We found nearly three dozen excellent free poetry and prose contests with deadlines between September 15-October 31. In this issue, we bring you a panel from Julian Peters' illustration of "Before the Battle" by Siegfried Sassoon. Annie Mydla explores what distinguishes a well-developed memoir from raw venting.
For this month's tip we amplify a Jane Friedman warning about AI-infused flattery scams on authors. If you have a tip, recommendation, or warning, please email it to info@winningwriters.com.
It's last call to enter our 23rd annual Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest. 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 3 poems. Multiple entries welcome. Final judge: Michal 'MJ' Jones, assisted by Briana Grogan and Dare Williams. Deadline: October 1. Submit online here.
 Winning Writers bids a reluctant farewell to assistant editor Samantha Grace Dias after 11 years of her stellar work updating The Best Free Literary Contests database. An experienced freelance copyeditor and proofreader, Sam is pivoting to a new career in corporate payroll management. We will miss her creative ideas, sense of humor, and enthusiasm for the finer points of style and punctuation.
Managing editor Annie Mydla and assistant editor Ewa Stachyra in our Polish office will be taking over Sam's contest database duties. Contest sponsors, please send them your announcements at info@winningwriters.com.
Coming next month, we'll announce the winners of our 33rd Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest.
View past newsletters in our archives. Need assistance? Let us help. Join our 62,000 followers on Facebook and our newest social media channel on Bluesky. Advertise with us, starting at $20.
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Congratulations to Julie Novak-McSweeney, Tom Ball, Noah Berlatsky, Atar Hadari, Robert L. Giron, Louisa Prince, CM Pickard, and Charles Sartorius.
Winning Writers critique specialist Cheryl J. Fish will have an expanded edition of her poetry collection Crater and Tower released by Shanti Arts this month to commemorate the 24th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The book juxtaposes this event with the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. She kindly shares a sample poem here.
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!
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Deadline: September 30, 2025
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. Enter by September 30th and you can pick a second category for your book for FREE.
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: October 1, 2025
$5,000 Fiction | $5,000 Nonfiction | $5,000 Poetry
Winners receive a cash prize, publication in the Spring 2026 issue of the Missouri Review, and promotion across our social media channels.
Guidelines
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Submit one piece of fiction or nonfiction up to 8,500 words or any number of poems between 6 to 12 pages. Please double-space fiction and nonfiction entries.
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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.
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Entries must be previously unpublished.
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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).
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"All Access" Entry fee: $30. In addition to the one-year digital subscription to the Missouri Review and TMR Books e-book, Life Support: Stories of Health & Medicine, entry fee grants access to the last 10 years of digital issues and the audio recordings of each digital issue.
Submit online or by mail.
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.
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Deadline: October 6, 2025
Imagine two glorious, all-expenses-paid weeks at a hotel to do nothing but write in solitude.
Free room service. A housekeeping staff. A breakfast bar. Your own TV remote. The sun rising over the Great Miami River (aka the Dayton Riviera).
And—most importantly—a "Do Not Disturb" sign.
Applications for A Hotel Room of One's Own: The Erma Bombeck Humorist-in-Residence Program will be accepted September 2-October 6. The application fee is $30.
W. Bruce Cameron, prolific novelist and bestselling author of A Dog's Purpose, and Wendy Liebman, veteran stand-up comic seen on HBO, Showtime, Comedy Central, and late-night TV, will choose the two grand prize winners. Preference will be given to emerging humor writers.
The package is worth approximately $5,000. The experience? Priceless. Cash prizes will also be awarded to finalists and honorable mentions.
Read the announcement and FAQs. Then apply here for what Forbes says "may be the best writer's residency in the country."
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Writing about your personal experiences can be therapeutic, but turning that writing into a general-interest work of nonfiction requires more objective craft choices.
Some books submitted in the Memoir category of the North Street Book Prize read more like private journals, suggesting that the author might still be in the trenches of processing their experiences. And, sometimes, these books read like plain ol' venting. Winning Writers is looking for more polished memoirs that show maturity in topic choice, main argument, structure, prose style, depth of perspective, and more.
Read on to learn what, for us, feels like a well-developed memoir.
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Ploughshares welcomes unsolicited submissions of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction during our regular reading period, open now through November 15, 2025. To submit to the journal, including the Fall Longform Issue, please review our guidelines.
