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DIRECTORY

Best Writing Contests in 2024

Showing 428 contests that match your search.

The Plough Prize

The Plough Arts Centre

Genres: Poetry

The Plough Prize is an international poetry competition open for poems in English, limited to 40 lines on any subject. The contest emphasizes anonymity in judging, with a focus on quality.

Top Prize:

£1,000

Additional prizes:

2nd place: £500 3rd place: £250 Highly Commended poems may be recognized.

💰 Entry fee: $5

📅 Deadline: March 31, 2024 (Expired)

The Heartland Review Open Calls

The Heartland Review

Genres: Poetry and Fiction

The Heartland Review publishes fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. The contest is open to established and emerging writers. Submissions are free, and the next open calls will begin in December 2024. A contributor copy is provided to published authors.

Additional prizes:

Publication in The Heartland Review. 1 contributor copy for published works

📅 Deadline: December 01, 2024

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is open to all authors writing in English regardless of nationality or residence, and is available to published and unpublished authors alike.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: Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Science Fiction, and Suspense

An annual fiction competition recognizing the finest speculative fiction inspired by Kurt Vonnegut. The contest welcomes unpublished fiction across various speculative genres.

Top Prize:

$1,000

Additional prizes:

Publication opportunities for runners-up and honorable mentions.

💰 Entry fee: $23

📅 Deadline: November 02, 2024 (Expired)

Human Rights Essay Contest for High School Students

Kemper Human Rights Education Foundation

Genres: Essay

The contest invites high school students to respond to a prompt regarding human rights. Prizes include $3000 for 1st place, $1500 for 2nd, and $750 for 3rd. Essays should not exceed 2500 words and must include a cover page with specific details.

Top Prize:

$3,000

💰 Entry fee: $0

📅 Deadline: December 10, 2024

Genres: Non-fiction

The Anthology Nature Writing Competition is part of the Anthology Creative Awards, which encourages and promotes emerging writers. The winner will have their entry published in Anthology magazine.

Top Prize:

€500

Additional prizes:

Winning entry published in Anthology magazine

💰 Entry fee: $10

📅 Deadline: September 30, 2024 (Expired)

Bacopa Literary Review Annual Writing Contest

Writers Alliance of Gainesville

Genres: Essay, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, and Short Story

The Bacopa Literary Review is an annual international print journal seeking engaging and original submissions across multiple genres. The contest includes various categories with specific guidelines to encourage diverse forms of writing.

Top Prize:

$200

Additional prizes:

$100 Honorable Mention in each of six categories

📅 Deadline: May 02, 2024 (Expired)

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.

Top Prize:

€750

Additional prizes:

€500, €250

💰 Entry fee: $5

📅 Deadline: January 30, 2024 (Expired)

Genres: Poetry

The Diode Editions Chapbook Contest is an annual competition open to English-language poets. The contest is currently closed, with winners for the 2024 contests to be announced by August 1, 2024. Multiple publications may be selected during this contest.

Top Prize:

$750

💰 Entry fee: $10

📅 Deadline: July 15, 2024 (Expired)

Free Verse Poetry Contest

FanStory.com Inc.

Genres:

Write a free verse poem. This is a method of writing poetry, which does not essentially follow any structure or style. There is no fixed meter and no structure regarding rhyme and lines in each stanza.

Top Prize:

$100

💰 Entry fee: $10

📅 Deadline: August 22, 2022 (Expired)

Genres: Fiction, Flash Fiction, Poetry, and Short Story

Subscribe to Fanstory for $9.95 a month and enter as many contests as you like from their list of writing and poetry contests, updated daily. All participants receive feedback from a community of writers, and the winner of each contest receives a cash prize of up to $100.

Top Prize:

Cash prizes of up to $100

💰 Entry fee: $10

📅 Deadline: January 31, 2023 (Expired)

New Deal Writing Competition

Genesee Valley Council on the Arts (GVCA)

Genres: Christian, Crime, Fantasy, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Horror, Humor, LGBTQ, Mystery, Novel, Novella, Poetry, Romance, Science Fiction, Short Story, Thriller, and Travel

The New Deal Writing Competition invites writers to create a short story inspired by a specific painting. The current painting is 'Playtime' by Fred Ross. This is the ninth annual contest, intended to celebrate creativity and connect art and writing.

Top Prize:

$200

Additional prizes:

Publication in newsletter

💰 Entry fee: $5

📅 Deadline: March 15, 2024 (Expired)

Genres: Poetry

Established to recognise and encourage excellence in the craft of poetry writing and to provide a platform for publication, the Anthology Poetry Competition is open to original and previously unpublished poems in the English language. Entries are invited from poets of all nationalities, living anywhere in the world. There is no restriction on theme or style. Poems submitted should not exceed 40 lines. There is no limit to entries per person. Each submission will require a separate entry form and is subject to a separate entry fee.

