FC2 (Fiction Collective Two) has long operated as a vital counterforce in American letters, championing formally adventurous, intellectually restless fiction that commercial houses often deem unclassifiable. The Catherine Doctorow Innovative Fiction Prize extends that mandate, honoring a writer whose body of work already demonstrates sustained commitment to the art of fiction while opening a new chapter. The award is open to writers of, from, or in the United States writing in English who have published at least three books. Submissions may take the form of a novel, one or more novellas, or a short story collection; there is no length requirement. Translations and previously published or self-published works are ineligible, though individual pieces that first appeared in magazines or anthologies may be gathered into a collection, provided the collection as a whole remains unpublished. The prize carries no entry fee, a deliberate gesture toward accessibility in a submissions landscape increasingly stratified by cost. FC2's stated commitment to recruiting "new and diverse makers of the images of tomorrow" is not boilerplate; it reflects the press's historical role in publishing writers—particularly women, LGBTQ+ writers, writers of color, non-binary writers, and disabled or neurodivergent writers—whose work challenges the brutal conventions of the present. The final judge's identity and the specific prize amount are not disclosed in the provided materials, and applicants should consult FC2's official guidelines for those details. What distinguishes this opportunity is its insistence on a certain threshold of career: three published books signal a writer who has already navigated the demands of publication and is now poised to place a formally ambitious manuscript with a press that will not dilute its risk. The prize is not a debut platform but a mid-career provocation, asking writers to bring their most innovative unpublished work to a collective that has spent decades overwriting the insufficient now.