Tag: Writing

No Mo’ NaNoWriMo

October 28, 2025

November is coming, but there will be no NaNoWriMo…

You may know that this was the annual exercise in which people attempted to write an entire novel (well, 50,000 words, a bit skimpy actually) in a single month. You could register your progress, meet up with fellow writers and so on.

There was always something a little strange about this. It seemed designed for people who didn’t really enjoy writing, but wanted to get it off their bucket list once and for all. Arguably it encouraged bad writing because quality was not important, just quantity. And while it was meant to be encouraging, most people always failed.

Apparently there had been several problems. There were claims that its forums were misused, though the organisers were quick to act. It weirdly decided to allow the use of AI, which most people thought rendered the exercise pointless (it even claimed that denying AI to participants was ableist). Somehow it ran out of money.

My feelings are ambivalent, but they include a big element of regret. I entered (and succeeded) in 2008 with a story about, what else, someone entering NaNoWriMo. I polished the result up afterwards, but it’s still medium bad with a few good lines. Probably my biggest mistake was to make my hero, the narrator, pretentious and verbose. Humorously, but still.

Nevertheless, in a spirit of commemoration and for what it’s worth, here it is.

Nanowrimo WinnerDownload

November 2025 Competitions

October 20, 2025

Here is another selection of writing competitions I might enter with deadlines in the coming month.

Presented once again in a handy tabular form!

As always these are just the competitions I might enter myself, so they don’t generally include flash fiction or poetry. I hope, though, that there’s something that interests you.

PrizeLengthFeePrizeDeadlineComments
Commonwealth Short Story Prize2-5kFree£2,500 region, £5,000 overall01/11/2025 
Ascent Novel Prizefirst 3000 words, pitch and synopsis£29.00£1,000.0001/11/2025Feedback for all entrants + online community
Scribble Short Story3,000£5.00£100.0001/11/2025Theme ‘Accused’
F(r)iction1,001 – 7.5k$15$1,00007/11/2025 
Galley Beggar Press 6,000£11.00£2,500.0008/11/2025 
Curious Curls10,000$2.00$25015/11/2025Theme ‘Hole’
NORward20p$21$75015/11/2025 
Writer’s Digest short short1,500$30$3,00017/11/2025 
Narrative Magazine15,000$27$2,50021/11/2025 
Fish short story5,000£24.00£3,000.0030/11/2025 
PrairieFire5,000CA$34CA$125030/11/2025 
Tadpole Press100$15$1,00030/11/2025 
Inkspot2,500/5,000£10/£15£1,000.0030/11/2025 

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

October 2025 Competitions

September 17, 2025

The tabular format seemed to work last time, so I think I’ll stick with it (feedback always welcome, though).

As always these are just the competitions I might enter myself, so they don’t generally include flash fiction or poetry. That said, there’s a range of prizes here, some generous, others less so.

PrizeWord countFeePrizeCommentsDeadline
Calvino Prize25p$25$2000 In the spirit of Calvino but not pastiche01/10/2025
Zoetrope All-Story5,000$30$1,00001/10/2025
Jeffrey E. Smith (Missouri Review)8,500$25$5000 01/10/2025
Letter Review5,000Free ($5 for extra)Share of $1000 01/10/2025
Dzanc Books40,000$25$2,500 +pubCollections01/10/2025
Spokane Prize (Willow Springs Books)min 92 pages$25$2000 There are some other rules about lengths.02/10/2025
What the Wild Carries5,000$20$2000 + pubVarious genres05/10/2025
Moonlit Getaway2,500$CAD8$CAD250 12/10/2025
Caledonia Novel Award20p +200 syn£28.001500 + framed award You don’t have to be Scottish.15/10/2025
The Raven (Pulp Lit)2,500$35publication  + $300 15/10/2025
Tennessee Williams Festival7,000$25$1,500 + Festival invite 15/10/2025
Eyelands250k€40.00Translation into Greek, pub + ceramic Unusual comp based in Greece20/10/2025
Bedford3,000£8.50£2,000.00 31/10/2025
Southport Writers Circle2,000£3.00£200.00 31/10/2025
Ironclad6,000£9.00£100.00Theme: ‘Switch’31/10/2025
The Hope Prize5,000$30$10,000 + pubStories of ‘Hope, courage, and resilience’31/10/2025

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

September 2025 Competitions

August 21, 2025

This month I’m trying the experiment of just putting the competition information into a table. It’s slightly simpler for me and it’s probably easier for readers?  Let me know if this causes problems. If you’re looking at this on a phone, I suggest holding it sideways.

