We found over four dozen excellent free poetry and prose contests with deadlines between March 15-April 30. This issue features even more sample pages from Julian Peters' Nature Poems to See By, coming out later this month. Annie Mydla calls out four style tics that can drag on your book and take it out of contention.

We have hot tips on "Marketing Your Book on a Shoestring", fresh from AWP26. If you have a tip, recommendation, or warning, please email it to info@winningwriters.com.

Now through March 19, you can download the latest North Street grand prize winning book free from Amazon! See the ad for Five Years below for details.

LAST CALL! Open at Winning Writers, co-sponsored by Duotrope and Chill Subs
WERGLE FLOMP HUMOR POETRY CONTEST - NO FEE
Free to enter, $3,750 in prizes. Top award includes $2,000 plus a two-year gift certificate from Duotrope (a $100 value) and five years of Chill Subs' Best plan (a $1,000 value). 13 prizes in all. Deadline: April 1.

Open at Winning Writers, co-sponsored by Duotrope
TOM HOWARD/JOHN H. REID FICTION & ESSAY CONTEST
$12,000 in prizes. Two top awards include $3,500 each plus two-year gift certificates from Duotrope (a $100 value). 12 prizes in all. $25 entry fee. Deadline: May 1.

View past newsletters in our archives. Need assistance? Let us help. Join our 65,000 followers on Facebook and Bluesky. Advertise with us, starting at $20.

Coming in next month's newsletter: We'll announce the winners of our 23rd annual Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest.

Not Traditional. Not DIY.

Gatekeeper Press offers a different path for authors.

Our Assisted Independent Publishing model combines the freedom of self-publishing with the expertise of a full professional publishing team. From editorial and design to production, distribution, and marketing, every step is guided by experienced publishing professionals dedicated to your success.

You retain 100% of your rights, 100% of your royalties, and full creative control of your work.

10+ Years of Excellence • Thousands of Authors Published • Millions in Royalties Paid

If you are ready to publish your book with the support of a professional team behind you, we invite you to explore the Assisted Independent Publishing model.

Discover how Gatekeeper Press can help bring your book to life.

Congratulations to J Brooke, R. Bremner, Jacoby A. Matott, Ann Thompson, Angeline Walsh, and Charles Sartorius.

Winning Writers mourns the loss of our friend and retired contest judge Ellen LaFleche (May 17, 1953-January 23, 2026). An award-winning poet with a passion for working-class and disability justice, Ellen was the author of the chapbooks Ovarian, Beatrice, and Workers' Rites, and the full-length collection Walking into Lightning (Saddle Road Press). Alongside WW editor Jendi Reiter, Ellen was a final judge of our War Poetry Contest from 2009-11, our Sports Literary Contest from 2012-14, and our North Street Book Prize from 2015-23. She lit up every room she was in—including the chemo ward—with her sense of humor, heartfelt connection with people, and creative and colorful fashions. The WW judging team could count on her to fact-check the smallest details and be ruthless about clichés. Read her obituary to get a glimpse of this unique and irreplaceable person.

Learn about our subscribers' achievements and see links to samples of their work.

Have news? Please email it to jendi@winningwriters.com.

Do you use TikTok or Instagram? Send your news to the @winningwriters account so we can share it!

Deadline: March 31

Billy Collins returns to judge the 20th annual Fish Poetry Prize. He will select 10 poems to be published in the Fish Anthology 2026, which will be launched during the West Cork Literary Festival in July.

Prizes

FIRST – $1,154

SECOND – Fish Writing Course + $346

THIRD – $346

Submit unpublished poems up to 60 lines long. Entry fee: $19 / $13 subsequent entries. Optional critique $52. This contest is open to writers of any nationality writing in English.

See the complete guidelines and enter here.

The book industry is thriving, and self‑publishing with IngramSpark has never been easier. With FREE title setup and FREE revisions, you have the freedom to upload your book at no cost and update it whenever inspiration strikes. Add a chapter, relaunch a series, refresh outdated content, or tailor your book for a new audience.

With IngramSpark's award‑winning self‑publishing platform, you get everything you need to bring your book to life and keep it thriving. Create your FREE account today.

Deadline: March 31 (11:59pm EDT)

Black Fox is accepting submissions for its Winter 2026 writing prize.

