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DIRECTORY
Showing 349 contests that match your search.
American Writers Museum
Genres: Children's
“Tradition was safety; change was danger.” — Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow. This prompt is a quote from Russell’s The Sparrow and can be used as a first line, a last line, a jumping-off point, an inspiration for your students’ work.
Top Prize:
$2,000
📅 Deadline: June 07, 2024
National Youth Foundation
Genres: Children's
Founded by Black women with a vision for change, the mission of the National Youth Foundation is to promote diversity, inclusion and gender equality through innovative literary programs. To honor the vast accomplishments of women in the United States, the National Youth Foundation is pleased to announce the Amazing Women’s Edition (AWE) competition. This writing contest is open to students in grades K to 8 residing in the United States.
Top Prize:
$500
📅 Deadline: January 07, 2022 (Expired)
Ann Arbor District Library
Genres: Children's and Short Story
The annual "Write On!" Short Story Contest for Grades 3-5 accepts story entries each winter. All writers, their friends, and families are invited to a Story Celebration and awards ceremony on Saturday, April 23, 2022, featuring a published children's author and the top three writers in each grade will receive an award.
Top Prize:
Publication on website
📅 Deadline: February 05, 2024 (Expired)
Voice.club
Genres: Fiction, Flash Fiction, and Short Story
Voice.club Writing Contests: Express yourself in a supportive international community, as you develop your writing skills. We invite you to write a story of 350 words or less, based on our current prompt. Our monthly contests are open to writers aged 13 and older from any country, but each story must be written in English. Our March prompt is "Ambition". We look forward to reading your story!
Top Prize:
$25 USD Amazon Gift Card
Additional prizes:
Publication
📅 Deadline: March 31, 2024 (Expired)
Berggruen Institute
Genres: Essay
The Berggruen Prize Essay Competition, in the amount of $25,000 USD for the English and Chinese language category respectively, is given annually to stimulate new thinking and innovative concepts while embracing cross-cultural perspectives across fields, disciplines, and geographies. Inspired by the pivotal role essays have played in shaping thought and inquiry, we are inviting essays that follow in the tradition of renowned thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Michel de Montaigne, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Top Prize:
$25,000
Additional prizes:
Publication in Noema Magazine
📅 Deadline: June 30, 2024
Columbia Journalism School
Genres: Non-fiction
Two J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Awards, in the amount of $25,000, are given annually to aid in the completion of significant works of nonfiction on topics of American political or social concern. Recognizing that a nonfiction book based on extensive research often overtaxes the resources available to its author, the project envisions the Awards as a way of closing the gap between the time and money an author has and the time and money that finishing a book requires.
Top Prize:
$25,000
📅 Deadline: December 07, 2023 (Expired)
New York Mills Regional Cultural Center
Genres: Essay and Non-fiction
The Great American Think-Off is an exhibition of civil disagreement between powerful ideas that connect to your life at the gut level. The Cultural Center, located in the rural farm and manufacturing town of New York Mills, sponsors this annual philosophy contest.
Top Prize:
$500
📅 Deadline: April 01, 2024 (Expired)
Genres: Poetry
The Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships are $50,000 awards given to honor poets of literary merit appointed to serve in civic positions and to support them in creating new work, as well as to enable them to undertake meaningful, impactful, and innovative projects that enrich the lives of their neighbors, including youth, through responsive and interactive poetry activities.
Top Prize:
$50,000
📅 Deadline: April 08, 2024 (Expired)
Avernus Education
Genres: Essay
Welcome to our prestigious International Essay Competition. At Avernus Education, we are thrilled to provide a platform for young minds to showcase their prowess in Medicine, Engineering, Law, Economics, Psychology, History and Politics. These varied subject categories underscore the importance of interdisciplinary study, a crucial foundation for future leaders in our increasingly interconnected world. Winners receive an exclusive Avernus Education Scholarship worth over £5000 - granting them free entrance to our exclusive summer camp at Oxford University! Outstanding Runners Up receive 5 hours worth of Credits for Avernus Education courses, conferences and tutoring services.
