Here’s a list of live writing opportunities. Please note, the information below may change so do check the details on individual websites. This is not an exhaustive list. Do check your regional literature development agency for further opportunities available to you.

Your regional literature development agency is responsible for supporting, promoting, and championing writing where you live. These are: Writing East Midlands, Writing West Midlands, Spread the Word (London) New Writing North, New Writing South (South East), Literature Works (South West).

JANUARY 2023

Penguin WriteNow is designed to give participating writers the tools, information, and access needed to navigate the publishing industry and launch their career as a successful author.

Details

Deadline: 8 January

The Women’s Prize and Curtis Brown are inviting entries to Discoveries, a pioneering programme seeking the most talented and original new female writing voices in the UK and Ireland. The prize will accept novels in any genre of adult fiction and entrants will be required to submit only the first 10,000 words of their novel with a synopsis.

Details

Deadline: 15 January

City Lit’s Malorie Blackman Scholarships for Unheard Voices provide three annual awards worth up to £1000 each, to fund one year’s study within the Creative Writing department at City Lit.

Details

Deadline: 31 January

FEBRUARY

Room 204 is Writing West Midlands’ writer development programme for emerging writers in the region. The programme includes mentoring and career development.

Details

Deadline: 2 February

Papatango New Writing Prize is now open for entries for scripts. Offers feedback to all entries.

Details

Deadline: 5 February

Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize is for a novel by a woman over the age of 21 that marries literary merit with unputdownability. For unpublished writers only.

Details

Deadline: 8-10 February (see website)

Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook Short Story Competition is for short stories of no more than 2,000 words. 2023 theme: love

Details

Deadline: 14 February 

Watson, Little x Indie Novella Prize is devoted to celebrating emerging voices from underrepresented communities, and welcomes fiction of all lengths from all writers from all backgrounds in the UK.

Details

Deadline: 14 February

Northern Writers’ Awards invite writers from across the North of England to send in their unpublished work-in-progress for the chance to win cash awards and professional development.

Details

Deadline: 22 February

Out-Spoken Press Emerging Poets Development Scheme will run from July 2023–September 2024 and will provide one-to-one craft development as well as wider resources to help equip you to pursue publication and develop your career.

Details

Deadline: 22 February

The Out-Spoken Prize for Poetry is open to page poets, performance poets and those who produce poetry in film.

Details

Deadline: 28 Feb

Asian Women Writers is for women whose heritage is from anywhere on the Asian continent and who want to develop their writing in preparation for being published.

Details

Deadline: 28 February

MARCH

The Fitzcarraldo Editions/Mahler & LeWitt Studios Essay Prize, an annual competition for unpublished writers, is inviting proposals for a book-length essay (minimum 25,000) by a writer resident in the UK and Ireland who is yet to secure a publishing deal.

Details

Deadline: 13 March

The Middle Way Mentoring project is now open for applications. The scheme is open to Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic writers from the Midlands and provides two-years of professional development including mentoring and masterclasses.

Details

Deadline: 27 March

Deborah Rogers Foundation is now open for entries. An award of £10,000 will be presented to a first-time prose writer whose submission demonstrates literary talent and who would benefit from financial support to complete their work.

Details

Deadline: 31 March

Aziz Foundation Scholarship Programme offers 100% tuition fee Masters scholarships to support British Muslims to study at UK universities. The scholarships are aimed at those who wish to advance in their careers and bring positive change to their communities and beyond.

Details

Deadline: 31 March

Royal Literary Fund Fellowships offer professional writers the opportunity to work in a university for two days a week helping students develop their writing. You should be a writer with at least two (sole-authored) books published, or mainstream theatre works performed, or radio/TV scripts broadcast, prior to application.

Details

Deadline: 31 March

Primadonna Prize is for unsigned and unrepresented new writing talent. Entrants must submit 500 words on the theme ‘renewal.’

Details

Deadline: 31 March

The Greene Door Project is inviting applications from under-represented crime and thriller writers to receive a Zoom feedback session from an agent at Greene & Heaton.

Details

Deadline: tba

APRIL

Cheshire Novel Prize is open to unagented authors over the age of 18.

Details

Deadline: 1 April

The Women’s Playwriting Prize is for original scripts that last more than an hour.

Details

Deadline: 17 April

The Bath Short Story Award is for short stories of up to 2,200 words. 2023 Judge: Farhana Shaikh

Details

Deadline: 24 April

Bristol Short Story Prize is for published and unpublished writers and is for short stories of up to 4000 words.

Details

Deadline: 26 April

The Guardian Foundation is offering a number of bursaries for a postgraduate qualification in journalism.

Details

Deadline: tba

Guardian and 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize is for short stories up to 6,000 words. Open to black, Asian, minority ethnic writers living in the UK or Ireland.

Details

Deadline: tba

MAY

Creative Futures Writers’ Award is for under-represented writers. The prize welcomes fiction and poetry on a set theme annually. 2023 theme: X

Details

Deadline: 14 May

Bridport Prize The Peggy Chapman-Andrews First Novel Award is for unpublished novels. Submit 5-8,000 words plus a 300 word synopsis in the first instance. The prize also has categories for short story, poetry, and flash fiction. See the website for bursaries for underrepresented writers.

