Competitions and submissions

April 19, 2026

Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize

The aim of the Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize is both to celebrate the best of new short fiction under 2000 words and to give winners the most visibility possible for their writing. That’s why we’ve teamed up with sixteen different literary and artistic institutions to not only offer cash prizes and writing retreats but also to ensure that all our shortlisters have the opportunity to be published in multiple print and online journals, have their work put in front of literary agents, and present their stories at an event.

More Information here:

April 22, 2026

St John’s College Harper-Wood Award 2026-2027

Poets and authors at the start of their careers have the chance to spend a paid year overseas with the launch of this year’s Harper-Wood Creative Writing and Travel Award for English Poetry and Literature. Applications close 22 April at 4pm.

More Information here:

April 23, 2026

Free Flash Fiction Competition

Free Flash Fiction are back with their 33rd competition. Submit a flash fiction piece of between 100 and 300 words, on any theme.

1 Winner will receive £200.00 and publication

2 Highly Commended will receive £100.00 and publication

3 Shortlisted will receive £80.00 and publication.

More Information here:

April 25, 2026

Scratch A4 Writing Competition

Scratch A4 is a bi-annual event where writers can submit stories of 1000 words or less to be read aloud in Soho, London this June.

More Information here:

April 30, 2026

Fishamble, the New Play Company: Script Submissions Open

Fishamble welcomes submissions of new, original, dramatic work. To submit, you must be an adult resident on the island of Ireland, or an adult Irish citizen living abroad. Your play must be previously unproduced.

More Information here:

April 30, 2026

Mentorships in Poetry and Fiction with Munster Literature Centre

Candidates may apply to a maximum of two mentors, but no successful candidate can receive more than one. Mentorships will consist of four face-to-face, two-hour sessions. This year, past recipients of mentorships with the Munster Literature Centre may apply again.

Mentors for Poetry are: David McLoghlin and Mary Noonan.

Mentors for Fiction are: Patrick Holloway and Billy O’Callaghan.

More Information here:

April 30, 2026

Ware Poets Open Poetry Competition 2026

The 28th annual Ware Poets Open Poetry Competition is now open, to be judged by Keith Jarrett. Since the competition first launched in 1998 it has been judged by many acclaimed poets and attracts submissions from across the United Kingdom and internationally. First prize: £1,000.

More Information here:

May 1, 2026

Molly Keane Creative Writing Award

The Arts Office, Waterford City & County Council by kind permission of the Keane family is now inviting entries for a previously unpublished short story for this years’ award. The closing date for receipt of entries is Friday 1st May 2026 at 2pm. There is a cash prize of €500 and there is no entry fee.

More Information here:

May 1, 2026

Alpine Fellowship Writing & Poetry Prizes

Awarded for the best piece of writing on the theme of JOY. Prizes up to £3,000 across various genres.

More Information here:

May 2, 2026

The Mo Siewcharran Prize 2026

The Mo Siewcharran Prize 2026 is now open for submissions from romance and psychological thriller writers. Hosted by Bookouture, the prize gives commercial fiction writers the opportunity to win £2,500 and a possible publishing contract.

More Information here:

May 3, 2026

Goldsmith Festival Poetry Competition

Poems of no more than 70 lines are invited to be judged for the Goldsmith Festival Poetry Competition 2026. First Prize €600, Second Prize €250, Third Prize €150.

More Information here:

May 10, 2026

The Belvedere New Writing Prize

Judged by Booker Prize-longlisted author Colin Barrett and award winning poet Jessica Traynor, the prize offers €200 and publication in Volume 2 of The Belvedere to two writers residing in Ireland or Northern Ireland who have yet to publish any long-form work.

Cost of entry is €5.

More Information here:

May 15, 2026

Varuna Residential Fellowships

Varuna Residential Fellowships offer 2-3 weeks of uninterrupted time to write in your own private studio, as well as a one-hour mentor conversation with a Varuna consultant. All food is provided, with an evening meal prepared by our cook, Dionne, to be enjoyed with the companionship of your fellow writers – at any time, there are six writers-in-residence at Varuna.

Residencies can be taken at any time between September 2026–September 2027.

More Information here:

May 15, 2026

New Theatre Writing Development Week

Following the success of our New Writing event in 2025, our now annual New Writing Development Week will take place in 2026. We are seeking new play writing voices for inclusion in a series of performed readings. These will take place on The New Theatre stage. These new play readings will be read live by professional actors to a live audience. Post reading audience engagement will be encouraged.