Full disclosure: I am running Croydon Writers’ Michael Round Prize, which is listed below – not as a judge but as the administrator.

ContestMax WordsFeePrizeDeadlineComments
River Styx             3,000$20$100001/09/2025 
American Literary Review             8,000$15$1,00001/09/2025 
Terrain             5,000$20$1,00002/09/2025 
Masters Review summer             6,000$20$300007/09/2025 
Aesthetica             2,000£18.00£2500 +course etc08/09/2025 
Santa Fe Writers Project Award No limit$30$1,50015/09/2025 
Paul Cave Prize             1,000£15.00£75.0030/09/2025 
Write Time             1,501£5.00£50.0030/09/2025Only writers over 60
NAWG 500-2k£5.00£200.0030/09/2025 
Hammond House 1-5k£10.00£1,000.0030/09/2025Theme: Secrets
Henshaw (Hobeck)             2,000£6.00£200.0030/09/2025 
Juniper 55-75k$30$100030/09/2025 
Michael Round Prize             2,000Free£100.0030/09/2025Theme: Far and Wide
Writer’s College             2,000$15$100030/09/2025Theme: All the things we didn’t learn
The Ghost Story          10,000$20$1,50030/09/2025 
Creative Writing Ink             3,000£12.00£1,000.0030/09/2025 
Pudding Press Detritus 20p£10.00Publishing contract30/09/2025For stories rejected elsewhere
Letter Review Short Story             5,000$20$33330/09/2025 
Crowvus ghost Story             4,000£3.00£100.0030/09/2025 
George Garrett Prize 100k$28$200030/09/2025 

And a quick mention for the good people at Chaotic Creators, who have a poetry competition going. Up to 40 lines, deadline 12th September, £10 entry, £50 prize plus publication and a printed copy of the magazine. Theme: autumnal, gothic, horror vibes.

August 2025 Competitions

July 19, 2025

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

  • The Robert Watson Literary Prize, worth $1,000 is from the Greensboro Review. The word limit is 7,500. Entry is only open to subscribers and a subscription is $15: deadline 1 August.
  • The Cream City Review (Milwaukee’s leading literary journal) does it the other way round: entry is $15 and comes with a year’s free subscription. The word limit is 9,000 and the top prize is $500. Enter by 1 August.
  • The Aurora Prize from Writing East Midlands takes up to 2,000 words and charges £9 for entry, with a prize of £500 and a year’s membership of the Society of Authors. The deadline is 6 August.
  • The H.G.Wells Prize looks for stories up to 5,000 words on the theme ‘The Middle Ground’. £10 entry, prize £1,000, deadline 8 August.
  • The Craft First Chapters competition wants your first 5,000 words: entry is $20 and the prize $2,000, closing on 10 August.
  • The Bournemouth Writing Prize looks for up to 3,000 words and will charge you £10, with a prize of £1,000, deadline 15 August.
  • The Black Warrior contest will accept stories up to 6,000 words and it’s $20 to enter. The winning story will be published and there is a cash prize, but I have been unable to find out how much it is, which sort of suggests they’re not proud of it. The deadline is 16 August.
  • Book Pipeline wants your first 5,000 words plus a synopsis. Entry is $45 and the category prize is $2,500. Enter by 20 August.
  • Pen and Quill’s competition is free to enter: you could win $200 plus books and a subscription. They look for 1,500 words on the theme Afterlight/Afterglow (which they explain further on their website). The deadline is 21 August.
  • The Scottish Association of Writers brings us the Westerwood Prize, with a word limit of 2,500 and a £10 entry fee. This year instead of £100 the top prize is dinner, bed and breakfast at the Westerwood Hotel, Cumbernauld’s classiest spa and golf resort. The contest closes on 24 August.
  • A bit of a departure now. Not Quite Write is known for its Flash Fiction contest: now there’s a Flesh Fiction one for erotic stories. Up to 1,500 words, free to enter, with a prize of $500 plus a trophy (not sure what form the trophy takes).
  • Those fine folk at the World History Encyclopaedia are back with their Ink of Ages prize, for stories about history or mythology. Up to 2,000 words, free to enter, and you could win $1,000. In addition one of their artists will do some nice work for your book or story. Enter by 29 August.

