Tag: fiction

April 2025 Contests

March 25, 2025

Another look at writing competitions I might enter during the coming month (so no poetry or competitions that are not open to UK writers, for example).

  • Don’t forget the Alpine Fellowship Prize, deadline 1 April! The word count has been reduced this year, to 1,250, and the prize, at £3,000 is no longer quite as large as it once was: but this is still easily one of the best free competitions going.
  • The John Gardner Memorial Prize looks for up to 4,500 words, charges $19 and offers a prize of $500. Again the deadline is 1 April.
  • The Letter Review keeps going, offering a $600 prize for a maximum of 5,000 words: $20 to enter, by 1 April.
  • The Barry Hannah Prize from the Yalobusha Review takes up to 5,000 words, charges $3 and has a prize of $500: once again the deadline is 1 April.
  • A few more days for the Mairtín Crawford prize, with a deadline of 9 April. Up to 2,500 words, £10 to enter, £500 prize.
  • Desperate Literature is back wanting up to 2,000 words. €20 to enter and the prize is an attractive €2,000 plus a residency in Italy. Get your entry in by 13 April.
  • Fractured Lit wants ghost, fables or fairtales with a fresh approach, up to 1,000 words. $20 fee, $3,000 prize and the deadline is 13 April.
  • For the Perkoff Prize your story must relate to health or medicine, and it can be up to 8,500 words long. It costs $15 to enter and the prize is $1,000. The deadline is 15 April.
  • BOMB magazine takes up to 5,000 words for an entry fee of $30 and offers a prize of $1000. Deadline 15 April.
  • With the same deadline the New Ohio Review looks for 20 pages: $22 entry and $1,500 prize.
  • The Hemingway Shorts prize has a limit of 2,000 words, a fee of $15 and a prize of $1,000 and again the deadline is 15 April.
  • Also by 15 April, the Florida Review Editor’s Award takes stories up to 9,000 words, charges $25 and awards $1,000.
  • The Eyelands Contest has a theme of ‘2025’ (Did someone get the columns in their table transposed?) it wants stories up to 3,000 words, €10 to enter and a mere €500 prize. The deadline is 20 April.
  • The HoneyBee Prize from the Goodlife Review (how wholesome it all sounds) takes up to 5,000 words. $18 to enter, a relatively modest prize of $300, deadline 21 April.
  • Those excellent folk at FreeFall magazine have a word limit of 3,000. Entry is CA$25, and the prize is CA$500 plus publication. The deadline is 30 April, as it is for the next two.
  • The Plaza Prizes comp wants up to 5,000 words, and for £15 you  could win a very decent £4,000.
  • Finally the Gulf Coast Prize has a limit of 7,000 words, costs $26, and offers $1,500

If you enter any of these and win (or get anywhere), do let me know.

March 2025 Competitions

February 21, 2025

Here is another look at writing competitions I might enter which have deadlines in the coming month.

·      The Weatherglass Novella prize looks for 20 to 40,000 words: it’s £20 to enter. The winner(s) will be published and receive an advance of £500. The deadline is 1 March.

·      For the Tennessee Williams short story contest, your piece must have some sort of connection with A Streetcar Named Desire, and be between 1,500 and 4,000 words. $10 to enter, with a $300 prize. The deadline is 11 March.

·      The organisers of the Phoebe competition say there is no actual word limit, but that if your story is more than 4,000 words it will need to be extraordinary. $7 to enter, a $500 prize and the deadline is 15 March.

·      The Brick Lane Bookshop competition will accept up to 5,000 words: £10 entry for £1,000 prize: get your entries in by 17 March.

·      It’s festival time in Fowey again: they want a maximum of 1,500 words on the theme ‘Making Waves’. £10 entry and just £250 as top prize. The deadline in 28 March.

All the rest have a deadline of 31 March.

·      The Clay Reynolds Novella prize requires 20 to 50,000 words – $20 entry and $1000 as an advance plus publication for the winner. Looks like slightly better value for money than Weatherglass?

·      I don’t often do poetry, but the Plaza Prizes have a contest specifically for prose poetry – which I take to be laid out like prose but reading sort of like poetry? The limit, however, is specified as 60 lines. £10 entry, £250 prize.

