Deadline: December 4, 2023
Entry fee: £10
About the competition
This competition is open to unpublished poems of any length, on any subject. Your £10 entry fee allows you to submit up to three poems.
Prizes
1st: £2,000; 2nd: £500; 3rd: £250
Unpublished Poetry Prize for the best poem by a previously unpublished poet: £250.
The four winners, plus sixteen additional finalists will have their poems published in the March 2024 issue of Mslexia.
Deadline
The deadline for all entries is 23.59GMT, 4 December 2023.
Competition guideline
- Entries should be in English or English dialect. Strong language is permitted; there is no need to censor your writing for Mslexia!
- Short Story and Flash Fiction entries should be typed, double-spaced, on A4 pages. For legibility’s sake, please use a 12-point-size font. (Please note: you will not be disqualified if you don’t adhere strictly to this.)
- Novel entries should be typed, double-spaced, on A4 pages. When submitting, submit the first 5,000 words only in the first instance, with the title of your novel appearing on the first page. Please note – if the 5,000-word limit cuts off your work mid-sentance, you may round up to the nearest natural stopping point 100-200 words over the limit.
- Poetry entries should be typed on A4 pages; however the spacing is at the poets discretion, we just ask that the poem be legible.
- Pamphlet entries should be typed on A4 pages, with no more than 40 lines of poetry on each page. When submitting your pamphlet online please submit ONE document which should contain a title page, contents page and your individual poems – please do not submit your pamphlet as multiple documents.
- If you are entering online there is no need to number the pages, but it is helpful to number the pages of postal entries.
- Read the whole guideline and submit your entry here.
