We found nearly five dozen excellent free poetry and prose contests with deadlines between January 15-February 28. In this issue, we bring you a video interpretation of "God's Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins, narrated by HM King Charles III. Annie Mydla points out how poor copyediting can jar readers out of engagement with your book. She provides a wealth of resources to make you an editing pro.
This month's tip suggests how to backup your data easily, effectively, and automatically. If you have a tip, recommendation, or warning, please email it to info@winningwriters.com.
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.
Coming next month: We'll announce the winners of our 2025 North Street Book Prize.
View past newsletters in our archives. Need assistance? Let us help. Join our 64,000 followers on Facebook and Bluesky. Advertise with us, starting at $20.
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Deadline for the Winter Cohort: January 15, 11:59pm PST
Most writers struggle to find professional success, so we've created the first lifelong, affordable, and accessible learning community that can launch writers into successful, working careers.
According to EducationData.org, a typical semester in a master's degree program in the US costs a prohibitive $14,921. Instead, the tuition of a twelve-week cohort at PocketMFA is only a fraction of that at $3,297.
When you commit deeply to a cohort of mentorship and workshopping at PocketMFA, you discover your sustainable, professional, and lifelong journey as a working writer.
Submit your application today! It's quick, and free.
Have questions? Need a little more time to decide? Please email assistant director Lauren Davila at Lauren@pocketmfa.com.
Prefer to take this course in the spring? The deadline to apply for the spring cohort will be April 30.
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"What an incredible experience my first residency was! Being on campus, surrounded by other passionate writers, for an entire week made me realize I haven't been able to dedicate this much time to my writing since...ever. This is why I wanted to get my MFA.
"I had no idea how enriching residency would be. This one week created a huge shift: in my motivation, my perspective of what's possible, my mental health, and the number of people I call Friend.
"Now I'm back home for my semester of independent study—writing, reading, analyzing texts, but not as 'on my own' as I thought it would be. We all have so much support from the faculty and staff, a huge network of alums, and each other.
"I can't wait to see what we write this semester! I'm beyond grateful that it's finally time to give my all to my writing."
 – Emily Persichetti Schuster, low-residency MFA student at Spalding University's Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing
LEARN MORE
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One-Day Flash Sale - January 15
Enter the Short Story Awards today and get your second category FREE when you pay for your first.
The Next Generation Short Story Awards is a not-for-profit awards program open to authors writing unpublished stories in English.
Submissions accepted: Short stories and poems (5,000 words or less)
Categories: 30+
Winners' Prizes: $75 cash prizes, gold medals, digital stickers, social media and website exposure, story publication in an Anthology of Winners, and a complimentary copy. Three Grand Prize Winners selected from all entries receive $500, $300, and $200 based on the rank of their story and are invited to attend the Indie Book Awards gala.
Finalists' Benefits: Digital stickers, social media and website exposure, author's name and story title mentioned in the Anthology of Winners, and a copy purchasable at half price. Silver medals are available to order.
Enter at: www.shortstoryawards.com
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Deadline: January 15, 11:59pm EST
The annual Rattle Chapbook Prize gives poets something truly special. Every year, three winners will each receive: $5,000 cash, 500 contributor copies, and distribution to Rattle's 8,000+ subscribers. In a world where a successful full-length poetry book might sell 1,000 copies, the winning book will reach an audience eight times as large on its release day alone—an audience that includes many other literary magazines, presses, and well-known poets. This will be a chapbook to launch a career.
And maybe the best part is this: The $30 entry fee is just a standard subscription to Rattle, which includes four issues of the magazine and three winning chapbooks, even if one of them isn't yours. Rattle is one of the most-read literary journals in the world—find out why just by entering! For more information, visit our website.
We congratulate our three winners from our 2025 contest:
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José Enrique Medina, Haunt Me
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Liz Robbins, Backlit
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Matthew Buckley Smith, The Soft Black Stars
Please enjoy this poem by 2020 winner Jessie Bertron. It appears in A Plumber's Guide to Light, published by Rattle in 2021.
Arc
My dad worked the trades for fifteen years.
He learned four names for sheetrock mud,
that nails measure in pennies by their length,
and if he went to bars he could say Rusty Nail
until the words corroded in his mouth
and still they'd bring him scotch.
And through those fifteen years he had three wives
and my two sisters, and then me.
And we all asked him to be better than he was.
It doesn't work like that. You shouldn't ask a hammer
to act like a baseball bat. And if you're on a jobsite
and you call out sheep's-foot, cat's-paw,
cat's-claw, crow's-foot, deck-wrecker,
then you're saying you know what it does.
My father's favorite story is the motel room in Billings
we stayed at on a renovation job. It was
just me and him. When we turned off the TV
we could hear the infield chatter
from the low-A minor league ballpark next door.
We were so close, we'd sit out on the ashtray
of our balcony, and holler at the peanut man,
Toss me a bag! Of course it didn't work,
but we both liked to ask for things we knew
we would not get. And then it did.
