Contests & Awards

Baen Fantasy Adventure Award

Baen Books is excited to announce the eleventh annual Baen Fantasy Adventure Award. The award recognizes the best original adventure fantasy short story in the style of fantasy greats like Mercedes Lackey, Larry Correia, Jim Butcher, Charlaine Harris, Elizabeth Moon, Andre Norton, Brandon Sanderson, J.R.R. Tolkien, and David Weber.

AA Nour accepts her award2023 Baen Fantasy Adventure Award Winners

Grand PrizeThe Hitchhiker on Souls' Road” by AA Nour

Second Place “Fall From Grace” by Melissa Olthoff

Third Place (tie) “The Knight, The Witch, And The Farmboy” by C. H. Hung
“Once Given A Name” by Shami Stovall







Contest Rules

Write and submit a short story of no more than 8,000 words. It must be a work of fantasy, though all fantasy genres are open, e.g. epic fantasy, heroic fantasy, sword and sorcery, contemporary fantasy, etc.

No entry fee. But only one submission per person...we suggest your best one!

No reprints (i.e. the story must be unpublished).

All entries must be original unpublished works in English. Plagiarism, poetry, song lyrics, settings and/or characters from published gaming worlds or another author’s works of fiction will not be considered. Any AI-generated stories will be automatically disqualified.

E-mail submissions only. Send entries as .RTF attachments to:
baenfantasyaward@baen.com

Please put BFAA SUBMISSION in the subject line when sending a contest entry and BFAA QUESTION in the subject line for questions to the contest administrator.

Please include the following in the body of your email:

  • the title of the work
  • the author's name, address, and telephone number
  • an approximate word-count

The manuscript should be a RTF attachment, in standard manuscript format, and should be titled and numbered on every page, but the author's name MUST BE DELETED to facilitate fair judging. Click here for our standard manuscript format guidelines.

Employees of Baen Books and Staff of Dragon Con are not eligible.

Previous Grand Prize winners are not eligible (previous second and third place winners are eligible).

Contest opens for submissions on January 15th, 2024 at 12:01am EST. (Entries sent before that date will be deleted unread.)

Contest closes for submissions April 30th, 2024 at 11:59pm EDT.

What We Want to See

Adventure fantasy with heroes you want to root for. Warriors either modern or medieval, who solve problems with their wits or with their weapons—and we have nothing against dragons, elves, dwarves, castles under siege, urban fantasy, damsels in distress, or damsels who inflict distress.

What We Don’t Want to See

Political drama with no action, angst-ridden teens pining over vampire lovers, religious allegory, novel segments, your gaming adventure transcript, anything set in any universe not your own, "it was all a dream" endings, or screenplays.

Judges

Entries will be judged by Baen editorial staff.

Prizes

The GRAND PRIZE winner will be published as the featured story on the Baen Books main website and paid at industry-standard rates for professional story submittals. The author will also receive a handsome engraved award and a prize package containing $500 of free Baen Books.

SECOND place winner will receive a prize package containing $500 of free Baen Books.

THIRD place winner will receive a prize package containing $300 of free Baen Books.

Finalists will be announced no later than July 1st, 2024

Winners will be notified no later than July 21st, 2024. (Only the winners will be notified.)

The winners will be officially announced during the Baen Traveling Roadshow at Dragon Con, in Atlanta, Georgia. (We would prefer the winners attend the convention, but it is not required.)

Submission Checklist

All identifying information (author's name, address, email) has been removed from the manuscript and manuscript file name.

Manuscript is an .RTF file and in standard manuscript format with title and page number on every page. Guidelines for manuscript formatting can be found here.

Author’s name, address, email, and phone number are included in the body of the email.

Please note all times for submission deadlines are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)!

Previous Winners

2022 Winners

GRAND PRIZE

On Cultivating a Chosen One
by Christopher Baxter

SECOND PLACE

“Red Lanterns”
by Marshall J. Moore

THIRD PLACE

“Exchanged”
by Brittany Rainsdon

2021 Winners

GRAND PRIZE

"Echoes of Meridian"
by M. Elizabeth Ticknor

SECOND PLACE

"Absinthe & the Alchemist"
by Stephanie Kraner

THIRD PLACE

"The Codes of Binding"
by C. Jonah Abbott

2020 Winners

GRAND PRIZE

"Humanslayer"
by G. Scott Huggins

SECOND PLACE

"The Chilling Account of The Wolf-Bann of Krallenburg"
by J. E. Tabor

THIRD PLACE

"Seidh"
by Morgan Welch

2019 Winners

GRAND PRIZE

"Treason Properly"
by J. J. Cragun

SECOND PLACE

"In the House of Rain and Gale"
by Joelle Douthit

THIRD PLACE

"In the City of Dreadful Joy"
by Misha Burnett

2018 Winners

GRAND PRIZE

"Dragon’s Hand"
by David VonAllmen

SECOND PLACE

"Deny the World with a Thought"
by Benjamin Scott Farthing

THIRD PLACE

"The Lady of Pain"
by Steve DuBois

2017 Winners

GRAND PRIZE

"The Blue Widow"
by J.P. Sullivan

SECOND PLACE

"Dust of the Fallen"
by Barbara Doran

THIRD PLACE

"And Not Go Hungry"
by Laurie Tom

2016 Winners

GRAND PRIZE

"The Lavender Paladin"
by Shawn Snider

SECOND PLACE

"Gunfight at the Thornmount Colossus"
by Anthony Lowe

THIRD PLACE

"Watching the Door"
by Joel and F. I. Goldhaber

2015 Winners

GRAND PRIZE

"Kiss From a Queen"
by Jeff Provine

FIRST RUNNERUP

"Trappists"
by Katherine Monasterio

SECOND RUNNERUP

"Shell Game"
by Joseph L. Kellogg

HONORABLE MENTION

"Burning Savanna" by Alexander Monteagudo and "Adroit" by Dave Williams

2014 Winners

GRAND PRIZE

"The Golden Knight"
by K. D. Julicher

FIRST RUNNERUP

"Phoenix for the Amateur Chef"
by Scott Huggins

SECOND RUNNERUP

"The Girl with No Name"
by Travis Heermann

( * Note: Publication details will be worked out between winner and Baen Books. In the unlikely event that none of the stories qualify for professional publication, a cash prize, of an amount equal to the amount it would have earned had it been published, may be substituted in lieu of publication.)