We are now accepting submissions of fiction or creative non-fiction — 2,000 words or less — for the 2024 gritLIT Short Story Contest.
Deadline: January 31, 2024
Entry Fee: $25
Winners receive $500 (First Place) or $150 (Two Honourable Mentions) PLUS all winners will be invited to read at gritLIT 2024 in April. Winning stories will be published on the gritLIT website.
Here are the full contest rules:
Submissions must be original works of fiction or creative non-fiction no more than 2,000 words in length.
Submissions must be previously unpublished. Previous publication includes in a newspaper, newsletter, magazine, anthology, chapbook, book, or electronic magazine OR on a personal blog, Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook account.
Submissions should be double spaced and use a standard, 12-point font, like Calibri, Arial, Times New Roman, or Courier.
Submissions should be emailed to contest@gritlit.ca no later than 11:59 PM on January 31, 2024. Accepted file formats are Word (.doc or .docx) or PDF (.pdf)
Within a week of submitting a story, authors will receive an invoice for the entry fee through Paypal. No story will be considered officially entered in the contest until the entry fee has been paid.
All entries will initially be judged by preliminary round judges, who will select the shortlist. Preliminary round judging is anonymous. Please do not include your name anywhere in your story file.
All authors are asked to fill out PDF cover page, which can be downloaded below. Please download it to your device, fill in all the fields, resave the file as (author name)cover.pdf, and attach the completed file to the email entry. The shortlist entries that are sent to the 2024 contest judge will include this cover page.
The winning story and two honourable mentions will be chosen by the 2024 gritLIT Short Story Contest Judge, Neil Smith. Winning authors will be contacted by March 15, 2024.
Authors of the winning stories will receive a cash prize and will be invited to read at the 2024 gritLIT Festival in April. Authors of the winning stories agree to allow gritLIT to publish their stories on the gritLIT website. After that copyright of the story reverts to the author.