Details

Deadline: 31 May

The Bath Novel Award is for unpublished novels. Submit 5,000 words plus a one-page synopsis. 

Details

Deadline: 31 May

The White Review Short Story Prize is an annual short story competition for short stories of up to 7,000 words.

Details

Deadline: tba

JUNE

The Novel Prize is a biennial award for a book-length work of literary fiction written in English by published and unpublished writers around the world. Managed collaboratively by the publishers Giramondo Publishing, Fitzcarraldo Editions and New Directions.

Details

Deadline: tba

The Times/Chicken House Books Children’s Fiction Comp is looking for completed full-length children’s/YA novels. Prize: £10k advance and representation.

Details

Deadline: 1 June

Mslexia is inviting short stories no longer than 2,200 words and poems up to 40 lines on a set theme for their Showcase section. Their Issue 99 theme is toxic substances, and the deliberate or accidental damage they can cause.

Details

Deadline: 5 June

Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize is for fiction, poetry and life writing up to 3,000 words open to writers who have not yet published a book-length work, with no limits on age, gender, nationality, or background.

Details

Deadline: 30 June

Zeenat Haroon Rashid Writing Prize for Women, open to Pakistani women over the age of 18, is looking for short stories of up to 3,000 words.

Details

Deadline: tba

Faber’s FAB prize is for BAME new writers and illustrators. 

Details

Deadline: 30 June

JULY

Leicester Writes Short Story Prize is for short stories of up to 3,500 words, on any theme or subject.

Details

Deadline: 2 July

The MM Mentorship is for unrepresented (un-agented) writers. Mentoring will include a structural edit, a meeting with a literary agent, and representation. 

Details

Deadline: closed

The Salam Award for Imaginative Fiction is for short stories of up to 10,000 words. 

Details

Deadline: tba

Poetry London Mentoring Scheme is offering talented poets free one-to-one mentoring. 

Details

Deadline: tba

AUGUST

The HarperCollins Author and Design Academy provides training and support to writers and designers from underrepresented ethnic backgrounds, with the goal of helping them achieve commercial success in the publishing industry. 45 places available for fiction, children’s and non-fiction writers.

Details

Deadline: 18 August

Aesthetica Creative Writing Award is open for entries in two categories: short fiction and poetry

Details

Deadline: 31 August

Megaphone Writers Development Scheme is for aspiring children’s and YA writers.

Details

Deadline: 31 August

The Women Poets Prize is for emerging and established poets. Three winners will receive £1000 bursary and mentoring.

Details

Deadline: tba

SEPTEMBER

Primers is a biannual mentoring and publication scheme organised by Nine Arches Press. It provides a talented poets a programme of supportive feedback, mentoring and promotion as well as a chance to find publication.

Details

Deadline: 14 September

Present Tense Lit Magazine accepts poetry (up to 40 lines), flash fiction (up to 1,000 words), and short stories (up to 3,000 words) as well as creative non-fiction (up to 3,000 words). 2024 themes: Landscape (Summer), Underground (Winter)

Details

Deadline: 30 September (for the Summer issue), 28 February (for the Winter issue)

Manchester Writing Prizes is for fiction of up to 2500 words and poetry of between 3 – 5 poems, with a max. combined length of 120 lines.

Details

Deadline: tba

The Bodley Head/FT Essay Prize Competition 2020 is looking for dynamic, authoritative and lively essays of no more than 3,500 words in English, on any subject from writers aged 18-35.

Details

Deadline: tba

The Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize is for both published and unpublished writers, writing original fiction in English, and from anywhere in the world. Short stories of up to 6000 words

Details

Deadline: tba

OCTOBER

Working-Class Writers’ Prize returns for its fifth year. Entrants should submit the beginning of an unpublished work-in-progress, of no more than 2,000 words in length.

Details

Deadline: 2 October

London Short Story Prize is open to London-based writers, for short stories of up to 5000 words. 50 free entries to low-income writers.

Details

Deadline: tba

The Dinesh Allirajah Prize for Short Fiction is for short stories of between 2000 and 6000 words.

Details

Deadline: tba

NOVEMBER

New Media Writing Prize showcases exciting and inventive stories and poetry that integrate a variety of digital formats, platforms, and media.

Details

Deadline: tba

DECEMBER

Royal Society of Literature is inviting proposals for their Literature Matters Award. For writing, literary events or projects which either help connect with audiences or topics outside the usual reach of literature, and/or will help generate public discussion about why literature matters.

Details

Deadline: tba

ROLLING

Arts Council Developing your Creative Practice is a fund of between £2000 and £10000 for individual artists and/or creative practitioners.

Details

Deadline: Rolling – Check with ACE

TLC Free Reads Scheme is a manuscript reading scheme for writers on a low income.

Details

Deadline: Rolling – Check with your regional writing partner