These contests/fellowships are for writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, plays, and for journalists. They range from $100 to $100,000. None charge an entry fee. They’re roughly divided by geography. – S. Kalekar
PRIZES OPEN FOR INTERNATIONAL SUBMISSIONS
Fourteen Hills: Stacey Doris Memorial Poetry Award
This is a poetry contest – send one poem of 3 to 10 pages. Their guidelines say, “Stacy Doris was a poet, translator, and an Associate Professor in San Francisco State University’s Department of Creative Writing, where she taught for ten years. … Doris created new worlds with her unexpected poetics. Following upon her spirit of creative invention, engaging wit and ingenious playfulness, discovery in construction, and radical appropriations based on classical forms, pastiche, etc., and love, the Stacy Doris Memorial Poetry Award is given to a poet with a truly inventive spirit.” Works that don’t win will be considered for publication in Fourteen Hills.
Value: $500
Deadline: 1 January 2021
Open for: Unspecified
Details here.
Defenestration.net Lengthy Poem Contest
They are reading entries for a lengthy poem, of at least three pages and up to chapbook-length (see guidelines). It is best to divide it into parts or sections, though this is not a strict requirement. Poem cycles will be considered.
Value: $300
Deadline: 1 January 2021
Open for: Unspecified
Details here.
St. Martin’s Minotaur/ Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition
This is an international contest for crime novel manuscripts, for writers who have never been the author of any published novel in any genre. The writing should be no less than 220 pages, or approximately 60,000 words. Minotaur is an imprint of St Martin’s Press, which is part of Macmillan.
Value: $10,000 advance against royalties
Deadline: 1 January 2021
Open for: Unpublished writers (see guidelines)
Details here
Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies: Steinbeck Fellowships
These are fellowships to help writers complete a book project. Up to six Steinbeck Fellows are selected each year from disciplines including fiction, creative non-fiction, biography, drama, and Steinbeck studies. Applications in poetry will not be accepted.
Value: $15,000, residency at San José State University
Deadline: 2 January 2021
Open for: Unspecified
Details here
The Leon Levy Centre for Biography: Biography Fellowships
These are four resident fellowships at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City, to nonfiction writers working on biographies. Preference in the award of fellowships is given to those who have not yet published a biography or received fellowships for the writing of a biography. They also welcome applications from published and accomplished writers who are undertaking their first biography. The Leon Levy Center for Biography does not award fellowships for memoirs, essays, plays, films, or fiction. One of the application requirements is a sample of the proposed biography, a maximum of 2,500 words. (Also see the Sloan Fellowship, given annually to a writer working on a biography of a figure in the field of science or technology.)
Value: $72,000, residency
Deadline: 4 January 2021
Open for: Writers working on biographies
Details here
Neukom Institute Literary Arts Awards
They have an award for playwrights, and other awards for writers of speculative fiction (which are not open yet). Playwrights have to write to a prompt: What does it mean to be a human in a computerized world?
Value: $5,000
Deadline: 15 January 2021
Open for: All playwrights
Details here (playwriting award) and here (all awards).
Walter Muir Whitehill Prize in Early American History
This prize is for an essay on early American history (up to 1825), not previously published, with preference being given to New England subjects. Essays should be 40-60 pages, and be mailed.
Value: $2,500
Deadline: 15 January 2021 (postmarked)
Open for: Unspecified
Details here
Great River Review: Pink Poetry Prize
This is a prize for poems; there is no theme specified. Send up to 3 poems, of 10 pages. They will publish the winner and runners-up. Great River Review is the journal of the University of Minnesota Creative Writing Program.
Value: $1,000
Deadline: 15 January 2021
Open for: All poets
Details here.
