Tag Archives: call for entries

Stroud Short Stories is Open for Submissions until 8 March 2020

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Stroud Short Stories is currently open for submissions for its special 20th event which is dedicated to Stroud writer Rick Vick who sadly died at the end of November. There were obituaries for Rick in The Times and The Guardian. Here is the latter.
 
The event is for all Gloucestershire and South Gloucestershire writers. The theme this time is DISRUPTION. Submissions are free and you may submit unpublished or published stories. Ten stories will be selected and their authors will read/perform them at our event.
The deadline is the end of Sunday 8 March and the event is on Sunday 19 April at the 150-seater Cotswold Playhouse. Tickets will go on sale on 20 March.
 
All information about submitting is on the Stroud Short Stories website.

Reflex Fiction Autumn 2019 Winners!

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Spring 2020 - Reflex Fiction - Flash Fiction Competition shortstops Jan
Reflex Fiction is a quarterly international flash fiction competition for stories between 180 and 360 words. We operate a choose your own entry fee system.

Autumn 2019 Winners

At the end of December, we published the three winning stories from our Autumn 2019 flash fiction competition as chosen by Naomi Booth. Here are the winners and links to the stories:

You can read Naomi’s thoughts on the winning stories here.

Winter 2019 Long-List

We’ve also just published the long-list for our Winter 2019 competition and have started publishing stories as we count down to the announcement of the winners at the end of March.

Spring 2020 – Choose your own entry fee

We’re also accepting entries for our Spring 2020 competition. For this round, we’re delighted to have flash-fiction legend Kathy Fish as our judge.

We’re continuing with our choose-your-own-entry-fee system. If the suggested entry fee of £7 is prohibitive, just pay what you can afford. If you’d like to support a writer who can’t afford the full fee, why not add a pound or two? More details on our website.

Here are the important details:

Prizes: £1,000 first, £500 second, £250 third (or the equivalent in your local currency)
Entry Fee: Choose your own
Entries close: 29 February 2020
Judge: Kathy Fish

SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY

Creative Future Writers’ Award 2020

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The 2020 Creative Future Writers’ Award is now open for submissions.

Founded in 2013, the Creative Future Writers’ Award is the UK’s only national writing competition and development programme for under-represented writers. They showcase talented writers who lack opportunities due to mental health issues, disability, identity or other social circumstance.

Prizes are awarded for both poetry and short fiction, including cash and professional writing development opportunities, publication in an anthology, and a high profile awards ceremony at the Southbank Centre in London as part of London Literature Festival (TBC).

2020 judges are Kerry Hudson, Anthony Anaxagorou, Aki Schilz of The Literary Consultancy, and the CFWA 2020 Writer In Residence (TBA).

This year’s theme is ‘Tomorrow‘.  Submissions are open for:

  • Poetry (one poem up to 42 lines)
  • Short fiction (up to 2,000 words)

Deadline is 31 May 2020.

For more information and how to submit, please click here.

The Reflex Spring 2020 flash fiction competition is open!

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Spring 2020 - Reflex Fiction - Flash Fiction Competition shortstops
Reflex Fiction is a quarterly international flash fiction competition for stories between 180 and 360 words. We publish one story every day as we count down to the winner of each competition.

We had a fantastic response to our Winter ’19 competition: 515 entries from 30 different countries. We’re busy reading and judging in preparation for announcing the longlist on 1 January. In the meantime, the next round of the competition is now open for entries.

We’re delighted to have flash fiction aficionado Kathy Fish acting as judge. Here are the important details:

Prizes: £1,000 / £500 / £250 (or the equivalent in your local currency)
Entry fee: Choose your own!
Deadline: 29 February 2020
Judging: March 2020
Longlist announced: 1 April 2020
Judge: Kathy Fish
Submissions: via our online entry form.

Flash Fiction Editor Vacancy

We’re currently recruiting an editor to manage flash fiction submissions for online publications. See our website for all the details.

Reflex Fiction Summer 2019 Winners!

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Autumn 2019 Winners - Reflex Fiction - Flash Fiction Competition - shortstops
Reflex Fiction is a quarterly international flash fiction competition for stories between 180 and 360 words. We publish one story every day as we count down to the winner of each competition.

Summer 2019 Winners

At the end of September, we published the three winning stories from our Summer 2019 flash fiction competition as chosen by Claire Fuller. Here are the winners and links to the stories:

First Place: The Puncture by Lauren Collett
Second Place: Do Not Tell Me We Are Friends by Alice Franklin
Third Place: Growing In the Dust by Dona McCormack

You can read Claire’s thoughts on the winning stories here.

