Competitions and Submissions

Deadline: Sat 20 Dec 2025
Location: South West England

Are you a writer based in the South West? Do you have a play you would like to share? As part of its ELEVATE programme, Exeter Northcott Theatre’s annual script window is returning in which writers can submit plays to be read by the Northcott’s artistic team. Read more...

Deadline: Sun 21 Dec 2025
Location: International

InterAct Stroke Support seeks short stories (no more than 1000 words) in any genre that are positive stories that can be read in the sensitive environment of a hospital setting. Open to anyone, including non-UK applicants, over 16 years. Read more...

Deadline: Wed 31 Dec 2025
Location: International

The 2025 Visible Mag Contemporary Art Essay Prize looks for unexpected insights on art and culture today. Read more...

Deadline: Wed 31 Dec 2025
Location: International

Entrants are invited to submit the first 5 pages of their novel and a 250-word synopsis. There is no set theme or style of writing. Read more...

Deadline: Wed 31 Dec 2025
Location: Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland

The National Mentoring Programme is an opportunity open to all writers across the island of Ireland to receive sustained creative and professional mentoring from an established Irish writer of their choosing. A minimum of 35 mentoring relationships are on offer. Read more...

Deadline: Wed 31 Dec 2025
Location: UK, Republic of Ireland

AM Heath have launched a biennial adult novel prize to honour the much-loved double Booker Prize-winning author Hilary Mantel, who died in 2022.  Read more...

Deadline: Wed 31 Dec 2025
Location: International

The Virginia Prize for Fiction is a biennial novel competition which has been established for over a decade. The name of the contest pays tribute to author Virginia Woolf. Read more...

Deadline: Wed 31 Dec 2025
Location: International

Tyger Tyger Magazine is an online journal of new poems for children. We are currently open for submissions of formal poems aimed at 7-11-year-olds - we're looking for sonnets, triolets, villanelles, haiku, limericks, and anything else that follows a set structure. Read more...

Deadline: Wed 31 Dec 2025
Location: International

Wolverhampton Literature Festival Poetry Competition 2026 has a 1st prize of £400, a 2nd prize £150, and three 3rd prizes of £25, with an additional prize of £50 for the best poem from a WV postcode. The judges for the main competition will be award-winning poets Martin Figura and Helen Ivory. The judge for the WV prize will be Wolverhampton based poet Steve Pottinger. Read more...

Deadline: Thu 1 Jan 2026
Location: International

Exeter Novel Prize has a new home with Word Kitchen. The competition is open to everyone, living anywhere in the world, published, self-published or yet to be published, who is not represented by a literary agent. Read more...