The Hillman Prize for Journalism
This is for journalists who pursue investigative reporting and deep storytelling in service of the common good. Recipients exemplify reportorial excellence, storytelling skill, and social justice impact. The categories are: Book (bound volumes and ebooks), Newspaper Journalism (story or series/in print or online), Magazine Journalism (story or series/in print or online), Broadcast Journalism (story/series/documentary that has aired on television or radio), Web Journalism (story/series or multimedia that did not appear in print), and Opinion & Analysis Journalism (any medium)– includes all types of advocacy, opinion, commentary and analysis, normally short-form and/or frequent, regardless of medium; open to newspaper and magazine columnists, TV and radio presenters, podcasters, blogs, and bloggers. The US prize is open to all journalists and subjects globally but the work must have been primarily accessible to a US audience; the Canadian prize, too, is open to all journalists and subjects globally but the work must have been primarily accessible to a Canadian audience, and must have been published in Canada.
Value: $5,000 each
Deadline: 15 January for Canadian, 30 January 2021 for US entries
Open for: Journalists
Details here
(They also have Labor and Workforce Reporting Grants – they accept pitches on a rolling basis, and grants are up to $5,000.)
The Nine Dots Prize: What does it mean to be young in an ageing world?
This is a prize for creative thinking that tackles contemporary societal issues. Entrants are asked to respond to a question in 3,000 words, and the winner will be asked to write a short book expanding on their ideas (the 3,000 words is to be an outline structure for their proposed book; they also want a justification statement of their ability to complete the book of 25,000-40,000 words in seven months). The aim of the Prize is to promote, encourage and engage innovative thinking to address problems facing the modern world. The name of the prize references the nine dots puzzle – a lateral thinking puzzle which can only be solved by thinking outside the box. The Nine Dots Prize question is: What does it mean to be young in an ageing world?
Value: $100,000
Deadline: 18 January 2021
Open for: All writers
Details here.
Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest
This is the magazine’s 56th short story contest. Readers of this magazine are interested in music, social history, literature, politics, art, film and theater, particularly that of the counter-culture of mid-twentieth century America. While the writing should appeal to a reader with these interests, stories can be on any theme. Stories should be up to 3,000 words, but up to 4,000 words will be considered.
Value: $100
Deadline: 31 January 2021
Open for: All writers
Details here.
Caine Prize for African Writing
This is for a published short story by an African writer (see guidelines), of 3,000-10,000 words. Submissions have to be made by publishers only. Works published in translation are also eligible (see ‘Rules of Entry’ for details).
Value: £10,000, and £500 and travel expenses for up to five short-listed candidates
Deadline: 31 January 2021
Open for: African writers
Details here and here.
A Public Space Fellowships
This is an international fellowship for writers who have not yet contracted to publish a book. Three fellowships will be awarded. The aim of these fellowships is to seek out and support writers who embrace risk in their work and their own singular vision. Submit one unpublished prose piece; there is no word count requirement. The submission portal will open on 1 January and close on 31 January 2021.
Value: $1,000, editorial support
Reading period: 1-31 January 2021
Open for: Writers not yet contracted to publish a book
Details here.
WRITERS IN THE US (AND CANADA)
(Also see the Hillman Prize for Journalism in the International category.)
Minotaur Books: The Tony Hillerman Prize for Best First Mystery Set in the Southwest
This is for US and Canadian writers, for a first novel (manuscript) of mystery – in which a serious crime or crimes is at the heart of the story, and the emphasis is on the solution rather than the details of the crime – of approximately 60,000 words. The story’s primary setting must be one or more of the following states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and/or Utah. Each manuscript will be assessed based on the following criteria, weighted as indicated: publishable quality of manuscript (60%); creativity (20%); and originality (20%). In the event of a tie, the tie will be broken based on the higher score in the “publishable quality of manuscript” category. Minotaur is an imprint of St Martin’s Press, which is part of Macmillan.
Value: $10,000 advance against royalties
Deadline: 2 January 2021
Open for: US and Canadian writers
Details here
Homebound Publications: The Prism Prize for Climate Literature
This is for a work of fiction, non-fiction, or poetry manuscript in the genre of climate literature. The final manuscript of up to 75,000 words (for fiction and non-fiction) and a market assessment and/or statement of marketing intentions are part of the submission requirement. The contest is for authors living in the US or UK.
