Arc Poetry Magazine’s Poem of the Year Contest
Genre: Poetry
Entry Fee: $35 CAD for up to two poems, plus $5 CAD per additional poem (includes a one-year subscription to Arc Poetry)
Deadline: February 1, 2025, at 11:59 pm ET
Prize: Grand prize of $5,000 CAD; honourable mention prize of $500 CAD; Readers’ Choice Award of $250 CAD; 10 to 12 shortlisted poems receive paid publication in Arc and online
Description: Arc’s Poem of the Year contest started in 1995 and attracts submissions from around the world. The length of each poem must not exceed 100 lines.
Details: https://arcpoetry.ca/contest/poem-of-the-year/
The Masters Review Winter Short Story Award for New Writers
Genre: Short Story
Entry Fee: $20 USD
Deadline: February 2, 2025, at 11:59 pm PT
Prize: First prize of $3,000 USD; second prize of $300 USD; third prize of $200 USD; all prizes include online publication and agency review
Description: Welcoming submissions of previously unpublished fiction or creative nonfiction up to 6,000 words. This contest is for emerging writers only. Writers with single-author book-length work published or under contract with a major press are ineligible.
Details: https://mastersreview.com/winter-short-story-award-for-new-writers/
Amazon Canada 2024 First Novel Award: Adult Category
Genre: First Novel
Entry Fee: None
Deadline: February 9, 2025, at 5:00 pm ET
Prize: First prize of $60,000 CAD; five finalist prizes of $6,000 CAD each
Description: Established in 1976, the First Novel Award program has launched the careers of some of Canada’s most beloved novelists. Eligible novels must be published between April 1, 2024, and March 31, 2025.
Details: https://thewalrus.ca/afna/
Amazon Canada 2024 First Novel Award: Youth Short Story Category
Genre: Short Story (Ages 13 – 17)
Entry Fee: None
Deadline: February 9, 2025, at 5:00 pm ET
Prize: First prize of $5,000 CAD; five finalist prizes of $500 CAD each
Description: The youth short story category invites authors between the ages of 13 and 17 to submit a short story under 3,000 words.
Details: https://thewalrus.ca/amazon-first-novel-award-youth/
Next Generation Indie Book Awards 2025
Genre: Published Books
Entry Fee: $75 CAD per title for the first category entered; $60 CAD for each additional category entered
Deadline: February 13, 2025
Prize: Best Fiction Book prize of $1,500 CAD; second Best Fiction Book prize of $750 CAD; third Best Fiction Book prize of $500 CAD; Best Nonfiction Book prize of $1,500 CAD; second Best Nonfiction Book prize of $750 CAD; third Best Nonfiction Book prize of $500 CAD; $100 CAD and a gold medal awarded to the winner of each of the 80+ categories
Description: Presented by Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group, the Next Generation Indie Book Awards is the largest international awards program open to indie authors and independent publishers worldwide who have a book written in English. The Indie Book Awards offers more than 80 categories to enter books that are published in 2023, 2024, or 2025, or have a 2023, 2024, or 2025 copyright date.
Details: https://indiebookawards.com/
Writers’ & Artists’ Pen to Print Short Story Competition 2025
Genre: Short Fiction
Entry Fee: None
Deadline: February 14, 2025
Prize: An Arvon Residential Writing Week (worth £850) and website publication
Description: To enter, submit a short story (for adults) of no more than 2,000 words on the theme of ‘risk’ via the online competition form, and ensure that you have a (free) account through the website. No purchase necessary, but entrants must be registered on https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/.
Details: https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/competitions/writers-artists-short-story-competition-2025
Omnidawn 2025 1st/2nd Book Poetry Contest
Genre: Poetry
Entry Fee: $27 USD
Deadline: February 16, 2025, at 12:00 am PT
Prize: $3,000 USD and publication and 20 copies of the winning book by Omnidawn with a full color cover
Description: This contest is open to writers worldwide who have either never published a full-length book of poetry, or who have published only one full-length book of poetry, so that the winning book would become a poet’s first or second published full-length book of poetry. Submissions are recommended to be between 40–120 pages, not including front and back matter, with most manuscripts received being between 40-70 pages long.
Details: https://www.omnidawn.com/contests/omnidawn-poetry-contests/
Writing Battle Winter Flash Fiction Contest
Genre: Flash Fiction
Entry Fee: $25 USD
Deadline: February 16, 2025, at 10:00 pm ET
Prize: $10,000 USD cash prize pool split between winners, publication, and feedback
Description: Open internationally. You are given 3 days to write up to 1,000 words.
Details: https://www.writingbattle.com
Next Generation Short Story Awards 2025
Prize: First prize of $500 USD; second prize of $300 USD; third prize of $200 USD; each of the 30+ category winners receives $75 USD + all winners receive gold medals
Description: The Short Story Awards, currently in its second year, is a not-for-profit international awards program for authors of short stories. The Short Story Awards is now accepting entries of short stories and poetry in English that are 5,000 words or less for the 2025 awards program in 30+ categories. Winners are given cash prizes, gold medals, digital promotional stickers, social media coverage, literary exposure with their stories published in an anthology, and a complimentary copy of the anthology.
Details: https://shortstoryawards.com/guidelines.php
Fish Flash Fiction Prize
Genre: Flash Fiction
Entry Fee: €14 for first entry plus €9 for each subsequent entry
Deadline: February 28, 2025
Prize: First prize of €1,000; second prize of €300 and an online writing course; third prize of €300; top ten stories will be published in the Fish Anthology 2025
Description: This contest is an opportunity to attempt one of the most interesting and rewarding tasks—to create, in a tiny fragment, a completely resolved and compelling story in 300 words or less.
