Tag Archives: competition

Writing Competitions – 2026 Season

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It’s that time of the year again: the novel awards and manuscript competitions are coming up.

True to the undisputed wisdom of Your chances to win rise by 100% if you enter AND You always have the No, but might get a yes, I’m ready to give it another try – this year with two possible manuscripts in hand.

There’s Senex Born, my YA dystopia, that bagged a shortlisting last year. And now there’s also What the Blind Eye Sees, my (incomplete) YA folk horror manuscript. But since there are competitions out there that allow WIP manuscripts, I’ll see if and where it might fit.

Unfortunately, I missed Stockholm Writer’s Festival’s First Five Pages deadline – that one allows WIPs, but I sent the folk horror to the Edinburgh YA Novel Award, that also doesn’t require a full MS.

I’m planning to enter (or have) Senex Born at

  1. Exeter Novel Price
  2. Bath Novel Award
  3. GutsyGreatNovelist – Chapter One Prize
  4. and maybe at I Am In Print (again) – depends on the rules.

There’s also the Britport Price, Searchlight Awards, and WriteMentor – but I’m still undecided. I’ll keep the updates coming…

Writing Competitions 2025

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It’s all about perseverance, right? About hope and resilience in the expectation of rejection. (Which reminds me to submit a few short stories again…) About keeping at it, not giving up, and finding someone who likes the writing. The pages, the synopsis, the style.

In the first quarter of 2025, I send out my short stories, a few poems AND submitted my YA manuscript to a few novel competitions:

  1. The Edinburgh YA Novel Award,
  2. The Stockholm Writers Festival’s First 5 Pages Prize,
  3. The I Am In Print Writing Competition 2025 and, a bit later,
  4. The Bath Novel Award.

After submitting, it’s all about waiting. Crossing fingers. Manifesting.
And then came the NOPE! for Edi’s YA Novel Award longlist. (Though one of my dear writer friends got in and I am STOKED for her.)
And then…completely as a surprise because I had totally forgotten about the date, the I Am In Print competition’s shortlist. I’m so so SOOO exited that I made it!

So far, so good. The results for Bath and Stockholm are still pending, but no matter what happens with those, being on this shortlist is such a confidence boost.