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DIRECTORY
Showing 356 contests that match your search.
Writing Battle
Genres: Fiction, Flash Fiction, Short Story, Crime, Fantasy, Horror, Humor, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, and Thriller
Three days to write a 1000 word short story. The peer-powered quarterly writing contest where every story receives oodles of feedback. Write one. Read ten. Win thousands.
Top Prize:
Genre Winner (x4): $2,000
Additional prizes:
Genre Runner-up (x4): $500 | Feedback by industry professionals.
💰 Entry fee: $25
📅 Deadline: February 01, 2024 (Expired)
Writing Battle
Genres: Crime, Fantasy, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Horror, Humor, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, Science Writing, Short Story, Thriller, and Young Adult
Two days to write a 250 word short story. The peer-powered quarterly writing contest where every story receives oodles of feedback. Write one. Read ten. Win thousands.
Top Prize:
Genre Winner (x4): $1,500
Additional prizes:
Genre Runner-up (x4): $375 | Feedback by industry professionals
💰 Entry fee: $20
📅 Deadline: August 02, 2024
Warm Mug of Cozy
Genres: Crime, Flash Fiction, Mystery, and Short Story
Do you like writing short cozy mysteries? If so, we would love to invite you to submit your work for potential inclusion in our first Warm Mug of Cozy Anthology. Theme: No restriction, as long as your story follows the classic rules of Cozy Mystery.
Top Prize:
2% royalties per published story ($)
💰 Entry fee: $5
📅 Deadline: April 30, 2024 (Expired)
Plough Publishing
Genres: Poetry
This award honors the achievements of the great Dominican-American poet, translator, and public school teacher Rhina Polonia Espaillat. The Rhina Espaillat Poetry Award will be awarded for an original poem of not more than fifty lines that reflects her lyricism, empathy, and ability to find grace in everyday events of life.
Top Prize:
$2,000
Additional prizes:
Publication in Plough Quarterly. Two finalists will receive $250
💰 Entry fee: $5
📅 Deadline: March 30, 2024 (Expired)
Genres: Travel
Have you been marked by travel? If so, tell us how. Engaging with the genre of creative nonfiction, seize upon memorable incidents from your travel history — study abroad, domestic travels, even your discovery of Northfield. Entertain us. Make us laugh. Move us. Help us travel with you.
Top Prize:
$200
📅 Deadline: April 07, 2024 (Expired)
FanStory.com Inc.
Genres: Fiction and Short Story
Share your Western story for this writing contest. Share your story that has a clear western theme. Your old west story can earn you a cash prize.
Top Prize:
$100
Additional prizes:
Winning stories will be features on the FanStory.com welcome page.
💰 Entry fee: $10
📅 Deadline: December 21, 2024
McGill University
Genres: Poetry
The Montreal International Poetry Prize is committed to encouraging the creation of original works of poetry, to building international readership, and to exploring the world’s Englishes. The Montreal Prize awards one prize of $20,000 CAD to a poet for a single poem of 40 or fewer lines. A jury of internationally reputed poets and critics selects a shortlist of approximately 60 poems, from which a judge chooses one winner.
Top Prize:
$20,000
Additional prizes:
Shortlist published in The Montreal Poetry Prize Anthology
💰 Entry fee: $20
📅 Deadline: May 15, 2024
The Bath Novel Awards
Genres: Children's, Fiction, and Young Adult
The Bath Children's Novel Award is a £5,000 international prize for emerging writers of children's fiction. Submit the first 5,000 words plus a one page synopsis of your chapter book or novel for children or young adults, or up to three picture book texts with summaries. Shortlistees receive feedback on their full manuscript from young judges and all listees receive editorial director feedback on their extract and synopsis.
Top Prize:
£5,000
Additional prizes:
£1,800 course for one longlistee
💰 Entry fee: $38
📅 Deadline: November 30, 2024
RWA Kiss of Death Chapter
Genres: Mystery, Suspense, Romance, and Thriller
The Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense is named for Daphne du Maurier, the author of Rebecca, a suspense novel with romantic and gothic overtones and a precursor to today’s romantic suspense. The writing contest is for published authors of mystery, suspense, and thrillers with or without romantic subplots.
