Competition Deadline: The MTP Short Story Competition
2026-06-01
From the competition website:

In our quest to offer authors a stage for their work, we are excited to be hosting our 2026 Short Story Competition.

First Prize: £1000 (GBP)
Second Prize: £500 (GBP)
Third Prize: £250 (GBP)
5 Runners-up Prizes of £50 (GBP)
Prizewinning stories will be published in the MTP 2026 Anthology (print book and eBook). The Anthology title will be based on the title of the winning entry.

Submit here.

Competition Deadline: V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize
2026-06-22
From the competition website:

The RSL V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize seeks to find the best unpublished short story of the year.
The 2027 V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize is now open for entry until Monday 22 June at 5pm. Please ensure you have read and understood the V.S. Pritchett Prize Eligibility and Guidelines prior to entering.

Enter here.

Competition Deadline: Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize
2026-06-30
From the competition website:

The 2026 Queen Mary  Wasafiri New Writing Prize is now open.
The seventeenth edition of the prize is now open for original entries and entries in translation across Fiction, Life Writing, and Poetry.

Enter here.

Competition Deadline: Fiction Factory Short Story Competition
2026-06-30
From the competition website:

Top prize- £500
Length of story: max 3,000 words
Entries should be as a Word document.
All types of stories are welcome (excluding Children’s and Young Adult
Fiction).
Entry Fee: £7.00 (£13 for 2 stories, £18 for 3 stories)
Entry fee plus optional critique: £35.00

Winning stories will be published on this website and, at a later date in a planned anthology

Enter here.

Competition Deadline: Wells Short Story Competition
2026-06-30
From the competition website:

Got a potential page-turner inside you? Then polish up your prose and send your entry to this year’s Short Story Competition. First prize is £750, while second and third-place winners will receive £300 and £200 respectively.
There is also a special prize of £100 in the category for best local author.
Competitions open on 1 April and close on 30 June.

Enter here.

Competition Deadline: The Olga Sinclair Prize
2026-06-30
From the competition deadline:

Theme: WALLS
Word Limit: 2000 words (excluding the title)
The Brief: Judges are looking for wise choices of vocabulary, well-structured plotting and description, sparkling dialogue, pace and precision. Although the theme is always selected to represent Norwich you are free to interpret this however you see fit. Your story does not have to be connected to Norwich, but it does need to have the concept of Walls as its central theme.

Enter here.

Competition Deadline: The Letter Review Prize for Short Fiction
2026-07-29
From the competition website:
The Letter Review Prize is an internationally celebrated event, offered every four months in the categories of Short Fiction, Poetry, and Books. We publish our winners, maintain shortlists, submit to The Pushcart, and award over $16,000 USD annually to writers, meaning our prize is among the highest paying literary prizes administered by a literary journal in the world.
Enter here.

Competition Deadline: Anthology Short Story Competition
2026-07-31
From the competition website:
Established to recognise and encourage creative writing and provide a platform for publication, the Anthology Short Story Competition is open to original and previously unpublished short stories in the English language by a writer of any nationality, living anywhere in the world. There is no restriction on theme or style. Stories submitted must not exceed the maximum of 1,500 words. Writers can submit as many entries as they wish. Each submission will require a separate entry form and is subject to a separate entry fee.
Enter here.

Competition Deadline: Southlands Creative Writing Competition 2026
2026-07-31
From the competition website:
Southlands Arts Centre is excited to announce the launch of our annual creative writing competition. We are open for submissions from Sunday, 22nd February.
We are taking entries from over 18s and under 18s. There are life writing and fiction categories.
Continuing with our tradition the fiction category is themed. This year’s theme is architecture. By this we mean, buildings of all kinds — from homes to halls, castles to cabins, all structures and spaces.
Enter here.
