F(r)iction Contests
Fall 2025 Writing Contests
Opens: July 1, 2025
Deadline: November 7, 2025
Results: Announced February/March 2026
Prizes: Win $1,600 in Prizes!
Guest Judges: Miriam Zoila Pérez, Bleah Patterson, and Sam Berman
Categories: Short Story, Poetry, and Flash Fiction
For full Submission Guidelines, please read the information on our Submittable page carefully. And please visit our formatting guidelines page to properly format your work for submission.
An insider tip for you all: We seek work that actively pushes boundaries, that forces us to question traditions and tastes. If your work takes risks, we want to read it. We like strong narratives that make us feel something and stories we haven’t seen before. To get an idea of the kind of work we look for, please check out this page from our editors detailing what we look for in our submissions.
We also strongly recommend checking out a past issue of F(r)iction before submitting to our contests to get an idea of our general publishing aesthetic. We have several pieces available online, but there’s nothing like holding a glossy, full-color issue in your hands. You can check out all of our issues in our shop.
Short Story Judge
$1,000 Prize
Miriam Zoila Pérez
Miriam Zoila Pérez is a queer Cuban American writer. Their non-fiction writing has appeared in outlets like The New York Times, and anthologies like Roxane Gay’s NYT bestseller Not That Bad. Their debut young adult fiction novel, Camila Núñez’s Year of Disasters, was published in 2025. They were named a Lambda Literary Emerging LGBT Voice in Non-Fiction, and their TED talk about racism and maternal health has been viewed over a million times. Pérez lives in Washington, DC.
Website: miriamzperez.com
Instagram: @miriamzperez
Poetry Judge
$300 Prize
Bleah Patterson
Bleah Patterson is a queer, southern poet from Texas. Much of her work explores the contention between identity and home and has been featured or is forthcoming in various journals including Electric Literature, Pinch, Grist, The Laurel Review, Phoebe Literature, The Rumpus, and Taco Bell Quarterly.
Bleah’s current two chapbooks are linked below and are the first two installations in a trilogy of chapbooks, the third which is still pending acceptance for publication is titled Manic Pixie American Dream.
Instagram: @littlemissbleah
Bluesky: @littlemissbleah.bsky.social
Chapbooks
The Influencers Are Gaslighting Us
I’m Not A Worm, I’m Just A Girl
Flash Fiction Judge
$300 Prize
Sam Berman
Sam Berman is a short story writer who lives in Boise, Idaho. He has had work published in Forever Magazine, Joyland, Expat Press, Maudlin House, the Northwest Review, The Masters Review, Vlad Mag, HAD, Hex, Hobart, X-R-A-Y, CRAFT, Dream Boy Book Club, and Rejection Letters. He was selected as the runner-up in The Kenyon Review’s 2022 Nonfiction Competition as well as a finalist for the 2022 & 2023 Halifax Ranch Prize. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions and Best American Short Stories. And has forthcoming work in Back Patio Press, Soft Union, and The Idaho Review, among others. In addition to his writing, Sam is also the Director of Storyfort, a literary festival held during Treefort Music Fest every March in Boise, Idaho.
Instagram: @sugarcainberman
Twitter: @Taylorbabe411
Website: sam-berman.com
Spring 2025 Writing Contests – CLOSED
Opens: January 7, 2025
Deadline: May 2, 2025
Results: Announced September 2025
Prizes: Win $2,100 in Prizes!
Guest Judges: Gaël Le Cornec, K. Iver, Grace Talusan, and Terry J. Benton-Walker
Categories: Short Story, Poetry, Creative Nonfiction, and Flash Fiction
Short Story Judge
$1,000 Prize
Gaël Le Cornec
Gaël Le Cornec is a writer and actor who explores themes of gender, justice and nature through the female gaze. Gaël is currently writing her first collection of short stories focusing on overlooked Latin American women in history and her own experience growing up in the Brazilian Amazon. In 2024, she received a DYCP grant to develop her writing practice. That year she also co-developed with Ben Samuels her first TV series, “Nightingale Road”, which was a finalist for the BBC and BFI “Hot house, Climate Spring”. She was a reader for the Royal Court Theatre in 2022-23.