Top Prize:
100% Scholarship Award to our Oxford University Summer Programme (worth £5995)
Additional prizes:
Partial scholarship
📅 Deadline: February 19, 2024 (Expired)
Write the World
Genres: Poetry
“Poetry lays the foundations for a future of change," wrote Audre Lorde. This month, sow your own seeds of change into stanzas, meter, or free verse, or else write and perform an original piece of spoken word (poetry performed aloud). We’ll award two top prizes—one for a written poem, and one for a recorded performance.
Top Prize:
Best entry: $100
Additional prizes:
Runner up: $50 | Best peer review: $50
📅 Deadline: May 27, 2024
Gotham Writers Workshop
Genres: Script Writing
The Gotham Scriptwriting Scholarship is open to people of color who have an interest in writing scripts for movies, TV shows, or plays. Any level of experience is fine. All we ask is the desire to write scripts. Three scholarships will be offered.
Top Prize:
2 10-week script-related courses | 3 Intensives | 1 12-hour Mentorship
📅 Deadline: February 15, 2024 (Expired)
Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum
Genres: Essay and Non-fiction
For this year’s Essay Contest, we are asking students to think about why the story of the Oklahoma City bombing is important today.
Top Prize:
$1,000
📅 Deadline: March 04, 2024 (Expired)
Write the World
Genres: Essay and Non-fiction
What are the most important issues taking place close to home? Perhaps a rare bird sighting near your town? Or a band of young people in your province fighting for access to higher education? This month, immerse yourself in a newsworthy event inside the borders of your own country, and invite us there through your written reporting.
Top Prize:
Best entry: $100
Additional prizes:
Runner up: $50 | Best peer review: $50
📅 Deadline: July 22, 2024
Lambda Literary
Genres: LGBTQ
The J. Michael Samuel Prize honors emerging LGBTQ writers over the age of 50. This award is made possible by writer and philanthropist Chuck Forester, who created it out of the firmly held belief that “Writers who start late are just as good as other writers, it just took the buggers more time.” The prize will go to an unpublished LGBTQ writer over 50 working in any genre.
Top Prize:
$5,000
📅 Deadline: February 16, 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)
Letter Review
Genres: Flash Fiction, Short Story, and Fiction
This Prize is free to enter. 2-4 Winners are published. We Shortlist 10-20 writers. Seeking stories 0-5000 words. Judges’ feedback available. Open to writers from anywhere in the world, with no theme or genre restrictions. Judged blind. All entries considered for publication + submission to Pushcart.
Top Prize:
$500
Additional prizes:
Publication by The Letter Review
📅 Deadline: April 30, 2024
Armed Services Arts Partnership
Genres: Essay, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Humor, Memoir, Non-fiction, Poetry, and Short Story
Partners are an integral aspect of military life, at home and afar, during deployment and after homecoming. Partnerships drive military action and extend beyond being a battle buddy, wingman, or crew member. Some are planned while others arise entirely unexpectedly. Spouses, family, old or new friends, community, faith leaders, and medical specialists all support the military community. Despite their importance, the stories of these partnerships often go untold. This anthology aims to correct that: We will highlight the nuances, surprises, joy, sorrow, heroism, tears, healing power, and ache of partnerships. We invite you to submit the story about partnerships from your journey, so we can help tell it.
Top Prize:
$500 Editors' Choice award
Additional prizes:
$250 for each genre category (prose, poetry, visual art)
📅 Deadline: March 01, 2024 (Expired)
Writers Alliance of Gainesville
Genres: Essay, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, and Short Story
Bacopa Literary Review’s 2024 contest is open from March 4 through April 4, with $200 Prize and $100 Honorable Mention in each of six categories: Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Flash Fiction, Free Verse Poetry, Formal Poetry, and Visual Poetry.
Top Prize:
$200
Additional prizes:
100
📅 Deadline: April 04, 2024 (Expired)
The Writer's Workout
Genres: Fiction, Short Story, Crime, Fantasy, Horror, Humor, Mystery, Poetry, Romance, Science Fiction, Script Writing, Thriller, and Young Adult
The Writer's Games is a free competition with six surprise challenges over six weeks, designed to help each individual writer improve his or her craft fast. FREE registration is required in advance (opens May 1, 2024). Every entry from a registered participant receives honest, unbiased feedback from multiple judges. There's no elimination; push yourself to try each challenge and see what you alone can do in 72 hours each week. The top five winners each week are published in a competition anthology (that's 25 chances, plus the Judges' Choice!).