All the rest have a deadline of 31 August.

  • First I have to mention the Ajuda Foundation prize, which promotes the worthy cause of mental health support in Wales. Stories, which can be up to 2,000 words, must be related to themes of mental health and wellbeing. £10 to enter, a prize of £100.
  • The Oxford Flash Fiction competition takes pieces up to 1,000 words: it’s £7 to enter and the prize is £1,000.
  • Aesthetica is back yet again looking for 2,000 words and an entry fee of £18. Win £2,500 plus subscriptions and a course.
  • Publishing Lab, from New Orleans, wants a novel or collection and for a $28 fee offers a hefty $10,000 prize.
  • Saveas wants stories up to 3,500 words on the theme ‘Facing the Storm’, entry fee £5, first prize £200.
  • The Cisco Writers Club have a limit of 2,500 words, fee of $5 and prize of $100.
  • The LA Review has the same word limit but charges a little more, at $20: however, their prize is a full $1,000

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

July 2025 Competitions

June 18, 2025

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

  • The Goldenberg Prize from Bellevue Literary Review is for stories up to 5,000 words, the entry fee is $20 and first prize $1,000. Enter by 1 July.
  • The Slice from Forkapple Press wants a collection of at least 5 stories amounting to 150-200 pages. It’s $20 to enter: the winner gets $500, some copies, and 25% of profits on publication. Like the sound of that. Again the deadline is 1 July.
  • For Hastings Book Festival you need a story up to 2,500 words. It’s a strangely precise £8.25 to enter with a prize of £250 and the deadline is 8 July.
  • The H.G.Wells prize is back, looking for 1,500 to 5,000 words on the theme ‘The Middle Ground’. £10 entry, prize £500. Again the deadline is 8 July.
  • The Doris Gooderson prize from Wrekin Writers looks for 1,200 words: £5 and a £200 prize. You have until 14 July to enter.
  • For the New American Fiction competition you need a full work of at least 100 pages, but it can be a collection of short stories or even flash fiction. It costs $25 to enter and you can win $1,500. The deadline is 15 July.
  • The Adrift short story competition from Driftwood Press has the same deadline and a word limit of 6,000. The prize is $500 which perhaps doesn’t look the best value given the entry fee of $30.
  • The Petrichor prize (for finely crafted fiction), from Regal House Publishing looks for somewhere between 100 and 375 pages. $25 to enter for a prize of $1,000. Again the deadline is 15 July.
  • The Lazuli Literary Group want up to 150 pages of thoughtful, intelligent and beautiful writing of any kind. $15 to enter and the winner gets $500 – there may be multiple winners if the entries are good enough. Once more the deadline is 15 July.

All the rest have a deadline of 31 July.

