The Common Review, the magazine of the Great Books Foundation, is holding its first annual Short Story Prize! Awards are $400 for first place, $200 for second, and $150 for third.

Manuscript envelopes may be postmarked no later than January 31, 2010. All manuscripts must be mailed to The Common Review Short Story Prize, The Great Books Foundation, 35 E. Wacker Dr., Suite 400, Chicago IL 60601. Electronic submissions will not be considered. No reading fee. SASEs are optional. Manuscripts can be between 500 and 5,000 words.

All prize winners, plus two Honorable Mentions, will receive a free copy of The Great Books Foundation Short Story Omnibus and a one-year subscription to The Common Review. The first prize winner will be published in the magazine during 2010. Contest judges for the finalists in the competition are novelist Achy Obejas, former Poetry magazine editor Joe Parisi, and Chicago journalist Danny Postel. All three serve on the editorial advisory board of The Common Review.

Check out the latest issue of The Common Review. Some highlights:

• Does philosophy need a trash can?
• Suicide bombers and the liberal imagination after the death of God
• Redefining revolution in a post-1989 world
• The legacy of John Updike

Also includes reviews of:

• Flannery: A Life, by Brad Gooch
• Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding, by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
• The American Future: A History, by Simon Schama
• Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love, by Sheila Rowbotham

Plus new poetry by Jean Gallagher and Kathleen Kirk, along with artwork by Lisa Haney, Onsmith Jeremi, and Genevieve Simms.