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DIRECTORY

Best Writing Contests in 2024

Showing 342 contests that match your search.

Genres: Poetry

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:

$300

Additional prizes:

Publication

💰 Entry fee: $10

📅 Deadline: April 30, 2024

Genres: Fiction and Novella

Established in 2001, The Clay Reynolds Novella Prize highlights one book a year that excels in the novella format. Since 2019 the Prize comes with $500, a standard royalty contract, and 20 copies of the published book.

Top Prize:

$500

Additional prizes:

A Standard Royalty contract, 20 copies of the novella published

💰 Entry fee: $20

📅 Deadline: March 31, 2024

Creative Writing Award for Poetry

Aesthetica Magazine

Genres: Poetry

The Aesthetica Creative Writing Award celebrates outstanding writers. The Award was launched after the publication of Aesthetica Magazine, as a way to support the next generation of literary talent. The Creative Writing Award is open to Poetry and Short Fiction submissions on any theme, however, we are particularly interested in works that reflect upon our ever changing world.

Additional prizes:

Publication in the Aesthetica Creative Writing Annual | Two online masterclasses with Arvon | A course from the Poetry School

💰 Entry fee: $15

📅 Deadline: August 31, 2024

Genres: LGBTQ

Lambda Literary has played a pivotal role in nurturing the development of exceptional new LGBTQ writers through the Writers Retreat for Emerging LGBTQ Voices, internships, and writing and performance opportunities. The Judith A. Markowitz Award for Exceptional New LGBTQ Writers recognizes LGBTQ-identified writers whose work demonstrates their strong potential for promising careers.

📅 Deadline: February 16, 2024 (Expired)

FFF Competition Twenty One

Free Flash Fiction

Genres: Flash Fiction

Submit a flash fiction piece of between 100 and 300 words, on any theme.

Additional prizes:

2 Highly Commended: £40 | 3 shortlisted: £30 | Publication

💰 Entry fee: $5

📅 Deadline: April 23, 2024

Genres: Fiction, Non-fiction, Novel, and Novella

We are seeking fiction and creative nonfiction of every genre. The contest is open to authors who have not been published by a major press. We publish in English, but the contest is open to writers from anywhere in the world. The early-bird entry fee (December 15th-February 15th) will be $25.

Top Prize:

$1,500

Additional prizes:

Two runner ups will be selected, each receiving $700.

💰 Entry fee: $30

📅 Deadline: July 15, 2022 (Expired)

Genres: Non-fiction

Memo'd is a platform where wisdom is distilled into 10-point “Memos”. It aims to be the world’s most inspiring (and free-to-use!) repository of short-form knowledge – and AI will play a pivotal role in this. So what do you have to do to win? Publish an AI-assisted Memo (or Memos) that helps readers gain valuable knowledge in a specific area. Think Twitter threads that are worth remembering. Multiple submissions are welcome and there are no fees - and no catch!

Top Prize:

$750

Additional prizes:

Second Prize for second most unique views: $250 | Best AI Prompt Prize for most creative and useful prompt: $250

📅 Deadline: February 28, 2024 (Expired)

Genres: Essay, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Memoir, Non-fiction, Novel, Novella, Poetry, Script Writing, and Short Story

Literary or genre works accepted. Winner receives $500 plus publication, while runners-up and finalists are offered publication. No restrictions on theme or category. Closes: February 29. Entry fee: $12.50. Enter as many times as you like through Submittable or Duotrope

Additional prizes:

Runners-up and finalists are offered publication

💰 Entry fee: $12

📅 Deadline: February 29, 2024 (Expired)

Genres: Fiction, Non-fiction, Short Story, Essay, Memoir, and Novel

Established in 2018, the Women’s Prose Prize is for previously unpublished, original work of prose. Novels, short story collections, memoirs, essay collections, and all other forms of prose writing are eligible for consideration. The awarded manuscript is selected through a biennial competition, held in even-numbered years, that is open to all writers who identify as women.

Top Prize:

$1,000

Additional prizes:

Publication by Red Hen Press

💰 Entry fee: $25

📅 Deadline: February 28, 2024 (Expired)

Halloween Horror Contest

Halloween Horror Contest

Genres: Horror

The spooky season is almost upon us. We're looking for your creepiest horror stories. The ones that make us lay awake in bed at night gnashing our teeth, wondering about the sound coming from under the bed. The story can be a maximum of 5,000 words. There is no minimum.