Top Prize:

€1000

Additional prizes:

2nd: €500 | 3rd: €250

💰 Entry fee: $18

📅 Deadline: October 31, 2024 (Expired)

Genres: Fiction, Flash Fiction, and Poetry

HFR will accept contest submissions in poetry and fiction between Feb 1-29, 2024. This year’s poetry judge is Diana Khoi Nguyen, author of Ghost Of and Root Fractures. This year’s fiction judge is Venita Blackburn, author of How to Wrestle a Girl and Dead in Long Beach, California. There will be two prizes of $1,500 each and publication in Hayden’s Ferry Review (online in summer 2024 and in the fall/winter 2024 print issue) for a poem or a group of poems and a work of fiction. A runner-up in each category will receive $250 and publication. All entries are considered for publication.

Top Prize:

$1,500

Additional prizes:

Runners-up: $250

💰 Entry fee: $20

📅 Deadline: February 29, 2024 (Expired)

Genres: Fiction and Non-fiction

The Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing was created in 2016 to honor outstanding debut literary works by first-generation immigrants, awarded for fiction and nonfiction in alternating years. The winner receives $10,000 and publication by Restless Books.

Top Prize:

$10,000

Additional prizes:

Publication by Restless Books

📅 Deadline: May 31, 2025

Genres: Fiction, Short Story, Horror, Mystery, and Science Fiction

The Fabula Press Short Story Contest encourages exceptional storytelling across genres, with no specific theme. Participants can submit entries for both free and paid categories. Winning stories may be published in an anthology.

Top Prize:

$500

Additional prizes:

2nd place: $250 3rd place: $100 Stories selected for publication: $75

📅 Deadline: June 11, 2024 (Expired)

Jim Martin Memorial Story Contest

Arizona Mystery Writers

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, and Short Story

The Jim Martin Memorial Adult Story Contest invites submissions of mystery, suspense, or thriller stories from adults aged 18 and over. It honors Jim Martin, a long-time member of Arizona Mystery Writers, supported by his family's generous contribution to the organization.

Top Prize:

$200

Additional prizes:

2nd Place: $100 3rd Place: $75 Winning stories will be published on the AMW website.

💰 Entry fee: $15

📅 Deadline: August 01, 2024 (Expired)

First 5 Pages Prize

Stockholm Writers Festival

Genres: Crime, Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Novel, Novella, Science Fiction, Thriller, and Young Adult

SWF is proud to launch the First 5 Pages Prize to mark our 5th anniversary. Dazzle us with your brilliance. Delight us with your wit. Deceive us with your dastardly plot-twists. There will be one Grand Prize winner chosen from all entries. The winner will receive: $1000 cash, a ticket to SWF22, a pitch meeting with an agent conducted over Zoom, two night’s accommodation at a boutique hotel, and a full developmental edit donated by Reedsy, the industry’s leading platform for writing services.

Top Prize:

$1,000

Additional prizes:

A full developmental edit donated by Reedsy & pitch meeting with an agent

💰 Entry fee: $20

📅 Deadline: January 31, 2022 (Expired)

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

The Genre Smash Short Story Challenge invites writers to create a story combining two randomly assigned genres from a list. Participants will have a maximum of 5,000 words to submit their entries. The winning story will be published on the website.

Top Prize:

£1,000

Additional prizes:

Publication

💰 Entry fee: $5

📅 Deadline: October 23, 2023 (Expired)

The Porter Fleming Literary Competition

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:

$1,000

Additional prizes:

2nd place: $500 3rd place: $250 Prizes available in each of the four genre categories

💰 Entry fee: $15

📅 Deadline: February 16, 2024 (Expired)

Genres: Poetry

In his groundbreaking course on ecopoetry, writer and professor Craig Santos Perez focuses on how to use poetry as a voice for the planet. This month, write a poem about what you know and love from the natural world. Your poem may focus on an element of the environment under threat, explore changes in nature, or honor the planet we call home.

Top Prize:

$100

Additional prizes:

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

💰 Entry fee: $0

📅 Deadline: September 25, 2023 (Expired)

Genres: Fiction and Novel

We are looking for an opening chapter up to 3,000 words, plus a one page synopsis outlining the balance of your story of any genre, so long as it's unpublished.

Top Prize:

£500

Additional prizes:

2nd Place: £200

💰 Entry fee: $13

📅 Deadline: October 31, 2024 (Expired)

BRMCWC Foundation Awards

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)

Genres: Fiction, Flash Fiction, and Short Story

The contest encourages participants to submit one fictional story (max 350 words) for a chance to win a prize. The contest requires a minimum of 10 shortlisted submissions to award a prize, which is a $25 Amazon Gift Card.