·      The good old Henshaw contest is still going: 2000 words, £6 entry, £750 prize.

·      Speaking of value for money, the Deborah Rogers Foundation award appears to be free but offers a prize of £10,000! You will need 15 to 25,000 words, however.

·      The Bath Short Story award is back: 2,200 words, £9 entry and a prize of £1,000.

·      The Letter Review competition accepts up to 5,000 words: entry is $20 and you get a share of $1,000, so the final sum depends on how many winners they pick – most likely it will be 2-4 so maybe $333.33?

·      Just outside the month (deadline 1 April) you might want to be aware of the Alpine Fellowship competition. The prize is sadly reduced these days, but still £3,000: this year the word count has been halved, to 1,250, on the theme ‘fear’. The good news is, it’s free.

Good luck if you enter any of these; if you get anywhere, please do let me know.

February 2025 Competitions

January 24, 2025

Here is a look at writing competitions I might enter which have deadlines in February.

  • The Jim Baen Memorial prize is free to enter: the winner is published and paid commercial rates. Entries should be upbeat, realistic space stories up to 8,000 words – you need to get them in by 1 February.
  • The same tight deadline applies to the American Short Fiction competition (you need not be American, or short). Entries can be up to 1,500 and for the $18 fee you can have two. The prize is $1,000
  • The Masters Review once again looks for up to 6,000 words: $20 entry and a $3,000 prize. Enter by 2 February.
  • The Writers and Artists prize, from the handbook of the same name, is free and offers an Arvon course as its top prize: they want 2,000 words on the theme ‘Wonder’, and you have until 14 February.
  • The Mary McCarthy Prize is for a collection of stories of 150 to 250 pages. The fee this time is up from $29 to $34 (somebody there clearly thinks round numbers sound bigger). You can win $2,000 and publication and you have until 15 February.
  • The Elmbridge Literary Competition asks for 1,500 words on the theme ‘The River’. £8 to enter and a prize of £250. The deadline is 21 February.
  • The Next Generation award is for a story up to 5,000 words long. Entry is $25and you could win $500 plus a medal. Enter by 27 February.

All the rest have a deadline of 28 February.

  • The Brink prize is for hybrid or cross-genre writing up to 15 pages. $25 to enter, with a prize of $1000 and publication.
  • Bridge House is not actually running a competition as such but accepting submissions for its anthology. No fee, therefore, and your reward will be royalties if published. They are looking for up to 5,000 words on the subject of ‘Magi’, interpreted however you wish.
  • Exeter Writers want 3,000 words maximum: for £7 you get a chance at a prize of £700. Unusually, they don’t allow simultaneous submissions.
  • The Grace Paley award is for a collection of stories, between 150 and 300 pages. $30 to enter, $5,500 plus publication as the prize.
  • The NOWW competition from Ontario wants pieces between 2000 and 3,500 words. $CA10 to enter, and the prize is $CA125
  • The Edinburgh Short Story award has a maximum word count of 2,000: it’s £11 to enter and first prize is £3,000

If you get anywhere with any of these, please do let me know!

December 2024 Competitions

November 20, 2024

Another list of competitions I might consider entering – so no flash, poetry or competitions I’m ineligible for.

  • The Breakwater Review contest has a deadline of 1 December, costs $10 to enter and offers a $1000 prize. Stories up to 4,000 words.
  • The Black Fox looks for up to 5,000 words on the topic ‘Fragments of Time. It costs $12 to enter and the prize is $325. Submit by 1 December.
  • The Leopold Bloom Prize for Innovative Narration, from L’Esprit magazine, wants up to 5,000 words of ‘risk adept narration’ by 2 December. You can pay $10 or $15 for a quick response (within three days)
  • The Witness Literary Awards want you to ‘contextualize the American experience, highlight issues of global concern, grapple with the relationship between the personal and the political (however defined), and/or keenly observe interior/exterior landscapes.’ You’ve got a maximum of 7,000 words to do it in, and it will cost you $8, for a possible $600 prize. You’ve got until 5 December.
  • JuxtaProse will also take up to 7,000 words, and though they charge $18 their prize is $1,000. The deadline is 6 December.
  • You could be recognised as an Anthony Veasna So Scholar in Fiction if your submission, by 11 December, pleases Adroit Journal. You can submit up to three pieces which should total no more than 9,000 words. It costs $15 and the prize is only $200, but still…
  • The Columbia Journal Winter Print looks for stories up to 7,000 words – $15 entry, $500 prize, deadline 12 December.
  • The Masters Review Chapbook contest wants 25-45 pages. It costs $25 to enter and you could win a decent $3000 plus 50 copies of your chapbook. Last year it was 75 copies, but perhaps they have realised that giving away that many is a bit of a challenge, even around Christmas. Enter by 15 December.
  • Fabuly’s competition is refreshingly free. They want 2,000 words on ‘An Unexpected Encounter’, and you could win $500 with online publication of illustrated and audio versions of your work.
  • Globe Soup, that splendidly supportive Facebook community for writers, is running its big competition again – 8,000 words max and £8 to enter (once you’ve paid to enter one of their contests you can join the esoteric community where there are regular free competitions and other good stuff) for a prize of £2,000. Get your entry in by 16 December.