Top Prize:
Publication in anthology, 72 Hours (26+ spaces)
📅 Deadline: July 22, 2024
Minotaur Books & Malice Domestic
Genres: Mystery and Novel
Welcome to the Tony Hillerman Prize for Best First Mystery Set in the Southwest Competition! The Competition is open to any writer, regardless of nationality, aged 18 or older, who has never been the author of any Published Mystery Novel (including self-published works and ebooks), as defined by the guidelines below, and is not under contract with a publisher for publication of a mystery novel.
Top Prize:
$10,000 advance
Additional prizes:
Contract with Minotaur Books
📅 Deadline: November 30, 2021 (Expired)
Gotham Writers Workshop
Genres: Poetry
The holidays are a time of glad tidings and good cheer and, if we're honest, some not-so-glad tidings as well. In the spirit of Scrooge, Santa, and everything in between, we invite you to write your most honest holiday haiku. A reminder: a haiku consists of 5 syllables in the first line, 7 syllables in the second line, and 5 in the third line.
Top Prize:
Free class from Gotham Writers Workshop
Additional prizes:
Publication on website
📅 Deadline: February 29, 2024 (Expired)
Academy of American Poets
Genres: Poetry
Offered since 1954, the James Laughlin Award is given to recognize and support a second book of poetry forthcoming in the next calendar year. Along with $5,000, the winner receives an all-expenses-paid weeklong residency in Miami Beach, Florida, and distribution of the winning book to approximately one thousand Academy of American Poets members. Submissions are accepted January 1 through May 15 each year.
Top Prize:
$5,000
Additional prizes:
Distribution of book to Academy of American Poets members
📅 Deadline: May 15, 2024
Black Caucus
Genres: Fiction, Non-fiction, Novel, and Poetry
Through this contest, the BCALA honors the best self-published ebooks by an African American author in the U.S. in both fiction and poetry genres. These awards acknowledge outstanding achievement in the presentation of the cultural, historical and sociopolitical aspects of the Black Diaspora. The purpose is to encourage the artistic expression of the African American experience via literature and scholarly research including biographical, historical, and social history treatments by African Americans.
Top Prize:
$2,500
📅 Deadline: February 29, 2024 (Expired)
Write the World
Genres: Essay and Memoir
We want to hear about an experience in your life, rife with characters and description and conflict and scene… but we also want to hear how you make sense of this experience, how it sits with you, and why it has surfaced as writing. Open a window into your life and invite your readers to enter.
Top Prize:
Best entry: $100
Additional prizes:
Runner up: $50 | Best peer review: $50
📅 Deadline: June 24, 2024
Jane Austen Society of North America
Genres: Children's and Essay
JASNA conducts an annual student Essay Contest to foster the study and appreciation of Jane Austen's works in new generations of readers. Students world-wide are invited to compete for scholarship awards in three divisions: high school, college, and graduate school.
Top Prize:
$1,000 scholarship
Additional prizes:
Two nights’ lodging for JASNA’s Annual General Meeting
📅 Deadline: June 02, 2022 (Expired)
Lambda Literary
Genres: LGBTQ and Novel
The Randall Kenan Prize for Black LGBTQ Fiction, in memory of the celebrated author Randall Kenan, honors Black LGBTQ writers of fiction. The award will go to a Black LGBTQ writer whose fiction explores themes of Black LGBTQ life, culture, and/or history. To be eligible, the winner of the prize must have published at least one book and show promise in continuing to produce groundbreaking work.
Top Prize:
$3,000
📅 Deadline: February 16, 2024 (Expired)
Academy of American Poets
Genres: Poetry
The Ambroggio Prize is a $1,000 publication prize given for a book-length poetry manuscript originally written in Spanish and with an English translation. The winning manuscript is published by Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe, publisher of literary works, scholarship, and art books by or about U.S. Hispanics.
Top Prize:
$1,000
Additional prizes:
Publication by Bilingual Press
📅 Deadline: February 15, 2024 (Expired)
Writer's of the Future
Genres: Fiction, Short Story, Fantasy, and Science Fiction
L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Contest is an opportunity for new writers of science fiction and fantasy to have their work judged by some of the masters in the field and discovered by a wide audience. Prizes of $1000, $750 and $500 are awarded every three months. From the four 1st Place winners each year, one story is selected as the grand prize winner and the author receives an additional $5000 cash prize.