Top Prize:

$25 USD Amazon Gift Card

Additional prizes:

Publication

📅 Deadline: August 01, 2024 (Expired)

The Scribes Prize

Fairfield Scribes

Genres: Fiction

The Scribes Prize invites entries for flash fiction or creative nonfiction of 90-110 words. The contest aims to highlight great writing and offers monetary prizes with the winners published in the ScribesMICRO magazine.

Top Prize:

$250

Additional prizes:

Silver: $125 Bronze: $60 15 Honorable Mentions: $20 each Publication in ScribesMICRO and digital award seals for winners

💰 Entry fee: $5

📅 Deadline: September 01, 2024 (Expired)

4th Annual Wine Country Writers' Festival Writing Contest

Wine Country Writers' Festival Society

Genres: Fiction, Non-fiction, and Poetry

The contest is open to writers over 18 worldwide and includes categories for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Each submission must adhere to specific formatting guidelines and word limits. Winners are selected through blind judging, and results are announced during the festival.

Top Prize:

$200 CAD per category

Additional prizes:

Second place: $100 Third place: $50 Winner also gets anthology publication, entry to next year's festival

💰 Entry fee: $15

📅 Deadline: June 02, 2024 (Expired)

The Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction

Association of Writers & Writing Programs

Genres: Fiction and Short Story

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:

$5,500

Additional prizes:

Publication by Red Hen Press

💰 Entry fee: $30

📅 Deadline: February 28, 2024 (Expired)

Harold Morton Landon Translation Award

Academy of American Poets

Genres: Poetry

This $1,000 award recognizes a poetry collection translated from any language into English and published in the previous calendar year. Established in 1976, it is given annually. A noted translator chooses the winning book.

Top Prize:

$1,000

📅 Deadline: February 15, 2024 (Expired)

Genres: Poetry

The Nature and Place Poetry Competition 2024 is a poetry contest organized by The Rialto in association with RSPB, BirdLife International, Cambridge Conservation Initiative, and The University of Leeds Poetry Centre. It invites poets to submit unpublished poems focused on nature and place.

Top Prize:

£20 per poem published in The Rialto.

💰 Entry fee: $8

📅 Deadline: April 01, 2024 (Expired)

Genres: Poetry

The competition invites submissions of poetry. The theme for 2024 is 'RISKING ALL', commemorating the Everest Climbing expedition centenary.

Top Prize:

$200

Additional prizes:

Second Place: £100 Second Place: £50

💰 Entry fee: $4

📅 Deadline: August 31, 2024 (Expired)

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

The Imagine 2200 contest invites writers to envision equitable climate progress stories, showcasing creative solutions and community resilience. It emphasizes hope and the potential for positive change through fiction.

Top Prize:

$3,000

Additional prizes:

Second place: $2000 Third place: $1000 Ten $300 awards for finalists. Opportunity for the winner to participate in Oregon State University's Environmental Writing Fellowship and Residency, including a four-week writing residency.

📅 Deadline: June 24, 2024 (Expired)

Genres: Poetry

The Poetry Book Awards is an annual, international book award given to the best poetry books produced by indie writers, self published authors or books published by small, truly independent presses. We are proud to be a Welsh based international awards programme, open to all indie authors and self published poets globally.

Top Prize:

£400

Additional prizes:

2nd: £200 | 3rd: £100 | Publication

💰 Entry fee: $44

📅 Deadline: June 30, 2024 (Expired)

Jane Austen Society of North America Essay Contest

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)

HG Wells Short Story Competition

HG Wells Competition

Genres: Fiction and Short Story

The HG Wells Short Story Competition, founded by Reg Turnill, promotes writing and celebrates HG Wells' literary legacy. It encourages entries based on this year’s theme: 'The Fool.'

Top Prize:

Under 21: £1,000 Over 21: £500

Additional prizes:

All shortlisted entries will be published in an anthology. Shortlisted authors receive a copy of the anthology and a certificate.

💰 Entry fee: $10

📅 Deadline: July 08, 2024 (Expired)

Surrey International Writers ' Conference Writing Contest

Surrey International Writers' Conference Society

Genres: Short Story

The contest invites short stories in any genre, with a word count of 2,500 to 4,000 words. First prize is $1,000 and publication in Pulp Literature, while Honourable Mentions receive $150 and potential publication.

Top Prize:

$1,000

Additional prizes:

Winner gets publication in Pulp Literature, subject to editorial review. Honourable Mention: $150

💰 Entry fee: $15

📅 Deadline: September 15, 2024 (Expired)

Prompts | Many Hands | 2024-09

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