Founded in 1887, The
Writer is one of
the nation’s oldest magazines about the craft of writing. As someone interested
in the world of books, authors and writing, you will find plenty of useful material in every issue. Stories about star writers such as Aaron Sorkin and Elizabeth
Strout, and craft stories written by leaders in the field such as Roy Peter
Clark are the heart and soul of our work. We also have an ear tuned to emerging
voices such as Taiye Selasi and Vaddey Ratner. Our how-to stories and profiles
are informative, instructive, motivational and necessary to writers of all
levels.
We encourage you to submit to the following contests in order to help hone your craft, gain inspiration and perhaps even win a prize. Please see each contest description for individual guidelines and deadlines. And visit The Writer for additional information and resources.
To stay in touch with the writing world and to get inspiration delivered right to your inbox, sign up for our newsletter today.
Write a 2,000-word fictional short story using any nuance, definition, or understanding of the word “light.”
Deadline: August 21st, 2017
Grand prize: $1,000
and publication in our magazine
Word count: 2,000 words or less
Other prizes: Our second-place winner will receive $500 and publication on our website, writermag.com; our third-place winner will receive $250 and publication on writermag.com as well.
Not the writing contest for you? Sign up for our newsletter to be the first to hear when we launch a new one.
PLEASE READ ALL GUIDELINES BEFORE SUBMITTING.
Guidelines:
• The submission deadline is midnight EST on August 21st, 2017. Please note that the deadline is eastern standard time. If you are unsure when that would be in your time zone, we recommend using an online time zone converter, such as thetimezoneconverter.com. Every year, we receive emails from writers who waited until the last minute to enter and experienced a technical glitch or another emergency. To be safe, we recommend submitting before the final deadline to account for any problems, especially since our staff is out of the office on weekends. If you do experience a technical problem, contact customerservice@madavor.com and we will do our very best to help you.
• The entry fee is $25 (including processing fees). All entries MUST be submitted through Submittable to be considered. We cannot accept mailed or emailed submissions.
• We encourage you to submit multiple stories – for a discounted entry fee of $15. All entries must be submitted on the same transaction in order to get the discounted rate. The first submission will be $25 and each additional submission (up to 5 per transaction) will be $15.
• You may choose to add on a critique of one of your stories for an additional $25. Our critiques are roughly 200 words and aim to show both your story's best strengths in addition to what might need improvement. If you submit more than one story, our judging panel will critique the story that we felt was the strongest overall. Again, if you submit more than one story and you add-on a critique fee, we will only critique one story. You will receive your critique in an email via Submittable once we close the contest and announce the winners. It takes a great deal of time to read all entries and craft our critiques, so please have patience with us as we work through our entries.
• You may enter simultaneously submitted work. However, if one of your pieces is accepted for publication anywhere else, email us at tweditorial@madavor.com immediately so that we may remove your story from the running. We are not able to give refunds for contest entries that were accepted for publication elsewhere, so consider your options carefully before entering simultaneously submitted work.
• This is a prose fiction contest. Do not submit essays, poetry, or other works of nonfiction. Do not submit any work over 2000 words or it will be disqualified. (Your piece's title will not be included in the final word count.)
• Please remove your name, bio and any contact info from the file that you submit – including title page, header and footer. This is a blind contest and your confidentiality is essential. Once we close the contest and determine our winners, Submittable will allow us to contact you via your account information. There is no need whatsoever to include your personal information in your document.
• We prefer Word documents, but we do accept some other file types (such as PDFs). Please do give your piece a title and make sure that title matches the name you enter in the Submittable "title" form. (Your title will not be included in the maximum word count). For multiple submissions, simply enter one of your stories' titles in the Submittable form.
• A blind reading of all entries will be conducted by the editorial staff of The Writer.
• Close friends and colleagues (current & former) of the The Writer staff and Madavor Media are not eligible to compete.
• All submissions must be submitted via our online submission form manager. Again, we will not accept mail or email submissions.
• All submissions must be previously unpublished.
• Entry fees are non-refundable.
• International (non-US) writers are welcome to submit.
• Must be 18 years or older to enter.
