John Mecklin, editor-in-chief of theBulletin of the Atomic Scientists, has announced the winners of theBulletin‘s first short fiction contest, Write Before Midnight. Judge Kim Stanley Robinson declared a seven-way tie between:
The Heinlein Society has opened its 2026 scholarships for undergraduate students. The deadline to apply is 11:59 p.m. PDT on April 1, 2026. Applicants must be entering their sophomore, junior, or senior year in a four-year, accredited college in any country, and must submit a 500-1000 word essay.
The Society awards four annual $4,000 scholarships, and for 2026 will award a fifth bonus scholarship:
Baen Books has announced on social media the ten finalists for the 2025 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award:
The Grand Prize winner will be featured on the Baen website. The author will be given a trophy and paid professional rates.
Grand Prize, second, and third place …Read More
The longlist for the 2024 Highland Book Prize (Duais Leabhair na Gàidhealtachd) has been announced. Some titles of genre interest are amongst the 12 longlisted titles, including:
The Prize’s website states:
The Highland Book Prize, established in …Read More
The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has opened applications for its annual Scholarship from Hell.
The Scholarship from Hell is awarded annually to an applicant interested in attending StokerCon and furthering a career in horror writing. Per the Scholarship’s webpage, the recipient will receive domestic coach airfare (contiguous 48 states) to and from the StokerCon venue, $50 for luggage reimbursement, a 3-night stay at the convention, free registration to StokerCon, and …Read More
The Heinlein Society has opened its 2025 scholarships for undergraduate students. The deadline to apply is 11:59 p.m. PDT on April 1, 2025. Applicants must be entering their sophomore, junior, or senior year in a 4-year, accredited college in any country, and must submit a 500-1000 word essay.
The Society awards four $4,000 scholarships:
A new writing contest has been announced today by the Emirates Literature Foundation, in collaboration with the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai.
The MBRSC Short Story Award: New Voices in Sci-Fi will award science fiction short stories by writers from the United Arab Emirates. The contest is open to writers ages 16–30; submissions may be in English or Arabic and between 1,500–5,000 words. The deadline is 16 November …Read More
The 2025 Baen Fantasy Adventure Award contest will open from January 20 through April 30, 2025. The contest is for short stories of no more than 8,000 words that depict adventure in any fantasy subgenre. Baen wants
Adventure fantasy with heroes you want to root for. Warriors either modern or medieval, who solve problems with their wits or with their weapons-and we have nothing against dragons, elves, dwarves, castles under …Read More
Seattle Worldcon 2025 is hosting a short story writing contest, with submissions closing January 20, 2025.
The story contest has separate categories for adult and young adult writers.
The winners in each category will be recognized at the convention, receive free memberships to [Worldcon], and have their stories published in an upcoming anthology by Grim Oak Press. Stories must draw inspiration from our Worldcon theme: Building Yesterday’s Future – For …Read More
Grist, the online environmental magazine, has announced three winners for their Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors Short Story Contest. The contest asks authors to imagine the future we want – futures in which climate solutions flourish and we all thrive.
The winners are:
The Speculative Literature Foundation (SLF) has announced an open call for original artwork combining fantasy and science fiction themes to be featured as its 2024 Illustration of the Year.
The deadline for submissions is January 15, 2025. The winner, to be announced in February 2025, will receive $750, and the winning artwork will be featured on the SLF website and social media and used as a visual element of …Read More
The 2025 George R.R. Martin Screenwriting Grant is accepting submissions until December 15, 2024. Organized by the New Mexico Film Foundation, with support from the George R.R. Martin Literary Foundation, the competition is open to screenwriters from New Mexico.
The winning grant award for an individual screenplay is $5,000 and includes a mentorship introduction with a seasoned screenwriter. Two additional writers will receive a foundation membership and developmental mentorship with …Read More
The Otherwise Fellowship is open to applications until December 15, 2024.
From the organizers of the Fellowship:
The Otherwise Fellowship (formerly Tiptree Fellowship) was established in 2015 to support and recognize new voices who are creating work that is changing our view of gender today. The Fellowship program seeks out creators who are striving to complete new works, particularly creators from communities that have been historically underrepresented in the science …Read More
The winner, finalists, and honorable mentions for the 2024 Salam Award for Imaginative Fiction have been announced.
The winner is A Shrine by the Sea by Syed Zain Haroon. Finalists are The Shopkeeper’s Remedy by Manahil Bandukwala and The 11th Wish by Raazia Sajid. Honorable mentions are On the Moonglow Road by Ramsha Farooq Raja and Hexes on Exes by Zuha Siddiqui.
The Salam Award, a short story award to …Read More
The 2024 Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund (TAFF), which will send a European fan to the 2025 Worldcon in Seattle, is open for nominations until December 20, 2024.
TAFF was created in 1953 for the purpose of providing funds to bring well-known and popular [science fiction] fans familiar to those on both sides of the ocean across the Atlantic. Since that time TAFF has regularly brought North American fans to European conventions …Read More
Seattle Worldcon 2025 has announced a short story writing contest with separate categories for adult and young adult writers.
