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We found over two dozen excellent free poetry and prose contests with deadlines between August 15-September 30. This issue features "Fern Hill" by Dylan Thomas, from Julian Peters' Nature Poems to See By. Annie Mydla considers authors who want their books to sell but fear that certain craft techniques will put their souls in peril.
Subscriber Howard Seaborne shares a handy email response for business inquiries you'd like to verify. If you have a tip, recommendation, or warning, please email it to info@winningwriters.com.
Congratulations to the Winners of Our 25th Annual Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest
Tim Loveday of Australia won first prize for "Dog Act(or)". He received $2,000, a two-year gift certificate from Duotrope, and five years of Chill Subs' Best Plan. Annah Chiedza Hodhera of Zimbabwe won second prize, $500, and two years of Chill Subs' Best Plan for "Ode on a Grecian Takeout Container". Cal Hunter of Northern Ireland won third prize, $250, and two years of Chill Subs' Best Plan for "Ink?" This is our most international group of winners to date. We brought back some of our favorite artists—Koss, Abi Watson, and Melody Iza—to illustrate their poems.
Honorable mentions and $100 went to Emily Cho, Eddie Elizabeth, Chad Frame, Matthew Goldberg, Uzma Kadri, Christopher Lessick, Stacey Lounsberry, SP Mulroy, Esme Seaborne, Kazuto Tonari, and Andy Young. All of our honorable mention poets received a year of Chill Subs' Best plan.
4,825 contestants entered from around the world. See our press release and read all the winning entries with comments from final judge Jendi Reiter.
Special thanks to assistant judge Lauren Singer, who read all the poems. Annie Mydla and her team helped with contest administration (a substantial job—quite a few entries that reeked of AI had to be screened out).
Our 2027 contest is now open for entries. We're increasing the prize pool from $3,750 to $5,100. The honorable mentions are doubling to $200, third prize is increasing to $350, and second prize is increasing to $750. First prize remains $2,000. Co-sponsors Duotrope and Chill Subs will again donate their literary contest information services to our winners, and as always, this contest has no fee.
Next Deadline
TOM HOWARD/MARGARET REID POETRY CONTEST
24th year. We will award $3,500 for a poem in any style or genre and $3,500 for a poem that rhymes or has a traditional style. Ten Honorable Mentions will receive $500 each (any style). The top 12 entries will be published online. The top two winners will also receive two-year gift certificates from our co-sponsor, Duotrope (a $100 value). Length limit: 250 lines per poem. Entry fee: $25 for a submission of 1-3 poems. Multiple submissions welcome. Final judge: Michal 'MJ' Jones, assisted by Dare Williams and Ezra Fox. Deadline: October 1.
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Recent Honors and Publication Credits for Our Subscribers
Congratulations to Terri Kirby Erickson, Rebecca Hart Olander, Victor McConnell, Ruth Thompson, Jeff Walt, SP Mulroy, Julie Novak-McSweeney, Donna Baier Stein, Eleanor F.J. Gamarsh, Subhaga Crystal Bacon, CM Pickard, Laurinda Lind, and Judy Juanita.
Winning Writers editor Jendi Reiter's essay "Normalcy? In This Economy?", a review of Mac Crane's story collection Perverts (Penguin Random House), was published in The Rumpus in July.
Have news? Please email it to jendi@winningwriters.com.
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Last Call! Charleston Writing Contest
Deadline: August 31
Charleston, South Carolina, is unforgettable. Being the home of Chatoyant's Bound by Words Magazine, we want to read people's experiences, memories, visions, wishfulness, and imagination regarding this memorable area.
(We support the idea that writing holds artistic value. Our vision is to help writers get more exposure by publishing them alongside other categories that strongly influence our culture.)
Inspiring information about Charleston:
- It is considered one of the most haunted cities in America
- It was a place for pirate trials during the 1700s
- It is the location of the tragedy of Julia Legare
- It was the location of the Mermaid Riot in the late 1800s
Stories: up to 2,500 words; creative nonfiction/fiction
Poems: up to 30 lines; 1-3 poems
Top prize: $500 and publication. 10 honorable mentions may also be published.
Submit unpublished work. All genres accepted. Include a short author bio. Entry fee: $15.
For questions, email: chatoyantmagazineeditor@yahoo.com.
