Japanese Heritage Contest 2026

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日本語訳

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In celebration of Asian & Pacific Heritage Month, Polyphony Lit is hosting a special contest for submitters with Japanese background. The theme for the contest is Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself: Channeling Empowerment Through Japanese Culture. For more details on the prize, see below!

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In his 1994 Nobel Prize acceptance speech “Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself,” Oe Kenzaburo discusses the ambiguities, margins, and intersections that constituted the Japanese identity during the turbulent decade. “What kind of identity as a Japanese should I seek?” he asks in his speech. “As one with a peripheral, marginal, and off-center existence in the world, I would like to seek how—with what I hope is a modest, decent, and humanist contribution—I can be of some use in a cure and reconciliation of mankind.” This disillusionment with Japanese society in the 1990s, as well as a strong emphasis on democracy and stronger diplomatic relations throughout Asia, make their way into his work—a reflection of the blur between his identity as a Japanese writer and his vision of what could be possible.

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For API Month 2026, we’re holding this bonus contest to ask you about your own ambiguities. What intersections between your identity and the world around you remain vague? What questions about your heritage remain unanswered? How does your cultural background reconcile tensions and challenges you encounter? Polyphony Lit wants to see you write about culture as empowerment, change, and growth. Explore the undefined and show us what you discover. As you write, we encourage you to explore not only your cultural background but your style of writing, as well: you may take inspiration from Oe with “grotesque realism” prose, or Haruki Murakami’s surrealist style, or Kimiko Hahn’s evocative verse. There are no limits to the creative expression we seek from you.

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We will accept pieces written in English and Japanese. If your piece is written primarily in one of these languages, but also features brief words or phrases written in another language, then we will certainly consider multilingual pieces like this, but please keep in mind that our contest readers will only be able to provide English translations for Japanese. For multilingual words and phrases, you are welcome to provide English translations of your own as footnotes or as part of the context in the piece.

 

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Contest Guidelines​

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• Submissions will open on May 1st and will remain open until May 31st or until we reach our submission cap of 200 submissions.

• Please note that this is a separate submission category from Polyphony Lit Volume 22.​ Submissions to Polyphony Lit Volume 22 will receive feedback from the editors, but for the seasonal contests, only the winning submissions will receive feedback from the judge.

• If you have already submitted your work to the Volume 22 category, then please do not send the same submission to the contest category.

• If you submit to the contest category first and your work is declined, then you may submit it to the Volume 22 category after the contest is finished.

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Writer Qualifications​​

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• High school students aged 14-18 who identify as Japanese, Japanese American, or of Japanese heritage are eligible to submit. If you do not fall under these demographics, but are still interested in submitting to Polyphony Lit, then head over to our Volume 22 Prose and Poetry submissions category!

• We do not accept submissions from any editors who currently serve on the staff of Polyphony Lit.

• Works may be written in English or Japanese. If your piece is written primarily in one of these languages, but also features brief words or phrases written in another language, then we will certainly consider multilingual pieces like this, but please keep in mind that our contest readers will only be able to provide English translations for Japanese. For multilingual words and phrases, you are welcome to provide English translations of your own as footnotes or as part of the context in the piece.

• Submit a maximum of three pieces.

• If submitting multiple pieces, please upload as separate submissions. Multiple pieces submitted in a single document will be withdrawn, and you will be asked to resubmit your pieces separately.

• We accept simultaneous submissions and work that has been published elsewhere. If submitting previously published work, please send a message in Submittable noting where and when your work has been published, and if it is eligible for republication. If it is accepted for publication elsewhere after submitting to Polyphony Lit, please notify us immediately but do not withdraw your submission if you are still interested in publication at Polyphony Lit. If we accept a previously published submission for publication, we will acknowledge the place of the original publication.

• Previously published pieces are not eligible for the Claudia Ann Seaman Awards

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Length

• Poetry must be 80 lines or less.

• Fiction and creative nonfiction must be 1,800 words or less.

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Formatting

• Do not put your name on the piece, as all work is blind juried.

• Submissions longer than one page should have the page number inserted at the top (right or left side) of every page, as it would help our Judge specify the location for their commentary.

• We accept submission in .doc, .docx or .rtf formats.

• We prefer common conventions:

  • Color: Black & white

  • Font Size: 12 pt throughout, including titles

  • Font Type: Times or Times New Roman

  • Margins: 1-inch at the top and bottom, and 1.25 inch at the left and right. One space after periods. There should be no extra returns after paragraphs unless you have a meaningful reason for the extra space.

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Using Submittable

• Please upload submissions through Submittable. We do not accept email submissions or hard copies via mail.

• Upload only one piece per submission file; to submit more than one piece, make more than one submission file.

• Submissions for this contest are free.

• There is a submission cap of 200 submissions, so we may close submissions for the contest before the deadline if we receive 200 submissions. We recommend submitting early, to ensure that you do not miss the deadline.

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Prize

 

There will be one winner and two finalists. The winners/finalists will receive:

• Publication in Polyphony Lit Volume 22

• Eligibility for the Claudia Ann Seaman Awards

• Editorial feedback from the Contest Judge

• A full scholarship for Polyphony Lit’s "How to be a Literary Editor" course. Upon completion of the course, students will be eligible to join the editorial staff of Polyphony Lit!

Please note that only the three winners will receive feedback from the judge.

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Additional Guidelines for Creative Nonfiction​

• At Polyphony Lit, we look for creative nonfiction pieces that are written in the style of short personal memoirs. We are looking for pieces that are informal, flexible in form, and most importantly, personal. Personal discovery is the keystone of a personal essay. Self-revelation, human experiences, humor, and flexibility of form are all aspects that we look for in pieces we publish as creative non-fiction.

• We do not look for op-ed pieces, critical analyses, research papers, or academic essays.

• We would advise reading some samples of our work, in order to understand the material that we publish. Here are some samples of creative nonfiction that we have published:

• Memories of the Boy I Didn't Know

• responses to love

• Holiday in a Burning City