F(r)iction Contests
Opens: July 1, 2023
Deadline: November 3, 2023
Results: Announced April 15, 2024
Prizes: Win $1,600 in Prizes!
Guest Judges: Cathy Ulrich, Warsan Shire, and Sejal Shah
Categories: Short Story, Flash Fiction, and Poetry
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
Cathy Ulrich
Cathy Ulrich is the founding editor of Milk Candy Review, a journal of flash fiction. Her work has been published in various journals, including Black Warrior Review, Jellyfish Review, Passages North, Split Lip Magazine, and Wigleaf and can be found in Best Microfiction 2021 and 2022, Best of the Net 2022, Best Small Fictions 2019, and Wigleaf’s Top 50 Very Short Fictions 2019 and 2022. Her first collection of short stories, GHOSTS OF YOU, was released by Okay Donkey Press in 2019. She lives in Montana with her daughter and various small animals.
Poetry Judge
$300 Prize
Flash Fiction Judge
$300 Prize
Warsan Shire
Warsan Shire is a Somali-British writer and poet born in Nairobi and raised in London. She has written two chapbooks, Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth and Her Blue Body. She was awarded the inaugural Brunel International African Poetry Prize and served as the first Young Poet Laureate of London. Shire wrote the poetry for the Peabody Award-winning visual album Lemonade and Black Is King in collaboration with Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. She also wrote the short film Brave Girl Rising. Warsan lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children. Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head is her first full collection.
Sejal Shah
Sejal Shah is a writer, interdisciplinary artist, and teacher. Her debut essay collection, This Is One Way to Dance, was named an NPR Best Book of 2020 and included in over thirty most-anticipated lists including Electric Literature, Lit Hub, the Los Angeles Times, The Millions, Ms. Magazine, PEN America, Self, and others. She is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in fiction and the author of the forthcoming story collection How to Make Your Mother Cry. Find her online at sejal-shah.com and on Twitter and Instagram at @SejalShahWrites.
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.