Top Prize:
Award
💰 Entry fee: $30
📅 Deadline: March 15, 2024 (Expired)
North American Review
Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Science Fiction, and Suspense
The Vonnegut Prize is an annual fiction competition intended to recognize the finest speculative fiction, which can include, but is not limited to, work influenced by the postmodern science-fiction of Kurt Vonnegut. We love Vonnegut’s dark humor, but please avoid mere imitation. We are enthusiastic about all work painted with speculative fiction’s broad brush: fairy tale, magical realism, fabulism, the fantastic, horror, Afro-futurism, science fiction hard and soft, and everything in between. The winning entry will appear in the North American Review's annual summer issue, and all finalists will be considered for publication.
Top Prize:
$1,000
Additional prizes:
Publication
💰 Entry fee: $23
📅 Deadline: November 02, 2024
The Morris Museum of Art
Genres: Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, and Script Writing
Welcome to the 2024 Porter Fleming Literary Competition, now in its twenty-ninth year of recognizing outstanding writing and writers. The competition honors the memory of Porter Fleming, one of Augusta, Georgia’s leading citizens and foremost philanthropists. The competition is administered, with the support of the Porter Fleming Foundation, by the Morris Museum of Art, the first museum in the country to focus on the art and artists of the American South. Writers, ages 18 and older, who reside in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington, D.C are invited to apply.
Top Prize:
1st place in each genre category: $1,000
Additional prizes:
2nd place: $500 & 3rd place: $250 in each of the four genre categories
💰 Entry fee: $15
📅 Deadline: February 16, 2024 (Expired)
F(r)iction
Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, and Short Story
We seek work that actively pushes boundaries, that forces us to question traditions and tastes. If your work takes risks, we want to read it. We like strong narratives that make us feel something and stories we haven’t seen before. We accept work, written in English, from anywhere in the world—regardless of genre, style, or origin—and welcome speculative writing and experimental literature. Strange is good. Strange with a strong character arc is even better. Keep it weird, folks.
Top Prize:
$1,000
Additional prizes:
Publication
💰 Entry fee: $15
📅 Deadline: April 30, 2024 (Expired)
FanStory.com Inc
Genres: Poetry
A sonnet is a poem with a specific structure. It has 14 lines and a specific rhyme scheme. The topic is open! Write about anything for this poetry contest. Just follow the rules on how to write a sonnet. To read the rules and for an example view the contest announcement. Cash prize for the winner of this contest.
Top Prize:
$100
💰 Entry fee: $10
📅 Deadline: November 06, 2022 (Expired)
Blue Ridge Mountains Conference
Genres: Christian
The mission of the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference is to inspire writers to connect with God, other writers, and industry professionals as they embrace their calling with excellence. The entrant must be registered for the entire conference in order to compete.
Top Prize:
Award
💰 Entry fee: $45
📅 Deadline: April 01, 2024 (Expired)
The Lascaux Review
Genres: Poetry
Poems may be previously published or unpublished, and simultaneous submissions are accepted. Winner receives $1,000, a bronze medallion, and publication online in The Lascaux Review. The winner and all finalists will be published in the annual print journal.
Top Prize:
$1,000
💰 Entry fee: $15
📅 Deadline: March 31, 2024 (Expired)
Fusilli Writing
Genres: Flash Fiction
Flash fiction competition for stories up to 200 words with a twist. Competition always open, with a winner announced and published online after 50 entries received (story count on website). Entry fee: £2.50, winner receives £30 plus publication on the website. All shortlisted entries get their entry fee refunded.
Top Prize:
£30 + publication on website
Additional prizes:
Social media promotion
💰 Entry fee: $3
📅 Deadline: December 31, 2024
Dzanc Books
Genres: Fiction and Short Story
The Dzanc Books Short Story Collection Prize celebrates imaginative and inventive writing in book-length collections (generally over 40,000 words, but there is no hard minimum). Past winners include Suzi Ehtesham-Zadeh (Zan), Nino Cipri (Homesick), Anne Valente (By Light We Knew Our Names), Chaya Bhuvaneswar (White Dancing Elephants), Jen Grow (My Life as a Mermaid), Julie Stewart (Water and Blood), and Ethel Rohan (In the Event of Contact). The winning submission will be awarded a $2,500 advance and publication by Dzanc Books.
Top Prize:
$2,500
Additional prizes:
Publication
💰 Entry fee: $25
📅 Deadline: September 30, 2024
FanStory.com Inc.