Top Prize:

$250

Additional prizes:

Two runner-ups: $50

💰 Entry fee: $5

📅 Deadline: November 11, 2022 (Expired)

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

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.

Additional prizes:

Runner up: $50 | Best peer review: $50

📅 Deadline: May 27, 2024

3-6-9 Poetry Contest

FanStory.com Inc.

Genres: Poetry

This poem has three stanzas. Each stanza has three lines that follows the 3-6-9 syllable count. The first line has 3 syllables, the second line has 6 syllables and the last line 9 syllables. The subject can be anything.

Top Prize:

$100

💰 Entry fee: $10

📅 Deadline: September 20, 2022 (Expired)

Season Themes

HAVOK Publishing

Genres: Fantasy, Flash Fiction, Mystery, Science Fiction, Short Story, and Thriller

HAVOK is a constant flash fiction contest, with rolling deadlines. Each season is split into monthly competitions with thematically connected prompts in a range of genres.

Top Prize:

$100

Additional prizes:

Publication in an anthology. Potential for larger gift card wins.

📅 Deadline: December 29, 2023 (Expired)

Ghost Novellas for the "Presence" Collection

Kinsman Avenue Publishing, Inc

Genres: Fiction, Flash Fiction, Novella, and Thriller

Ghost novellas wanted from (but not limited to) underrepresented authors by April 31, 2024. Entries must be between 15,000-25,000 words, incorporating BIPOC cultures, traditions, and histories. Selected submissions receive $1000 USD and publication within Kinsman Quarterly’s journal and the “Presence” collection. $25 submission fee required.

Top Prize:

$1,000

Additional prizes:

Publication in the Kinsman Quarterly and the "Presence" collection

💰 Entry fee: $25

📅 Deadline: March 31, 2024

Michael Waters Poetry Prize

University of Southern Idaho

Genres: Poetry

A prize of $6,000 and publication by SIR Press is awarded annually for a collection of poetry written in English. All entries are considered for publication.

Top Prize:

$6,000

Additional prizes:

Publication

💰 Entry fee: $35

📅 Deadline: February 01, 2024 (Expired)

The Rubery Prize

Rubery Book Awards

Genres: Crime, Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Humor, Memoir, Mystery, Non-fiction, Novel, Novella, Science Fiction, Thriller, Young Adult, and Romance

The Rubery Prize is a prestigious international book award seeking the best books by indie writers, self published authors and books published by independent presses, judged by reputable judges. Through our reputation of finding quality and outstanding books we aim to bring recognition to the works that win and heighten an author's profile.

Additional prizes:

£200, a write-up

💰 Entry fee: $60

📅 Deadline: March 31, 2024

Genres: Poetry

At around noon each Tuesday (GMT), from 12 April 2022 to 31 January 2023, five words are posted on the Ó Bhéal Five Words competition page. Entrants have one week to compose and submit poems that include all five words given for the week. The competition runs for 42 weeks, and a prize of 750 euro is awarded to one winner.

Additional prizes:

€500, €250

💰 Entry fee: $5

📅 Deadline: January 30, 2024 (Expired)

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.

Additional prizes:

Publication by The Letter Review

📅 Deadline: April 30, 2024

Genres: Crime, Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Humor, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, Short Story, Thriller, Young Adult, Flash Fiction, and Science Writing

One of the largest awards open to unpublished writers and closed to professionals. We are the first magazine to pay pro rates and only accept submissions from new writers, putting over $100k into the hands of emerging talent around the globe so far. One new writer receives the grand prize. We also choose the best stories, pay the authors professional rates, and publish them in our magazine. March guest judge is Somto Ihezue.

Top Prize:

$3,000

Additional prizes:

10x Paid publication, 25 x $20 USD | Free entry to Novelist Accelerator

💰 Entry fee: $10

📅 Deadline: April 01, 2024

Genres: Flash Fiction

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:

$300

Additional prizes:

Publication

💰 Entry fee: $10

📅 Deadline: April 20, 2024

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.

Additional prizes:

Genre Runner-up (x4): $500 | Feedback by industry professionals.

💰 Entry fee: $25

📅 Deadline: February 01, 2024 (Expired)

Genres: Crime, Fantasy, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, Short Story, Thriller, and Young Adult

For this short story challenge, all participants will be randomly assigned a genre pairing. As soon as you receive your ‘smashed’ genres you'll have until the closing time to write and submit a short story of any length up to 5,000 words, that perfectly and seamlessly combines both genres into one amazing short story.

