Your Ultimate Guide To Writing Contests For 2025 & 2026
Updated June 2, 2025
Hello everyone, just a quick note to let you know this article about writing contests for 2025 has been updated with new competitions and I’ve removed the ones where deadlines have passed. There are some new ones, including a 100-word competition written in any genre and a prize of $2000! Does it get much more enticing?! Definitely worth a shot, because you just never know!
Best of luck!
Updated June 2, 2025
I first published a writing competition guide in 2022 and it was so popular, I've updated it for 2025 for this week's article. If you're a planner like me, I love outlining my year ahead, not just in terms of writing goals but also for literary events, writing competitions, authors I'd like to meet and so on - I love having stuff to look forward to!
Writing competitions are an incredible opportunity to get your work in front of industry professionals so in this week’s blog post I’ve curated a list of contests - most of which are an international competition - that you may want to consider as part of your author journey.
In fact you may (or may not) know that my own author career started as a result of winning a writing competition in 2016 which led to a 3-book deal. (It was all very exciting and you can read about it in My Story below.)
While it can be nerve-wracking to submit your work, the benefits far outweigh any discomfort, helping you understand where you need to improve, who the competition is, and what the publishing industry is looking for.
If you win, there’s often a cash prize along with the prestige that comes from winning first place. However, even if you're not a grand prize winner taking home prize money, coming in second place, third place, or having an honorable mention in a literary magazine is a fantastic confidence boost. Imagine how good it would feel to share your winning story on social media!
So if you’re serious about your writing and becoming a published author, check out my round up of upcoming writing competitions, many of which have submissions open now. As many of you are from all around the world these are not just United States based; the majority of these are open to international entries.
While this blog mainly focuses on adults entrants, for writing contests for college students, high school students, and young writers, I would suggest looking at the New York Times student contest calendar .
There are lots of student writing contests to choose from, many of which are open to young people all around the world and they cover lots of submission types including personal essay contests, short story competitions, science fiction, letters, flash fiction, diary entries, songs, raps, and even visuals such as graphic novels and illustrations. Check out this link to see which might work best.
The competitions covered below mainly focus on a work of fiction although in some cases you can compete with non-fiction or a poetry collection. Most writing contests require unpublished work and I'm sure I don't need to add that it must be your original work!
When reviewing these competitions, please do check the terms and conditions carefully, focusing on requirements such as word count, minimum and maximum length, and what contact information should be added and where it should be included (usually, judges of an annual contest prefer to read submissions anonymously.) I've added entry fees in local currency and there are often options for fee reductions depending on your circumstances.
So, here’s a list of writing contests for you to enter - best of luck!
Tadpole Press 100-Word Writing Contest
Prize: 1st place: $2,000 USD. Total value of all prizes: $13,550 USD.
Entry fee: $15 USD per entry.
Final Deadline: April 30 and November 30, 2025
About: This competition is open to all genders and nationalities and the 100 words can be any genre. You can also submit as many entries as you'd like including published pieces.
Prize: £1,500 top prize; £500 for Highly Commended novel; free place on a writing course at Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre for the writer of the best novel from the UK and Ireland.
Entry Fee: £28
Deadline: Midnight GMT October 15, 2025.
About: Now in it's 12th year of competition, this Edinburgh-based, international award for unpublished and self-published novelists is for all genres for adults and YA. This year's judges are Alice Lutyens, literary agent at Curtis Brown, and Rosie Pierce, associate agent at Curtis Brown.
Prize: $500 plus editorial feedback, coaching meetings, and an excerpt/interview feature in Unleash Lit.
Entry Fee: $35
Deadline: July 16, 2025
About: The Unleash WIP Award offers writers support in the amount of $500 to supplement costs to support the completion of a book-length work of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. Writers will receive editorial feedback, coaching meetings, and an excerpt/interview feature in Unleash Lit.
Prize: $5000 plus extensive project development to prepare a script or pitch for industry, circulation and promotion of the author's book to those seeking IP for adaptation, and additional long-term review of other books for potential circulation or development.
Entry Fee: From $25 up to $65
Deadline: (Extended) September 25, 2025
About: The 12th Annual Book Pipeline Adaptation contest seeks books, graphic novels and comics, and short stories for film and TV development.
As more annual awards are announced, I will add the details to this post so do check back occasionally and in the meantime, I would urge you to work on your unpublished manuscript - you just never know, your idea could be a winning entry and lead you to becoming one of the many published authors who have cemented their writing career this way.
Best of luck!