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Get Free Publicity: 20 Author Spotlights Open
Annie in the Middle
My Book Isn't Selling, But a Market-Friendly Version Wouldn't Be "Mine"
By Annie Mydla, managing editor
Over six years and hundreds of novel and memoir critiques, I've noticed something surprising:
Many of the writers who struggle to write a market-friendly book simply don't want to.
I don't just mean they don't want it enough. I mean that the idea of writing a book with commercially viable craft characteristics feels like a survival-level threat.
They don't want to write a market-friendly book in the same way I don't want to be eaten by a bear.
These authors will say they want to write a market-friendly book. They'll even pay me to help them do it.
But there's no escaping a painful inner conflict when they start to understand the needs of market-friendly novels and memoirs: what these books actually look like from a composition point of view...
...What's at stake here isn't just literary or commercial, but personal, and even existential.
One thing that seems to be especially threatening for authors is the implication that their book is a product. The writer's sense of self is tied so closely to their book that the suggestion that developmental-level techniques be used to increase market-friendliness is akin to suggesting that their very identity be readjusted for market-friendliness.
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Terrain.org 17th Annual Contest in Poetry, Fiction & Nonfiction
Deadline: September 7
Submit your best poetry, fiction, and nonfiction for more than $4,500 in prizes: $1,000 to the winner in each genre and $200 to finalists. All submissions are also considered for publication. Entry fee: $20.
2026 Judges
Todd Boss, Poetry • Joe Wilkins, Fiction • Lia Purpura, Nonfiction
Founded in 1997, Terrain.org is the world’s longest-publishing online literary journal of place and is proudly advertisement-free. Work published in Terrain.org has appeared in Best American Essays, Best American Poetry, and the Pushcart Prize Anthology and has won the John Burroughs Nature Essay Award. Terrain.org is the 2024 AWP Small Press Publisher Award winner.
August Tip
How to Respond to Opportunities that Might Be Legit
Subscriber Howard Seaborne is the author of the Divisible Man series of thrillers. He has developed a standard response to business inquiries that are interesting but need vetting:
Dear XXX:
While Mr. Seaborne welcomes verifiable marketing opportunities, due to the flood of AI-generated scam emails he receives he is unlikely to respond to anything without traditional business details. No consideration will be given to any proposed service without the following:
Your Full Name and Title **
Registered Name of Business Entity **
Business Entity Status (Corporation, Sole Proprietor, LLC, etc.) **
Business Entity State/Country of Registration **
Business Entity Address (Brick and mortar, no PO Box) **
Active Telephone Number and Hours of Operation **
And if compensation is involved, a completed Form W-9 with Tax Identification Number **
Note: Items marked ** are required
Links submitted will not be clicked. Attachments will not be opened. You may submit the above to me at this email address.
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The Vivian Shipley Poetry Award
Deadline: September 30
With your best poem, you could win the $1,000 top prize in the Vivian Shipley contest hosted by the Connecticut Poetry Society (CPS). A second prize of $100 and a third prize of $50 will also be awarded. Winning poems will be published in Connecticut River Review.
Vivian Shipley is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Connecticut State University. She received the Library of Congress’s Connecticut Lifetime Achievement Award for Service to the Literary Community, and twice received the Connecticut Book Award for poetry. The most recent of her 12 poetry books, Archaeology of Days, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
2026 contest judge January Gill O'Neil is a professor at Salem State University and the author of four poetry collections published by CavanKerry Press: Glitter Road (2024), Rewilding (2018), Misery Islands (2014), and Underlife (2009). Glitter Road received the 2024 Poetry by the Sea Best Book Award and the Julia Ward Howe Prize and was a finalist for several honors, including the Massachusetts Book Award. Her poems and essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Poetry, The Nation, American Poetry Review, and the Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day series.
Please submit 1-3 original poems in a single file, without contact information. Only electronic submissions through Submittable will be accepted. There is a $15 reading fee per entry.
Email contests.ctpoetry@gmail.com with questions.
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The Missouri Review's 36th Annual Jeffrey E. Smith Editors' Prize
Deadline: October 1
$5,000 Fiction | $5,000 Nonfiction | $5,000 Poetry
Winners receive a cash prize, publication in the Spring 2027 issue of the Missouri Review, and promotion across our social media channels.
