay Prize. The deadline for both prizes is May 1.
The Notting Hill Editions Essay Prize is given biennially for an unpublished or published essay. The winner will receive £20,000 (approximately $30,370), and five finalists will each receive £1,000 (approximately $1,518). The winning essays will be published in an anthology to be published in October 2015. The winners and finalists are required to attend the award ceremony at Kings Place in London on October 3, 2015. Travel expenses are not covered.
Using the online submission system, submit an essay between 2,000 to 8,000 words with a £20 (approximately $30) entry fee by May 1. Essays published in a print or online journal between January 1, 2014, and April 30, 2015, are eligible; essays published in a book are ineligible. Visit the website for complete guidelines. Eileen Battersby, Michael Ignatieff, Phillip Lopate, Adam Mars-Jones, and Raymond Tallis will judge. Watch a video of judges Ignatieff, Lopate, and Mars-Jones discussing the art of the essay at the 2015 Jewish Book Week in London.
Judge Michael Ignatieff won the inaugural prize in 2013 for his essay “Raphael Lemkin and Genocide.” The runners-up were J. T. Barbarese, Belle Boggs, Leslie Jamison, Andrew O’Hagan, and Sameer Rahim. Notting Hill Editions established the prize in honor of the English essayist William Hazlitt (1778–1830). Devon, England–based Notting Hill Editions exclusively publishes essays, and is committed to “the vital role essays have had in our literary, artistic, philosophical, and political cultures.”
The Roger Rosenblatt Comic Essay Prize, 
launched this year by the Southampton Review, will be given annually for a humorous essay. The winner will receive $1,000 and publication in the Summer 2015 issue of the Southampton Review. Patricia Marx, a former writer for the New Yorker and for Saturday Night Live, will judge.
Using the online submission system, submit an essay of up to 5,000 words with a $15 entry fee by May 1. On the journal’s website the editors write, “We won’t even try to tell you what we’re looking for. The comic impulse resists definition, and we like it that way. But if your comic muse has led you to an essay that you consider a match, throw caution to the wind and send it to us.” All entries will be considered for publication. The winner will be announced by June 15. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Published twice yearly by Stony Brook Southampton, the Southampton Review publishes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.