Additional prizes:

Publication

💰 Entry fee: $11

📅 Deadline: October 23, 2023 (Expired)

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

Novel Fair 2025

Irish Writers Centre

Genres: Fiction and Novel

Now in its 13th year, the Novel Fair is an annual competition initiated by the Irish Writers Centre. Described by The Irish Times as ‘A Dragons’ Den for writers’, each year the Fair introduces twelve up-and-coming writers to top publishers and literary agents, giving novelists the opportunity to bypass the slush pile, pitch their ideas and place their synopsis and sample chapters directly into the hands of industry professionals.

💰 Entry fee: $59

📅 Deadline: September 30, 2024

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Short Story, Crime, Flash Fiction, Horror, Humor, Science Fiction, Thriller, and Young Adult

Our annual flagship competition, the Stringybark Stories Open Short Story Award 2023, is now bigger than ever! Thanks to Graeme Simpson and Anne Buist, a record prize pool of over $1300 is on offer. The theme is open, the only constraint is that there must be a reference to Australia somewhere in the story. It doesn't matter how small a link there is (it could be a jar of vegemite on the counter), there just needs to be one!

Top Prize:

$560

Additional prizes:

2nd: $360 | 3rd: $210 | 4th: $110

💰 Entry fee: $15

📅 Deadline: February 25, 2024 (Expired)

Genres: Fiction, Short Story, Crime, Mystery, Science Fiction, and Thriller

Inspiring Fiction’s first crime and speculative fiction short story contest is on the theme ‘Secrets’. The winner and shortlisted entries will be published in the fourth issue of Tangled Web Magazine.

Additional prizes:

Publication

💰 Entry fee: $6

📅 Deadline: July 31, 2023 (Expired)

AWP Prize for the Novel

Association of Writers & Writing Programs

Genres: Fiction and Novel

AWP sponsors the Award Series, an annual competition for the publication of excellent new book-length works. The competition is open to all authors writing in English regardless of nationality or residence, and is available to published and unpublished authors alike.

Top Prize:

$2,500

Additional prizes:

Publication by New Issues Press

💰 Entry fee: $30

📅 Deadline: February 28, 2024 (Expired)

Genres: Flash Fiction and Humor

Send us your skillfully written stories that are brief, humorous and engaging, with the emphasis on wit, word play, absurdity and inspired nonsense. Whether your story is designed to raise a smile or a belly laugh, we want stories that are a refuge from the relentless barrage of negativity, angst, war and climate catastrophe that dominates the web.

Additional prizes:

2nd: AUD $20 | 3rd: AUD $10

📅 Deadline: December 15, 2023 (Expired)

"I Matter" Contest

National Youth Foundation

Genres: Poetry

Submit a poem or art on the topic of why Black lives matter. This contest is open to students from grades K-12.

Top Prize:

$500

📅 Deadline: July 23, 2024

Valorious Awards

Hopper Creative Group LLC

Genres: Science Fiction

The Valorious Awards, sponsored by international best-selling author, Christopher Hopper, is an annual competition seeking to recognize and encourage emerging artists in two categories: best sci-fi novel, best sci-fi voice actor. The awards seek to recognize emerging independent authors and character actors and discover new and exciting talent within the world of science fiction.

Top Prize:

$500

Additional prizes:

2nd: $250 | 3rd: $150

💰 Entry fee: $35

📅 Deadline: December 31, 2023 (Expired)

ABC Poetry Contest

FanStory.com Inc.

Genres: Poetry

Write an ABC Poem. That's a poem with five lines that follows the alphabet. Cash prize!

Top Prize:

$100

💰 Entry fee: $10

📅 Deadline: June 11, 2022 (Expired)

The Betty Award

The Betty Award

Genres: Children's

As one of the few competitions for elementary and middle school students, The Betty Award grants cash prizes for written pieces below 1,000 words. The Betty Award has both a Spring & Fall contest.

Top Prize:

$300

💰 Entry fee: $20

📅 Deadline: May 04, 2024

Western Writing Contest

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: March 16, 2024 (Expired)

The Lascaux Prize in Poetry

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

Prompts | Prompts Sans Serif | 2024-03

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