Writing Contests and Grants for May 2022
Minimum $100 cash prize
I like the idea of writing contests and grants.
They present a challenge to meet editorial requirements. There is also the passive side of the competition.
You do some active hours of writing to submit your entry this month. And a few months later, you can get surprised with a payout.
Sounds exciting to you as well?
These publications are hosting competitions for May 2022. Have a look and see which ones best suit your knowledge and writing genre preferences.
Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors
This climate fiction (cli-fi) contest is from Fix, Grit’s solutions lab.
It is their second annual contest.
They want cli-fi stories set anytime between today and the year 2200. The plot must show a path to a clean, green, and just future.
Of high rank, stories showing solutions in communities most affected by climate change. And narratives that envision how a fair, decolonized society could look.
In 3,000 to 5,000 words, show the editors a world you dream of building.
- Prize: $3,000, $2,000, $1,000; $300 each for nine winners
- Word limit: 3000–5000
- Deadline: 5 May 2022
- Participants: All writers
- Details: Here and here.
The Roadrunner Review High School and University Contest
Do you want to give your teen their first monetized writing experience? This competition is your chance.
The Roadrunner Review is an online journal produced by students at La Sierra University, a Seventh-day Adventist institution. This contest celebrates the creativity of high school and university students worldwide.
The student can submit once in either the fiction, non-fiction, or poetry genre. Poetry submission requires three poems, and prose is no longer than 1,000 words.
- Prize: $100 in each category
- Word limit: 3 poems | under 1,000 words for prose
- Deadline: 15 May 2022
- Participants: High school and university students
- Details: Here and here.
FIYAH Grants
Black writers and editors of speculative fiction prose are eligible for these grants. Speculative fiction includes fantasy, science-fiction, horror, magical realism, and associated subgenres.
The application grant categories are craft, rest, and study. Each offers up to $1,000 from the FIYAH Literary Magazine Grant Series.
The money will get issued and awarded as part of Juneteenth.
The Rest Grant
The Rest Grant is for activists and organizers who work on behalf of the SFF community but need time to recommit to personal projects. The application requires a 1–2 page personal statement on your history of work or ongoing projects.
The Study Grant
The Study Grant is to subsidies the costs of attending workshops, retreats, or a professional development program. Your application will need proof of program acceptance, a 1-Page description of your work, and a 3,000-word writing sample.
The Craft Grant
The Craft Grant gets awarded based on a writer’s submitted WIP sample or project proposal. The money will help with project completion. The requirement is a 5,000-word writing sample, a 1-Page proposal or synopsis of the project, and an introductory document stating your goals after project completion.
- Prize: Up to $1,000
- Deadline: 15 May 2022
- Participants: Black writers and editors
- Pitch email address: [email protected]
- Details: Here.
Singapore Unbound: Singapore Poetry Contest
You are submitting to an international poetry contest.
The publication wants poems that use chiming words like “time” and “regime” together or separately in imaginative ways.
Use the chiming words as they are, but their plural and adjectival forms are usable in other poem sections. Your submission can be on any theme. But ultimately it will get judged on your use of the words time and regime.
- Prize: $300, $200, $100
- Deadline: 16 May 2022
- Participants: All poets
- Details: Here.
Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest
Jerry Jazz Musician welcomes all writers to enter their international fiction contest.
Three times a year, one writer receives $100 for the best, previously unpublished work of short fiction.
All story themes receive consideration. But their readers prefer music, social history, literature, politics, art, film, and theater, particularly the counter-culture of mid-twentieth-century America.
To enter, submit a Word document with your name, address, and phone number, plus a brief 50–100 word story synopsis. Your email subject headline is Short Fiction Contest Submission.
- Prize: $100
- Word count: Under 3,000
- Deadline: 31 May 2022
- Participants: All writers
- Pitch email address: jerryjazzmusician@gmail.com
- Details: Here.
Thank you for reading and good luck!
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