Value: $1,000, publication contract
Deadline: 10 January 2021
Open for: US and UK authors
Details here and here
National Endowment for the Arts: Translation Project Fellowship
These are for published translators. The fellowship is for the translation of works of prose, poetry, or drama from other languages into English. They encourage translations of writers and of work that are not well represented in English translation. The proposed projects must be for creative translations of literary material into English.
Value: Up to $25,000
Deadline: 13 January 2021
Open for: Published translators who are citizens or permanent residents of the US
Details here and here.
(Also see details of NEA’s Creative Writing Fellowships for US writers – they are accepting applications for prose this year, both fiction and creative non-fiction, and the deadline is 10 March 2021).
Douglas B. Rogers Conditions of a Free Society Essay Competition
This competition is meant to encourage undergraduate students in the US and Canada to join the Center for Political and Economic Thought at Saint Vincent College in discussing themes of Western Civilization such as individual freedom, limited constitutional government, free market economics, and the philosophical and moral foundations of America and the West. This year students are asked to consider a particular passage from Ludwig von Mises’s Liberalism and comment on the intellectual origins of the quotation and its enduring significance for cultivating the virtues necessary to sustain a free society (see guidelines).
Value: $2,000; $1,000; $500
Deadline: 15 January 2021
Open for: Undergraduate students in the US and Canada
Details here (scroll down).
The John F Kennedy Profile in Courage Essay Contest
This is for US high school students in grades 9 through 12. Essays must describe an act of political courage by a US elected official who served during or after 1917, the year John F Kennedy was born. The official may have addressed an issue at the local, state, or national level. Essays should be 700-1,000 words and must quote at least five sources.
Value: $10,000, $3,000, $1,000 each for finalists, $100 each for semi-finalists
Deadline: 15 January 2021
Open for: US high school students
Details here (also see tabs on the right for various details)
The Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics Essay Contest
This contest is for registered undergraduate full-time Juniors or Seniors at accredited four-year colleges or universities in the US in the Fall 2020 Semester. Students are invited to write an essay about an ethical issue they have encountered, and analyze what it has taught them about ethics, and themselves. See guidelines for potential topics and issues.
Value: $5,000, $2,500, $1,500, two prizes of $500 each
Deadline: 19 January 2021
Open for: Students in the US
Details here.
Zócalo Public Square Poetry Prize
They want poetry from US poets “whose poem best evokes a connection to place. “Place” may be interpreted as a place of historical, cultural, political, or personal importance; it may be a literal, imaginary, or metaphorical landscape”, according to their guidelines.
Value: $1,000
Deadline: 29 January 2021
Open for: US poets
Details here.
Bucknell University: Philip Roth Residence in Creative Writing
This residency is offered by Bucknell University, and provides writing time of up to four months. It’s for writers of fiction or creative non-fiction working on a first or second book. There are two residencies, in fall and spring semesters. Some record of publication is desirable.
Value: $5,000 and residency
Deadline: 31 January 2021
Open for: US writers
Details here and here.
(Also see the Bucknell Seminar for Undergraduate Poets 2021, for those in the US, and refer this Tweet.)
WRITERS IN THE UK
Spread the Word Life Writing Prize
This is for emerging UK writers who have not published a full-length work, nor have an agent. The writing should be ‘true to life’, which reflects someone’s own life journey or experiences and is not fiction – the writing should be up to 5,000 words. Graphic novel style entries are welcome. The writing doesn’t have to be entirely prose, it can contain poetry if that’s right for the piece; it can also be an excerpt from a larger work.
Value: £1,500, £500 each for two shortlisted writers, and other prizes
Deadline: 1 February 2021
Open for: Emerging writers in the UK
Details here.
Bio: S. Kalekar is the pseudonym of a regular contributor to this magazine. She is the author of 182 Short Fiction Publishers. She can be reached here.
