Here once again is a selection of writing competitions I might enter with deadlines in February.

• The Jim Baen Memorial prize is for positive, realistic  stories about space exploration in the near future. Up to 8,000 words are required, it’s free and the winner gets an award, publication, and 8 cents per word on publication. The deadline is 1 February
• The Prototype Prize, for UK or Ireland entrants only, seeks a book-length work, especially one at the intersection of literary or artistic forms. It’s free to enter, the deadline is 1 February and you could win £3,000
• The Porterhouse Review wants stories up to 8,000 words. They should be ‘emotionally affecting, haunting, bizarre, and in firm control of the machinations of storytelling’.$10 to enter, a prize of $750, and again the deadline is 1 February.
• The Writers and Artists Yearbook want up to 2.000 words and it’s free to enter. You could win a place on an Arvon course and online publication. Stories must be on the theme ‘Risk’ Enter by 12 February
• The Mary McCarthy prize from Sarabande Press wants 150-200 pages. The entry fee is $29, with the top prize being $2,000 plus publication. The deadline is 15 February.
• Brink literary journal wants hybrid (or cross-genre) stories – but not avant garde experimental writing. It’s $22 to enter and the deadline is again15 February.
• The Elmbridge Literary Competition has a theme of ‘Fame’ and a word limit of 1,500. £5 to enter (by 23 February), with a £250 prize.
• Stringybark needs stories with a link to Australia (but it could be as little as a Vegemite sandwich). Up to 1,500 words: A$15 to enter and a prize of A$500. The deadline is 25 February.

All the rest have a deadline of 29 February.

• Exeter Writers are back, looking for up to 3,000 words: a £7 entry fee might get you a £700 prize.
• The Grace Paley competition from AWP looks for 150-300 pages, with an entry fee of $30. The top prize is $5,500, plus publication.
• Bridge House want up to 5,000 words on the theme ‘Good News’: not really a competition as such but an invitation to submit; still, the selected work will be published and paid royalties.
• Letter Review is looking for up to 5,000 words for a top prize of $600 ($20 entry fee).
• NOWW (the Northern Ontario Writers’ Workshop) wants 2,000-3,500 words. It’s $CA10 to enter and top prize is $CA150.
• The Edinburgh Short Story Award from the Scottish Arts Trust accepts up to 2,000 words: £10 entry and the prize is £3,000.

Good luck – if you get anywhere with these, do let me know!

Here’s my regular look at writing competitions I might enter during the coming month.. 

• The Scottish Association of Writers has the Westerwood competition for stories of 2-3,000 words. Entry is £7 with a parsimonious prize of £100. The deadline is 5 August.
• Uncharted Magazine wants 1,001 to 5,000 words. Entry is $20 and the prize a more generous $2,000. Stories must be on the theme ‘The Aftermath’, and in one of the three genres they publish: SF/F, Thriller/Horror and Mystery/Crime. The deadline is 6 August.
• Gival’s regular contest is with us again: 5-15,000 words, entry $25, top prize $1,000, enter by 8 August.
• Periscope wants briefer stories, up to 1,500 words, on the theme ‘Identity’. £10 entry, first prize £1,000 and the deadline is 15 August.
• Louise Walters is back with the competition based on page 100 of your novel. It’s £5 to enter: no money prize but a full editorial report and a box of books. Deadline 20 August.
• The Summer version of the Masters Review competition is back – up to 6,000 words, $20 to enter and a prize of $3,000. The deadline is 27 August.

All the rest have a deadline of 31 August.

• Creative Writing Ink wants up to 3,000 words, entry is £9 and the prize £1,000.
• Bit of a fanfare for the University of New Orleans’s Publishing Laboratory, who are offering a prize of $10,000 plus publication. For that they want a full-length novel or collection (no word or page limit) and an entry fee of $28.
• On a more modest scale, Anthology wants a maximum of 1,500 words, for an entry fee of £18 and a prize of £1,000.
• Letter Review looks for up to 5,000 words. Your £20 entry fee gets you access to a £1,000 prize pot to be split three ways – so £333.33, I suppose.
• Aesthetica Magazine puzzles me slightly, because it seems to be an avant-garde publication about art and design rather than a literary one. But the competition claims former winners have gone on to great success. It’s £18 to enter, with a prize of £2,500. Up to 2,000 words. 
• The Kenneth Patchen award is for an innnovative, experimental novel of any length. $25 to enter, win $1,000 and publication.
• St Lawrence look for a collection of 120-280 pages. $28 gets you a shot at $1,000.

Good luck if you enter any of these, and do let me know if you get anywhere!

Here’s my regular look at writing competitions I might enter during the coming month (so no poetry or competitions that arenot open to UK writers, for example).

