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Applications are open for the Dream Foundry Contest for Emerging Writers 2025. Click here to learn more about this opportunity and apply for it.
Opportunity Details
The Dream Foundry Contest for Emerging Writers is an annual no submission fees contest with cash prizes! Every year the 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.
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:
Please note that you are on the honour system for judging your own eligibility. However, we may disqualify any entrants in order to uphold the spirit of this contest’s goals; such determinations of eligibility are decided by the Dream Foundry and are not open to debate or argument.
What NOT to send
They are looking for short speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, weird fiction, etc.) Please don’t send us stories that have no speculative element (mainstream, contemporary, romance, westerns, historical fiction etc.)
Sexual and adult themed stories are allowed. Please don’t send us erotica or gratuitous depictions of violence, sexual assault, or abuse.
Don’t send novels or non-standalone novel excerpts, screenplays, poetry, non-fiction or works written for children.
Submit one complete and finalized story of up to 10,000 words via our submission manager. Links to the submission manager will appear when submissions open.
All entries are final. No revisions are accepted.
No multiple submissions (do not send more than one story.)
Your submission must be previously unpublished at the time of submission, but simultaneous submissions (submitting the story to us while also submitting elsewhere) is allowed.
Entries can be from any country.
All entries must be original prose works in English. Plagiarism, poetry, song lyrics, or stories that utilize characters or settings from another person’s works will not be considered.
The manuscript should be in standard manuscript format and should be titled and numbered on every page, but the author’s name MUST BE DELETED from the manuscript file to facilitate fair judging.