Hello Writers!
Summer is properly here, and with it comes a fresh crop of competitions to fill those long, light evenings (or, if you’re reading this from the southern hemisphere, the perfect excuse to curl up indoors with your laptop). Whatever your writing weather looks like right now, there’s a deadline below worth circling on the calendar.
This week’s roundup is a particularly varied one - poetry prizes with five-figure purses sit alongside free-to-enter flash fiction contests, and there’s something for historical fiction fans, nature writers, novelists polishing their opening chapters, and poets exploring queerness and identity. A couple of long-time favourites make a welcome return too.
This week: 18 opportunities | June to October 2026 | Prizes up to $15,000
So grab a cup of tea, settle in, and see which opportunity speaks to you. Your next submission could be just around the corner!
Creative writing quote of the week:
A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.
– E.B. White
Deadline: 30 June 2026
The Palette Queer Poetry Challenge is an annual poetry competition hosted by Palette Poetry, an online literary journal. Running during Pride Month, the challenge celebrates queerness, identity, and gender, awarding the top poem with a cash prize and publication. Submissions are open internationally to any poet writing in English; the inclusion of other languages is welcome, as long as the poem is largely written in English. An optional editorial feedback service, providing two pages of detailed and actionable feedback, is available for an additional $59.
Entry fee: $20 for 1–3 poems
Top prize: $500 and publication
Find out more: https://www.palettepoetry.com/2026-queer-poetry-challenge/
Deadline: 30 June 2026
The Reprint Prize is an annual literary contest run by The Masters Review, designed to celebrate previously published fiction and creative nonfiction and give it new audiences. The contest is open to emerging writers only; writers with a single-author, book-length work published or under contract with a major press are not eligible. Submissions of fiction or nonfiction must be under 6,000 words and must have been previously published.
Entry fee: $10
Top prize: $500 and online publication
Find out more: https://mastersreview.com/the-reprint-prize/
Deadline: 15 July 2026
The Rattle Poetry Prize is an annual international poetry competition organised by Rattle, an American poetry magazine. The contest is open to poets of any nationality writing in English and awards $15,000 for a single poem. Entries are judged anonymously by the editors of Rattle. Poets may submit up to four poems per entry; poems may be any length, style, or subject, but must be unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are permitted, provided Rattle is notified immediately if a poem is accepted elsewhere.
Entry fee: $30 (includes a one-year subscription to Rattle, or a one-year extension for current subscribers)
Top prize: $15,000 and publication in the Winter 2026 issue of Rattle
Find out more: https://rattle.com/page/poetryprize/
Deadline: 15 July 2026
The New Writers Poetry Competition 2026 is run by NewWriters.org.uk, a Leeds-based writing platform. The competition is open to poets worldwide and offers a total prize pot of £1,400, with a top prize of £1,000 and four runners-up prizes of £100 each. Poems must not exceed 42 lines, excluding the title and line spaces. The competition is judged anonymously by Head Judge JLM Morton. A limited number of free entries are available for low-income writers on a first-come, first-served basis, no later than 10 July 2026. Ten per cent of proceeds are donated to charity, split between Duchenne UK and The Funzi & Bodo Trust.
Entry fee: £10
Top prize: £1,000 and publication
Find out more: https://newwriters.org.uk/poetry-competition/
Deadline: 31 July 2026
The Squat Pen Rests Short Story Competition is an annual short fiction competition sponsored by the Royal Society of Literature and Wiltshire Writes@Swindon New College. The competition aims to recognise and showcase original work from emerging and established writers, and is open to all writers aged 18 and over who live in the UK. Entries must not exceed 750 words, excluding the story title. Cash prizes will be determined based on the number of entries received and awarded to the top six winners, who will also be invited to an awards ceremony in October 2026 to read their work and compete for an additional Readers’ Choice Award.
Entry fee: £5
Top prize: Variable — determined by the number of entries received
Find out more: https://squatpenrestsshort.wixsite.com/the-squat-pen-rest-1
Deadline: 31 July 2026
The International Dark Poets Prize returns for its fifth edition, run by the Dark Poets Club as its flagship global competition. The collective provides a platform for emerging and established writers whose work embraces gothic, melancholic, macabre, unsettling, surreal, or quietly haunting themes. Previously published work is welcome, and a portion of all submission fees is donated to the mental health charity SANE. Poems must not exceed 250 words, excluding the title.