More Information here:

15 May 2026

RTÉ Short Story Competition

RTÉ is inviting entries to one of Ireland’s longest established and most significant literary prizes, the RTÉ Short Story Competition in honour of writer and broadcaster, Francis MacManus.

Free to enter, the popular competition, which marks its 40th birthday this year, recognises and rewards the best new Irish fiction writing for radio and presents the winning author with a cheque for €5,000, while the second and third placed writers will receive cheques for €4,000 and €3,000 respectively. A further seven runners-up will receive €300 each.

Writers over the age of 18 living in Ireland, and Irish writers around the world have until Friday 15th May 2026 to submit their short story, in English or Irish at www.rte.ie/writing.

More Information here:

May 20, 2026

Stinging Fly Submissions

We are next open for submissions of fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry from the 6th to the 20th of May 2026. This will be for our Winter 2026-27 issue. We publish new, previously unpublished work by Irish and international writers. We have a particular interest in promoting new writers, and in promoting the short story form. Each issue of The Stinging Fly includes a mix of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, alongside our Featured Poets and Comhchealg sections, occasional author interviews and novel extracts. We also welcome submissions of poetry and prose in translation.

More Information here:

May 27, 2026

Galway Film Fleadh Pitching Competition

The Pitching Competition at the Film Fair, the industry market of the Galway Film Fleadh, provides screenwriters at any stage of their career with an opportunity to pitch their projects in an open industry forum. The Pitching Competition has given new screenwriters a platform to connect with the wider industry while filmmakers at all stages of development have used the Pitching Competition to attach producers, receive mentorship, and win development funding.  

All that is required to enter is a 500-word written pitch of your project from beginning to end (no cliffhangers).  Any genre of feature drama, documentary or animation will be considered. Finalists will be selected to pitch their project as an ‘Elevator Pitch’ of 90 seconds, in front of an audience and a panel of industry judges at the Galway Film Fair. The winner will be announced at the Film Fleadh Awards Ceremony and will receive a cash prize of €3000 sponsored by Wild Atlantic Pictures.

More Information here:

May 31, 2026

Whispering Wisdom Poetry Competition

Submissions are now open for the Whispering Wisdom Poetry Competition 2026. Poems of up to 40 lines, and that are previously unpublished, are eligible for submission.

Entry fee: £5.

1st Prize: £250

2nd Prize: £50

3rd Prize: £50.

More Information here:

May 31, 2026

The Bridport Prizes

We are committed to discovering new writers in poetry, short story, flash fiction, the novel and memoir. Our alumni reads like a Who’s Who of the literary world: Kate Atkinson MBE, Gail Honeyman and Kit de Waal. Judges have included Roger McGough, Monica Ali and Zoe Heller. Our patron is Kit de Waal. We are a route to being published so send us your words and it could be your name up here next year.

More Information here:

May 31, 2026

The Bath Novel Award

The Bath Novel Award 2026 is a £5,000 international prize for adult and YA novels of every genre. The prize is open to unagented writers, who are unpublished, self-published or independently published without advance. Submissions are invited from 1st December 2025 to 31st May 2026 and we welcome writers of every age, gender, nationality and residency.

More Information here:

June 1, 2026

Fitzcarraldo Novel Prize

The 2026 Novel Prize is open to submissions from 1 April to 1 June 2026, with New Directions reading submissions from the Americas, Fitzcarraldo Editions from Africa and Europe, and Giramondo from Asia and Australasia.

The Novel Prize is a biennial award for a book-length work of literary fiction written in English by published and unpublished writers around the world. It offers $10,000 to the winner and simultaneous publication in North America by New York-based New Directions, in the UK and Ireland by the London-based Fitzcarraldo Editions, and in Australia and New Zealand by the Sydney-based publisher Giramondo.

The prize rewards novels which explore and expand the possibilities of the form, and are innovative and imaginative in style.

More Information here:

June 1, 2026

New Directions Novel Prize

The Novel Prize, a biennial award for book-length works of literary fiction written in English by both published and unpublished writers from around the world, will run (on alternating years) alongside The Poetry in Translation Prize.

Launched in 2020 also by New Directions, Giramondo Publishing, and Fitzcarraldo Editions, The Novel Prize has been won by Jessica Au, Jonathan Buckley, Anne de Marcken, and Giada Scodellaro. Submissions open April 1.