  • Southlands Arts has a maximum of 2,000 words, a fee of £3 and a prize of £100.
  • Leicester Writes takes up to 3,500 words and charges £7 for a prize of £200.
  • The Anthology Short Story competition is for a mere 1,500 words, and it will cost you €18, but for a prize of €1,000.
  • The Olga Sinclair competition from Norwich is for stories up to 2,000 words on the theme ‘Weave’. £5 entry and a prize of £200.
  • The Plaza Prizes First Chapters looks for 5,000 words from the beginning of your ms + a 300-word synopsis. Entry costs £20 and the prize is £1,500.
  • Over in Munster they are again honouring Séan Ó Faoláin, master of the form, with a short story contest. Up to 3,000 words, €10 entry and besides a nice €2,000 prize you’ll be invited to do a reading in Cork.
  • By far the biggest prize on offer comes from The Novelry with their unusual offer, The Next Big Story Prize. They want your first 1,500 words: the novel need not be finished. If you’re from the UK it’s £15 to enter and the top prize is £75,000. If you’re from the USA, Canada, or Australia it’s US$15 to enter and the prize is US$100,000. In effect, this is two parallel competitions. If you’re from anywhere else, you can’t enter at all. Eight people from the shortlist get free entry to a course to polish up their offerings, with the final winner walking off with the prize. I assume this is intended to promote the Novelry’s courses, but it does seem a lot of money.
  • Finally, Wild Atlantic Words wants up to 3,000 words, it’s €10 to enter and the prize is €500.

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

June 2025 Competitions

May 21, 2025

Another look at forthcoming writing competitions I might enter. A lot of them have deadlines at the end of the month this time.

  • The Salamander Prize is for stories up to 7,500 words. Entry is $20, top prize $1,000 and the deadline is 1 June.
  • The Halifax Ranch award is for pieces between 2,000 and 6,500 words: $20 entry and a decent $2,500 prize. Deadline 1 June.
  • The Writer’s Digest has a word limit of 4,000. Entry is $35 and the top prize is $1000 – awarded in several categories with lots of lesser prizes. The grand overall winner gets $5,000. The deadline is 3 June.
  • Write by the Sea looks for up to 2,500 words, entry is €10 and the winner gets €500 plus a weekend pass to the festival in the delightful Irish town of Kilmore Quay. You’ve got until 6 June.
  • The MTP prize has a deadline of 10 June, and a word limit of 3,000. £9 to enter and £1,000 prize plus publication for top entries in a chunky anthology. MTP sells publishing services but based on my experience, you will not be pressured to buy them.
  • The Uncharted competition is for novel extracts of up to 5,000 words. $20 entry and a prize of $3,000. The deadline is 15 June.
  • Chaotic Creators want up to 2,000 words. £10 to enter gets you a chance of winning a rather paltry £50.00. The deadline is 23 June.

All the rest have a deadline of 30 June.

  • The Moth is back, looking for up to 3,000 words: entry is £15 and first prize £3,000.
  • The Wells Festival of Literature looks for up to 2,000 words: entry is £6 and the prize is £750.
  • The old faithful Henshaw competition, now run by Hobeck Books, has a maximum word count of up to 2,000, entry £6 and top prize £200.
  • The Katherine Anne Porter competition is for collections of stories totalling between 27,500 and 50,000 words. $25 entry and a prize of $1,000 plus publication.
  • Now one that isn’t fiction – the Writers’ College invites amusing essays of up to 600 words on the theme of ‘The Worst Writing Mistake I’ve Ever Made’. Perhaps I’ll tell them about the entry I sent to the Costa Coffee awards that had the characters meet in Starbucks. This one is free to enter and there’s a prize of NZ$200.
  • WriteTime is one for the oldies – over 60s, in this case. Only 1,500 words is required, £5 to enter and a £100 prize – a little improved on previous years but still well short of a life-changing sum.
  • The redoubtable Chris Fielden is again running his (now biennial) To Hull and Back competition for a humorous piece (which unusually, can have been published before). Up to 2,500 words: it’s £12 for one entry with reduced rates for additional ones. Besides £1,000, the winner is published in an anthology which has as its cover a picture of them riding a motorbike through Hell – or maybe just Birmingham, because Chris solemnly straps a copy to the front of his own bike and rides it from his home in Bristol to Hull where he is acclaimed by cheering crowds (I imagine).
  • Hysteria look for up to 1,000 words: £5 gets you a crack at a mere £75, albeit with the promise of publication.
  • I’m not sure I correctly understand the Page Turner competition which seems complex. There are many categories, but for a story I think they want up to 10 pages: entry fees start at £40 (?) but depending on the package you opt for it could be much more. I think the prizes are $1,000 (why the entry fee is in sterling and the prize in US dollars is just one of many unplumbed mysteries).
  • The Hastings Book Festival returns with a free contest looking for 2,500 words and offering a prize of £250.
  • Cranked Anvil has the same word limit, but charges £6 entry and has a prize of £300.
  • The Letter Review seeks stories up to 5,000 words: for a $20 entry, winners (2-4 of them) share a pool of $1,000