The winners in each category will be recognized at the convention, receive free memberships to the convention, and have their stories published in an upcoming anthology by Grim Oak Press. Stories must draw inspiration from our Worldcon theme: Building Yesterday’s Future – For Everyone.
The theme was selected to invoke nostalgia …Read More
The Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association has announced the winners of its annual prize for poetry. Poems were judged in three categories, listed below.
Dwarf Category (10 or fewer lines):
The New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA) SF/F short story contest is now open to entries.
The purpose of this contest is to encourage amateur and semi-professional writers to reach the next level of proficiency…. If you have received more than $1000 for your fiction writing from any source on the date you submit your story and/or have published, in any paying publication, a novel or multiple shorter works …Read More
The Baltimore Science Fiction Society has announced that the annual BSFS Annual Poetry Contest has been renamed in honor of late SF author Steve Miller, who died in February 2024. The contest will henceforth be known as the Steve Miller BSFS Annual Poetry Contest.
The BSFS membership voted to rename the contest with the support of Miller’s widow and collaborator Sharon Lee.
The poetry contest was founded in 2008, and …Read More
Submissions are now open for the Dream Foundry Emerging Writers Contest and Emerging Artists Contest.
The contest is run by The Dream Foundry. Finalists for the writing contest will be selected by contest coordinator Julia Rios, and winners will be selected by judges C.L. Polk and Valerie Valdes. Finalists for the art contest will be selected by coordinator Grace P. Fong, and winners will be selected by judges Jessica Cheng …Read More
Submissions are now open for the third Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors short story contest.
The contest is run by Fix, Grist‘s solutions lab, and will be judged by authors Omar El Akkad and Annalee Newitz. They seek entries between 2,500 and 5,000 words that envision the future of climate progress. This year’s theme asks writers to envision a future where humanity overcomes the climate crisis and builds …Read More
The Jinan Times reports that the AI-generated novel Land of Memories by Shen Yang was a winner of the Jiangsu Youth Popular Science Science Fiction Competition, held by the Jiangsu Science Writers Association. The competition rules did not ban the use of artificial intelligence, and the novel was awarded second place.
The text of the novel was written entirely by AI, with some editing by Yang. Competition judges reported mixed …Read More
The Speculative Literature Foundation (SLF) has announced an open call for original artwork combining fantasy and science fiction themes to be featured as its 2024 Illustration of the Year.
The deadline for submissions is December 31, 2023, later than previously announced. The winner, to be announced in January 2024, will receive $750, and the winning artwork will be featured on the SLF website and social media.
For more information, …Read More
The NATO Defense College (NDC) has invited authors from across Europe to produce a short-written piece on the future of NATO for inclusion in the forthcoming NATO 2099: A Graphic Novel.
In 2024, NATO will celebrate its 75th anniversary. It is expected that this milestone will lead to an avalanche of analysis on the last decades, and the possible futures for the Alliance. As NATO’s premier educational institution, NDC should …Read More
Dream Foundry, a non-profit dedicated to bolstering the careers of nascent professionals working with the speculative arts, has announced winners for its 2023 contests.
Writing Contest
Art Contest
Finalists for writing were chosen by Julia Rios and finalists …Read More
Finalists for the tenth annual Baen Fantasy Adventure Award have been announced:
Submissions are now open for the third Imagine 2200 short story contest. The theme is Climate fiction for future ancestors.
The contest is run by Fix, Grist‘s solutions lab, and will be judged by authors Paolo Bacigalupi, Nalo Hopkinson, and Sam J. Miller. They seek entries between 3,000 and 5,000 words that envision the next 180 years of equitable climate progress.
First prize is $3,000, second prize $2,000, …Read More
Sandra Bond was elected the delegate for the 2023 Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund (TAFF) for the 2023 TAFF trip from Europe to North America, with itineraries to be announced but presumed to include Pemmi-Con, the 2023 NASFiC in Winnipeg.
TAFF was created in 1953 for the purpose of providing funds to bring well-known and popular [science fiction] fans familiar to those on both sides of the ocean across the Atlantic. …Read More
Winners of the Tolkien Society Awards 2023 were announced on April 1, 2023. The awards recognize excellence in the fields of Tolkien scholarship and fandom, highlighting our long-standing charitable objective to ‘seek to educate the public in, and promote research into, the life and works of’ J.R.R. Tolkien. The society’s trustees choose the shortlist, with winners chosen by the membership.
Best Book
The Jack L. Chalker Young Writers’ Contest is open to original science fiction and fantasy submissions by Maryland students no younger than 14 and no older than 18 years of age. First, second, and third prizes are $150, $100, and $50, respectively, and the deadline for submissions is March 31, 2023.
The contest is run by the Baltimore Science Fiction Society (BSFS) and Judges shall be drawn from the membership …Read More
Winners of the New England Science Fiction Association (NESFA) SF/F short story contest were announced at Boskone 60, held February 17-19 2023. Prizes included certificates of achievement, books from NESFA Press, and free membership to a future Boskone convention.
Baen Books has announced the ten finalists for the 2023 Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award:
The Grand Prize winner will be featured on the Baen website. The author will be given a trophy and paid professional rates.
Grand Prize, second, and third place winners each …Read More