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Deadline: January 25
Days are short and the air is cold. The season for reflection is upon us. CRAFT encourages you to carve out space for bold, brave creation. For the CRAFT 2025 Memoir Excerpt & Essay Contest, we want to read your best longform creative nonfiction, from 1,001 to 6,000 words total. Excerpts from book-length projects and stand-alone essays will both be considered. Joining us to judge this year's contest is none other than Roxane Gay!
Three winners will receive $1,000 each along with publication, a set of six titles from Graywolf’s The Art Of series, and a free course through Memoir Nation. Our team will also select two "editors' choices" to publish alongside the three grand-prize winners. Send us your best work!
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Entries must be received by January 30
Submissions are now being accepted for the 12th William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Two prizes of $5,000 each are given for works of fiction and nonfiction. All entries must be predominantly in English and available for individual purchase by the general public. Self-published books are eligible. Poetry will not be considered in this cycle.
The awards, co-sponsored by Stanford University Libraries and the William Saroyan Foundation, commemorate the life, legacy and intentions of William Saroyan—author, artist, dramatist, composer—and are intended to encourage new or emerging writers, rather than to recognize established literary figures.
The award honors the Saroyan literary legacy. What is the Saroyan legacy or style?
Saroyan's literary style is characterized by originality, stylistic innovation and what is often described as an "exuberant humanism". It is this exuberance and desire to move art in new directions, rather than relevance to the particulars of Saroyan's common settings or themes, that Saroyan Prize judges will be seeking.
Submit five copies of your work published between January 1, 2024, and December 31, 2025, with a $50 entry fee by January 30, 2026. An electronic file of your book will be accepted only if the book is not available in hard copy form. Writers who have published up to two books are eligible. Visit the Saroyan Prize website for complete eligibility and submission details.
 Congratulations to Mirinae Lee and Fae Myenne Ng, winners of the 2024 Saroyan Prize. University Librarian Michael A. Keller announced awards of $5,000 to each winner and remarked, "Both of these outstanding books offer fascinating cultural insights at the person-to-person level
otherwise very difficult to perceive." Learn more about their achievement.
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Deadline: January 31
Every life has a story. What's yours? This memoir competition invites writers of all nationalities writing in English to share their truths. You don't need fame, fortune, or heartbreak—the beauty of memoir lies in how you transform the everyday into something unforgettable. With honesty, heart, and a touch of craft, even ordinary moments can shine as extraordinary. Bring your story to life—submit online or by mail.
Judge: Elspeth Beard, author of Lone Rider
Prizes
FIRST – $1,164
SECOND – $349 + Online Writing Course
THIRD – $349 + Online Writing Course
The best 10 memoirs will be published in the Fish Anthology 2026.
See the complete guidelines and enter here.
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 Some authors have told me that readers who complain about copyediting problems are lazy. Why? "Because if the reader cares about a book enough, they'll put in the work to understand it."
This seems backwards to me. The author is the one who works hard. Their book is a gift of effort. Writers undertake grueling imaginative, artistic, and research tasks so that we readers don't have to. Writers wrestle the unwieldy, dispersed, infinite, and unaesthetic parts of our universe into stories that are structured, rich, internally consistent, and have aesthetic appeal. And they must be hospitable.
Expecting otherwise is like inviting a guest over for a chat, but making them fix your porch, vacuum your floor, wash your windows, and serve the tea before you'll talk to them. And (if they bought the book) pay you for the privilege.
Learn about the most common copyediting issues and a wealth of resources to address them.
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Deadline: January 31
The Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction & The Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry
First Prize: $2,000 and publication
Second Prize: $1,000 and publication
The winners will also take part in a virtual Awards Ceremony and reading in the fall of the contest year. All finalists in fiction and poetry will be published and paid at our standard publication rate of $20/page. Semifinalists in poetry will also be published and paid at our standard publication rate.
Poetry: 3-8 pages of poetry (one long poem or several short poems)
Fiction: 5,000 words maximum (one short story or a self-contained excerpt from a novel)
The Nimrod Literary Awards are open internationally. Submit online or by mail. Fee: $25 per entry. No previously published works or works accepted for publication elsewhere.
Click for the complete guidelines.
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Deadline: February 13
Entries are now being accepted for the 2026 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, the most exciting and rewarding book awards program open to independent publishers and authors worldwide who have a book written in English and released in 2024, 2025, or 2026 or with a 2024, 2025, or 2026 copyright date.
There are 80+ categories to choose from, so take advantage of this exciting opportunity to have your book considered for cash prizes, awards, exposure, possible representation by a leading literary agent, and recognition as one of the top independently published books of the year!
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Deadline: February 17
Kansas fiction writers with book-length works published in the past three years (2023–25) are eligible to win the $1,000 Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award in Fiction.
The annual award, rotating between poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, is sponsored by the Thomas Fox Averill Kansas Studies Collection at Washburn University in Topeka and the Friends of the University Library. Authors with a connection to the state of Kansas through birth, residence, education, employment, or some other significant circumstance are eligible. This year's judge will be 2023 HHKBA Fiction winner Catherine Browder, author of Resurrection City (Willow Springs Press, 2022).
