Short Story Competitions

 I have written a number of short stories this year and decided to have a little look to see if there are any short story competitions I could enter my stories into.

I ended up spending hours researching various competitions online and discovered the following things:

1.       Most short story competitions take place in the first half of the year- oops, seems I have missed them!

2.       There are very few “free to enter” competitions. Those that are “free to enter” are either for children or already published writers. The competitions that seem to be the most prestigious and have the highest monetary prize were exclusively for published writers. So not only do published writers already have their foot in the door of the writing world, they can enter for free and gain a substantial prize…hardly seems fair to me…

3.       Most competitions require an entry free and I couldn’t help but notice that some of those entry fees are rather extortionate.

After my many hours of research, I decided that the best option for me is to wait until January and take another look at what there is to offer. But I did find two competitions that seem a little bit more up my street. One was for teenage readers, which is exactly who my short stories are aimed at, and I really liked the ethos of the site- promoting reading for pleasure for young people. Fingers crossed the judges like it!