Discover the finest writing contests of 2018 for fiction and non-fiction authors of short stories, poetry, essays and more. Updated weekly, these contests are vetted by Reedsy to weed out the scammers and time-wasters. Manage a contest? Submit it here
Respond to one of Reedsy's weekly writing prompt newsletters with a short story for the chance to win $50 and get featured on the Reedsy Medium Blog!
๐ Deadline January 01, 2020 โ ๐ฐ Entry Fee: FREE
Genres: Fiction, Short Story,
$50
Publication on Reedsy Blog
The Red Hen Fiction Award is for a fresh and original story of fiction with a minimum of 150 pages. The awarded manuscript is selected through an annual submission process which is open to all authors. Award is $1000 and publication of the awarded manuscript by Red Hen Press.
๐ Deadline August 31, 2017 (Expired) โ ๐ฐ Entry Fee: $25
Genres: Fiction,
$1,000
Publication by Red Hen Press
The aim of this program is to select a poet who is at an artistic and personal crossroads, comparable to that faced by Robert Frost when he moved to Franconia in 1915, when he was not yet known to a broad public.
๐ Deadline January 05, 2019 โ ๐ฐ Entry Fee: $28
Genres: Poetry,
$2,000
Submit two pieces of flash fiction, 800 words max each piece.
๐ Deadline January 03, 2019 โ ๐ฐ Entry Fee: $5
Genres: Fiction, Flash Fiction,
$500
Publication in Ginosko Literary Journal
We are looking for stories about families of all configurations. It's fine to draw heavily on real-life experiences, but the work must read like fiction and all stories accepted for publication will be presented as fiction.
๐ Deadline January 02, 2019 โ ๐ฐ Entry Fee: $18
Genres: Fiction, Short Story,
$2,500
Publication in Glimmer Train Stories
The On Teaching Poem Prize is a $1,000 prize, given to honor the best unpublished poem written about K_12 teaching and/or teachers. The winning poem is published in the Academy of American Poets popular Poem-a-Day series during May and published on Poets.org. A finalist will also be chosen and awarded $500.
๐ Deadline January 01, 2019 โ ๐ฐ Entry Fee: FREE
Genres: Poetry,
$1,000
Publication in "Poem-a-Day" series
The Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards recognizes outstanding works that contribute to our understanding of racism and our appreciation of cultural diversity. Awards are given for fiction, poetry and nonfiction.
๐ Deadline December 31, 2018 โ ๐ฐ Entry Fee: FREE
Genres: Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry,
$10,000
At around noon each Tuesday (UTC), from the 11th of April 2017, รฎ Bh_al will post five new words. Entrants will have one week to compose and submit poems that include all five words given for that week. Poems cannot exceed 50 lines in length (including line breaks), and must include all five words listed during the week.
๐ Deadline December 31, 2018 โ ๐ฐ Entry Fee: $5
Genres: Poetry,
$500
Publication in Five Words Vol XI
Both previously published and unpublished works are eligible, provided that publication on the Lazuli Literary Group website does not infringe on previously held rights. We are not concerned with genre distinctionsยsend us the best you have; we want only for it to be thoughtful, intelligent, and beautiful.
๐ Deadline December 31, 2018 โ ๐ฐ Entry Fee: $1
Genres: Crime, Essay, Fantasy, Fiction, Humor, Mystery, Poetry, Science Fiction, Short Story, Thriller,
$100
Publication in AZURE
For every single entry received, we plant a tree in Bor_, Kenya. We 'll email you the GPS coordinates of it once the contest has closed and we 've received confirmation of them from our Word Forest Coordinator. Short stories should be no more than 4,000 words and poetry should be no more than 50 lines.
๐ Deadline December 31, 2018 โ ๐ฐ Entry Fee: $5
Genres: Fiction, Poetry, Short Story,
$1,000
The Walt Whitman Award is granted to an unpublished poetry collection. The prizes include $5,000, publication by Graywolf Press, and a six-week residency at the Civitella Ranieri Center in Umbria, Italy. Submissions are accepted from September 1 through November 1 each year. The judge for the 2019 Walt Whitman Award is Li-Young Lee.
๐ Deadline November 01, 2019 โ ๐ฐ Entry Fee: $35
Genres: Poetry,
$5,000
Publication by Graywolf Press
Welcome to the 17th annual Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. Submit published or unpublished work. $5,000 in prizes. Please submit during April 15-September 30, 2019.
๐ Deadline September 30, 2019 โ ๐ฐ Entry Fee: $12
Genres: Poetry,
$2,000
The Aesthetica Creative Writing Award is an international literary prize that celebrates excellence in Poetry and Short Fiction. Winners are presented with opportunities to expand their literary careers: ยฃ1,000 cash prize each, a consultation with literary agency Redhammer Management, a Full Membership to The Poetry Society, a subscription to Granta and books courtesy of Bloodaxe Books and Vintage Books. Submissions will reopen in December.
๐ Deadline August 31, 2019 โ ๐ฐ Entry Fee: $12
Genres: Fiction, Poetry, Short Story,
$1,000
Publication in the Aesthetica Creative Writing Annual
Write a story about anything. The trick is that your story can only be written using dialogue. So share a story of two characters talking. See the details and an example in the contest announcement.
๐ Deadline July 05, 2019 โ ๐ฐ Entry Fee: $10
Genres: Fiction, Short Story,
$100
The Drue Heinz Literature Prize is open to writers who have published a novel or a book-length collection of fiction with a reputable book publisher, or a minimum of three short stories or novellas in magazines or journals of national distribution.
University of Pittsburgh Press
๐ Deadline June 30, 2019 โ ๐ฐ Entry Fee: FREE
Genres: Fiction, Short Story,
$15,000
Publication by the University of Pittsburgh Press
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