Theme: Fairy Tale Remix

What if the big, bad wolf were a person with a dark, complex past? Or what if Snow White wasn't so perfect on paper?

We're once again looking for original work that reimagines fairy tales from around the world. We challenge writers to reshape classic fairy tales and invent their own spellbinding versions. Give us a twist to a familiar plot, introduce modern elements, or explore unconventional characters. This theme offers a chance to remix fairy tales in your own distinctive way. Writers are encouraged to write fresh, new work inspired by classic fairy tales. Enchant the hearts of our readers!

Please submit fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. The prize is $325 and print publication in the Summer 2026 issue. All submissions are considered for print publication.

Contest entry fee: $12.

Deadline extended to March 31

The Perkoff Prize awards $1,000 each and publication and promotion to writers of the best story, set of poems, and essay that engage in evocative ways with health, wellness, and medicine as judged by the editors. All entries are considered for publication.

Guidelines:

• All submissions must engage with health and medicine in some way.
• All submissions must be previously unpublished.
• Submit one piece of fiction or nonfiction up to 8,500 words, or any number of poems in 6-10 pages.
• Winners will be published in a print issue of TMR.
• Check out the prizewinners and finalists from last year's contest here. Winners will be announced in late 2026.
• All entries will be considered for publication (whether in print or online, or as part of our Poem of the Week or BLAST features).
• 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.
• Entry fee: $20. Each entrant receives a one-year subscription to the Missouri Review in digital format (normal price $24) and a digital copy of the latest anthology from TMR Books.
• All-Access entry fee: $30. In addition to a one-year digital subscription and digital anthology, entrant receives access to a full decade of digital issues.

Submit Online
Submit By Mail (see instructions)

Deadline: March 31

Last call for the Ploughshares Emerging Writers' Contest! Submit your fiction, nonfiction, or poetry between now and March 31 for the chance to win $2,000, publication in Ploughshares, and a conversation with Aevitas Creative Management. Current Ploughshares subscribers may enter for free!

See the contest guidelines.

Ploughshares is a quarterly literary journal that publishes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by emerging and established authors. Our issues have been guest edited by such talents as Tracy K. Smith, Celeste Ng, Tess Gallagher, and more.

North Street judges often see what we think of as a "reflexive" or "general" writing style: what authors use when they're writing automatically, without giving much thought to style. Problems include strings of front-heavy sentences, multiple consecutive sentences with strong subjects, and the over-repetition of character names and pronouns. See how these little boat anchors can drag on the pace of your book, and what to do instead!

Rattle is proud to announce Nick Lantz's "Dolorimetry", which appeared in issue #88, is the winner of the 2026 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor.

This contest has a rolling deadline

We established the Neil Postman Award for Metaphor in honor and remembrance of Neil Postman, who died on October 5, 2003. The intention of the award is simple and two-fold: to reward a given writer for their use of metaphor, and to celebrate (and, hopefully, propagate) Postman's work and the typographical mind.

Each year, the editors choose one poem that was published from free submissions to Rattle during the previous year. There are no entry fees or submission guidelines involved. The author of the chosen poem receives $2,000.

For more information and to read all 20 past winners, please visit the award's webpage. To submit your own poems, choose any free submission option on our Submittable page.

DOLORIMETRY
by Nick Lantz

A woman married a skull. He had a beautiful
singing voice but had never cleaned a toilet
in his life. On her birthday, he bought a gold ring
for himself. You don’t even have fingers! she cried.
But at night he sang to her, and she always
forgave him. She quit her office job and earned
a living monetizing online videos of herself
sobbing uncontrollably while making crafts:
dioramas of her childhood vacations in Colorado,
an endless wool scarf the color of split pea soup.
Once, she wrote a poem in hot glue in the flesh
of her arm. She had many, many followers.
Her husband the skull had invented a machine
that measured how much pain a person
could tolerate. He named the machine
after his wife. What? he said, as she sobbed,
It’s a compliment. He sang while he ate dinner.
They never had children. A colony of bees
moved into the walls of their house. He refused
to call an exterminator—the house was her job—
but she liked to press her face to the thrum
of the wall. So instead, she cut a secret hole
where, at night, she could slip her hand into the hive
and let them sting her, just a little.