Autumn 2019 Long-List

We’ve also just published the long-list for our Autumn 2019 competition and have started publishing stories as we count down to the announcement of the winners at the end of December.

Winter 2019 – Choose your own entry fee

We’re also accepting entries for our Winter 2019 competition. For this round, we’re delighted to have Barbara Byar, author of the forthcoming Reflex Press book Some Days Are Better Than Ours as our judge.

We’re continuing with our choose-your-own-entry-fee system. If the suggested entry fee of £7 is prohibitive, just pay what you can afford. If you’d like to support a writer who can’t afford the full fee, why not add a pound or two? More details on our website.

Here are the important details:

Prizes: £1,000 first, £500 second, £250 third (or the equivalent in your local currency)
Entry Fee: Choose your own
Entries close: 30 November 2019
Judge: Barbara Byar

SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY

 

Story Friday Chemistry – we want your stories!

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After a lovely long summer and story walks in the sun, Story Fridays is back inside, at Burdall’s Yard in Bath.  Our next event in November has the theme Chemistry. Are you thinking of bunsen burners, or eyes meeting across a crowded room? Whatever you choose, chemistry is all about reactions, explosive or otherwise. We can’t wait to see where our latest theme takes you!

Story Friday Chemistry will be on 8th November, deadline for submissions is 28th October. We’re looking for stories that are 2,000 words or fewer.  (Full submission details are here).  Writers must be available to come to Bath for the event.  If you’d rather not read, we have wonderful actors who can read your story for you.

For more information about Story Friday, to listen to stories that we have recorded at our events over the years, and/or to submit your story please visit A Word In Your Ear.

 

Call for submissions – Let your creativity sparkle!

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Call for submissions – 2019 Ouen Press Short Story Competition

Ouen Press are pleased to extend an invitation for writers to submit an original short story in line with this year’s theme – ‘The Gift’. Winning authors will receive cash prizes and be published in an anthology early in the New Year. This follows on from the success of the competition in previous years and subsequent publications .

Ouen Press 2019 Short Story Competition – The Gift – Call for Submissions!

The short story must be a work of fiction involving in its theme a ‘gift’ of any sort [e.g. a present, a capability ] at any time [past, present day, future] or in any place [this world or another]. For the purposes of this competition, the term ‘gift’ will be viewed by the judges in the widest possible sense related to both setting and context. They will focus on well-written compelling storylines, thoughtful plots and engaging characters.

Deadline for entries is 31st December 2019 – full information and rules of the competition, which is open to writers worldwide, can be found at www.ouenpress.com

 For updates on our activities – come follow us on Twitter @OuenP 

 We’d be thrilled if you Like our Facebook page

Spring 2019 Winners & Choose Your Own Entry Fee

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Reflex Fiction - Flash Fiction - Spring 2019 Winners - ShortStops

Reflex Fiction is a quarterly international flash fiction competition for stories between 180 and 360 words. We publish one story every day as we count down to the winner of each competition.

Spring 2019 Winners

At the end of June, we published the three winning stories from our Spring 2019 flash fiction competition as chosen by Alison Moore. Here are the winners and links to the stories:

First Place: Cooped by Andrew Stancek
Second Place: Big Strong Giant by Billy Cowan
Third Place: Happicabs by Night by Izzy Paprika

You can read Alison’s thoughts on the winning stories here.

Summer 2019 Long-List

We’ve also just published the long-list for our Summer 2019 competition and have started publishing stories as we count down to the announcement of the winners at the end of September.

Autumn 2019 – Choose your own entry fee

We’re also accepting entries for our Autumn 2019 competition. For this round, we’re delighted to have 2018 Guardian ‘Not the Booker’ Award shortlisted writer Naomi Booth as our judge.

For this round of the competition, we’re inviting you to choose your own entry fee. If the suggested entry fee of £7 is prohibitive, just pay what you can afford. If you’d like to support a writer who can’t afford the full fee, why not add a pound or two? More details on our website.

Here are the important details:

Prizes: £1,000 first, £500 second, £250 third (or the equivalent in your local currency)
Entry Fee: Choose your own
Entries close: 31 August 2019
Judge: Naomi Booth

SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY

 

The Autumn 2019 Reflex flash fiction competition is open

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Autumn 2019 - Reflex Fiction - Flash Fiction Competition - shortstops

Reflex Fiction is a quarterly international flash fiction competition for stories between 180 and 360 words. We publish one story every day as we count down to the winner of each competition.

