46 Writing Contests in August 2023 - No entry fees

This August there are more than three dozen free writing contests for short fiction, novels, poetry, CNF, nonfiction, and plays. Prizes range from $100,000 to publication. None charge entry fees.

Some of these contests have age and geographical restrictions, so read the instructions carefully.

If you want to get a jump on next month's contests go to Free Contests. Most of these contests are offered annually, so even if the deadline has passed, you can prepare for next year.

Good luck! 

(Image: Pixabay)

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Source Magazine. Genre: Book reviews, exhibition reviews or texts introducing sets of pictures. "But we are also interested in others forms of writing so if you want to submit something in a different form then please do. Our interest in photography is not only about the photographs that appear in books and exhibitions, it touches most aspects of life and we like to read about those encounters too." Length: 700 words max. Prize: £500. Deadline: August 1, 2023.

Lucky Jefferson Poetry and Prose Contest. Restriction: Open to anyone over the age of 10. Genre: Poetry and prose. Prize: $100, publication, and a swag box. Deadline: August 1, 2023.

Granum Foundation Prize helps U.S.-based writers complete substantive literary works—such as poetry books, essay or short story collections, novels, and memoirs—or to help launch these works. Additionally, a Granum Foundation Translation Prize will be awarded to support the completion of a work translated by a U.S.-based writer. Prize: One winner will receive $5,000; up to three finalists will be awarded $500 or more; $500 or more will be awarded to one writer working in translation. Deadline: August 1, 2023.

Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grants. Restrictions: Open to women and trans artists in Greater Philadelphia to fund art for social change projects. People living in Bucks, Camden, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, or Philadelphia counties Delaware who are 18 years of age or older and who are not full-time students in a degree-granting arts program are eligible. Genres: Art in traditional or nontraditional modes, mediums or disciplines. Prize: $2500. Deadline: August 1, 2023.

Delaware Division of the Arts Individual Artist Fellowships. Restrictions: Delaware poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers who have lived in Delaware for at least one year prior to application and who are not enrolled in a degree-granting program. Genres: Poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction. Prize: Established Professional Fellowships of $6,000 each and Emerging Artist Fellowships of $3,000 each. Deadline: August 1, 2023.

Bennett Nieberg Transpoetic Broadside Prize. Restrictions: Open to trans poets who have yet to publish their first full-length book. Genre: Poem. Prize: $1,000 USD, 25 limited edition letterpress broadsides of the winning poem, and a feature in the upcoming issue of Gasher Journal. Deadline: August 2, 2023.

Spectator Competition No. 3211: Chamber music. Genre: "You are invited to submit a song suitable for inclusion in a parliamentary songbook. Please email entries of up to 16 lines to lucyATspectator.co.uk Prize: £30. Deadline: August 2, 2023.

Oregon Literary Fellowships. Two fellowships (one $10,000 grant and one $3,500 grant) are reserved specifically for writers of color. There are also fellowships for women/gender-nonconforming writers as well as special fellowships for fiction writers who have lived in Oregon over the past 5 years. Deadline: August 4, 2023.

Stone Canoe. Restrictions: Open to people who live or have lived in Upstate New York (not New York City). Genres: Poetry. Prize: $500 and publication. Deadline: August 5, 2023. (It is difficult to find this information on their website.) 

Furious Fiction. Genre: Flash fiction, 500 words max. "On each competition weekend, we’ll reveal a set of story prompts and you’ll have 55 hours to submit your best story of 500-words (or fewer)." Prize: $500AUD. Deadline: Opens August 4, 2023. Closes August 6, 2023. (Australian time)

Live Theatre's North East Playwriting Award. Restrictions: Open to playwrights who are either from or based in the North East of England, age 16 and older. Genre: Full-length play. Prize: £10,000 top prize. A second award will be exclusively for young people aged 16 to 25. This will be a commission fee of £7,000 (under 70 minutes) and a commitment to develop the play at Live Theatre. Deadline: August 7, 2023.

Peter Blazey Fellowship.  Restrictions: Applicants must either be an Australian citizen or have Australian residency. Genre: Non-fiction in the fields of autobiography, biography or life writing. Prize: $15,000, and a one-month writer-in-residency at The Australia Centre. Deadline: August 7, 2023.

Spectator Competition No. 3312: Cooking the books. Genre: "You are invited to supply a contribution to a book of recipes invented by fictional characters. Entries must be for the Carrollean, Dickensian or Shakespearean sections. Please email entries of up to 150 words/16 lines to lucyATspectator.co.uk" Prize: £30. Deadline: August 9, 2023.