Genres: Flash Fiction and Non-fiction
Share your flash fiction story. But for this contest we aren't looking for fiction. Rather share your true story with only 100 words. Cash prize!
Top Prize:
$100
💰 Entry fee: $10
📅 Deadline: June 15, 2024
Lascuax Review
Genres: Fiction and Flash Fiction
Stories may be previously published or unpublished, and simultaneous submissions are accepted. True stories are welcome as long as they’re written in a narrative style. Winner receives $1,000 and a bronze medallion. Finalists receive $100. Winner and finalists are published in The Lascaux Review.
Top Prize:
$1,000
Additional prizes:
Finalists: $100
💰 Entry fee: $15
📅 Deadline: June 30, 2024
ReadWrite Strategies
Genres: Humor and Non-fiction
Please submit funny, creative nonfiction stories 300-1200 words in length, set in or relating to work. If it makes us laugh, it works. No entry fee and submit as many times as you want before December 18th deadline. Prizes are: $500 and a print copy of the book for first place, $200 and a print copy for second place, and $100 and a print copy for 3rd, 4th, and 5th places. All featured stories will receive a digital copy of the book on publication. The best submissions will be featured in an anthology of funny workplace stories.
Top Prize:
$500
Additional prizes:
2nd: 200 and print copy | 3rd, 4th, & 5th: $100 and print copy
📅 Deadline: December 18, 2023 (Expired)
Genres: Script Writing
The Scriptation Showcase is the screenwriting contest that circulates winners’ scripts to Hollywood directors, showrunners, and producers. 15 scripts get featured for one year in Scriptation, the Emmy® Award winning app used on film and TV productions. The earlier you apply, the lower the entry fee will be.
Top Prize:
$1,000
Additional prizes:
1 Year Scriptation Showcase, 1 year industry pro access
💰 Entry fee: $74
📅 Deadline: July 24, 2022 (Expired)
Stories Through The Ages
Genres: Short Story, Fiction, Flash Fiction, and Non-fiction
Stories Through The Ages - Baby Boomers Plus 2023 is open to people born 1966 or earlier. The deadline for entries is June 15, 2023. There is no prompt for the contest. Authors may write about any topic. The entry fee is $20 ($15 if submitting more than one story). The word count for this contest is 900 - 5000 words. Cash prizes of $500, $200 and $100 will be awarded. There will be a minimum of 15 finalists whose story will appear in the book.
Top Prize:
$500
Additional prizes:
2nd: $200 | 3rd: $100
💰 Entry fee: $20
📅 Deadline: June 15, 2024
Intrepid Times
Genres: Non-fiction, Short Story, and Travel
Write an original, factual, first-person travel story that centers on a crossing of some kind. Your travel story should, as always, grow around the context of a place or experience; we want to see the theme being used in a way that enhances both. Editors will be looking for originality, voice, and a satisfying story arc that captures attention and makes use of imagery to pull the reader along at every step.
Top Prize:
$200
Additional prizes:
Publication in Intrepid Times
📅 Deadline: April 30, 2024 (Expired)
Lambda Literary
Genres: LGBTQ and Non-fiction
Lambda Literary’s Jeanne Córdova Prize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction, in memory of the beloved activist and author, honors lesbian/queer-identified women and trans/gender non-conforming nonfiction authors. The award will go to a writer committed to nonfiction work that captures the depth and complexity of lesbian/queer life, culture, and/or history.
Top Prize:
$2,500
📅 Deadline: February 16, 2024 (Expired)
Inspiring Fiction
Genres: Crime, Fantasy, Fiction, Mystery, Science Fiction, Short Story, and Thriller
Inspiring Fiction’s special edition short story contest is on the theme ‘Freedom’. We are looking for crime, speculative, and fantasy short stories. The winner and shortlisted entries will be published in a bumper crossover issue of Tangled Web Magazine and Mirk Fantasy Magazine.
Top Prize:
£100
Additional prizes:
Publication and published review by the editor
💰 Entry fee: $6
📅 Deadline: July 31, 2024
Creative Writing NZ
Genres: Short Story
Open theme/subject/genre. Maximum 3,000 words. 2 runners-up prizes of $200 each and a free writing course of choice.
