Zoetrope:  All-Story Short Fiction Contest: http://www.all-story.com/contests.cgi

Prizes: $1,000, $500, and $250 and seven honorable mentions. Deadline October 1. 5000 words or less.

The announcement says: We accept all genres of literary fiction.   If the juxtaposition of “genre” and “literary fiction” has you scratching your head, you can purchase an online issue to get an idea of what that means.

They also say:  There are no formatting restrictions; please ensure only that the story is legible. That puts me in mind of colored inks and napkins, but that’s just because I do not knowingly write literary fiction.

Delacorte Press Contest for a First Young Adult Novel: http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/writingcontests/

This contest is in its 29th year. First prize is a book contract from Random House, $1,500 cash, and a $7,500 cash advance against royalties. This is for fiction in a contemporary setting, between the ages of 12 and 18, with manuscript length between 100 and 224 pages.

Fairly standard formatting requirements (no napkins) and entries must be postmarked between October 1 and December 31. The judges reserve the right to not award a prize and looking at the list of past winners it is clear that sometimes they have not.

Hint Fiction Writing Contest: http://www.writingclasses.com/ContestPages/hintfiction.php

This is the 25 word short story contest I talked about in another post here.   There are still five weeks left.  I initially set out to write a story a day…so far I have done five, so I need to get busy.

I find it a fun way to play with images, especially with “other” genres, imagining things like an innocent person kneeling beside a corpse.  It isn’t hard to write good 25 word stories, but I am finding it is maddeningly hard to do great ones.

I’m sure there are many other contests coming up, and one of these days I will have to go looking for them.