We had a fantastic response to our Summer competition: 413 entries from 25 different countries. We’re busy reading and judging in preparation for announcing the longlist on 1 July. In the meantime, the next round of the competition is now open for entries. In the interest of making the competition more inclusive, we’re trialling a choose your own entry fee system for this round. Visit our website for more details.

We’re delighted to have Naomi Booth, 2018 Guardian ‘Not the Booker’ Award shortlisted author acting as judge. Here are the important details:

Prizes: £1,000 / £500 / £250 (or the equivalent in your local currency)
Entry fee: Choose your own
Deadline: 31 August 2019
Judging: September 2019
Longlist announced: 1 October 2019
Judge: Naomi Booth
Submissions: via our online entry form.

Witches Sail in Eggshells by Chloe Turner

Witches Sail in Eggshells coverWe’re excited to announce our first publication under the Reflex Press banner. Witches Sail in Eggshells by Chloe Turner is a collection of seventeen short stories and is available to order now through our website. You can also read a taster story from the collection, ‘Hagstone’, online here.

Announcing the Show Me Yours Prize

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Fiction // Nonfiction // Poetry // Image

I’ll Show You Mine: A Sex Writing Symposium was organised by two students – James Smart and Melissa Wan – on the MA in Creative Writing at UEA. It began as a desire for conversation about the role of sex writing in literature.

With the Show Me Yours Prize, we want to open that conversation to artists and writers of fiction, non-fiction and poetry to celebrate work that engages with the world of sex and desire in surprising and exciting ways.

OPEN NOW – CLOSING JULY 10
£300 GRAND PRIZE
£50 PRIZE TO HIGHLY COMMENDED
ENTRIES IN EACH CATEGORY

Find out more at showyouminesymposium.com/prize

Reflex Fiction Winter 2018 Winners!

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Summer 2019 - Reflex Fiction - Flash Fiction Competition - ShortStops
Reflex Fiction is a quarterly international flash fiction competition for stories between 180 and 360 words. We publish one story every day as we count down to the winner of each competition.

Winter 2018 Winners

At the end of March, we published the three winning stories from our Winter 2018 flash fiction competition as chosen by David Swann. Here are the winners and links to the stories:

First Place: The Endless Conversation With My Mother by E L Norry
Second Place: Still Warm by K M Elkes
Third Place: Heartwood by Johanna Robinson

You can read David’s thoughts on the winning stories (and many of the long-listed ones) here.

Spring 2019 Long-List

We’ve also just published the long-list for our Spring 2019 competition and have started publishing stories as we count down to the announcement of the winners at the end of June.

Summer 2019 Open for Entries

We’re also accepting entries for our Summer 2019 competition. For this round, we’re delighted to have Desmond Elliott Prize winner Claire Fuller as our judge. Here are the important details:

Prizes: £1,000 first, £500 second, £250 third (or the equivalent in your local currency)
Entry Fee: £7
Entries close: 31 May 2019
Judge: Claire Fuller

SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY

Hastings Litfest Short Story Competition 2019

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Hastings 2019 Litfest Short Story Competition

Now in our second year we are looking for short stories of up to 1500 words. The theme is the same as our festival: In Other Words – an exploration of difference, otherness, new perspectives and expanding horizons, to be interpreted as the author sees fit.

Judge: Tabatha Stirling

Tabby lives in Edinburgh, Scotland with her family and a depressed beagle called the Beagle. A published author and poet, Tabby signed with Unbound for her debut novel, Blood On The Banana Leaf, in August 2016 and released her latest novel Bitter Leaves in March 2019.

“I am looking specifically for beautifully written stories in any genre that don’t try too hard and have authentic voices that echo long after I’ve finished reading.  Writing of quality – luminous, transportive prose that makes me pause and groan, ‘Oh! I wish I’d written that’.”


First Prize £100 Second £40, Third £25, plus trophies.  
The top placed entries in each category (poetry, short story and flash fiction) will be included in a 2019 anthology.

Prize-giving will be on Sunday 1st September at the Litfest Closing Ceremony. 