The rest all have deadlines of 31 December, possibly so you can use that nice pen/notebook you got for Christmas.

  • The Lascaux Review will take up to 10,000 words: entry is $15, top prize $1,000
  • Boulevard magazine will take up to 8,000 and charge $18, offering a prize of $1,500.
  • The Danahy Fiction Prize from the Tampa Review costs $20 to enter with a prize of $1,000. Stories up to 5,000 words.
  • Write Time is for the over-sixties only. Only 1,500 words, in recognition of our tired old fingers, and it’s £5 for one story or £10 for three, winning £100 so you can get a little gift for your grandchildren.
  • If you write horror, Killer Shorts want a story up to 6,000 words. It’s $30 to enter and you could win a package of benefits including publication and a mentoring call: but the real draw is a trophy in the form of a skull typewriter – whatever that is.

I hope you find something useful in the list, but please choose your competitions carefully and don’t just enter randomly, as I’m constantly doing. This year I submitted to about half as many as in previous years, but it still amounted to about one entry a week (I don’t write that fast – some stories were entered for multiple contests). Seven of those entries achieved some kind of recognition – one longlisting, four shortlists, one third place and one win. That’s a hit rate of 15%, marginally up on the surprisingly consistent 13% I’ve had in past years.

But the year’s not over yet! Merry Christmas!

August 2024 Competitions

July 22, 2024

A selection of writing competitions with deadlines in August that I might enter.

  • Black Warrior (from the University of Alabama) wants stories up to 6,000 words, by 2 August. Entry is $20 and they say there is a cash prize, but not how much. Let’s hope it’s more than $20.
  • Aurora (from the East Midlands) is back, looking for stories up to 2,000 words: entry is £9 and you can win £500 plus membership of the Society of Authors. Deadline 7 August.
  • Gival wants between 5,000 and 15,000 words: $25 to enter and top prize $1,000. Deadline 9 August.
  • Juxtaprose will take as few as 500 words or as many as 7,000: it’s $15 to enter, you could win $1,000 and the deadline is 11 August.
  • Book Pipeline’s standard deadline is 20 August (pay more for a later entry). They have ten different categories: for literary pieces the word count can be between 40,000 and 120,000. It’s $45 to enter and there’s a prize of $2,500 for each category.
  • The Westerwood competition from the Scottish Association of Writers looks for 2,000 to 3,000 words: £7 entry and a (rather modest?) £100 prize. Enter by 24 August.
  • The Masters Review summer competition is for stories up to 6,000 words long: $20 entry and $3,000 prize. Deadline 25 August.
  • OTP look for 1,000 to 5,000 words: entry is free and if successful you’ll be paid their standard fee. Stories must be on the theme ‘Expertise’ and be submitted by 30 August.

All the rest have that psychologically compelling end-of-the-month deadline (31 August)

  • Publishing Lab want full-length works, either novels or collections. $28 entry and they will give the winner a contract and $10,000 advance.
  • Aesthetica look for up to 2,000 words: £18 to enter and you could win £2,500, an Arvon course and other goodies.
  • NAWG want stories between 500 and 2,000 words: a £5 entry fee gets you the chance of a £200 prize.

If you get anywhere with any of these, do let me know!