Deadline: April 5

Mary-Jane Holmes will judge the Fish Haiku Prize. She will select 10 haiku to be published in the Fish Anthology 2026, which will be launched during the West Cork Literary Festival in July. Each winner will receive $134.

Haiku and Senryu are a Japanese form of short poetry. Senryu tend to be about human foibles while Haiku tend to be about nature. Traditional Haiku and Senryu consist of 17 syllables, in three lines, 5, 7, and 5. Many poets do not rigidly adhere to this and nor will we. Both Haiku and Senryu are welcome!

Submit unpublished work. Entry fee: $6. This contest is open to writers of any nationality writing in English.

See the complete guidelines and enter here.

The 2025 North Street Grand Prize Winner

Today through March 19, download the Amazon Kindle edition of Five Years for free!

Elise never asked to shepherd her small town through the apocalypse.

Yet here she is, the senior leader of a tiny New England town two years into humanity’s five-year death sentence. Amid dwindling rations and supplies, her job is to lead Middlewich through its last days in relative peace.

But she faces a new menace in the form of political challenger Grant Greene, an authoritarian whose radical new ration distribution proposal threatens to plunge half of Middlewich into early starvation. Adding pressure to the situation is the shocking reemergence of a critical resource.

Middlewich has successfully walled itself off from the outside world, but is it ready to battle the enemy within while saving the human race?

From the North Street critique: "I felt the scale of this story was exactly right, which elevated it over other speculative fiction in the contest. The worldwide catastrophe affects every aspect of the characters' lives, but the focus remains tightly on this small town that the reader has come to care about. We don't need to see the chaos and suffering outside Middlewich's walls because we feel it pushing in on their fragile boundaries at every turn. The characters are well aware that their choices are a microcosm of the human condition, a final verdict on whether humanity can and should survive. The story's central dilemma is also refreshingly different from most climate apocalypse fiction—not whether but how we choose to die."

Read an excerpt from Five Years (PDF)

Find this book on Amazon.

Winner, North Street Book Prize, First Prize for Genre Fiction

When her high mountain wilderness is threatened by humans, a rebellious young bird must teach others how to work together to save their common home. An inspiring, lyrical coming-of-age story told through avian eyes, Uplift explores the strength of community, the power of interconnection, and the impact of environmental change. It may just change the way you see birds forever.

"Beautifully written…A gentle book that will reward patient attention." —From the North Street critique

"Remarkable…A standout novel that deserves to be cherished and shared." —IBPA Book Awards review

"Uplift doesn't just take flight, it soars." —BlueInk Reviews notable book

"A compelling and moving story with an important message." —Psychology Today

Read an excerpt from Uplift (PDF)

Buy this book on Amazon.

Learn more at jessicamann.org.

Adam Cohen reports from AWP26:

At this year's AWP conference we especially enjoyed the session on "Marketing Your Book on a Shoestring", moderated by Thaddeus Rutkowski with speakers William Burleson (Flexible Press), Diane Goettel (Black Lawrence Press), Linda Kleinbub (Pink Trees Press), and Gloria Mindock (Červená Barva Press). These tips stood out:

• Print up collateral to hand out at readings and conferences
• Offer premiums to stimulate pre-orders
• If you have published one book or more (or several shorter works), request a profile in the Poets & Writers Directory
• Similarly, claim an author page at Amazon
• Even short book reviews are helpful at Amazon
• If you need a quick website: Linktree (basic tier is free)
• Share vendor tables at book fairs to split the cost
• When planning travel, seek a place to give a reading

Social media tips:

• Include a photo of yourself in the profiles
• Keep announcements concise
• Vary the pictures you post
• Announce your book contract
• Post an image of your book cover
• Show a picture or video of your new book arriving
• Show your book in a variety of settings
• Use hashtags on Instagram
• Establish a profile at LinkedIn
• Poetry lends itself to book trailers
• On your Facebook page, adopt a personal style rather than a corporate one
• Black Lawrence Press finds that ads on social media are losing impact

Have a tip, recommendation, or warning? Please email it to us at info@winningwriters.com.

Deadline: April 30

The Westmoreland Arts & Heritage Festival is currently accepting previously unpublished poems and short stories for its 2026 Poetry & Short Story Contest. The contest is open to any author writing in English anywhere in the world.

