Genre: Fiction

Short Short Story Competition

Writer’s Digest
Entry Fee: 
$30
Deadline: 
December 15, 2025

A prize of $3,000 is given annually for a short short story. The winner is also provided money for travel and lodging expenses to attend the Writer’s Digest Annual Conference. A second-place prize of $1,500 is also awarded. The winners will both be published in Writer’s Digest. Using only the online submission system, submit a story of up to 1,500 words with a $30 entry fee by the early bird deadline of November 17 or with a $35 entry fee by December 15. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Short Fiction Contest for Emerging Writers

Boulevard
Entry Fee: 
$18
Deadline: 
December 31, 2025

A prize of $1,500 and publication in Boulevard is given annually for a short story by a writer who has not published a nationally distributed book. The editors will judge. Submit a story of up to 8,000 words with an $18 entry fee, which includes a subscription to Boulevard, by December 31. All entries are considered for publication. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

New Millennium Writing Awards

New Millennium Writings
Entry Fee: 
$20
Deadline: 
November 30, 2025

Four prizes of $1,000 each are given biannually for a single poem, a short story, a short short story, and an essay. The winners also receive publication in New Millennium Writings and on the journal’s website. Works that have not appeared in a print publication with a circulation over 5,000 or were published only online, as well as previously unpublished works, are eligible. Submit up to three poems totaling no more than five pages, a short short story of up to 1,000 words, or a story or essay of up to 7,499 words with a $20 entry fee by November 30. All entries are considered for publication. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Jeanne Leiby Memorial Chapbook Award

Florida Review
Entry Fee: 
$25
Deadline: 
January 7, 2026

A prize of $1,000, publication by the Florida Review, and 50 author copies is given annually for a chapbook of short fiction, short nonfiction, or graphic narrative. Submit a manuscript of up to 45 pages with a $25 entry fee by January 7, 2026. All entries are considered for publication. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Firecracker Awards

Community of Literary Magazines & Presses
Entry Fee: 
$65
Deadline: 
November 14, 2025

Three prizes of $2,000 each are given annually for a book of poetry, a book of fiction, and a book of creative nonfiction published by an independent press in the current year ($1,000 for each author and $1,000 for their respective publisher). Works in translation and graphic novels are accepted. Using only the online submission system, publishers may submit books of poetry or prose published in 2025 with a $65 entry fee ($55 for CLMP members) for the first book and a $45 fee ($35 for CLMP members) for each additional entry by November 14. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Jacobs/Jones African American Literary Prize

North Carolina Writers’ Network
Entry Fee: 
$20
Deadline: 
January 2, 2026

A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a short story or an essay that “seeks to convey the rich and varied existence of Black North Carolinians.” The winning entry is considered for publication in Carolina Quarterly. Black writers who live in North Carolina are eligible. Submit a story or essay of up to 3,000 words (a self-contained excerpt from a longer work is also accepted) with a $20 entry fee ($10 for NCWN members) by January 2, 2026. Include two copies if submitting by mail. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Memoir Prize

Narratively
Entry Fee: 
$20
Deadline: 
December 7, 2025
A prize of $3,000 and publication on Narratively’s storytelling platform is given annually for a short work of memoir written in the first person. Two runners-up prizes of $1,000 each and publication will also be awarded. The winner and two runners-up will also be included in a special digital collection. Using only the online submission system, submit an essay of 2,000 to 5,000 words with a $20 entry fee by December 7. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Hyde

Caption: 

Watch the trailer for the graphic novel series adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Developed by Ridley Scott and Mechanical Cake, the two-volume series will be released on Halloween and imagines a world where Hyde overtakes Dr. Jekyll. Written by Jesse Negron with Joe Matsumoto, and artists Gary Erskine and Chris Weston, Johnny Depp portrays the sinister character.

Genre: 
Fiction
Tags: 
Hyde
Robert Louis Stevenson
book trailer
graphic novel
Jesse Negron
Joe Matsumoto
2025

Percival Everett on The Trees

Caption: 

In this Service95 Book Club conversation hosted by Dua Lipa, Percival Everett revisits his award-winning 2021 novel, The Trees, and talks about how the murder and image of Emmett Till urged him to write the story, and how important the relationship between author and reader is to art. “People find their truth in art. It’s not complete until the reader comes to it. That’s when meaning gets made,” says Everett.

Genre: 
Fiction
Tags: 
Percival Everett
The Trees
Graywolf Press
Dua Lipa
Service95 Book Club
podcast
interview
2025

In Vaim

The Time Is Now
10.1.25

In Vaim (Transit Books, 2025) by Nobel Prize–winning author Jon Fosse, translated from the Norwegian by Damion Searls, one might search for certainty and stability in vain as the fishing village from which the novel gets its title is not a place in the real world, and perhaps not even a real place within the world of the book. Ania Szremski, senior editor of 4Columns, describes the novel as a “a book of amphibolous belief” with a protagonist who “wavers between ‘yes’ and ‘no.’” Write a short story that revolves around a character who inhabits a place that may or may not really exist. In Fosse’s book, the protagonist’s motorboat grounds the reader while the use of shifting points of view and lack of punctuation can be unsettling. How do you inject your own story with both stabilizing and destabilizing elements to create tension and momentum?

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