The Jesmyn Ward Prize is an annual award established by Michigan Quarterly Review in honor of Helen Zell Writers’ Program alumna Jesmyn Ward, recognizing her contributions to the literary arts. The prize is conferred upon a single short story submitted for consideration, positioning it within a journal with a long-standing commitment to serious literary fiction. The award is administered by MQR, a publication affiliated with the University of Michigan and its Helen Zell Writers’ Program, lending the prize an institutional grounding in both academic and literary communities. Entrants are asked to submit one unpublished short story between 1,500 and 7,000 words. Simultaneous submissions are permitted, provided the writer withdraws the story promptly upon acceptance elsewhere. The submission process is blind: names and contact information must not appear in the uploaded document, its title, or its file name. Each submission includes a one-year digital subscription to MQR, beginning with the Winter 2026 issue, ensuring that all entrants receive four issues of the journal regardless of the contest outcome. The evaluation unfolds in two rounds. First readers are graduate students from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program who currently review submissions for the journal. Ten finalists are then passed to a subsequent round of consideration. This structure places the initial screening in the hands of emerging writers and scholars, while the final selection benefits from a second, more advanced stage of review. The prize thus serves as both a contest and a point of entry into MQR’s broader editorial ecosystem.