Scotiabank Giller Prize. Restrictions: Open to books published in Canada in English between  July 1, 2023, and September 30, 2023. Must  be nominated by publisher. Genre: Fiction. Full-length novel or collection of short stories published in English, either originally, or in translation. Prize: $100,000 to the winner and $10,000 to each of the finalists. Deadline: August 11, 2023.

Apparition Lit. Genre: Flash fiction between 1k words max based on the theme Reality Show Madness! Prize: $30. Deadline: August 14, 2023.

The Yale Drama Series. Genre: Original, unpublished full-length plays, with a minimum of 65 pages. Prize: $10,000. Deadline: August 15, 2023.

Bruce Piasecki and Andrea Masters Award on Business and Society Writing. Restrictions: Author must be 18-40 years old and have published at least one work prior to the deadline date. Genre: Published work on any theme exploring key business and society issues. Possible themes include climate change, racial/gender equality, sustainability, innovation, and new approaches to lessen war and social stresses. Essays, research papers, books, and articles are eligible. Prize: $5,000. Deadline: August 15, 2023.

The Gotham “Manuscript-to-Market” Fellowship. Restrictions: Open to people of color who have completed a book manuscript (or nonfiction book proposal) and are ready to go to market with their book. Three fellowships will be offered every year. Prize: Admittance to the Gotham Writers Conference—the panels and presentations as well as a seat at a pitching roundtable with two agents in your genre. The Gotham course How to Get Published or Nonfiction Book Proposal. A one-on-one Agent Evaluation session and a Query Letter Coaching session, both with a literary agent. Deadline: August 15, 2023.

Ligonier Valley Writers. Genre: Flash fiction on theme of “jack-o’-lanterns”;1000 words max. Prize: The first prize winner will receive $50, second prize $25, and third prize $15. Deadline: August 15, 2023.

Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Fund. Restrictions: Australian citizens or residents. Applicants must be emerging, midcareer or established Australian writers and literary sector workers (not beginners) with a demonstrated publication and/or career history. Prize: $10,000 for travel expenses. Deadline: August 17, 2023.

Waterford Poetry Prize. Restrictions: Open to residents of Ireland. Genre: Poem. Prize: First prize is €400 plus attendance at a designated writing course. Deadline: August 21, 2023.

DC Reid Poets’ Grant. Restrictions: Open to poets of "modest means." Applicants must be Canadian citizens or permanent residents, living in Canada, who have published at least two books of poetry with a traditional publishing house. Genre: Poetry. Prize: $5000. Deadline: August 21, 2023.

RSL Giles St Aubyn Awards for Non-Fiction. Restrictions: The writer must be a resident of the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland, or have been a resident in the UK or ROI for the past three years. Genre: Nonfiction book. Prize: Two awards – one of £10,000, one of £5,000 – are offered to support writers to complete their first commissioned works of non-fiction. Deadline: August 25, 2023.

Nan Shepherd Prize. Restrictions: Open to unpublished, underrepresented nature writers in the UK or Ireland. Genre: Nature writing. Prize: £10,000 and publishing contract with Canongate. Deadline: August  25, 2023.

Storyhouse. Genre: Biographical nonfiction. Stories must be true, not semi-fictional accounts. 1000 - 10,000 words in length. Stories must be suitable for children. Prize: $200. Deadline: August 31, 2023.

Kit Sora Flash Fiction Photography Contest. Restrictions: Open to residents in the Atlantic Provinces. Genre: Flash fiction inspired by a Kit Sora photo, 250 words max. Prize: 10 cents/word. Deadline: August 31, 2023.

Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. Restrictions: Open to poets of color with US citizenship who have not previously published a book-length volume of poetry. Genre: Poetry chapbook. Prize: $500, publication by Northwestern University Press, fifteen copies of the book, and a featured reading at The Poetry Foundation.. Deadline: August 31, 2023.

Intrepid Times Travel Writing Contest. Genre: Factual, first-person travel story that incorporates music. Prize: $200. Deadline: August 31, 2023.

