To celebrate our 130th year in print, we’re opening up our pages to our readers. Our “Your Turn” essay contests asks readers to write a 2,000-word essay about any aspect of the writing life. Any topic is fair game, so long as it pertains to some aspect of writing. You only have until February 25th, 2016 to enter!
Deadline: February 25th, 2017 at 11:59 p.m. EST
Grand prize: $1,000 and publication in our magazine. However, every essay we receive will be considered for paid publication in The Writer.
Word count: 2,000 words or less
Not the writing contest for you? Sign up for our newsletter to be the first to hear when we launch a new one.
Guidelines:
• The submission deadline is 11:59 p.m. eastern time on February 25th, 2017. Please note that the deadline is eastern standard time. If you are unsure when that would be in your time zone, we recommend using an online time zone converter, such as thetimezoneconverter.com. Every year, we receive emails from writers who waited until the last minute to enter and experienced a technical glitch or another emergency. To be safe, we recommend submitting before the final deadline to account for any problems, especially since our staff is out of the office on weekends. If you do experience a technical problem, contact customerservice@madavor.com and we will do our very best to help you.
• The entry fee is $25 (including processing fees). All entries MUST be submitted through Submittable to be considered. We cannot accept mailed or emailed submissions.
• We encourage you to submit multiple essays – for a discounted entry fee of $15. All entries must be submitted on the same transaction in order to get the discounted rate. The first submission will be $25 and each additional submission (up to 5 per transaction) will be $15.
• While we enjoy good writing in all forms, our magazine is strictly about writing and publishing, as either a career, a passion, a craft, or a lifestyle. No matter how strong an essay may be, if it does not somehow tie into some aspect of writing, we most likely will not be able to find a place for it in our magazine. For examples of the types of essays we accept, look to essays we’ve published in our magazine and on writermag.com.
• You may enter simultaneously submitted work.
• This is an essay (nonfiction) contest. Do not submit short stories, poetry, or other works of fiction. Do not submit any work over 2000 words or it will be disqualified.
• Please remove your name, bio and any contact info from the file that you submit – including title page, header and footer. This is a blind contest and your confidentiality is essential. Once we close the contest and determine our winners, Submittable will allow us to contact you via your account information. There is no need whatsoever to include your personal information in your document.
• A blind reading of all entries will be conducted by the editorial staff of The Writer.
• $1,000 and publication in the June 2017 issue will be awarded to the winner.
• Close friends and colleagues (current & former) of the The Writer staff and Madavor Media are not eligible to compete.
• All submissions must be submitted and paid for via our online submission form manager. Again, we will not accept mail or email submissions.
• We prefer Word documents, but we do accept some other file types (such as PDFs).
• All submissions must be previously unpublished.
• Entry fees are non-refundable.
• International (non-US) writers are welcome to submit.
• Must be 18 years or older to enter.
Visit the website for details on how to enter:
http://www.writermag.com/writing-resources/contests/
Creative Writing Contests 