Writing Inspiration with Upcoming Competitions and Submission Deadlines
Are you like me and a bit stuck with your writing? Are you between projects and need a little dose of inspiration?
One of the tips that some of my writer-friends from my Pen Parentis writing group is to look up open submissions and write for those. Of course, the flip side of that, is it can also be a distraction from your current project, so beware :).
Do you have any suggestions that aren’t on this list? Comment below and we’ll add them to this list!
Always Open
WildSound Writing Festival — daily submission deadlines: fiction, poetry, and screenplays
March Due Dates
subTerrain Magazine Summer/Fall 2025 issue theme {Dreams} — Due March 7, 2025: Accepting nonfiction, fiction, and poetry
TulipTree Review Wild Women Story Contest — Due March 8, 2025: “This contest is based on the radical idea that history and the present moment are not just a series of wars and domination—destruction. The creative life force carried forward through the millennia, frankly, does not get enough appreciation, and the creative force and the Wild are innate in the Feminine spirit. We are looking for empowering stories (written by anyone) whose main characters embody the Wild Woman spirit.”
Burningword Journal submissions — Due March 10, 2025: Poetry, flash fiction, and flash nonfiction
Sequestrum Journal {Slipstream & Magical Realism} {Love}— Due March 15, 2025: “Slipstream crosses conventional genre boundaries between science fiction, fantasy, and literary fiction. It’s one of our favorite genres, but we’re not stopping there. We’re open to magical realism, cross-genre, urban/high/low fantasy, hard/soft sci-fi, experimental, absurdist, fabulist, weird, surreal, or a regular fairy tale. In short, we want literary-quality writing with a healthy serving of imagination. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or some combination thereof. Make the familiar strange and the strange familiar. Muddy the line between the everyday and the fantastic. We want to lose track of where our world ends and the next begins. Wow us. Thrill us. We’re ready to believe. Deadline 3/15.”
Wellspring Words Anthology {Issue 3: The Sensualist…}—Due March 26, 2025: “In this Spring/Summer issue, we are exploring the embodied experience of inhabiting oneself. In this publication, we get to define the role of sensuality in our lived experience. We want to learn about you as The Sensualist. Through your writing and visual art, demonstrate your physical, emotional, and spiritual sensations — and your experience with sensation itself.”
Black Fox Literary Magazine {Winter 2025 Contest: Rise or Ruin}—Due March 30, 2025: “Black Fox is accepting submissions for our winter writing prize. The theme for this round is “Rise or Ruin.” We are open to loose interpretations of the theme in any genre, as always.”
About Place Journal {Careful/Care-full Collaboration”—Due March 31, 2025: “Creative collaboration is an opportunity to summon and practice ways of being in the world and with each other that challenge myths of exceptional individualism as constructed within colonial and capitalist contexts. This type of collaboration can acknowledge and affirm that making art is not an isolated event, and has the potential to share and/or redefine power between artists and the communities in/with which they work. The dynamic and responsive work that emerges from entangling minds, perspectives, and positionalities speaks and models on the page or screen, through the body or soundwaves, the care and imagination that is integral to community building and kin-making. Creative collaboration is a method and commitment to seeding and nurturing webs of knowledge, histories, practices, and relationships with each other and the places that are sacred to us.”
Running Wild & RIZE {Rejuvenation—proceeds go to LA wildfire relief}—Due March 31, 2025: “Send us your short stories with themes of rejuvenation and overcoming what's perceived as the unimaginable. All stories under 15,000 words. Standard format. All proceeds will be donated to Los Angeles wildfire relief efforts.”
April Due Dates
The Alpine Fellowship annual prize {Fear}—Due April 1, 2025
Potomac Review {The Unseen}—Due April 1, 2025: fiction, nonfiction, poetry
HerStry {Motherhood}—Due April 1, 2025
Stonecoast Review {Power}—Due April 15, 2025: “We solicit fiction, pop (genre) fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, dramatic works, experimental literature, and visual art. We can’t wait to see your best pieces! Stonecoast Review offers feedback on selected submissions…What do you think of when you hear the word “power”? What does it mean to have power? What does it mean to use it? What does it mean to abuse it? How does it feel when it’s taken away? The word connotes different definitions and bears different weights for each of us. It manifests itself in unexpected ways and settings, and remains absent or suppressed in so many others.”
Lonesome Press {Where Have You Been}—Due April 30, 2025
Harbor Review {(Sub)liminal)}—Due April 30, 2025
Terrain.org {place, climate, and justice}—Due April 30, 2025
Zoetic Press {epiphany}—Due April 30, 2025
Later in the Year
Narrative annual prize—Due June 15, 2025 (they accept submissions all year if you’re not entering the contest)
The Moth Short Story Prize — Due June 30, 2025: All fiction genres accepted, stories of no more than 3,000 words. Cash prizes for 1st and 3rd place—the 2nd place prize is a week-long retreat in France (what the what!).
Comment below with other competitions or deadlines that you think others will want to know about!