Scifidea Science Fiction Writing Contest. Genre: Science fiction. 'The submitted works should be within the realm of science fiction, and must show a new worldview that conforms with scientific logic. It needs to conform to the concepts and characteristics of Dyson Sphere scientific theory, including the uses, size, structure of a Dyson sphere and other related basic settings, and reflect and expand them in the story." Length: 30,000-100,000 words. Only finished stories will be accepted. Prize: 10 winners will each receive US$20,000. "If your work is one of those winners, you agree to grant SciFidea a ten-year publishing license to that work, with the US$20,000 prize being an advance against royalties. The author will share 50% of the net income on print publishing rights (including foreign languages in foreign countries), and another 30% of the net income from developing your work into other media (film, television, animation, graphic novels/manga, and so on)." Deadline: August 31, 2023.

Morioka International Haiku Contest. Genre: Haiku. Prize: ? Deadline: August 31, 2023.

“Kusamakura” Haiku Competition. Genre: Haiku. Prize: ? Deadline: August 31, 2023.

Sundog Summer Collaboration Contest. Genre: "Sometimes teamwork is what makes the dreamwork, so this summer we want to see what you’ve created with another writer (or two or three⁠ — there’s actually no limit) for our annual Collaboration Contest. Submit your wildest, most inventive work of any or mixed genre. Just keep your hybrid masterpiece to 1,000 words or less." Prize: $300 and publication. Deadline: August 31, 2023.

Kindle Storyteller Award (UK). Restrictions: The prize is open to all authors who publish their book through Kindle Direct Publishing on Amazon.co.uk. Genre: Book. Prize: £20,000. Deadline: August 31, 2023.

Nat 1 $h!TpOsT Shorts. Genre: Write a 3000+ word story for one of the six provided horrible covers. (See website) (The covers really are horrible) Prize: Publication, royalties and a $25 award. Deadline: August 31, 2023.

Preservation Foundation Biographical Nonfiction Contest. Restrictions: The contest is open to writers whose creative writing has never produced revenues of over $750 in any single year. Genre: Biographical Nonfiction. Prize: First prize is $200. Runners-up will receive $100. Finalists will receive $50. Deadline: August 31, 2023.

#GWstorieseverywhere. Genre: Micro fiction or essay on theme of Instability. Your story must be no longer than 25 words, with a max of 280 characters, including spaces and the hashtag. Prize: Free Gotham class. Deadline: August 31, 2023.

Diana Woods Memorial Award in Creative Nonfiction. Genre: Essay, maximum 5,000 words. Prize: $250 top prize. Deadline: August 31, 2023.

Arena Fantasy Magazine Competition. Genre: Fantasy. The first line and last line have to be the same - It was the same as it ever was, and nothing changed. Prize: First place wins an annual subscription to AFM.  The 2nd & 3rd place will get a free issue. All entries will be considered for publication in an anthology as well as published in the magazine." Deadline: August 31, 2023.

Gabo Prize for Literature in Translation or Multi-Lingual Texts. Restrictions: Translators and authors of multi-lingual texts. Genres: Poetry and prose. Prize: $200. Deadline: August 31, 2023.

Poetry Archive NOW! WordView 2023. Genre: Poetry. "Make a video/film recording of yourself reading or reciting a single poem which you have written in 2022." Prize: £100. Deadline: August 31, 2023.

Toni Beauchamp Prize in Critical Art Writing. Genre: Scholarly essay. All work submitted must have been written or published within the last year. Prize: $3,000. Deadline: August 31, 2023.

Val Wood Prize for Creative Writing. Genre: Short story with an overall word-count of 2000 on theme: "The Hungry Tide" Prize: £100. Deadline: August 31, 2023.

Rattle's Ekphrastic Challenge. Genre: Poetry based on art. (See website) Prize: $100. Deadline: August 31, 2023.

Rattlecast Prompt Poem of the Month. Genre: Poetry based on prompts. (See website) Prize: $100. Deadline: August 31, 2023.

Substack runs a monthly short story competition. Their mission is to "revive the art of the short story, support artists, and produce something wonderful." Genre: Short story. Length: 6000- 10,000 words. Prize: $100 plus 50% of subscription revenue to be sent by Paypal, Zelle, or check. Deadline: August 31, 2023. Reprints are ok so long as you still have the rights to distribute.

Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award. Restrictions: Open to authors aged 18-35 as of December 31 of the deadline year. Books must have been first published in the UK and/or the Republic of Ireland, in the English language, between June 23 of the preceding year and August 31 of the deadline year. Authors must be UK or Irish citizens, or residents for the three years preceding the award. Genre: Published or self-published book of poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction. Prize: £10,000. Deadline: August 31, 2023.