Guidelines
· Submit one piece of fiction or nonfiction up to 7,500 words or any number of poems between 6 to 12 pages. Please double-space fiction and nonfiction entries.
· Multiple submissions and simultaneous submissions are welcome, but you must pay a separate fee for each entry and withdraw the piece immediately if accepted elsewhere.
· Entries must be previously unpublished.
· Standard Entry fee: $25. Each entrant receives a one-year subscription to the Missouri Review in digital format (normal price $24) and a digital copy of the latest title in our imprint, Missouri Review Books, a short story anthology by former contributors (normal price $7.95).
· "All Access" Entry fee: $30. In addition to the one-year digital subscription to the Missouri Review and Missouri Review Books e-book, this entry fee grants access to the last 10 years of digital issues and the audio recordings of each digital issue.
Read prizewinning stories by Melissa Yancy, Rachel Yoder, and Thomas Dodson, essays by Peter Selgin and Dave Zoby, and a selection from poetry winners Katie Bickham, Kai Carlson-Wee, and Alexandra Teague. You can also check out readings and conversations with past winners on our YouTube channel.
Spotlight Contests (no fee)
Some contests are best suited to writers at the early stages of their careers. Others are better for writers with numerous prizes and publications to their credit. Here is this month's selection of Spotlight Contests for your consideration:
Emerging Writers
PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. PEN America will award 12 prizes of $2,000 and anthology publication for an author's first published story, 12,000 words maximum. Eligible publications may be digital or print literary magazines, journals, or cultural websites. Stories must have been published in or be forthcoming in the current calendar year. Entries must be submitted online by editor by September 1 (new deadline).
Intermediate Writers
Young Lions Fiction Award. The New York Public Library will award $10,000 for the best published book of fiction (novel, short story collection, or graphic novel) by a US author age 35 or under. Books must have been published or scheduled for publication during the current calendar year. 12 printed copies of the book must be submitted by publisher for receipt by September 3 (new deadline).
Advanced Writers
Bukhman International Booker Prize. The Booker Prize Foundation will award 50,000 pounds each for author and translator of an English translation of a novel or collection of short stories published in the UK or Ireland by an established UK/Ireland imprint. Author and translator need not be UK/Ireland citizens or residents, but entries must be submitted by an established UK/Ireland publisher. The September 24 deadline is for books slated for publication between December 1, 2026 and April 30, 2027 (new deadline). 10 copies of the book must be received by this date.
See more Spotlight Contests for emerging, intermediate, and advanced writers within The Best Free Literary Contests database.
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Introvert Pervert, poetry by Jendi Reiter
"Jendi Reiter’s Introvert Pervert is politically personal and personally political, bursting with post-confessional wit and tenderness—'when the unspeakable sits on your sofa / crying pinkly for fifty minutes / and you win prizes for dancing with it.' The poems 'confess' in therapists' offices, both 'real' and imagined (e.g. Dr. Jennifer Melfi from The Sopranos). A woman becomes a man, a child becomes a parent with a delightfully neo-surrealist intolerance for intolerance, school shootings, banned books, and the tortured children of Palestine. Is to love all creatures perverse? Then I'm a pervert too! Jendi Reiter ventures behind the hideously perverse headlines and turns to poetry where the real truth lives. They write poems about all the ways our complicated lives have been further complicated by hate. And this introvert pervert/poet isn’t going to take it, isn't going down without a cuddle."—Denise Duhamel, author of Pink Lady
Please enjoy this poem from the book:
Father of Two
Sex and Anger are the termites of life.
Turning your house into delicious dust.
Your skin house that keeps the fluids in
and the bandits out.
Sex laps at the wet supports of bridges,
making them shiver with rust.
Anger digests the underground
sludge in the pipes and the pipes and the one
who sits above them
pushing his acid out.
Blame Sex for touching you too hard
and spilling your words like a dropped box of nails.
Don't talk to Anger and maybe it'll fall
asleep in dirty clothes like a sick child.
Morning comes for us all. Sex dresses
painstakingly, with a black armband.
Anger carries a coffin like a pillow.
By afternoon, Sex and Anger are back in the daisies.
You whitewash your windows so you won't notice them
screaming with their mouths full of flowers.
Calls for Submissions
Winning Writers finds open submission calls and free contests in a variety of sources, including FundsforWriters, Erika Dreifus' Practicing Writer newsletter, Erica Verrillo's blog, Authors Publish, Lit Mag News Roundup, Poets & Writers, Duotrope, and literary journals' own newsletters and announcements.
