Calls for submissions with December and January deadlines

A number of editors and contest organisers have reached out to us over the past couple of months for help getting the word out to our community and we added a couple more we thought would be of interest.

You can find details below or go straight to their websites to submit.

Note: We are a creative writing school and compile these lists for the benefit of our students. We’re happy to answer questions about our courses but please don’t send us your contest queries or submissions :). Instead, click on the green links to go to the publication/contest website. For more great places to submit as well as our best tips on getting published, check out our other lists and resources. If you’re looking for more contests with December and January deadlines, our “Cold weather writing contests” post includes some heavy hitters, such as the Moth poetry prize and the Mogford story prize.

Pure Slush is looking for submissions for the Work volume in their 12-volume Lifespan series. Send in your fiction and non-fiction, stories and essays of between 150 and 1000 words and your poems of between 80 words to 1000 words. Your submission must of course somehow address the theme of work—whether paid or unpaid. Pure Slush publishes handsome print and digital versions. They do not accept simultaneous submissions but get back quickly—usually within a week. Deadline: 31 December 2021.

Amsterdam Open Book Prize is a biennial prize organised by our friends at Versal Journal. First prize is publication through Versal Editions, 10 copies of the limited-edition title, and the option to order more at a reduced price. You can send in chapbook-length to full book manuscripts between 25 and 80 pages. They are open to different genres and forms, including poetry, fiction and nonfiction prose, and especially experimental, hybrid and collaborative pieces. And they are happy to consider translations and multilingual work, although English should be the primary language of the manuscript. Next deadline: 31 December 2021. The shortlist will be announced in Spring 2022.

Boulevard Short Fiction Contest for Emerging Writers is an annual prize offering $1,500 and publication in Boulevard for a short story by a writer who has not published a nationally distributed book. Submit a story of up to 8,000 words. There is a $16 entry fee but it includes a subscription to Boulevard and all entries are considered for publication at their usual payment rates. Next deadline: 31 December 2021.

Quartet is a quarterly online poetry journal featuring the work of women 50 years and over. They nominate for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize and publish artist statements for each of their contributors that offer a window into their creative worlds.​ Send in three unpublished poems during one of their quarterly submission windows: January 8th to February 8th, April 8th to May 8th, July 8th to August 8th, October 8th to November 8th. The editors generally respond with a yes or no within a couple of weeks after their submissions window closes.

Blink-Ink publishes a quarterly print journal devoted to stories of 50 words or less. They’re currently looking for submissions for their next issue on the theme of Bad Habits. You can submit up to four 50-word stories on the theme. The editors ask for 30 days to make a decision but often respond within a couple of weeks. Deadline: 15 January 2022.