The 52nd Annual Westmoreland Arts & Heritage Festival takes place July 2-5 at Twin Lakes Park near Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

Winning works will be published on our website for visitors to read. Each author may enter one story (up to 4,000 words) for $10. Each poet may enter two poems (any length) for $10. Enter both contests for $20. All genres are accepted. Awards for both contests total $1,000.

Questions? Please email diane@artsandheritage.com or call 724-834-7474. For more information, see the Westmoreland Arts & Heritage Festival website and the contest entry form.

What if climate fiction wasn't about disaster—but about what comes after we get it right?

Imagine 2200 is Grist's climate fiction initiative—publishing original short stories that imagine futures rooted in justice, possibility, and care. Not techno-utopias. Not doom. Real storytelling, beautifully illustrated, written by authors from around the world.

Our free newsletter delivers:

• New climate fiction short stories as they publish
• Author interviews on craft, inspiration, and the climate ideas behind each story
• Writer opportunities—calls for submissions, live events, and partner projects
• Context connecting each story to real climate solutions and justice frameworks
• If you write, read, or just believe stories can change what feels possible—this one's for you.

Join the Imagine 2200 community!

Early-bird deadline: May 1
Submissions close: May 15

The Montreal International Poetry Prize is committed to encouraging the creation of original works of poetry, to building international readership, and to exploring the world's Englishes. Natalie Diaz is this year's final judge.

One poet will win $20,000 CAD for a single unpublished poem of 40 or fewer lines. A jury of internationally reputed poets and critics selects a shortlist of approximately 65 poems, from which Natalie Diaz will choose one winner. The shortlist is published in The Montreal Poetry Prize Anthology.

The prize is run by the Department of English at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. It is a not-for-profit initiative to recognize the single poem as a work of art.

Fee: $25 CAD for a first poem during the early-bird period, $28 CAD for a first poem after May 1; $20 CAD for every additional poem at all times.

Learn more and submit at the Montreal International Poetry Prize website.

$10,000 Grand Prize, 2024 North Street Book Prize Competition

Linda Meyers was twenty-eight and the mother of three little boys when her mother, after a lifetime of threats, killed herself. Staggered by conflicting feelings of relief and remorse, Linda believed that the best way to give meaning to her mother's death was to make changes to her own life. Bolstered by the women’s movement of the seventies, she left her marriage, went to college, earned her doctorate, and established a fulfilling career. Written with irony and humor and sprinkled with Yiddish, The Tell, Grand Prize winner of the 2024 North Street Book Prize competition, is one woman's inspirational story of before and after, and ultimately of emancipation and purpose.

"The Tell is deeply satisfying because Meyers took charge of her healing in a way that many inheritors of intergenerational damage never do. She summarizes the family dynamics with clarity and empathy, but neither moralizes about forgiveness nor dwells in bitterness."
—Jendi Reiter, final judge of the North Street Book Prize (read the full critique)

"In this vivid and immensely enjoyable memoir, we encounter the lost world of Jewish Brooklyn, crazy parents, a crazy husband, and a protagonist/narrator who can't help being a good girl. Woody Allen and Ralph Lauren make appearances: somehow it all fits."
—Philip Lopate (essayist and film critic)

Read an excerpt from The Tell (PDF)

Buy this book on Amazon

Dr. Linda I. Meyers is a psychologist and psychoanalyst in NYC. She has published in Alligator Juniper, Post Road, and The Manifest Station. The Tell is her first book. Dividing her time between NYC and a country house in upstate New York, she is at work on a second memoir for which she is seeking representation. Working title: Walking to Zabars.

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
DAG Prize for Literature. The DAG Foundation for the Arts will award a $20,000 fellowship to support the completion of a second book of literary prose by a US resident. Eligible applications should have one published book of prose with a nationally distributed US press, and no major national or international awards. Send a 25-page sample of your work-in-progress with a bio and CV. Must be received by March 18 (new deadline).

Intermediate Writers
Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award. Sisters in Crime will award a $2,000 grant for crime fiction, 2,500-5,000 words, by an author of color who has not published more than 9 pieces of short fiction or 2 books. (Preference is given to previously unpublished authors.) Prize must be used for "activities related to crime fiction writing and career development". Must be received by March 31.