For further details, rules & entry form visit  http://hastingslitfest.org/competitions/

The Summer ’19 Reflex flash fiction competition is open

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Summer 2019 - Reflex Fiction - Flash Fiction Competition - ShortStops
Reflex Fiction is a quarterly international flash fiction competition for stories between 180 and 360 words. We publish one story every day as we count down to the winner of each competition.

We had a fantastic response to our Spring ’19 competition: 394 entries from 19 different countries. We’re busy reading and judging in preparation for announcing the longlist on 1 April. In the meantime, the next round of the competition is now open for entries. We’re delighted to have Claire Fuller, the 2015 Desmond Elliott Prize winner, acting as judge. Here are the important details:

Prizes: £1,000 / £500 / £250 (or the equivalent in your local currency)
Entry fee: £7
Deadline: 31 May 2019
Judging: June 2019
Longlist announced: 1 July 2019
Judge: Claire Fuller

Submissions

Submissions should be made via our online entry form.

Rules

Stories must be fiction, must be the entrant’s own work, and must be between 180 and 360 words inclusive. See the Reflex Fiction website for full Rules.

Reflex Fiction Autumn 2018 Winners!

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spring 2019 - reflex fiction - flash fiction competition - shortstops
Reflex Fiction is a quarterly international flash fiction competition for stories between 180 and 360 words. We publish one story every day as we count down to the winner of each competition.

Autumn 2018 Winners

At the end of December, we published the three winning stories from our Autumn 2018 flash fiction competition as chosen by Annemarie Neary. Here are the winners and links to the stories:

First Place: The Real Jazz Baby by Fiona J Mackintosh
Second Place: Vespertine by Alex Reece Abbott
Third Place: The Sound of Her Singing by Karen Ashe

You can read Annemarie’s thoughts on the winning stories here.

Winter 2018 Long-List

We’ve also just published the long-list for our Winter 2018 competition and have started publishing stories as we count down to the announcement of the winners at the end of March.

Spring 2019 Open for Entries

We’re also accepting entries for our Spring 2019 competition. For this round, we’re delighted to have Man Booker Prize shortlisted author Alison Moore as our judge. Here are the important details:

Prizes: £1,000 first, £500 second, £250 third (or the equivalent in your local currency)
Entry Fee: £7
Entries close: 28 February 2019
Judge: Alison Moore

SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY

Story Fridays ‘2018’ – call for submissions

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How was 2018 for you?

We think it has been quite a year.  We’d like to reflect on it and even  celebrate it at Story Friday with stories that are inspired by events that happened in 2018.  These events can be personal, local, national, international; they can be political, environmental, romantic, comic, tragic.  We’d like a whole range of responses to what we’ve just experienced, as we usher in the new dawn of 2019.

Story Friday 2018 will be on 25th January 2019, deadline for submissions Monday 14th January.  We’re looking for stories that are 2,000 words or fewer.  (Full submission details here).  Writers must be available to come to Bath for the event.  If you’d rather not read, we have wonderful actors who can read your story for you.

!! STORY FRIDAY CHALLENGE !!

January’s Story Friday is all about events that have just happened, so for this Story Friday we have a special challenge.

As well as the submissions about 2018, for the first time we want to include ONE special story, inspired by a NEWS story the week before Story Friday! (ie between 18th and 24th January).  Deadline is Thursday midday 24th January, the day before Story Friday.  Max word count is 1,000 words. You are very welcome to submit both to Story Friday 2018 AND to the Challenge. The chosen story will be read by an actor at Story Friday.

Talk about HOT OFF THE PRESS!!!

For more information: A Word In Your Ear

Three New Things from The A3

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A3 press copyThe A3 Review & Press announces its new monthly contest themes: Romance, parties, and whatever the word “top” inspires you to create. Anything from spinning tops to top-shelf magazines. Click here to see all the new themes, each with a deadline on the 4th Saturday of the month.

The current issue of The A3 Review has recently been published and is available to order here. Stories, poems and artwork about fairs, fireworks, and fathers, along with flies and zebras, too. Nancy Stohlman answers questions in the issue’s A6 Q&A.

The A3 Press is soon to launch alongside The A3 Review. The press is looking for manuscript submissions for this new chapbook press. Deadline for submissions is the 20th of November. Do you have a series of short stories, or maybe a long story that can be spread out over several pages? Do you have a combination of drawings and short stories? Or even photographs without text that would fit into our The A3 Press’s map-fold format.

The A3 Press will be a place for work that might struggle to find a traditional home, work that’s lyrical and intense, a bit weird, perhaps, hybrid, experimental. For all the details, please click here.

