Essential Writers > Competitions
Write to win an Amazon Kindle with Spectra Magazine’s flash fiction contest
Spectra Magazine launches on the 1st of September with a flash fiction competition. Enter the challenge by September 24th, and you could bag yourself a brand new Kindle! All you need to do is visit the Spectra Magazine forums and start a new thread in the Flash Fiction section, completing a science fiction, horror or fantasy story in 60 words or less.
Script This offers opportunities for new and established playwrights
Whether you’re a new writer, established playwright or looking for some feedback on your playwriting, The Broadway wants you and 10 pages of your script. The bi-monthly writing challenge provides a platform for writers, offering audience feedback and presenting an opportunity to see your work developed.
Creative writers invited to submit to Wells Festival of Literature competitions
The Wells Festival of Literature will be held from October 8th-15th 2010, with lectures by authors, poets, journalists and other wordsmiths of our age. As part of the celebration of words, the annual poetry and short story competitions are now open, with top prizes of £500. The deadline for submissions is August 31st 2010.
Bradford on Avon Arts Festival invites writers to submit a mystery story in just 50 words
Bradford on Avon Arts Festival challenges you to write an original mystery connected with Bradford’s River Avon. Sounds easy enough. But there’s a catch to this particular competition. Each entry must be exactly 50 words. The competition is part of Bradford on Avon’s Arts Festival, which runs from September 17th till 26th 2010.
MARZA Story Circus seeks submissions of stories for children to turn into films
If you’d love to get into film writing but find yourself better suited to writing stories for children, a new competition may offer the perfect challenge. MARZA ANIMATION PLANET INC. and 100 Meter Films have launched the MARZA Story Circus competition, which invites submissions of “Delightful stories for children all over the world!”
Imitation Fruit calls for frosty submissions of short stories, poetry and art
Imitation Fruit Literary Journal are currently seeking submissions of poems, artwork, stories (fiction or non-fiction) for their contest for issue #7 entitled Chiller Fruit. Read issue #6 for inspiration. The fruit may be imitation, but however fantastical the short stories, poems and artwork, the emotions they contain are real.
Mslexia magazine invites submissions of poems for the annual Women’s Poetry Competition
July 26th marks the deadline for submissions for the 7th annual Mslexia Women’s Poetry Competition. Devised to showcase and publish the best of women’s poetry, the competition offers you the chance to have your work judged by Vicki Feaver, who is hoping to find a “poet of the stature of Elizabeth Bishop or Sylvia Plath.”
How To Books offer the chance to win £200 for your writing this July
To celebrate the launch of our new submission system, How To Books are holding a competition for the best article submitted in July. Any article submitted using the new system from July 1st to midnight (UK time) on July 31st will be automatically entered. The prize is £200 on top of any earnings the article makes.

