Deadline: November 1, 2022
Entry fee: $15
About the competition
For full Submission Guidelines, please read the information on our Submittable page carefully. And please visit our formatting guidelines page to properly format your work for submission.
An insider tip for you all: We seek work that actively pushes boundaries, that forces us to question traditions and tastes. If your work takes risks, we want to read it. We like strong narratives that make us feel something and stories we haven’t seen before. To get an idea of the kind of work we look for, please check out this page from our editors detailing what we look for in our submissions.
We also strongly recommend checking out a past issue of F(r)iction before submitting to our contests to get an idea of our general publishing aesthetic. We have several pieces available online, but there’s nothing like holding a glossy, full-color issue in your hands. You can check out all of our issues in our shop.
Short Story Judge
Ken Liu is an American author of speculative fiction. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards, he wrote the Dandelion Dynasty, a silkpunk epic fantasy series (starting with The Grace of Kings), as well as short story collections The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories and The Hidden Girl and Other Stories. He also penned the Star Wars novel The Legends of Luke Skywalker. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Liu worked as a software engineer, corporate lawyer, and litigation consultant. Liu frequently speaks at conferences and universities on a variety of topics, including futurism, cryptocurrency, history of technology, bookmaking, narrative futures, and the mathematics of origami.
Competition guidelines
- The winner will be announced publicly on March 18, 2023. All participants will be notified about the contest results through their Submittable account so please do not contact us before this date asking about the results. Judges’ decisions are final.
- We accept work, written in English, from anywhere in the world—regardless of genre, style, or origin—and welcome speculative writing and experimental literature. Strange is good. Strange with a strong character arc is even better. Keep it weird, folks.
- Writers over the age of thirteen are welcome to submit. Please note that if you are aged 13 – 16 and your work is selected for publication, we will require a signature from a parent or a guardian.
- We are unable to offer refunds for contest submissions, so please read these guidelines and choose your submission category carefully.
- Staff members are not eligible for participation.
- We read all submissions anonymously. Please include your name and contact information in your cover letter only and remove any identifying information from both the submitted manuscript and the file name as well.
- Any work previously submitted to F(r)iction for publication is not eligible.
- Please also be aware that as we receive hundreds of submissions for each of our contest we are unable to offer personalized feedback. It’s not that we don’t want to, but there’s only so many volunteer staffers on our team.
- We accept, and encourage, simultaneous submissions and only ask that you withdraw your piece(s) using Submittable upon acceptance elsewhere.
- We do not accept work previously published elsewhere.
- We edit every piece accepted for publication, including all our contest winners, whether you work is selected for publication through our online blog or in our print magazine. For this collaborative process we will pair you with one of our Senior Editors. All our editors have been trained to help guide the development of each piece to reach its fullest potential in keeping with the author’s vision. This does not mean we will take on a wild jumble of words and half-formed musings. But it does mean that we value your work and want to help each piece to be as unforgettable as possible.
- Read the whole guideline here.
- Submit your entry here.