Entry fee: £6 per poem
Top prize: £1,000 cash, official winner certification, and a Dark Poets Club T-shirt
Find out more: https://www.darkpoets.club/darkpoetsprizev
Deadline: 14 August 2026
The Waterford Poetry Prize is a free-to-enter annual poetry competition run by Waterford City & County Council‘s Arts Office, open to writers living anywhere on the island of Ireland. It honours the legacy of the late local poet Seán Dunne. Entries must be previously unpublished poems of no more than 40 lines. The winners will be announced at the closing event of the Waterford Writers Weekend on Sunday 25 October 2026.
Entry fee: Free 🆓
Top prize: €600
Find out more: https://waterford.submit.com/show/381
Deadline: 22 August 2026
The Ink of Ages Fiction Prize is an annual international contest run by the non-profit World History Encyclopedia and sponsored by Oxford University Press. The award celebrates short fiction engaging readers with cultural heritage and the interconnected human past, across two categories: Historical Fiction and Mythological Fiction. No part of any story may be set more recently than 50 years ago. There are two entry tiers by age: an Adult category for writers 18 and over (stories strictly 1,500–2,000 words) and a Youth category for writers 13–17 (stories strictly 800–1,000 words, with parental consent required).
Entry fee: Free 🆓
Top prize: $500 cash, global publication, custom artwork by an in-house cartographer, story translation into multiple languages, and a lifetime World History Encyclopedia membership
Find out more: https://fictionprize.worldhistory.org/
Deadline: 31 August 2026
The Oxford Poetry Prize is an annual single-poem competition organised by Partus Press Ltd on behalf of Oxford Poetry magazine. The 2026 prize is judged by poet and critic Rowan Ricardo Phillips, with entries initially sifted by the Oxford Poetry editorial team. Each poem must not exceed 60 lines. The competition is open internationally to writers aged 18 and over.
Entry fee: £10 per poem
Top prize: £2,000 and publication in a print issue of Oxford Poetry
Find out more: https://www.oxfordpoetry.com/prize.html
Deadline: 31 August 2026
The Nine Syllables Press Chapbook Contest is an annual competition run by Nine Syllables Press, a student-involved small press affiliated with Smith College. The contest invites submissions of original, unpublished poetry chapbooks of 20–40 pages, judged in a two-stage anonymous process, with students passing finalists to a named guest judge. Eligibility is open to trans and nonbinary poets of all genders and to cis women poets, with particular encouragement for trans/LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC poets. The 2026 guest judge is poet Nicole Sealey.
Entry fee: $10
Top prize: $500 and publication
Find out more: https://www.ninesyllablespress.com/contest
Deadline: 1 September 2026
The Best in Rural Writing Contest is run by The Milk House, an online literary platform dedicated to exploring the rural experience. The contest accepts both short stories and creative essays connected in some way to “the rural,” interpreted broadly. Entries are read anonymously by the 2026 judge, celebrated American author Will Weaver. WRITER or SUPPORTER subscribers to The Milk House may enter free of charge.
Entry fee: $10
Top prize: $500 and publication
Find out more: https://www.themilkhouse.org/contest/
Deadline: 5 September 2026
The McNeile Writing Competition is organised by Clapham Writers, a South West London writing charity, in honour of the late Penelope McNeile. Run in association with the Clapham Book Festival, it is open to unpublished and self-published writers of all levels. Entrants must submit an original opening section of a short story responding to the theme “Absent Friends,” with a maximum of 1,000 words or two paragraphs, whichever is shorter. The competition is open to UK residents only. Winners will be announced at the Clapham Book Festival on 17 October 2026.
Entry fee: £5 (or free with purchase of a Clapham Book Festival ticket)
Top prize: £200
Find out more: https://claphambookfestival.com/competition/
Deadline: 5 September 2026 (noon)
The Southam Book Festival Flash Fiction Competition is an annual 100-word story contest run as part of the Southam Book Festival, held each October in Southam, Warwickshire. Each year a judge selects a required keyword that must appear somewhere in the story (but not as the title); the 2026 word is HORIZON. Entrants must be aged 16 or over, and stories must be previously unpublished and submitted by email.
Entry fee: £3 (or £10 for up to five entries)
Top prize: £60
Find out more: https://www.southambookfest.co.uk/100-words-2026
Deadline: 30 September 2026
The Moth Nature Writing Prize is an international competition run by The Moth Magazine that aims to encourage and celebrate nature writing. It is awarded annually to an unpublished piece of prose or poetry combining literary merit with an exploration of the writer’s relationship with the natural world, judged anonymously by a single judge. The 2026 judge is poet Sean Borodale. Entrants may submit a single poem of any length or a single prose piece of up to 4,000 words. Winning entries are published online by The Irish Times.
Entry fee: €16 per poem or prose piece
Top prize: €1,000 and a one-week stay at The Moth Retreat in rural Ireland
Find out more: https://www.themothmagazine.com/directory/moth-nature-writing-prize
Deadline: 30 September 2026
The Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction is an annual competition organised by Dzanc Books, an independent non-profit literary publisher, recognising daring, original, and innovative novels. Entrants submit a full, previously unpublished novel-length manuscript (generally over 40,000 words). The 2026 judges are Alyssa Quinn, Alan Michael Parker, and Ruyan Meng.
Entry fee: $25
Top prize: $5,000 advance and publication
Find out more: https://www.dzancbooks.org/contests
Deadline: 1 October 2026
The John Steinbeck Award for Fiction is an annual short fiction contest run by Reed Magazine, the literary journal of San José State University’s Department of English and Comparative Literature. Named in honour of the Nobel Prize-winning author, the award recognises exceptional stand-alone short stories of up to 5,000 words across a wide range of styles. The entry fee includes a copy of the latest edition of Reed Magazine.
Entry fee: $25
Top prize: $1,000 and a copy of Reed Magazine
Find out more: https://www.reedmag.org/john-steinbeck-award-for-fiction
Deadline: 16 October 2026
The Alice James Award is an annual full-length poetry manuscript competition run by Alice James Books, an independent cooperative poetry press based in New Gloucester, Maine. The award welcomes submissions from emerging and established poets and is committed to publishing work that elevates historically marginalised voices. Entrants must submit a full-length, previously unpublished poetry manuscript of 48 to 100 pages. The competition is open to US residents only.
Entry fee: $30
Top prize: $2,000, book publication, and distribution
Find out more: https://www.alicejamesbooks.org/submit
Deadline: 31 October 2026
The Novel Opening & Synopsis Competition is run by Flash 500, the UK-based writing competition platform. It invites published, self-published, and unpublished novelists to submit the opening of an unpublished novel alongside a synopsis, judged by the editorial team at Bookouture, the digital-first commercial fiction publisher. Entrants submit up to 3,000 words of novel opening together with a synopsis of no more than 750 words, in a single file.
Entry fee: £10
Top prize: £500
Find out more: https://flash500.com/novels/
Looking for a last-minute gift for the writer in your life, or the father or husband who’s always said he’d love to write that book someday? MasterClass is currently offering 50% off all subscription tiers as part of their Father’s Day sale. The Become a Better Writer collection features courses from some of the world’s most celebrated authors on craft, structure, and storytelling. It’s a thoughtful gift that keeps giving long after the wrapping paper’s gone. The offer is live until 21 June, so grab it here before it’s too late!
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On Editing by Helen Corner-Bryant and Kathryn Price
If your first draft is done and you’re staring at it wondering what comes next, this is the book to reach for. Written by the team behind Cornerstones Literary Consultancy, one of the UK’s leading editorial services, On Editing demystifies the self-edit process - covering everything from plotting and pacing to head-hopping and point of view - in clear, jargon-free language that leaves you feeling equipped rather than overwhelmed. It’s the kind of practical, encouraging guide you’ll find yourself returning to draft after draft.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn commission from qualifying purchases.
📚 Looking for more reading recommendations? I’ve put together a list of the best books about creative writing and publishing over on my website — well worth a browse if you’re building your craft library.
There are 72 upcoming writing competitions listed in our online calendar.
Join the Writing Competitions Facebook group for updates almost daily.
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That’s a wrap on this week’s roundup! With deadlines stretching from the end of June all the way through to the end of October, there’s plenty of time to find your footing, whether that means starting something brand new or finally finishing the piece that’s been sitting in your drawer for months.
A few friendly reminders before you hit submit:
Always read the full guidelines on the organiser’s website before entering - small details like word counts and formatting really do matter.
Give your work one more polish. A read-aloud pass catches more than you’d think.
Don’t let fear of rejection stop you from entering. Every writer collects a few “no”s on the way to a “yes.”
Do your own research - competition details can change, so it’s always worth checking the official page before you submit.
If you know a fellow writer who might find these opportunities useful, feel free to forward this edition their way. And if you’ve come across a competition or prize you’d like to share, drop it in the comments, send a message on Substack, or submit it through the form linked below - I’d love to hear about it!
Until next week, keep writing!
Victoria
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🗓️ Know of any other interesting writing events?
Consider submitting it to our curated calendar through this submission form. You can also post a comment below, or send me a message via Substack. Let me know if there is anything you’d like to feature in next week’s edition of the newsletter.
🧠 Remember: Always do your own research and carefully read submission guidelines before sharing your work!
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