Top Prize:
$1,000
Additional prizes:
2x runners up: $200 | Free writing course | Publication
💰 Entry fee: $9
📅 Deadline: April 30, 2024 (Expired)
U.S. Institute of Peace
Genres: Essay
This year, AFSA celebrates the 100th anniversary of the United States Foreign Service. Over the last century, our diplomats and development professionals have been involved in groundbreaking events in history – decisions on war and peace, supporting human rights and freedom, creating joint prosperity, reacting to natural disasters and pandemics and much more. As AFSA looks back on this century-long history, we invite you to join us in also looking ahead to the future. This year students are asked to explore how diplomats can continue to evolve their craft to meet the needs of an ever-changing world that brings fresh challenges and opportunities to the global community and America’s place in it.
Top Prize:
$2,500
Additional prizes:
Runner-up: $1,250
📅 Deadline: April 01, 2024 (Expired)
Oprelle Publications
Genres: Poetry
Any topic or style is acceptable. Even though this anthology will be called Matter, all that is expected is that your poetry reflects emotions and thoughts coming from the depths of you. You need not write about a particular word. We just want you to know that your talent with words can matter to others.
Top Prize:
$200
Additional prizes:
2nd: $100 | 3rd: $50 | Publication in anthology
💰 Entry fee: $15
📅 Deadline: June 02, 2024
Chicken House Books
Genres: Fiction, Novel, Novella, Science Fiction, Science Writing, and Young Adult
We're looking for original ideas, a fresh voice, a diverse range of entries and stories that children will love! To enter, you must have written a full-length novel suitable for children/young adults aged between 7 and 18 years. We suggest a minimum of 30,000 words and ask that manuscripts do not exceed 80,000 words. The IET 150 Award will be awarded to a manuscript that celebrates Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.
Top Prize:
A worldwide publishing contract with Chicken House & royalty advance of £10,000
Additional prizes:
An offer of representation from a top literary agent
💰 Entry fee: $25
📅 Deadline: June 01, 2024
FanStory.com Inc.
Genres: Poetry
Write a four line poem that has a specific syllable count. The first line has 1 syllable, the second line has 5 syllables, the third line has 5 syllables, and the last line has 9 syllables. The subject can be anything.
Top Prize:
$100
💰 Entry fee: $10
📅 Deadline: May 16, 2024
Blue Ridge Mountains Conference
Genres: Christian
The Selah Awards are open to all published authors whose books were published between December 16, 2020 and December 15, 2021 with either traditional or nontraditional publishers.
Top Prize:
Award
💰 Entry fee: $45
📅 Deadline: December 31, 2023 (Expired)
FanStory.com Inc.
Genres: Fiction, Horror, and Short Story
Share a horror or thriller story to enter this writing contest. Write about anything but the object is to terrorize or thrill your reader. Cash prize!
Top Prize:
$100
💰 Entry fee: $10
📅 Deadline: November 12, 2024
Autumn House Press
Genres: Poetry
For the 2023 contest, the Autumn House staff as well as select outsider readers serve as the preliminary readers, and the final judge is Toi Derricotte. The winner receives publication of a full-length manuscript and $2,500.
Top Prize:
Book publication | $1,000 honorarium | $1,500 travel/publicity grant
💰 Entry fee: $30
📅 Deadline: June 30, 2024
Trio House Press
Genres: Poetry
The Trio Award for First or Second Book includes $1,000, publication, and twenty books. The Trio Award for First or Second Book is only open to poets with less than two books published.
Top Prize:
$1,000
💰 Entry fee: $25
📅 Deadline: March 15, 2024 (Expired)
Tim Saunders Publications
Genres: Crime, Fantasy, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Horror, Humor, Mystery, Novella, Poetry, Romance, Science Fiction, Short Story, Thriller, and Young Adult
The Paul Cave Prize for Literature, established in 2023 by Tim Saunders Publications, is in memory of Paul Astley Cave-Browne-Cave (1917 to 2010), a hugely inspirational magazine and book publisher. What we are looking for All forms of poetry: haiku, free verse, sonnet, acrostic, villanelle, ballad, limerick, ode, elegy, flash fiction, short stories and novellas. Work must be new and unpublished. International submissions welcome.
Top Prize:
£100
Additional prizes:
Best Short Story: £50 | Best Flash Fiction: £25 | Best Poem: £25
💰 Entry fee: $15
📅 Deadline: September 30, 2024
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