Tag Archives: writing competitions

Enter The SmokeLong Grand Micro Competition

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MerryGoRound cr Judy DarleyUntil Tuesday 10th November 2023, the SmokeLong editors invite you enter the SmokeLong Grand Micro Competition (The Mikey), a biennial competition that celebrates and compensates the best micro fiction and nonfiction online.

Prizes:

The grand prize winner of The Mikey is automatically nominated for The Best Small Fictions and other prizes. There are also some substantial cash prizes.

  • The grand prize winner receives $1,500
  • The second place winner receives $500
  • The third place winner receives $300
  • Finalists receives $100

All finalists and placers will be published in the winter ’23 issue of SmokeLong Quarterly.

Entry Fees

This year entrants in The Mikey receive discounts for the we are autumn Afterglow webinars (a series of live or recorded webinars, peer-review workshops, and feedback). If you’re planning to do both, take advantage of this discount.

Up to 2 Micros: $13
Up to 4 Micros: $19
Up to 4 Micros with 1 Afterglow webinar (attendance only): $30
Up to 4 Micros with 3 Afterglow webinars (attendance only): $48 (best value)

Guidelines:

Your entry must be 400 words or fewer, excluding the title. There is no minimum word count.

Enter as many times as you like, but make sure the right entry fee accompanies each one. If you submit multiple entries at the same time, they must all be in the same document.

Fiction, non-fiction, and hybrid narratives are considered. While the line between prose and poetry is often blurry, you need to take into consideration that SmokeLong does not consider poetry.

Judging

All entries are read blind by a team of 15 SmokeLong editors from around the world. You must remove all identifying information from the story document itself. Please make sure you remove your name from the page number heading and the filename as well. Your name should appear ONLY in your cover letter, which the judges will not see.

You will probably receive a reply within two weeks if they decide to pass on your entries. If they take longer than two weeks, be encouraged. This means that at least one of your stories has made it through the first round of judging. Due to the blind nature of the judging process they aren’t able to communicate regarding which micro we are still considering.

If you’re unable to pay an entry fee, don’t give up hopes of entering – email editor@smokelong.com.

Before you enter

I highly recommend that before submitting your words, you devote some time to reading the kind of stories SmokeLong publishes. The editors have a very specific tastes in micro tales – sharp edges polished thin enough to see sunlight through are definitely preferred.

I recommend “Fistful of Blue” by Lindsey Pharr, which won the CNF competition of A SmokeLong Summer 23.

Find the full contest guidelines and enter here.

Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw my attention to? Send me an email at judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com.

Writers! Enter Mslexia Fiction Competitions 2023

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Mum's eye view cr Judy DarleyThe Mslexia Fiction Competitions are open for entries.

There are threecategories this year: Novel for Adults, Short Story, and Flash Fiction. The deadline for each is 18th September 2023.

Submit the first 5,000 words of your novel for adult, or young adult, readers; a complete short story of up to 3,000 words; and a flash fiction no more than 300 words.

Prizes include manuscript feedback and agent introductions, plus publication.

Mslexia Novel for Adults competition – everything you need to know

  • Judged by author Sophie Hannah, Natasha Onwuemezi of the Bookseller) and Sophie Lambert, literary agent and MD of the C&W Literary Agency, will choose the winner. This competition is open to women who are not yet published as novelist – self-published authors are eligible providing you’ve had fewer than 500 sales.
  • Submit first 5,000 words only in the first instance. Longlisted entrants will be asked to submit finished manuscripts later in the judging process
  • Your novel must be at least 50,000 words long
  • Entry fee: £26
  • 1st prize £5,000.
  • Finalists receive manuscript feedback from The Literary Consultancy and personal introductions to literary agents arranged in partnership with New Writing North.
  • Previous winners and finalists include Imogen Hermes Gower with The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock, Polly Clark with Larchfield, Frances Perkins with The Seven Imperfect Rules of Elvira Carr, Laura McVeigh with Under the Almond Tree, and many more.
  • Read an extract from the 2021 winning novel, Taint, here.