• ANMLY: The Fetish Folio (poems by queer authors exploring transgressive desire - August 28)
• Sundress Publications: Poetry Manuscript Reading Period (full-length collections by US poets - August 31)
• Terrapin Books: Poetry Reading Period (full-length manuscripts by US poets - August 31)
• Gyroscope Review: "Crone Power" Issue (poems by women 50+ - September 1
• Epistle Literary Magazine (poetry, stories, essays, or letters about an influential mentor or educator - September 15)
• The Queer Love Project: Beyond the Romance (personal narratives about relationship shifts - September 30)
• Green Linden Press: Poems for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (Native poets writing on this theme - October 31)
• Oversound (poetry and translations - October 31)
Award-Winning Poetry from Around the Web
This month, editor Jendi Reiter highlights poems that have won prizes recently, either individually or as part of a collection. See our selections from 20 years of past issues.
MOON RIVER and other poems
by Anya Johnson
Winner of the 2025 Bob Hicok Fellowship for Poets
Entries must be received by August 31
This award from Only Poems gives $1,000, a workshop credit worth $1,000, online publication, and an author interview for a suite of 5-10 pages of poetry. Johnson's passionate poems with noir urban settings depict the perils and misunderstandings of female desire in a man's world.
GATHERING LEAVES IN A PANDEMIC and SONOGRAM
by Catherine Stearns
Winner of the 2026 Off the Grid Poetry Prize
Entries must be received by August 31
This prize of $1,000 and manuscript publication by Grid Books is open to poets aged 60+. Stearns' collection Out Toward Morning was the most recent winner. These brief poems are studies in contrasts, noticing natural processes that inspire hope against the odds.
PINE, N. AND V.
by Lindsay Stuart Hill
Winner of the 2024 Brittingham Prize in Poetry
Entries must be received by September 15
The University of Wisconsin Press offers this venerable award of $1,500 plus book publication. Hill's winning collection was World of Dew. This formally inventive pair of poems, dedicated to a Buddhist nun, rearranges the same phrases in a different order, meditating both times upon themes of longing and sufficiency.
DRINKING ROTHAUS IN BED
by Christian Wessels
Winner of the 2024 Juniper Prize for Poetry
Entries must be received by September 30
This long-running award series from the University of Massachusetts Press selects two manuscripts a year for publication and a $1,000 prize. Wessels won for his debut collection Who Follow the Gleam. The unpunctuated lines and capital letters in the middle of sentences capture the run-on speech patterns of a desperate yet defiant woman in this poignant narrative poem.
Winning Writers Contest
Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest
Deadline: October 1
TOM HOWARD PRIZE: $3,500 for a poem in any style or genre
MARGARET REID PRIZE: $3,500 for a poem that rhymes
or has a traditional style
The top two winners will also receive two-year gift certificates from our co-sponsor, Duotrope (a $100 value)
Honorable Mentions: 10 awards of $500 each (any style)
Submit published or unpublished work. Top 12 entries published online.
Judged by Michal 'MJ' Jones, assisted by Dare Williams and Ezra Fox.
Recommended by Reedsy as one of The Best Writing Contests of 2026.
Submit 1-3 poems for one $25 entry fee.
Comics
"Fern Hill" by Dylan Thomas
Illustrated by Julian Peters
"Fern Hill" appears in Nature Poems to See By, a new volume from Julian Peters available in ebook and hardcover formats. Order from the publisher or Amazon.
The Last Word by Jendi Reiter
Elegies for Big Pussy
Vincent Pastore, who played the iconic character Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero on The Sopranos, passed away this week at age 80—an age that is several decades older than the men in Big Pussy's world typically reached. Fans of the show will recall that his character "got whacked" in the Season 2 finale by his closest friends, Tony, Silvio, and Paulie, because he'd been wearing a wire for the Feds under duress...
Images from Big Pussy's journey to a watery grave would inspire the two poems below, one that begins my collection Made Man (Little Red Tree, 2022) and another in the Sopranos-themed sequence "The Waste-Management Land" in Introvert Pervert (The Word Works, 2026).
Jendi Reiter is the editor of Winning Writers. Visit their website and subscribe to their Substack.
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