Advanced Writers
Lewis Galantiere Award. The American Translators Association will award $1,000 for a distinguished book-length literary translation from any language, except German, into English. Entries must have been published in the US in the past two years (in 2024 or 2025 for the 2026 contest), and authors should be US citizens or permanent residents. Publishers should submit the book plus supporting materials and excerpts from the original language online. Contest runs in even-numbered years only, alternating with the Ungar German Translation Award. Must be received by March 31.

See more Spotlight Contests for emerging, intermediate, and advanced writers within The Best Free Literary Contests database.

Winning Writers finds open submission calls and free contests in a variety of sources, including Erika Dreifus' Practicing Writer newsletter, FundsforWriters, Erica Verrillo's blog, Authors Publish, Lit Mag News Roundup, Poets & Writers, The Writer, Duotrope, and literary journals' own newsletters and announcements.

• Unearthed: "Witnessing" Issue
(environmentalist lit mag seeks creative writing and art on this theme - March 27)

• Gulf Stream: "POP!" Issue
(creative writing about pop culture or anything that pops - March 30)

• Adi Magazine
(short stories and essay pitches that envision alternatives to unjust social arrangements - March 31)

• Chestnut Review
(poetry, fiction, essays, artwork - March 31)

• Rattle: "Tribute to the Future" Issue
(poems that imagine what comes next - April 15)

• Broken Sleep Books: Queer Cymru Anthology
(poetry by Welsh LGBTQ authors - April 30)

This month, editor Jendi Reiter highlights fiction and nonfiction that have won recent prizes. To see more winning prose and poetry, visit our online collection.

GREETINGS FROM THE DESERT
by Emily Bales
Winner of the 2025 Narrative Magazine Winter Story Contest
Entries must be received by March 31
This well-regarded online magazine gives prizes up to $2,500 for short fiction and creative nonfiction up to 15,000 words (all genres compete together). In Bales' retrospective coming-of-age story, the speaker remembers being an aspiring writer in New York City who becomes involved with the father of a student she is tutoring. You will have to create a free account at Narrative to read the full text.

WE LEFT
by Dana Diehl
Winner of the 2024 Hudson Prize
Entries must be received by March 31
Black Lawrence Press gives $1,000 and publication for a collection of poetry or short stories (both genres compete together). Diehl's fabulist fiction collection The Earth Room was the most recently published winner. This story takes place in a Southwestern mountain cabin, where a group of young women calling themselves a "support group for girls with beastly boyfriends" discuss problems that are both fantastical and sadly familiar.

KESH
by Joseph Bathanti
Winner of the 2025 Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award
Entries must be received by April 30
This twice-yearly contest from online journal The Ghost Story gives awards up to $1,500 and publication for a short story with supernatural elements. In Bathanti's atmospheric tale, an Italian-American boy accompanies his mother to visit two mysterious elders who promise to help her conceive a child through folk magic.

Ships on March 24! A fresh twist on 24 famous nature poems, these visual interpretations by comic artist Julian Peters will delight poetry lovers of all ages. Available in ebook and hardcover formats. Order Nature Poems to See By from the publisher.

This stunning anthology of favorite poems about our relationship with the natural world breathes new life into some of the greatest poems of all time.

These are poems that can change the way we see the environment, and encountering them in graphic form promises to change the way we read the poems. In an age of increasingly visual communication, art helps unlock the world of poetry and literature for a new generation of reluctant readers and visual learners.

Please enjoy these samples from the book:

Poems shown: "The Voice of God" by Mary Karr, "A Birthday" by Christina Rossetti, "Daybreak in Alabama" by Langston Hughes, "To a Mouse" by Robbie Burns, "Butchering" by Rhina Espaillat, and "Mushrooms" by Sylvia Plath.

More from Introvert Pervert
We had a great time at AWP reading from my new book! The Word Works is taking pre-orders for shipment in April.

"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, previously published in The Garlic Press, Issue 3:

[Source: Judd Legum, "Florida school district orders librarians to purge all books with LGBTQ characters," Popular.info, 9/26/23. Poem title is a quote from guidance given by Charlotte County Superintendent Mark Vianello on 7/24/23 on removing books from libraries and classrooms.]

Jendi Reiter is the editor of Winning Writers. Visit their website.