Ploughshares has published quality literature since 1971. Our award-winning literary journal is published four times a year: blended poetry and prose issues in the Winter and Spring, a prose issue in the Summer, and a special longform issue in the Fall. Subscribe to Ploughshares and submit online for free. (Non-subscribers pay a $3.75 service fee.)
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Jane Friedman is a publishing industry influencer who goes all out to share news about resources, industry trends, and sketchy practices. She reports that AI-infused scams on writers are rampant. One author showed her an inquiry that looked like a sincere attempt at engagement:
"It was the type of email most authors love to receive: someone had carefully read her book, summarized the parts that most resonated, then asked open-ended, inquisitive questions about her journey."
A quick search on the name of the inquirer surfaced a LinkedIn post from a professional editor, warning that her name was being used to further a scam. Even Jane herself has been impersonated.
Subscribe to Jane's free email newsletter, Electric Speed. It's a keeper.
Have a tip, recommendation, or warning? Please email it to us at info@winningwriters.com.
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Deadline: December 31, 2025
Gifted fiction writers! Lilith magazine—independent, Jewish & frankly feminist—seeks quality short stories with heart, soul, and chutzpah, 3,000 words or under, double-spaced, for our Annual Fiction Contest.
First prize: $300 and publication. No fee to enter. We especially like fresh fiction with feminist and Jewish nuance and are eager to read submissions from writers of color and emerging writers of any age.
Submit to info@lilith.org with the subject line “Fiction Contest” and your surname. INCLUDE FULL CONTACT INFORMATION ON MANUSCRIPT.
Check out FRANKLY FEMINIST: Short Stories by Jewish Women from Lilith Magazine, available here or wherever you buy books.
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Sponsored by Winning Writers
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 Briana Grogan and Dare Williams.
Recommended by Reedsy as one of The Best Writing Contests of 2025.
Submit 1-3 poems for one $25 entry fee.
Enter via Submittable by October 1, 2025
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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
Changes Book Prize. Changes Press will award $10,000 and publication for a poetry manuscript, 48-96 pages, by a US resident with no more than one previously published poetry collection. Winner also receives a book launch in New York City. Formerly known as the Bergman Prize. Must be received by October 1.
Intermediate Writers
New York Historical Children's History Book Prize. New York Historical will award $10,000 for the best book of nonfiction history or historical fiction for middle-grade readers that was published in the US in the current calendar year. Send 6 copies to the director of the DiMenna Children's History Museum at the New York Historical. Must be received by October 31.
Advanced Writers
Marfield Prize/National Award for Arts Writing. The Arts Club of Washington will award $10,000 for a nonfiction book first published in the US in the current calendar year about an artistic discipline (e.g., visual, literary, performing, or media arts). Publishers, agents, or authors should complete the entry form and submit 3 copies of the book. Winner will participate in a short, all-expenses-paid residency in Washington, DC. Must be received by October 31.
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.
• The Core Review
(poetry, fiction, essays, visual narratives - September 30)
• The Ilanot Review: "A Formal Feeling" Issue
(poetry, prose, art, comics, translations about using formal constraints to write intense emotions - September 30)
• Kenyon Review: Four Themed Features
(poetry, prose, translations on themes of "Alchemy", "Invisible Cities", "Precarity", and "Who Gets to Be American?" - September 30)
• Rebel Satori Press
(book-length queer speculative fiction or scholarly nonfiction on the occult - October 31)
• Aorta Literary Magazine
(creative writing by authors aged 13-25 on "What does it mean to be human?" - December 1)
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Please enjoy this excerpt from Poems to See By by Julian Peters. We're excited to announce that a follow-up volume, Nature Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets More Great Poems, is now available for pre-order at Amazon.
Before the Battle
by Siegfried Sassoon
Music of whispering trees
Hushed by the broad-winged breeze
Where shaken water gleams;
And evening radiance falling
With reedy bird-notes calling.
O bear me safe through dark, you low-voiced streams.
I have no need to pray
That fear may pass away;
I scorn the growl and rumble of the fight
That summons me from cool
Silence of marsh and pool,
And yellow lilies islanded in light.
O river of stars and shadows, lead me through the night.
Text from American Academy of Poets
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