Emerging Writers Contest
The Dream Foundry Contest for Emerging Writers is an annual no submission fees contest with cash prizes! Every year our contest coordinator selects ten finalists from a pool of submissions from writers around the world. In addition to their cash prizes, winners get featured at Flights of Foundry, an annual convention where professionals from all over the industry come to discuss all things related to the speculative arts.
You can see a list of our past finalists and winners on our Winners Page.
Submissions are open from 7 April, 2025 through 2 June, 2025. That includes all time zones.
Eligibility
This contest is for writers who are relatively new to paid or incoming-earning publication of speculative short fiction in English. To be eligible for this contest, all five rules below must be true of you:
- You have published a total of less than 4,000 words of paid or income-earning speculative fiction in English.
- You have earned a total of less than USD 320 from those words.
- You have never been nominated for any award listed here as a major award in speculative fiction.
- You are not a previous winner of the Dream Foundry writing contest.
- No AI, machine learning, or large language model tools were used in the story except for checking spelling and grammar.
To apply for this job please visit dreamfoundry.org.
