Here is my regular look at the short story/novel competitions I might enter next month (so no poetry, for example, because I’m rubbish at it).
As always this is a purely personal selection, with no claim to be comprehensive – but it might be of interest.
I hope some of these appeal to you.
- Leicester Writes offers a prize of £150 for stories up to 3,500 words; the entrance fee is £5 and the deadline is 1 June.
- With the same deadline, Salamander magazine has a top prize of $1,000 for stories of up to 30 pages; the entry fee is $15.
- The Aurora prize from Writing East Midlands costs £9 to enter. First prize is £500 and the word count must be 2,000 or less – the deadline is 7 June.
Then we have several competitions with a deadline of 15 June.
- First, Globe Soup is offering a top prize of £1,500 for stories up to 5,000 words with the theme ‘a sense of place’. The entry fee is £12, (or £3 for members). Globe Soup runs not one but two writing communities on Facebook, both lively and supportive – worth a look.
- Segora offers £300 for a winning story of 1,500 to 3,000 words – the entry fee is £8.
- If you’ve got something larger, Autumn House is looking for manuscripts of 50,000 to 75,000 words – a slim novel, I suppose. The entry fee is $30 and the prize is $1,000.
- For older writers, Living Springs’ Baby Boomers Plus contest has a prize of $500 with an entry fee of $25; the maximum word count is 4,000 and you must have been born no later than 1966.
- New American Fiction (you don’t have to be American – they helpfully say you could even be Estonian, so long as your entry is in English) looks for works of at least 100 pages; the prize is $1,500 and the entry fee is $25.
All the rest have a deadline of 30 June.
- The Friends of Manning’s Pit have launched a Saki short story competition. It does not have to be in the style of Saki, but ‘it needs to have a spark of originality or wit’ (not my usual stuff then?) and ‘have something relevant to the countryside and its wildlife’. Maximum 3,000 words, entry fee £5 and first prize £500
- The Moth is back with its competition for stories up to 5,000 words, with an entry fee of €15 and top prize of €3,000.
- I don’t think I’m going to enter this one, but I was intrigued to see that Chiasmus wants stories of exactly 1,001 words. There’s an entry fee of £3.50 but no cash prize for the winner.
- Lady in the Loft offers £100 for the best story on the theme ‘Grim Reaper’, with a word count between 4,000 and 6,000 words; entry fee £2.
- Last but certainly not least is the regular Henshaw competition, for stories up to 2,000 words. The top prize is £200 and the entry fee is £6. You can pay extra fir a critique, and I have found these good value in the past.
Good luck, and if you get recognised in any of these, please do let me know!
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Thank you, Peter, very useful. I am gobsmacked at the competition with the £3.50 entry and no cash prize, Ethel
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Yes – isn’t that essentially the same as charging a reading fee for submissions?
How very helpful!
Thank you. Having just paid £12.00 to enter Globe Soup short story ’21, because I wasn’t a member thought I ought just add the £3.00 entry fee is ‘members only’ price. Guess I’ll just have to submit another story….
Good clarification, thanks!
Thanks so much Peter. It was thanks to you posting this list somewhere that I entered a Globe Soup mini prize and astonished myself by winning. The pocket money was lovely! It is so good of you to share generously with other writers and so many of us need every morsel or crust earned for our supper.
Well done with the mini prize! One or two writing competitions don’t seem to be getting enough entries lately (?), so the more the merrier, I think.