More Information here:

June 10, 2026

Words by the Sea Open Mic

This Open Mic event will take place at Walters Pub, Dun Laoghaire, on the second Wednesday of the month until 10 June 2026. Sign up from 6.45 and start at 7pm. Readers will have a maximum of 5 minutes each which could be a few short poems or your own songs, spoken word or one longer piece or flash fiction, about 800 words of prose.

More Information here:

June 15, 2026

The Moth Short Story Prize

The Moth Short Story Prize is now open for submissions. This year the competition will be judged by novelist and short story author Wendy Erskine.

The prize is open to anyone over 16 as long as the work is original and previously unpublished. The word limit is 3,000 and the entry fee is €17.

The winning story is printed as part of the summer fiction series in the Irish Times, while the 2nd and 3rd-prize-winning stories are published in the Irish Times online.

THE PRIZES

1st prize €3,000

2nd prize €1,000

3rd prize a week at The Moth Retreat.

More Information here:

June 15, 2026

Anne Brown Essay Prize

The Anne Brown Prize awards £1500 for the best literary essay by a writer in or from Scotland. The Prize was established in honour of Anne Brown’s contribution within Wigtown Book Festival as well as her astonishing career in radio and broadcasting, and her cultivation of new talent in journalism.

More Information here:

June 30, 2026

Drumshanbo Written Word Poetry Film Competition

Drumshanbo County Leitrim, Ireland, hosts an annual literary festival bringing together some of Irelands finest writers and poets to celebrate the written word. As part of this we host an annual Poetry Film competition open to filmmakers and poets from everywhere. Each year the festival hosts an evening where they screen the shortlisted films as part of the opening ceremony. Send your entries and join them in this beautiful Lakelands town in August

The judge this year will be Csilla Toldy, Award winning poet and filmmaker from Rostrevor, Co.Down.

First Prize €500 will be awarded to the best poetry film on Friday 21st August after the shortlist screening.

More Information here:

June 30, 2026

Southword Creative Non-Fiction Award

We are looking for compelling writing, as memoir or as innovative essays or as an admixture of both. Simon Van Booy, Sandra Beasley, Thomas Lynch, Kim Addonizio & Yoko Tawada have all published creative non-fiction in Southword, why not join that illustrious company? Entrants may submit more than one entry. Once entered, no alterations can be made to the submission. Simultaneous submissions are accepted but please notify us immediately should your work be accepted elsewhere. Multiple submissions are allowed and entries must be previously unpublished. First prize: €1000.

More Information here:

July 1, 2026

Magma Open Poetry Pamphlet Competition 2026

MAGMA invites you to enter their fifth pamphlet competition, now open for entries. They are delighted to have Marjorie Lotfi as judge.

PRIZE: publication of the winning pamphlet + launch reading.

Poets on the shortlist of 10 will each get a paragraph of feedback from the judge. The winner and 3 others will have a poem published in Magma. All shortlisted poets will have a poem published on our website.

Marjorie Lotfi will read 50 entries selected by Magma board members.

Marjorie Lotfi is the author of The Wrong Person to Ask (Bloodaxe Books, 2023), which won the 2024 Forward Prize for Best First Collection and a James Berry Award. It was also shortlisted for the Saltire Prize for Best Book of Poetry and was a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. Marjorie’s poetry has been published widely, including on London’s Poems on the Underground.

More Information here:

July 31, 2026

Seán Ó Faoláin International Short Story Competition

The competition is open to original, unpublished and unbroadcast short stories in the English language of 3,000 words or fewer. The story can be on any subject, in any style, by a writer of any nationality, living anywhere in the world. Translated work is not in the scope of this competition. Entrants may submit more than one entry. Once entered, no alterations can be made to the submission. Simultaneous submissions are accepted but please notify us immediately should your work be accepted elsewhere. First prize: €2,000, Featured reading at the Cork International Short Story Festival (with four-night hotel stay and full board), Publication in Southword

More Information here:

August 31, 2026

Munster Literature Centre Fool for Poetry International Chapbook Competition

The competition is open to new, emerging and established poets from any country. At least one of these winners will be the highest scoring manuscript entered by a poet with no solo collection (full-length or chapbook) previously published. The other winner may have previously published poetry books. Up to 25 other entrants will be publicly listed as “highly commended”. 1st Prize: €1000, Chapbook publication and 25 complimentary copies, Featured reading at the Cork International Poetry Festival (with three-night hotel stay and full board)

More Information here:

August 31, 2026

Aesthetica Creative Writing Award

The Award was launched after the publication of Aesthetica Magazine, as a way to support the next generation of literary talent. These were first published in the Creative Works Annual, a collection celebrating innovative poetry and short fiction from both established and emerging practitioners. Originally, it was an anthology of new writing and new artwork. However, as the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award and the Art Prize started to reach more audiences, the decision was made in 2013 to separate them into two Awards with their own prizes and publications.