Mslexia Short Story competition 2023 – everything you need to know

  • Judged by Deborah Moggach, this competition is for unpublished complete short fiction of up to 3,000 words in any genre and on any theme.
  • The entry fee is £12.
  • 1st prize £3,000.
  • Three additional finalists will each receive £100
  • The winning entry and three finalists will be published in Mslexia.
  • The winning entry and finalists will be published in Issue 100 of Mslexia, with eight additional finalists, along with the four winners, appearing in Mslexia’s ebook anthology Best Women’s Fiction 2023.
  • Find out how 2022 winner Mónica Ibarra Parle did it here

Mslexia Flash Fiction Competition 2023 – everything you need to know

  • Judged by Tania Hershman, this competition is for unpublished complete short fiction of up to 300 words in any genre and on any theme
  • Entry fee: £6
  • 1st prize £500
  • Three additional finalists each receive £50
  • All four winning entries will be published in Issue 100 of Mslexia
  • Winning entries plus eight more shortlisted entries will be published in Mslexia’s ebook anthology Best Women’s Short Fiction 2023.
  • Find out how 2022 winner Karen Arnold did it here

Visit Mslexia’s entry instructions for a more comprehensive guide on how to enter.

Find full details at www.mslexia.co.uk. Good luck!

Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw attention to? Send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com.

Enter the Fractured Lit monsters, mystery and mayhem prize

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The team at Fractured Lit urge you to dig into the darkest recesses of your imagination to write stories of monsters, mystery and mayhem in 1,000 words or less that explore our humanity.

The deadline is 19th December 2021.

They say: “Using these genre themes, please remember that we’re searching for flash that investigates the mysteries of being human, the sorrow, and the joy of connecting to the diverse population around us. We want something new. Something that scares as much as it resonates; stories that help us discover the roots of desire and conflict, that shimmer on the page, that keep us reading, and wondering long after the last period on the page. Transport us from the here and now to a new land of discovery, a new way of being terrified, a new way of embracing all of the ways we show our humanness.”

A $20 reading fee allows you up to two stories of 1,000 words or fewer each per entry.

The competition prizes

The winner will receive $2000 and publication, while the 2nd and 3rd place winners will receive publication and $300 and $200, respectively. All entries will be considered for publication.

The judge is Amber Sparks, the author of four collections of short fiction, including And I Do Not Forgive You: Revenges and other Stories and The Unfinished World, and her fiction and essays have appeared in American Short Fiction, the Paris Review, Tin House, Granta, The Cut and elsewhere.

Find full details of how to enter here: fracturedlit.com/fractured-lit-monsters-mystery-and-mayhem-prize

Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw attention to? Send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com.

Submit your words to the Wild Atlantic Writing Awards

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Azorean views over the Atlantic by Judy DarleyIreland Writing Retreat and Wild Atlantic Writers invite you to submit flash fiction and creative non-fiction inspired by nature. The closing date is 10th December.

The Flash Fiction Award is open to all genres from sci-fi to crime, and romance to horror, providing nature features as a key element, “It could even be that a tree, plant, stone or other being or Nature in its multitude of expressions plays a key role in your story. ”

The maximum length is 500 words, not including the title.

The Creative Nonfiction Award offers a similar challenge, only instead of a fiction story it should take the form of memoir, personal essay, travelogue (even one about your hometown) or anything other true tale, providing nature plays significant role in your submission.

It must be no more than 500 words, not including the title.

For both competitions, the prize is 500 euros in cash.

A fee of 10 euro is required for each entry.

The closing date is 10th December.

Find the full rules and link to enter here.

Mslexia’s 2019 Fiction Awards

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Mum's eye view cr Judy DarleyThis year, Mslexia Fiction Awards include their Short Story, Adult Novel and Flash Fiction competitions. The deadline for each is 30th September 2019.

Entry fees are £10 per short story, £25 per novel extract and £5 per flash fiction entry.

The winner of the Short Story competition will receive £3,000, plus the optional extras of a writing retreat at Moniack Mhor, and mentoring by an editor at Virago Press.

Three other finalists will each receive £100. All four winning stories will be published in the March 2020 issue of Mslexia.

Shortlisted entries will be judged by award-winning short story author, novelist and performer Irenosen Okojie.

The winner of the Adult Novel competition will receive £5,000 and the option of representatlon by agent Charlotte Robertson. Judges are novelist Louise Doughty, Nicola Holloway from BBC Radio 4, and Literary agent Charlotte Robertson.

The winner and four finalists will receive manuscript feedback and introductions to agents and editors at a special event held in London.

The first prize in the Flash Fiction competition is £500. The winner will be picked by Katy Fish.

Three other flash fiction finalists will each receive £50. All four winning stories will be published in the March 2020 issue of Mslexia.

Find full details at www.mslexia.co.uk. Good luck!

A new inclusive nature-writing prize

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Tiny snail cr Judy DarleyThe Nan Shepherd Prize is accepting submissions until 10th September 2019. This new competition launched by Canongate aims to find the next major voice in nature writing. It intends not only to celebrate nature writing but provide an inclusive platform for new and emerging nature writers from underrepresented backgrounds.

The competition has been established in memory of Nan Shepherd. The organisers say:  “While her classic of nature writing The Living Mountain took three decades to first find a publisher, today the book is recognised as a masterpiece and Nan is inspiring a new generation of writers. We felt that a prize named after her was a fitting way to honour her legacy.”

The winner of The Nan Shepherd Prize for Nature Writing will receive a book deal with Canongate, including editorial mentoring and an advance of £10,000, as well as the option of literary representation with Jenny Brown Associates.

During the submissions period, the Canongate team will publish resources intended to demystify the publishing process.

The competition judges are Amy Liptrot, Chitra Ramaswamy, Jenny Brown and Nick Barley.

Applications are open to previously unpublished writers based in the UK and Ireland, who consider themselves underrepresented in nature writing, whether through ethnicity, disability, class, sex, gender, sexuality or any other circumstances. This means that entrants must not have published full-length books of fiction or non-fiction (including children’s books) with a trade publisher. Full details of eligibility and how to submit can be found here.

Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw my attention to? Send me an email at JudyDarley(@)ICloud(dot)com.

Become a food critic

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Osteria-del-Savio-casoncelli-pic by-Judy-Darley

Love food and love writing about it? You might be ripe for a writing competition with a difference. The Sunday Times has launched the AA Gill Award, a new award for unpublished writers on food in honour of AA Gill, the legendary restaurant reviewer (I’ll not forget him likening the flavour of mushrooms to the odour of sheets after sex), who died in 2016.

The aim of the award, launched in association with the Society of Editors, is to offer a launch pad to previously unknown writers aged over 21 and based in the UK.

All entries must take the form of a review. Amateur critics who have published their own unpaid work on websites are welcome, but not employed food writers.

The deadline for submissions is 17 April 2019.

Entries must be between 1,000 and 1,200 words, the length of Gill’s restaurant reviews. The winner will receive a prize of £5,000 and the winning review will be published in The Dish, the food section of The Sunday Times Magazine. Two runners-up will receive a prize of £500 and £250 respectively and will be invited to the awards ceremony in June 2019.

Entrants are welcome to submit a short supporting statement about themselves of no more than 150 words, but judges will focus solely on the submitted article. The judges’ decisions will be final. Only the winners and runners-up will be contacted. By submitting an article, you’re expressing your permission for The Sunday Times and the Society of Editors to publish your entry in print and on their websites at no fee.

Entries must be sent to aagill.award@sunday-times.co.uk. Include your name, date of birth and postal address. as well as a contact telephone number and email address.

Good luck!

Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw my attention to? Send me an email at judydarley(at)iCloud(dot)com.

Enter the Poetry on the Lake Competition

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Carzano harbour cr Judy DarleyThere’s still time to enter the Poetry on the Lake Competition with a closing date of 31st March 2019.

There are two categories:

Silver Wyvern (max 42 lines), which will be judged by singer, songwriter and broadcaster Paul Henry, and can be on any theme and in any form.
Formal (max 40 lines) is for traditional poetic forms only, such as sonnet, sestina, or villanelle, but can be on any topic.

Prizes range from €100 to €500.

I love how much more inclusive the world of writing competitions is becoming, with optional fees to allow lower-income talents to enter! In this case, all fees are classed as donations to the competition costs, organisation and events of Poetry on the Lake, so while there’s a suggested amount, they add: “If you genuinely can’t afford the fee, send one poem for nothing. Those who can, please donate generously.”

Find full details at www.poetryonthelake.org.

Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw my attention to? Send me an email at judydarley(at)iCloud(dot)com.

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Why use existing words when you can create your own?

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Tulip cr Judy DarleyMaking up words has always been an irresistible temptation for prolific writers – Lewis Carroll was a master of the craft, and Shakespeare wasn’t too shabby either.

Encouraging you to give into to your word-spawning urges, English PEN and Arvon have teamed up to give you a chance to win a place on an Arvon creative writing week (including travel) with the Making Up Words competition.

All you need to do is write a poem of up to 14 lines or a piece of flash fiction of up to 100 words, with a title that is a made-up word.

Made-Up Words is part of europolyglot, an English PEN festival of events, workshops, night classes and roundtables that celebrates multilingualism and active ageing in the UK, in partnership with the European Commission Representation in the United Kingdom.

Submit your entry in the body of an email to competition@englishpen.org by midnight on Friday 29 March 2013. The competition will be judged by writer and performer Femi Martin (pictured left), who has some inspiration to offer here.

For more information and full terms and conditions please visit the competition page on English Pen’s website here.