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DIRECTORY
Showing 381 contests that match your search.
Ploughshares
Genres: Fiction, Non-fiction, and Poetry
The 2024 Emerging Writer's Contest will run from March 1 at noon EST to May 15 at noon EST. The Emerging Writer's Contest is open to writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry who have yet to publish or self-publish a book. Read past winners of the contest here. We award publication, $2,000, review from Aevitas Creative Management, and a 1-year subscription for one winner in each of the three genres. =
Top Prize:
$2,000
Additional prizes:
Review from Aevitas Creative Management
💰 Entry fee: $30
📅 Deadline: May 01, 2024 (Expired)
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
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)
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
Witcraft
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.
Top Prize:
AUD $50
Additional prizes:
2nd: AUD $20 | 3rd: AUD $10
📅 Deadline: December 15, 2023 (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)
Sunspot Literary Journal
Genres: Essay, Fantasy, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Memoir, Non-fiction, Poetry, Script Writing, and Short Story
Sunspot Lit is looking for one work, including a novel or novella excerpt, that provides a flare of creative energy. Literary or genre accepted. Enter through Submittable or Duotrope. Learn more: https://sunspotlit.com/contests
Top Prize:
$500
Additional prizes:
Publication
💰 Entry fee: $10
📅 Deadline: May 31, 2024
New Deal Museum
Genres: Christian, Crime, Fantasy, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Horror, Humor, LGBTQ, Mystery, Novel, Novella, Poetry, Romance, Science Fiction, Short Story, Thriller, and Travel
GVCA is excited to announce the ninth annual New Deal Writing Competition! This competition challenges writers to use a painting chosen by the staff at GVCA as inspiration for a short story. This year’s painting is “Playtime” by Fred Ross.
Top Prize:
$200
Additional prizes:
Publication in newsletter
💰 Entry fee: $5
📅 Deadline: March 15, 2024 (Expired)
Fiction Factory
Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Humor, Mystery, Novel, Romance, Science Fiction, and Young Adult
Have you completed the first draft of your novel? Are you ready to pass it on to a fresh pair of eyes, to see if you are on the right track? Is your all-important first chapter ready for submission to an agent? Whatever your plans, your first chapter must shine – it must grab your readers or quickly lose their interest.
Top Prize:
£500 + an appraisal
💰 Entry fee: $22
📅 Deadline: February 29, 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
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 (Expired)
The Masters Review
Genres: Fiction and Novel
Each fall, The Masters Review hosts a call for novel excerpts! Writing a novel can be an arduous and lonely process, but we’re here to champion the great work being produced. Whether your book is not quite finished or ready to pitch, we want to read your words. For this contest, we’re looking for self-contained excerpts that display a strong voice, compelling characters, and carefully constructed narrative arcs. You may submit an excerpt from any section of your completed or in-progress novel, but choose wisely: a synopsis should not be required for understanding the excerpt. As always, we have no limitations on genre, though we are primarily interested in literary fiction.
Top Prize:
$3,000
Additional prizes:
2nd: $300, online publication | 3rd: $200, online publication
💰 Entry fee: $20
📅 Deadline: November 12, 2023 (Expired)
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)
Exeter Writers
Genres: Fiction and Short Story
Exeter Writers runs an annual short story competition. The competition began in 2009 and is very popular, receiving entries from all over the world. The maximum word count is 3,000.
Top Prize:
$900
💰 Entry fee: $9
📅 Deadline: February 28, 2021 (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
Write of Passage
Genres: Non-fiction
The Shiny Dime is a concept we teach to help people stand out online, and we’ve distilled it into a simple writing challenge. Challenge registrants will participate in a 10 week writing challenge where we request participants to publish once per week. We will choose among the participants who have the most impactful writing and who are the most consistent.
Top Prize:
$1,000
Additional prizes:
Free access to our 5 week writing bootcamp (a $4000 dollar value)
📅 Deadline: February 18, 2024 (Expired)
Genres: Poetry
POETRY INTERNATIONAL is one of the oldest and most respected literary journals dedicated to publishing poetry from around the globe. Each issue of the print journal brings together poems, portfolios, and prose representing a rich diversity of countries and languages.
Top Prize:
$1,000
📅 Deadline: April 30, 2024 (Expired)
The Independent Author Network
Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Humor, Memoir, Mystery, Non-fiction, Novel, Novella, Poetry, Romance, Science Fiction, Science Writing, Thriller, Young Adult, Crime, and Short Story
The Independent Author Network presents the 10th Annual IAN Book of the Year Awards, an international contest open to all authors with 55 fiction and non-fiction categories. Winners are eligible to receive a share of cash prizes of $6,000 USD. Open to all English language print and eBooks available for sale, including small presses, mid-size independent publishers, university presses, and self-published authors.
Top Prize:
$2,500
Additional prizes:
$6,000.00 USD in total cash prizes
💰 Entry fee: $49
📅 Deadline: August 16, 2024
Showcase Script Competition
Genres: Script Writing
The Scriptation Showcase is the screenwriting contest that circulates winners’ scripts to Hollywood directors, showrunners, and producers. 25 scripts get featured for one year in Scriptation, the Emmy® winning app used on film and TV productions.