Top Prize:
$1,000
Additional prizes:
$750 for 2nd place, $500 for 3rd, £5000 annual grand prize
📅 Deadline: September 30, 2022 (Expired)
Write the World
Genres: Essay and Non-fiction
The writer and activist Bill McKibben describes Environmental Writing as "the collision between people and the rest of the world." This month, peer closely at that intersection: How do humans interact with their environment? Given your inheritance of this earth, the world needs your voices now more than ever.
Top Prize:
Best entry: $100
Additional prizes:
Runner up: $50 | Best peer review: $50
📅 Deadline: April 22, 2024
Lucas Ackroyd
Genres: Essay, Non-fiction, and Travel
I’ve traveled the world from Sweden to South Africa, from the Golden Globes to the Olympic women’s hockey finals. I’ve photographed a mother polar bear and her cubs and profiled stars like ABBA, Jennifer Garner and Katarina Witt. And I couldn’t have done it without women. I’ve been very fortunate, and it’s time for me to give back. With the Irene Adler Prize, I’m awarding a $1,000 scholarship to a woman pursuing a degree in journalism, creative writing, or literature at a recognized post-secondary institution.
Top Prize:
$1,000
Additional prizes:
2x honorable mentions: $250
📅 Deadline: May 30, 2024
The Letter Review
Genres: Crime, Essay, Fantasy, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Horror, Humor, Memoir, Mystery, Non-fiction, Novel, Novella, Poetry, Romance, Science Fiction, Science Writing, Short Story, Thriller, and Young Adult
Free to enter. Seeking 0-5000 word (poetry: 15 pgs) excerpts of unpublished books (Fiction, Poetry, Nonfiction), including most self-published and indie-published works. 2-4 Winners (publication of extract is optional). We Shortlist 10-20 writers. Open to writers from anywhere in the world, with no theme or genre restrictions. Judged blind.
Top Prize:
$500
Additional prizes:
Optional Publication of Excerpt, Letter of Recommendation
📅 Deadline: April 30, 2024
Write the World
Genres: Essay, Memoir, and Non-fiction
This month, dear writers, ahead of COP27, help us raise the voices of young people in this urgent fight. In a piece of personal narrative, tell the world’s leaders gathering in how climate change impacts you. How has this crisis changed your environment, your community, your sense of the future? Storytelling, after all, plays a critical role in helping us grasp the emergency through which we are all living, igniting empathy in readers and listeners—itself a precursor to action.
Top Prize:
$100
Additional prizes:
Runner-up: $50
📅 Deadline: October 18, 2022 (Expired)
Writers' Mastermind
Genres:
You’ve got something special. We want to get it out into the world. The Writers’ Mastermind is holding a short story contest for writers of all levels and all genres. 1K-5K words. Previously published work is accepted.
Top Prize:
$100
Additional prizes:
Publication and social media promotion, 6 months free membership to the Writers' Mastermind
💰 Entry fee: $0
📅 Deadline: September 01, 2021 (Expired)
Gotham Writers Workshop
Genres: Fiction, Flash Fiction, Horror, Humor, Mystery, Short Story, and Thriller
Autumn is the season of rustling leaves, a chill in the air, and, of course, Halloween. In that spirit, we invite you to create the first line of a frightening story. But we want that first line to be so intriguing or chilling or scary that it makes our skin tingle and our nerves twitch.
Top Prize:
Free Gotham Writers class
💰 Entry fee: $0
📅 Deadline: November 30, 2023 (Expired)
Parsec Inc.
Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Horror, Science Fiction, and Short Story
2023 Contest Theme is: Preserve or Purge. We ask that authors try and incorporate both concepts into their speculative work. This can be conveyed in the setting, plot, characters, dialogue; the only limit is your imagination. The theme must be integral to the story in some way and not just mentioned in passing.
Top Prize:
$200
Additional prizes:
2nd: $100 | 3rd: $50
💰 Entry fee: $0
📅 Deadline: March 31, 2024 (Expired)
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