Category Archives: Contests

Writer’s Digest Popular Fiction Awards

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Here is a Popular Fiction competition from Writer’s Digest for stories of 4000 words or less in the categories of:

  • Romance
  • Mystery/Crime
  • Science Fiction/Fantasy
  • Thriller/Suspense
  • Horror

Entries are due November 1 with a $20 fee.  Multiple entries are allowed, online or by snail mail.  Prizes are:

Grand Prize: a trip to the Writer’s Digest Conference in New York City, $2,500 cash, $100 worth of Writer’s Digest Books and the 2011 Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market.

First Prize: The First Place-Winner in each of the five categories receives $500 cash, $100 worth of Writer’s Digest Books and the 2011 Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market.

Honorable Mention: Honorable Mentions will receive promotion in Writer’s Digest and the 2011 Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market.

Full details are available here: http://www.writersdigest.com/popularfictionawards

September Writing Contests

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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.

More Writing Contests

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Here are some additional listings of writing contests that people have recently sent me:

  • The Writers of the Future Contest (founded by L. Ron Hubbard in 1983 for SciFi and Speculative Fiction writers), and the Illustrators of the Future Contest.  Quarterly prizes plus a $5000 annual prize in both categories: http://www.writersofthefuture.com/contest

Also, anyone interested in writing for children or young adults should seriously think of joinign the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators, aka, SCBWI:   http://www.scbwi.org

Although there are grants available to members, the primary focus is support and information, through newsletters, regional and national conferences, listings of regional critique groups, listing of online manuscript exchange opportunities, and a lot more.

Disclaimer:  I’m praising the SCBWI (it takes about six months to get the acronym straight) simply as a satisfied member.  The $75 annual fee is money very well spent IMO.

I suspect that a simple google search on “writing contest” will turn up a whole lot more, but I will post additional listings as people send them to me.

A Twenty-Five Word Short Story Contest

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How about a contest that is free to enter and offers prizes for your cleverest twenty-five words?  I received this announcement recently for the Gotham Writer’s Workshop, “Hint Fiction Writing Contest.”

http://www.writingclasses.com/ContestPages/hintfiction.php?utm_content=12455257?utm_campaign=Early%20Enrollment%20Offer%20-%20Save%20$30?utm_source=streamsend?utm_medium=email

As they define it, “hint fiction” is a complete story of no more than twenty-five words that hints “at a larger chain of events.” The word limit does not include the title. Here is an example given in the announcement:

Corrections & Clarifications

It was Fredrick Miller, not his murdered son Matthew, who was executed Monday night at Henshaw Prison.

The deadline for entries is October 11, one entry per person. It’s anything but easy, of course, but the interesting thing is, one can begin with almost any image or phrase that comes to mind, and create something complete from it in one sitting – who knows, perhaps the seed of something larger. After reading the announcement, the phrase, “ends of the earth” popped to mind and I sat down with a cup of coffee and a pencil and came up with a credible first draft. Beats crosswords any day IMO.

One caution: last fall I entered a “first hundred and fifty word” contest from these folks (you would already know if I’d won) and I continue to get periodic announcements from them. I’m sure there is a way to opt out, but I haven’t looked for it, since additional interesting tidbits like this come along, and there is a delete key for the rest.

LATE BREAKING NEWS:

While we’re at it, this arrived in my inbox this morning, an announcement for a more traditional (5000 word) short story contest from Writer’s Digest:

http://www.writersdigest.com/popularfictionawards

For those who delight in short fiction, why not?