Do let me know if you achieve recognition in any of these, but do not try to enter Periscope’s Paired Fiction prize, because they’ve been overwhelmed by entries and are not accepting any more.

May 2025 Competitions

April 23, 2025

Here again are some writing competitions with deadlines during the coming month. The list is not comprehensive (I don’t bother with flash much, for example), but I hope it might be of interest.

  • Folly Journal takes stories between 800 and 2,500 words: NZ$10 to enter and first prize is NZ$1,000 – but the deadline is 1 May, so you need to be quick.
  • F(r)iction is looking for 1,000 to 7,500 words and it’s $10 to enter with a $1,000 prize. The good news is, you’ve got until 2 May. Incidentally, the same publisher is running Dually Noted, where people submit short (500 word) self-contained episodes which can continue the main story arc or be incidental episodes fitting the overall theme, a new addition every week. At the moment the overall theme, which continues until December, is A Night Club for the Newly Departed. No prize except online publication, but it’s free.
  • The Australian Book Review’s Elizabeth Jolley prize looks for up to 5,000 words. AU$30 to enter, a nice $5,000 prize, and the deadline is 5 May.
  • Old stalwart Writer’s Digest is back with a word limit of 4,000, a fee of $30 and a $5,000 prize. Enter by 5 May.
  • Ironclad want stories on the theme ‘Planted’. Up to 6,000 words, it’ll cost you £9 and you can win a comparatively unexciting £100. The deadline is 10 May.
  • Lush Triumphant offers a prize of $1,000 for stories up to 3,000 for a fee of $30 – deadline 15 May. I entered one of these a couple of years ago and could never seem to find out who won.
  • Ploughshares wants up to 6,000. The competition is free to subscribers, or you can pay $30 to enter (for which you also get a year’s subscription – see what they did there?). Enterr by 15 May.
  • The Ghost Story wants – well, have a wild guess – of up to 10,000 words. $20 entry gets you a chance at a $1,500 prize. Deadline 30 May.

All the rest have a deadline of 31 May.

  • The lively Frome Festival wants between 1,200 and 2,000 words: it’s £8 to enter and the top prize is £625.
  • You do not want to miss the prestigious Bridport competition. £5,000 for 5,000 words, with entry £14. This year a new Never Too Late prize will be awarded to the best entrant across all categories who is over 60 (discreet cough).
  • The Goldfinch Novel competition wants your first 3,000 words, plus a synopsis. £10 entry, and the winner gets £500.
  • Yeovil’s short story competition is for stories up to 2,000 words, entry £10.50 and the prize £625. It seems they don’t believe in round figures.
  • The Blue Pencil Agency First Novel competition asks for your first 5,000 words plus a 300-word synopsis. It’s £25 to enter and the prize is £1,000, but if you place you also get an introduction to one of their literary agents: I suppose you finally get to use that elevator pitch.
  • Finally I really have to mention the Robert Traver Fly Fishing Writing Award. (J.R. Hartley! Thou shouldst be living at this hour.) The word limit is 3,000, the fee $25 and the prize $2,500. Judges will look for three key things in the writing: the joy of fly-fishing (personal and philosophic experience); ecology (knowledge and protection of the natural world); and humour (piscatorial friendships and fun on the water). Apparently this has been going on since 2019, and long may it continue.

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