The Leon Forrest Prose Awards is an annual competition through which The Guild Complex honors the memory of Chicago novelist, essayist, and educator Leon Forrest (1937-1997) by acknowledging promising new work by emerging and established prose writers in fiction and non-fiction from Chicago and throughout Illinois.

The contest culminates in the annual Leon Forrest Prose Awards event, a public recognition of literary achievement at which semi-finalists in each category, selected by accomplished writers invited by The Guild to be guest judges, read their work, the winners are chosen by audience ballot, and a cash prize of $500 is awarded in each category.