• Leicester Writes wants up to 3,500 words, with an entry fee of £7.00 and a prize of £175. The deadline is 2 July.
• Liminisa offers a week’s writing holiday at their retreat in Greece: entry is free, but you must follow them on social media. The maximum word count  is 1,500 and the theme is ‘A Room of One’s Own’, Deadline 2 July.
• Story Quarterly (from Rutgers) will take pieces up to 6,250 words: entry is $15 and the top prize £500. The deadline is 9 July.
• The H.G.Wells competition is back, with a theme of ‘Motion’. Up to 5,000 words, with a deadline of 10 July. The top prize is £1,000, while entry is £10.
• Wrekin Writers are again running the Doris Gooderson competition, with a deadline of 12 July. They want up to 1,200 words, entry is £5 and the top prize is £200: at least half the funds raised will go to the Severn Hospice.
• Hastings Book Festival has a word limit of 2,500, and entry fee of £7.50 and a prize of £250: deadline 14 July.
• LISP wants up to 3,000, with a deadline of 15 July.  Prizes have been shrinking recently, but I have to say this one does not look generous: £100 against an entry fee of £15.50. Earlier in the year, I must acknowledge, the fee would have been lower, but still – a prize that’s less than seven times the entry cost?
• The Adrift competition from Driftwood magazine will take pieces of up to 6,000 words: entry is $11, the prize is $500 and the deadline is again 15 July.
• With the same deadline, the Petrichor prize from Regal House looks for 100-350 pages of ‘finely crafted’ fiction. Entry is $25 and the prize $1,000.
• Hawk Mountain looks for a book-length collection of short stories: entry is $20 and the prize $1,000 plus publication. Deadline 15 July.
• One more with the same deadline: the Francine Ringold Award from Nimrod, open to pieces of up to 5,000 words, entry $12 and prize $500.
• The Aurora Prize, from the writers of the East Midlands, seeks up to 2,000 words. Entry is £9 and the prize is £500 plus a year’s membership of the Society of Authors: enter by 19 July.
• Munster Lit is back with the annual Séan Ó Faoláin competition. Entry is  €19 and the prize €2,000 plus a writing residency. The closing date is 31 July, as it is for all the remaining competitions.
• Creative Writing Ink want 3,000 words max, with a fee of £9 and a prize of £1,000.
• The Olga Sinclair prize, from Norwich, looks for up to 2,000 on the theme ‘The Sea’. Entry is £9 and the prize is £500.
• The Global Novel Writing Competition is free to enter, but there is no cash prize. Instead, you get free entry on to a course at the Writers’ College. They want first chapters up to 6,000 words plus a synopsis

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

Here’s my regular look at writing competitions I might enter during the coming month (so no poetry or competitions not open to UK writers, for example). The majority have deadlines at the end of the month, so you mostly have a bit of time to work on a story.

• Ambit seeks stories of up to 1,000 words (arguably flash fiction) on the classic Ovid/Kafka theme of ‘Metamorphosis’; the entry fee is £6 and the top prize is £500. You’ll need to get writing because the deadline is 1 July.
• The Gutsy Great Novelist Page One competition requires only the first page of your novel-in-progress, by 7 June. The entry fee is $20 and the top prize $1,000.
• The H.G.Wells prize is for stories between 1,500 and 5,000 words on the theme ‘mask’ with a fee of £21 and top prize of £500; the deadline is 12 July.
• The Doris Gooderson prize from Wrekin Writers is for stories up to 1,200 words in length. The entry fee is £5, the prize £200, and the deadline is 13 July.

All the others have a deadline of 31 July.

• The Novel London competition asks for your first 3,000 words plus a synopsis. It costs £11 to enter and the top prize is £500 (plus mentoring).
• The Olga Sinclair Prize, from Norwich Writers’ Circle, is for stories on the theme ‘lost’. The word count limit is 2,000, the entry fee £9, and top prize £200.
• The Seán O’Faoláin prize from Munster Literature is for stories up to 3,000 words, with an entry fee of €18 and prize of €2,000.
• The Fiction Factory First Chapter competition requires, guess what, the first chapter of your completed novel. Although you can send a chapter of any length, it seems only the first 5,000 words will be taken into account. The entry fee is £18 and the top prize is £500.
• Fabula Press is back and wants stories of up to 6,000 words; the fee is $10 and top prize $500.
• The regular Cranked Anvil competition comes round again next month with a word limit of 1,500, entry fee of £5 and prize of £150.
• Anthology offers a prize of €500 for stories up to 1,500 words on the theme ‘memories’.
• HISSAC (Highlands and Islands, but you don’t have to be Scottish) wants stories up to 2,000 words; the entry fee is £5 and the prize £200.
• Finally, you need a humorous piece of up to 2,500 words to enter the unique To Hull and Back competition. The entry fee is £15 and the cash prize is £1,200. In addition, a selection of stories will be published in an anthology, and the winning author’s face will be photoshopped into a dramatic picture showing them on a motorbike journey to Hull (think Meatloaf album cover). In addition, the organiser will strap the winner’s copy of the anthology to the front of his Harley Davidson and ride from Bristol to Hull and back, returning the book with whatever damage the elements may have inflicted along the way. I said it was unique!

Good luck if you enter any of these; if you are longlisted or win, please do let me know.