If you’d like to support the new press, you can also pre-order the first 6 titles via the website here.

Reflex Fiction Summer 2018 Winners!

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Winter 2018 - Reflex Fiction - Flash Fiction Competition - ShortStops

Reflex Fiction is a quarterly international flash fiction competition for stories between 180 and 360 words. We publish one story every day as we count down to the winner of each competition.

Summer 2018 Winners

At the end of September we published the three winning stories from our Summer 2018 flash fiction competition as chosen by Sherrie Flick. Here are the winners and links to the stories:

First Place: Crowbar by Lyndsay Wheble
Second Place: Consanguinity by Fiona J Mackintosh
Third Place: Skin by Donna L Greenwood

You can read Sherrie’s thoughts on the winning stories here.

Autumn 2018 Long-List

We’ve also just published the long-list for our Autumn 2018 competition and have started publishing stories as we count down to the announcement of the winners at the end of December.

Winter 2018 Open for Entries

We’re also accepting entries for our Winter 2018 competition. Here are the important details:

Prizes: £1,000 first, £500 second, £250 third (or the equivalent in your local currency)
Entry Fee: £7 / $9 / €9
Entries close: 30 November 2018
Judge: David Swann

SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY

 

Story Friday Feast – call for submissions!

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As we hurtle towards Christmas we’re planning our next Story Friday and the theme is Feast!  We’re looking for stories long and short that touch on feasting. You might go traditional and give us tables laden with roast meats and suet puddings, or take us to far-flung corners of the globe for fresh mangoes and newly dropped coconuts. You might decide that lack-of-feast, or famine, is your interest, or look at a feast that has nothing to do with food. However you want to interpret the theme we know we will be intrigued by your offerings!

Story Friday Feast will be on November 30th, deadline for submissions is on 19th November.  Please check that you are available to come along to Burdall’s Yard in Bath on the 30th November before you submit.

We are looking for short stories or monologues, fact or fiction (but mainly fiction), maximum 2,000 words. If you want to enter a flash piece that can work too, either for the stage, or in print – recently we’ve included a flash piece in our programme for the audience to read in the interval and take home with them. No poetry, thank you.

We have some wonderful professional actors who are very happy to read your story if performance gives you the jitters. Olly Langdon of Kilter Theatre (who is also our brilliant host) will read a male voice, and we have a number of female actors who can read stories which need a female voice.  Let us know in your email when you submit if you’d like someone else to read your piece.

To submit, click here.

Introducing the Flash Fiction Forum

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Flash Fiction Forum - Reflex Fiction - ShortStops
Reflex Fiction is a quarterly international flash fiction competition for stories between 180 and 360 words. We publish one story every day as we count down to the winner of each competition.

Flash Fiction Forum

We’re very excited to announce a new feature on our website: the flash fiction forum – a place to share advice, ask questions, discuss stories and share your success. To celebrate the launch, we’re giving away ten free entries to our competition. Head over to the forum page for more details on how you could win a free shot our £1,000 prize.

Autumn 2018 Open for Entries

The entry period for our Autumn 2018 competition closes in one month. Here are the important details:

Prizes: £1,000 first, £500 second, £250 third (or the equivalent in your local currency)
Entry Fee: £7 / $9 / €9
Entries close: August 31, 2018
Judge: Annemarie Neary

SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY

Fictive Dream September Slam call for submission

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One month left to enter  Fictive Dream’s September Slam in which we will feature seven new short stories, one for each day of the week, from Monday 24th to Sunday 30th September 2018.

As always we’re interested in stories with a contemporary feel on any subject that gives an insight into the human condition. But here’s the twist. Your story must include two sentences courtesy of short story writer, novelist and publisher, Nicholas Royle.

Nicholas Royle is the author of three short story collections—Mortality (Serpent’s Tail), Ornithology (Confingo Publishing), The Dummy and Other Uncanny Stories (Swan River Press)—and seven novels, most recently First Novel (Vintage). He has edited more than twenty anthologies and is series editor of Best British Short Stories (Salt). Reader in Creative Writing at the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University, he also runs Nightjar Press and is head judge of the Manchester Fiction Prize.

Check out the Fictive Dream website here.

See our September Slam 2018 submission guidelines here.

For standard submissions (500–2,500 words) we remain open as usual.

We’re looking forward to receiving your best!

Laura Black
Editor