Short-Fiction Contests For $10 or Less

LWC is nothing if not frugal, so I've tracked down some great short-fiction contests with entry fees of $10 or less. And if a little thrill shoots through you when you see "None" next to a contest entry fee, there are a few of those in here for you as well. Each contest title below links to its entry page.

Many of these offer contests in poetry, and a few in nonfiction. If you don't see what you are looking for here, there are at least a hundred more in the Writers Market which is available at LWC meetings.

Now, sit up straight and strap yourself in - here we go:

AHWA (Australian Horror Writers Association) Flash & Short-Story Competition - $5 flash, $10 short / up to 1,000 flash, up to 8,000 short (deadline: May 31)

Art Affair Short Story Contest - $5 / up to 5,000 words - this site also has a separate Westerns short-story contest (deadline: Oct. 1)

Dream Quest One Poetry & Writing Contest - $10 / 5 pages (July 31 and Dec. 31)

Family Circle Fiction Contest - Free / up to 2,500 words (Sept. 9)

Fanstory.com Flash Fiction Contest - Free / 500 - 1,500 words - this is a writing-prompt contest (deadline: varies, see website)

Iowa Short Fiction Award - Free / 150-page minimum (deadline: Sept. 30)

Marguerite McGlinn Prize for Fiction - $10 / up to 8,000 words (deadline: June 11)

Red Hen Press Short Story Award - $20 for two stories / up to 25 pages (deadline: June 30)

The Rrofihe Trophy - $10 / up to 5,000 words (deadline: Oct. 15)

Silver Quill Short Fiction Contest - $5 / up to 3,000 words (deadline: Sept. 25)

Soul-Making Literary Competition - $5 / short fiction up to 5,000 words and flash fiction under 500 words (deadline: Nov. 30)

Terrain.org Annual Contest - $10 / up to 7,000 words (deadline: Aug. 1)

The Vocabula Well-Written Writing Contest - Free / 200-500 words (deadline: May 31)

The Wilda Hearne Flash Fiction Contest - $10 / up to 500 words (deadline: Oct. 1)

William Richey Short-Story Contest - $10 / up to 10,000 words (deadline: Dec. 15)

Writers' Journal Annual Short Story Contest - $10 / less than 2,000 words (deadline: May 30)

Writers of the Future Contest - free / up to 17,000 words sci-fi or fantasy (deadline: July 1)

Writersweekly.com 24-Hour Short-Story Contest - $5 / word count TBA - this is a writing-prompt contest (deadline: Apr. 30 - but register early as they only accept 500 entries)


*Inconsistencies in hyphenation of contest names is intentional. Some contests use the hyphenation (e.g. Short-Story Contest), while others do not (e.g. Short Story Contest). We could debate which is proper all day, but we'll save it for another post.


Post by: LWC Director, Karen Aldridge. Visit her personal blog at My Writing Loft.