OPENING DATE for Submissions of works published in 2025 is November 1, 2025.
CLOSING DATE: Submissions will close January 31, 2026
The Sunburst Award Administrative Committee reserves the right to make the final determination of a work’s eligibility.
• The work must be literature of the fantastic, which includes fabulist,fantasy, magic realist, science fiction, speculative, supernatural horror, and surrealist works.
• The work must be a novel or a novel-length short story collection aimed at adult audiences of at least 40,000 words. The work must be substantially text-based and have been published in physical book format with an ISBN. Graphic novels are eligible if they meet the word count criteria. Young adult books are eligible ONLY if they are also suitable for adults. Ghostwritten books are not eligible for submission. AI-generated works (in part or in whole) are not eligible.
• The author must be Canadian—that is, a Canadian citizen (native or naturalized resident in Canada, or residing outside Canada) or a permanent Canadian resident.
• Translations into English are considered on an equal footing with works written originally in English. Only the first translation of a work is eligible.
• Submissions must be in DRM-free ePub format and uploaded to the Sunburst Submissions portal.
• To be eligible works must have been published in the previous calendar year; i.e. between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2025.
• The Sunburst Award Administrative Committee reserves the right to make the final determination of a work’s eligibility.
• Submission fee payments of $35 can be paid via PayPal (see below) , or by cheque payable to The Sunburst Award Society at the address below, or via e-transfer to secretary(at)sunburstaward.org . Please do not try to send a PayPal payment to our email address. Only the payment information box below will work.