There is no fee to enter. Learn more.
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This Month's Tip
Easy, Effective Backups
 Here's another tip from your newsletter editor Adam Cohen. We're paranoid about losing data, so we store everything related to Winning Writers in a Dropbox on our computers. Plans start at $9.99 per
month. As soon as I save a file to my computer, Dropbox copies it to the cloud. I can then access that file from other computers. This is convenient for our small team where we share many files. I can recover deleted files or restore prior versions for as long as a year. Dropbox is a great help when a computer breaks or we need to migrate files to a newer computer.
To backup an entire computer (including the system software and applications) to an external hard drive, we use Carbon Copy Cloner. This Mac-only software is $49.99. After your initial backup, the incremental backups are fast—less than four minutes per day for us. As with Dropbox, you can recover deleted files and prior versions. If you need to restore an entire computer from the bare metal, Carbon Copy Cloner will be much faster than Dropbox (hours instead of days). Cloning software is also available for Windows.
As a final step, it's a good idea to keep a copy of your files on a hard disk that you disconnect and unplug when you're not actively working with it. Every week we copy everything in our Dropbox (over 1TB of files) to a Samsung T7 Shield solid state external drive (SSD). This guards us against having our files locked up due to a virus or ransomware. We use Carbon Copy Cloner to handle this big copy job. It's faster and more reliable than using the Mac's Finder system.
Have a tip, recommendation, or warning? Please email it to us at info@winningwriters.com.
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Imagine 2200 is a climate fiction initiative exploring visions of future progress and hope through creative storytelling.
If you're a writer (or you just love climate fiction), our free newsletter delivers:
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Beautifully written climate fiction short stories
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Interviews with authors on craft, background, and inspiration
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Writer opportunities (calls for submissions, live events, and partner opportunities)
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Deep dives into how fiction connects to climate reality, solutions, and justice
Whether you're drafting your next story or sharpening your worldbuilding, this is a place to learn, get inspired, and enjoy a great story.
Subscribe, and explore: Imagine 2200.
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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
Charles S. Longcope Jr. Writers and Artists Grant. The Gay & Lesbian Review will award up to three grants of $5,000 to emerging scholars, writers, or artists for projects primarily focused on LGBTQ+ identity, experiences, or history. Proposals must be received by February 15.
Intermediate Writers
Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets. The Wordsworth Trust and the British Library will issue two top awards of 5,000 pounds: one for the author of a poetry chapbook published or self-published in the UK between September 28, 2024 and October 1, 2025, and one for an outstanding UK publisher of poetry chapbooks. An additional award of 1,000 pounds will be given for the Environmental Poetry Pamphlet. Winning poets will become Harvard University's Michael Marks Poet in Residence in Greece. Books should be no more than 36 pages. Must be received by January 21 (new deadline). Note that sponsor requires both an online submission and hard copies, which must arrive no later than the deadline date.
Advanced Writers
Paterson Poetry Prize. The Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College will award $2,000 for the strongest collection of poems published during the previous calendar year. Book must have 48+ pages. To receive the prize, the winning poet must participate in a reading and teach a workshop at the Poetry Center in Paterson, NJ or virtually. Must be received by February 1.
See more Spotlight Contests for emerging, intermediate, and advanced writers within The Best Free Literary Contests database.
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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.
• Brink Literary Journal: "Chaos" Issue
(hybrid-genre creative writing and art on this theme - January 31)
• Flash Fiction Online: "Resistance" Anthology
(previously published flash fiction on this theme - January 31)
• Ink in Thirds
(poetry, flash prose, art - January 31)
• Little Fruits Magazine
(flash fiction, stories, essays - January 31)
• Acquired Tastes Anthology
(Roxane Gay Books seeks stories and essays about unlikeable characters by authors aged 15-21 - February 2)
• Broken Sleep Books: Open Reading Period
(Welsh working-class poetry press seeks hybrid-genre book manuscripts - February 28)
• Gramarye
(articles related to fairy tales and speculative fiction - March 21)
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Julian Peters invites you to enjoy "a video interpretation by Jim Avis of my comics adaptation of Gerard Manley Hopkins' 'God's Grandeur', featuring a most distinguished and particularly well-enunciated reading by none other than His Royal Majesty, King Charles III.
"The original comics adaptation, along with 23 others, can be found in my upcoming book, Nature Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets More Great Poetry (Plough Publishing, 2026), now available for preorder."
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New Website and Substack On the Way
Tunnel 7 is hard at work building a bigger, brighter JendiReiter.com for me, and I will be launching a new Substack to replace my blog. Also coming soon is Introvert Pervert, my poetry collection from The Word Works. The book launch will take place at the AWP Conference in Baltimore,
5:30pm on Friday, March 6.
Jendi Reiter is the editor of Winning Writers. Visit their website.
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