Details: http://www.fishpublishing.com/competition/flash-fiction-contest/#rules
Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest
Genre: Poetry
Entry Fee: $40 CAD for up to 3 poems plus $5 CAD per additional poems (includes a 1-year subscription to The New Quarterly)
Deadline: February 28, 2025
Prize: First prize of $1,000 CAD; an additional $1,000 CAD will be distributed at the judges fancy
Description: Sponsored by former The New Quarterly editor Kim Jernigan and family in celebration of her father, Nick Blatchford, the man who sparked the family’s love of poetry. This contest is for poems written in response to an existing occasion, personal or public, or poems that make an occasion of something ordinary or by virtue of the poet’s attention. No word limit.
Details: https://tnq.ca/product/the-nick-blatchford-occasional-verse-contest/
Red Hen Press Women’s Prose Prize
Genre: Prose
Entry Fee: $25 USD
Deadline: February 28, 2025
Prize: $1,000 USD and publication by Red Hen Press
Description: Established in 2018, this prize is for previously unpublished, original works of prose. Novels, short story collections, memoirs, essay collections, and all other forms of prose writing are eligible for consideration. The awarded manuscript is selected through an annual competition which is open to all writers who identify as women. The minimum word count is 25,000 and the maximum is 80,000.
Details: https://redhen.org/awards-2/womens-prose-prize/s
Storyhouse Winners Circle Contest
Genre: Nonfiction (previous Storyhouse contest winners only)
Entry Fee: None
Deadline: February 28, 2025
Prize: First prize of $200 USD; runner-up prize of $100 USD; finalist prizes of certificates of achievement
Description: This contest is only open to first prize winners of previous Storyhouse contests. While ineligible for prizes in regular contests, previous winners can compete in this one. This gives newer writers a better chance of winning one of the open contests. Stories may be on any nonfiction subject. There is a limit of four contest submissions.
Details: https://www.storyhouse.org/contest2023.html
Toronto Star 2024 Short Story Contest
Genre: Fiction
Entry Fee: None
Deadline: February 28, 2025, at 5:00 pm ET
Prize: First prize of $5,000 and the tuition fee for one of two programs at the Humber School for Writers; second prize of $2,000; third prize of $1,000
Description: The contest is open to all Ontario residents 16 years of age or older. Entrants can write on any topic they want. Stories must be original, previously unpublished and no longer than 2,500 words. Entries are limited to one for each person.
Details: https://www.thestar.com/contests/
Alberta Magazine Awards
Genre: Magazine
Entry Fee: Early Bird fee of $40 CAD per entry; regular fee of $50 CAD per entry; each Alberta Magazine Publishers Association (AMPA) voting and affiliate member magazine receive one free entry
Deadline: 2025 contest details to be announced
Prize: The program recognizes extraordinary content with 18 written, visual, digital, and integrated Showcase Award categories, 5 Alberta Achievement Award categories, and 3 Out-of-Province Awards
Description: The Alberta Magazine Awards program honours and celebrates the work of magazine makers – the editors, art directors, writers, photographers, illustrators, and other creators – who collectively bring passion and insight to the unique Alberta culture and ensure Alberta voices and stories are shared throughout the province and beyond our borders.
Details: https://albertamagazines.com/awards/
Editors Canada Karen Virag Award
Genre: Editing
Nomination Fee: None
Nomination Deadline: Editors Canada will begin accepting nominations for the 2025 award in January 2025
Prize: $400 CAD and a commemorative plaque
Description: Nominations for the Karen Virag Award, an award dedicated to recognizing the efforts of editors, are now open. A nominee’s contributions may take on a variety of forms, including one or more of the following: writing, public speaking, teaching, participation in broadcast or new media, and sponsoring editing-related activities and community building in Canada and abroad.
Details: http://www.editors.ca/about/awards/karen-virag-award
Habitat for Humanity’s Meaning of Home National Writing Contest
Genre: Essay or Poetry (Students only in Grade 4, 5 and 6)
Entry Fee: $10 CAD
Deadline: 2025 contest details to be announced
Prize: Three grand prizes of one $30,000 CAD grant each; nine runner-up prizes of one $10,000 CAD grant each (grants are towards a local Habitat build project)
Description: Write a composition, essay, or poem about what home means to you. Your $10 CAD entry fee will be donated by Genworth Canada to your local Habitat for Humanity. Each grade will have a grand prize winner and three runners-up.
Details: https://habitathm.ca/moh/
NOWW 27th Annual International Writing Contest
Genre: Poetry, Short Fiction, Creative Review, Prose (Nonfiction)
Entry Fee: $10 CAD for non-members; free for NOWW members in good standing
Deadline: 2025 contest details to be announced
Prize: First prize of $150 CAD in each category; second prize of $100 CAD in each category; third prize of $50 CAD in each category
Description: 2024 categories are Poetry, Short Fiction, Creative Review, and the Bill MacDonald Prize for Prose (Nonfiction). This contest is open to individuals (Canadian and international) age 18 and over. Entries must be original and unpublished. Two entries may be made per category. Only electronic submissions will be accepted.
Details: https://www.nowwwriters.ca/
Writers’ Union of Canada Short Prose Competition for Emerging Writers
Genre: Fiction, Nonfiction
Entry Fee: $29 CAD per entry
Deadline: 2025 contest details to be announced
Prize: First prize of $2,500 CAD; the winning entry and 11 finalist entries will be submitted to 3 Canadian magazines for consideration and receive feedback on their submissions
Description: This competition for emerging writers aims to discover, encourage, and promote new writers of short prose in order to provide opportunity and exposure to developing writers. Original, unpublished fiction or nonfiction up to 2,500 words in the English language.
Details: http://www.writersunion.ca/short-prose-competition