More Information here:

August 31, 2026

Anthology Personal Memoir Competition 2026

The Anthology Personal Memoir Competition is open to original and previously unpublished memoirs in the English language by writers of any nationality, living anywhere in the world. In the spirit of authenticity, there are no constraints on themes or writing styles. Memoirs submitted must not exceed a 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.

More Information here:

July 31, 2026

Anthology Short Story Competition 2026

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.

More Information here:

September 1, 2026

The Barbellion Prize

Any full-length work of fiction or non-fiction, excluding poetry, originally written in English or translated into English and available in published form by a writer who is chronically ill or disabled or who has dealt personally and directly with illness or disability, is eligible for submission and the judge’s consideration..

More Information here:

September 30, 2026

Southword Editor’s Poetry Award

Each entrant for their €24 entry fee will receive a complimentary postage-free, one-year subscription to Southword. Poems will be read and judged anonymously. Poems must be previously unpublished. The winning poet will have their three poems published in Southword. If you are already a subscriber, your subscription will be extended. Once a subscriber, there is the opportunity to enter, for free, other competitions which are for subscribers only. Prize: €1000.

More Information here:

November 1, 2026

The Scribble Annual Short Story Competition

2026 Theme: ‘A SLICE OF LUCK’. Maximum length: 3000 words. Prizes: £100.00; £50.00; £25.00. Entry fee: £5.00. Free unlimited entries for annual subscribers. The winning entry will be published in the winter 2026 edition of Scribble, published during December.

More Information here:

Ongoing

The Scribble Quarterly Short Story Competitions

Short stories on any subject. Max. 3000 words. Entry fee £5.00. Prizes of £75.00, £25.00, and £15.00 for the best three stories in each issue of Scribble, as chosen by the readers. Email entries to submissions@btinternet.com.

More Information here:

Deadline: Ongoing

The Dublin Review

The Dublin Review welcomes submissions of fiction and non-fiction previously unpublished in the English language. They do not accept poetry submissions. They especially encourage submissions from members of groups traditionally underrepresented in literary magazines and other cultural forums.

More Information here:

Deadline: Ongoing

Guernica: A Magazine of Global Arts & Politics

Founded online in 2004, Guernica is an award-winning 501(c)3 non-profit magazine focused on the intersection of arts and politics. A home for incisive ideas and necessary questions, Guernica publishes memoir, reporting, interviews, commentary, poetry, fiction, and multimedia journalism exploring identity, conflict, culture, justice, science, and beyond. They offer honoraria of $50 for poetry, $100 for original essays, and $150 for original fiction and reportage/journalism.

More Information here:

Deadline: Ongoing

The London Magazine

The London Magazine (est. 1732) is now accepting pitches for essays, reviews and interviews on an ongoing basis. This from the editors: ‘We’re looking for clear, engaging writing that connects literature to wider culture or brings fresh perspectives to books, art and ideas. Please read our submission guidelines before sending pitches to pitches@thelondonmagazine.org.’

More Information here:

Deadline: Ongoing

PN Review

PN Review considers submissions in hard copy form only (unless you are an individual subscriber to the magazine, in which case electronic submissions, word files rather than PDFs, will be considered). Writers wishing to send work should familiarise themselves with PN Review. Submissions should generally not exceed fifteen double-spaced pages of work (prose) or four poems/five pages (verse in English or translation). Copies of the original texts should accompany translations where possible. The editors discourage simultaneous submissions. Writers wishing to propose projects should send a synopsis and covering letter, with sample pages, having first ascertained from the website that the kind of proposal is suitable for PN Review.

More Information here:

Deadline: Ongoing

The Poetry Review

The Poetry Review, founded in 1912, is the magazine of the Poetry Society, UK, and has a long-standing policy of publishing the very best work by new, up and coming poets, and established poets. All submissions are read by the editor and considered on an equal basis. Unfortunately, due to the volume of submissions we receive, we cannot offer any individual criticism. Our aim is to accept or reject work within three months – but please read, and follow, the submission guidelines below, in order to facilitate our response.

More Information here: