Sorry We're Prosed: 30+ July opportunities for prose writers
Summer prizes and publications await your submissions
Hello again,
Can you write on holiday? I’ve never had much luck with it, though this might be because the kinds of holidays I take at the moment are peripatetic, with multiple stops and things to pack in.
I always imagine the train is going to be a good place to get on with it, but then circumstances conspire and there’s no table, or a noisy child, or we have to stand part of the way. Reading, I can get done in spades. I just polished off a biography of Catherine Howard while on a trip to the Netherlands. But for writing, I think I need to feel a bit more settled.
Maybe you’re like me, and you ought to get a few things finished and submitted before the holiday season interrupts. Or maybe you find being away super-productive, and are looking for places to send your new work. Either way, I’ve rounded up some of this summer’s best places to send prose of all kinds.
As ever, I don’t include journals with submission fees, but I do include contests with entry fees. Usually I don’t include ones that cost more than £15/$19, but I’d be interested to get your feedback on this, as I’ve noticed the prices inching up lately. Do I need to increase the threshold?
If no pay or prize is mentioned, there probably isn’t any. Happy submitting!
Closing soon
The theme of this year’s H.G. Wells Short Story Competition is ‘Motion’. It costs £10 to enter a short story on that subject, with a £5 reduced rate for students and free entry for under-21s. There are two top prizes of £1,000 for the younger category and £500 for everyone else. The deadline is coming up soon, on 10 July.
A cool last-minute one if you have anything suitable. Sans Press is putting together a collection called ‘Another Name for Darkness’ and is seeking stories that respond to that title, or to the beautiful cover art (see below). Selected writers receive €150. Be quick — subs will close 12 July or when they hit their cap.
Entries for the Hastings Book Festival short fiction competition close on 14 July. It costs £7.50 for one story, £13 for two or £20 for three, and bursaries are available. There’s a top prize of £250. Open internationally, though there is a bonus prize for the best Sussex-based writers.
I’ve been waiting on this one for ages, so I can’t believe I missed it until now. The Fairy Tale Review is accepting submissions to its 20th edition until 15 July. Contributors receive $50 and two copies.
There is an open submissions window at The Boiler, which publishes fiction and essays, until 15 July.
If you’ve been to a contemporary art show recently and don’t have an extensive publication history, you could enter a review into the Burlington Contemporary Art Writing Prize. It’s free, with a grand prize of £1,000, and a deadline of 17 July. Check the rules carefully as this won’t be suitable for anyone who’s published a lot of work previously.
Crab Creek Review would like to see creative non-fiction on the theme of ‘Ritual’ for its summer online issue. Send work by 21 July.
Manchester-based indie publisher Vellum is collecting stories about transport for a new anthology. Be aware that they haven’t specified whether this is a paid opportunity or not. Submission deadline is 24 July.
Last call for The London Magazine Short Story Prize, which closes 25 July. It costs £10 per story with subsequent ones priced at £5, and a reduced rate for students and low-income writers. Top prize is £500.
Surging Tide has a writing contest that is free to enter, or you can make a donation to to get multiple entries. Winners of each category get $100. Closing 31 July.
The reading period for flash fiction at The Broken Spine runs through July.
Until the end of the month, the theme over at Brink is ‘Relief’. They pay between $50 and $100 per piece and accept non-fiction, fiction, translation, and hybrid works under their Evocations category.
The summer prompt at Inspiring Fiction is ‘Secrets’. Write a crime or speculative story on that theme and submit it by 31 July, for a £5 fee, to be in with a chance of winning the £100 prize.
Run by Norwich Writers’ Circle, the Olga Sinclair Prize this year has the theme ‘The Sea’. It will close on 31 July, and costs £9 to enter. Top prize £500.
Online literary magazine The Offing is looking for submissions to its Enumerate section, for hybrid work that uses the form of a list. Here are some more details of what they’re after. The current call closes 1 August.
Seeking work written in the spirit of ‘High Modernism’, L’Esprit Literary Review is now looking at submissions for its third issue. These can include short fiction, non-fiction, novel extracts, literary criticism and reviews. There is a $10 honorarium for contributors.
Open now
Write a flash fiction story about ‘Walking away’ and you could win a place in an anthology plus the position of online writer-in-residence at Walk Listen Create. It costs €8 to enter and the deadline is 14 August.
Briefly Zine is a literary journal looking for work on the theme ‘What Next?’ until the end of August.
Submissions for the Anthology Short Story Competition are open internationally, and cost €18 each (technically very slightly above my threshold — you see now why I asked about it above). The top prize is €1,000 and a subscription to the magazine. Enter by 31 August.
Also open to writers across the globe, the Creative Writing Ink Short Story Competition costs £9 to enter and has a top prize of £1,000 plus a free creative writing course. Note the 4pm UK time cut-off on the 31 August deadline.
Open on a rolling basis, Tiny Molecules is interested in receiving essays about cities and towns.
What’s that? A free contest? Yes, the Val Wood Annual Creative Writing Competition is open to entries now, on the theme ‘The tide’. The winner gets £100 and a signed copy of Wood’s first book, The Hungry Tide. Entries close 31 August.
Submissions to Salt Hill are open now until the end of August. Fiction and non-fiction both welcome.
New publication Broken Antler is accepting submissions to its first issue now, including short stories, flash, micro, non-fiction, and hybrid.
The Edinburgh Award for Flash Fiction is open worldwide, but also has a special award for the best Scotland-based entry. Entries cost £7 but free entry is available for those on income support in Scotland. Submit by the end of August.
If you’ve something a little more experimental on the go, you could try submitting to Always Crashing, a publication interested in “works that seek something via untruth, fantasy, artificiality, the plastic, deep superficiality, and attention to their own construction”. The current reading period closes on 15 September.
The next theme at Shooter Literary Magazine is a good one: ‘The Unknown’. Stories, essays, and memoir all accepted. Each writer gets £25 per piece. Send work by 24 September.
And another contest, with a bit more time to get your ducks in a row before the deadline. The Fiction Factory Short Story Competition will close 31 October. It costs £7 per entry but with discounts if you send in multiple stories. Top prize is £500.
The same deadline applies to the Southport Writers’ Circle Annual Open Short Story Competition, which is very reasonably priced at £3 per entry. Top prize is £200.
Opening soon
The next reading window at speculative fiction zine Mythaxis will open on 23 July. They pay 1 cent (in euros) per word.
I would expect the Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction to open later this month. Keep an eye on the Comma Press website and social media to catch it.
I think this is the fourth sea-themed call in this newsletter so far. Something in the water? An anthology of new weird coastal horror, The Off-Season, is in the works. General submissions will open 7 August. It has a professional pay rate of 8 cents a word.