The International Gothic Association is pleased to invite submissions to our biennial Early Career Essay Prize.

The competition is open to postgraduate students or postdoctoral scholars who are currently in good standing as IGA members. A postgraduate may be a current or recent Master’s student (within two years of graduation) or a PhD candidate; a postdoctoral scholar is defined as someone who holds a PhD (within five years of qualification) but does not hold a permanent academic post – this includes independent scholars.

Entries must offer an original contribution to the field of Gothic Studies and not be under consideration for publication elsewhere.

The winning essay will be published in Gothic Studies (with revisions guided by the editors, as appropriate), the official journal of the International Gothic Association published by Edinburgh University Press. Its author will receive £50 from the International Gothic Association, and a year’s paid subscription to Gothic Studies. The publication issue for the winning article will be 30/1 (March 2028).

Essays should be formatted as a .doc or a .docx. and be between 5000 and 7000 words in length, inclusive of footnotes and bibliography, and should adhere to the Gothic Studies style guide (Chicago 18).

The guide is available for download here: https://www.euppublishing.com/page/gothic/submissions

To enter, email the following to gothiceditors@gmail.com

Email Subject should be “IGA Early Career Essay Prize”

Attach a copy of your essay (as a .doc or .docx). This should be anonymised for blind review.

In the body of the email you should list the following details:

· your name and the title of your essay;

· a current email address;

· your present and past academic affiliations (university or similar);

· if you are a current postgraduate, the name of the qualification for which you are studying and the expected date of completion;

· for postdoctoral / independent entrants, the title of your submitted PhD and the date of your submission;

· a statement confirming the essay is your own original work, completed in the course of your study for the listed qualification.

The closing date for receipt of entries is 5pm (GMT) on 12th March 2027. Late entries will not be considered. Entries will be judged by a panel drawn from the journal editors / editorial board / IGA exec. The judges are not able to provide individual feedback on the essays. Please direct any queries to gothiceditors@gmail.com

Entrants will be informed of the outcome by June 2027.