Previously, Gaël was commissioned by The Southbank Centre (“The Other”, multi-award-winner play published by Flipped Eye in the first British Latinx anthology Un Nuevo Sol); The British Council (“Closer,” a poem for an imaginary performance); King’s College (“Believe”, au audio story based on migrant women’s testimonies); The Newton Fund (“Ana”, short film that received two International Screen Awards -Best film and Best performance), The French Institute (“Camille Claudel”, one person play, APT awards & world tour), CASA Festival & King’s College (“Efemera”, two hander play, Green Curtain Award runner up at Brighton Festival).
She teaches acting and storytelling at Regent’s University and Rose Bruford College.
Website: gaellecornec.com
Instagram: @gaellecornec_
Poetry Judge
$300 Prize
K. Iver
K. Iver was born in Mississippi. Their debut collection Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red Bronco won the 2022 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry from Milkweed Editions, selected by Tyehimba Jess. Short Film won the Wisconsin Literary Award, was a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Award, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and the Lambda Literary Awards. It was named a Best Book of 2023 by the New York Public Library. Iver’s poems have appeared in Boston Review, Kenyon Review, LA Review of Books, and elsewhere. Iver has received fellowships from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the Sewanee Writers Conference, and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. They have a Ph.D. in Poetry from Florida State University.
Instagram: @ivertownandcountry
Creative Nonfiction Judge
$500 Prize
Grace Talusan
Grace Talusan wrote The Body Papers, which won the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing and the Massachusetts Book Award in Nonfiction. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Fulbright, US Artists, the Brother Thomas Fund, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council as well as with artist residencies, most recently at MASS MoCA and Vermont Studio Center. She teaches writing at Brown University and is on the board of the National Book Critics Circle. She was born in the Philippines, raised in New England, and currently lives outside of Boston.
Talusan has published creative nonfiction, fiction, book reviews, and journalism in publications such as Creative Nonfiction, Brevity, The New York Times, Boston Magazine, Solstice, The Seventh Wave,Boston Art Review, and The Boston Globe, and anthologies such as Troubling Borders: An Anthology of Art and Literature by Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora and Somewhere We Are Human: Authentic Voices on Migration, Survival, andNew Beginnings.
X (formerly Twitter): @gracet09
Instagram: @gracetalusanwriter
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gtalusan
Recent publications:
“The Nightmares He Carried,” in Consequence Forum, Volume 16.2 (November 2024) (https://consequenceforum.org/journals/) & a supplemental piece in their Substack, to be posted in mid-December (https://consequenceforum.substack.com/).
“Ripple Effect: Lani Ascunción confronts colonial pasts while envisioning liberated futures,” a profile in Boston Art Review (November 2024): https://www.bostonartreview.com/shop/issue-13-make-believe?image=6.
Flash Fiction Judge
$300 Prize
Terry J. Benton-Walker
Terry J. Benton-Walker is the bestselling author of the young adult contemporary fantasy series Blood Debts, which is published by Tor Teen in the US and Canada and Hodderscape in the UK.
Alex Wise vs the End of the World is Terry’s apocalyptic middle grade contemporary fantasy series, which is published by Labyrinth Road and Random House Children’s.
Terry is also editing and contributing to The White Guy Dies First, a young adult horror anthology featuring 13 subversive stories by authors of color and published by Tor Teen.
Terry grew up in rural GA and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Tech and a Master’s in Business Administration from Georgia State. He lives in Atlanta, and when he’s not writing, he can be found gaming, eating ice cream, or both.
Instagram: @icecreamvicelord
Bluesky: @tjbentonwalker.bsky.social
X (formerly Twitter): @tjbentonwalker
https://tjbentonwalker.com/
Please note: We are unable to offer refunds for contest submissions, so please read the options and choose your submission category carefully. For poetry and flash fiction, you can submit ONE ENTRY or a THREE PACK.
F(r)iction reserves the right to not award a winner in any categories if the submissions do not reach a publishable standard. In this case, reading fees will NOT be refunded and a winner will not be announced. Although this has rarely come to pass in our six-year-publishing history, our top priority must remain with the quality of work we publish.
No AI Submissions
We currently do not accept work from artificial intelligence (“AI”) generators or similar. By submitting your entry, you are attesting that your work was not created, in whole or in part, with an AI generator or similar. Should any portion of your work be discovered to be the product of an AI generator or similar, by submitting, you agree to indemnify Brink Literacy Project for all losses, fees, and damages it suffers relating to your submission and/or misrepresentation, including but not limited to, direct and indirect damages, loss of sale, reputational damages, attorney fees, and other expenses. You further agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Brink Literacy Project against any third-party claims relating to the work you submit.