Top Prize:
$1,000
💰 Entry fee: $54
📅 Deadline: May 12, 2024 (Expired)
Write the World
Genres: Fiction and Short Story
What truth do you want to convey through your stories? This month, write a short story of up to 1000 words and invite readers into a contained universe. With only a small word limit to work with, you must choose carefully. Remember, as Neil Gaiman once said: “Short stories are tiny windows into other worlds and other minds and other dreams.”
Top Prize:
$100
Additional prizes:
Runner up: $50 | Best peer review: $50
💰 Entry fee: $0
📅 Deadline: November 27, 2023 (Expired)
Vine Leaves Press
Genres: Essay, Memoir, Non-fiction, and Novel
Small presses have potential for significant impact, and at Vine Leaves Press, we take this responsibility quite seriously. It is our responsibility to give marginalized groups the opportunity to establish literary legacies that feel rich and vast. Why? To sustain hope for the world to become a more loving, tolerable, and open space. It always begins with art. That is why we have launched this writing competition.
Top Prize:
$1,000
Additional prizes:
Book publication
💰 Entry fee: $25
📅 Deadline: July 01, 2024
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: November 15, 2024
Kinsman Avenue Publishing, Inc
Genres: Essay, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, and Short Story
Up to $1000 in cash prizes for the African Diaspora Award 2024. African-themed prose and poetry wanted. Top finalists are published in Kinsman Quarterly’s magazine and the anthology, “Black Butterfly: Voices of the African Diaspora.”
Top Prize:
$1,000
Additional prizes:
Publication in anthology, "Black Butterfly: Voices of the African Diaspora" and print and digital magazine
💰 Entry fee: $25
📅 Deadline: June 30, 2024
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: July 25, 2024
WS Writers
Genres: Non-fiction, Poetry, and Short Story
All entries will be considered for publication. Winning submissions in each of the three categories (Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Poetry) will be awarded prizes of $400 for First Place, $200 for Second Place, and $100 for a total of $2,100 in prizes. All finalists will be accepted for publication and will receive one copy of the current issue of Flying South.
Top Prize:
$400
💰 Entry fee: $15
📅 Deadline: May 31, 2024
Anthology Magazine
Genres: Fiction, Short Story, and Flash Fiction
The Anthology Flash Fiction Competition is open to original and previously unpublished flash fiction on any theme in the English language by writers of any nationality. We are looking for writing that is clever and unique, inspires us, and crafts a compelling story. Max 250 words.
Top Prize:
€300
💰 Entry fee: $12
📅 Deadline: September 30, 2024
Gulf Coast Writers Association
Genres: Flash Fiction, Non-fiction, and Poetry
The Gulf Coast Writers Association is a twenty-nine year old association which was founded to promote writing and writers in Southwest Florida. Its annual contest is open to anyone from anywhere. The entries are judged blind by experienced members of the association and esteemed members of the local community. Entry fees are $20 for the first submission and $10 thereafter, with discounts for GCWA Members. Winners will be notified in June of 2024. Prose has a 1,500 word limit and poetry must be 40 lines or less. Send us your bravest work.
Top Prize:
$200
Additional prizes:
2nd: $75 | 3rd: $50
💰 Entry fee: $20
📅 Deadline: May 31, 2024
Indiana Review
Genres: Essay, Fiction, and Non-fiction
Send us one creative nonfiction piece, up to 5000 words, for a chance at $1000 + publication. This year's contest will be judged by Lars Horn.
Top Prize:
$1,000
💰 Entry fee: $20
📅 Deadline: March 31, 2024 (Expired)
FanStory.com Inc.
Genres: Poetry
The theme for this poetry contest is "faith". We are looking for poems that in some way pertain to this theme. It doesn't matter if it's spiritual, political, intellectual or emotional as long as faith is clearly represented.
Top Prize:
$100
💰 Entry fee: $10
📅 Deadline: August 19, 2024
The Comstock Review
Genres: Poetry
Here 's how it works: our editorial staff chooses approximately fifty to sixty finalists. The highest scoring finalists (25 or so) are considered Special Merit poems. Special Merit poems go to the judge. The judge determines the top three prize winners. The entire editorial staff then selects the Honorable Mentions from the remaining Special Merits.
Top Prize:
$1,000
Additional prizes:
Publication by The Comstock Review
💰 Entry fee: $5
📅 Deadline: July 15, 2024
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
Genres:
The PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize recognizes 12 emerging writers for their debut short story published in a literary magazine, journal, or cultural website. The 12 winning stories are selected by a committee of three judges who are well-respected experts in the art of the short story. The winning writers each receive a $2,000 cash prize and will be published by Catapult in their annual anthology.
Top Prize:
$2,000
Additional prizes:
Publication in Catapult
💰 Entry fee: $0
📅 Deadline: November 15, 2021 (Expired)
Hayden's Ferry Review
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)
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
Free Flash Fiction
Genres: Flash Fiction
Submit a flash fiction piece of between 100 and 300 words, on any theme.
Top Prize:
£150
Additional prizes:
2 Highly Commended: £40 | 3 shortlisted: £30 | Publication
💰 Entry fee: $5
📅 Deadline: April 23, 2024 (Expired)
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