Before we share the curated list of contests and awards for short stories in India, we want to share a bit about what prompted us to create this list.

Why should you submit to contests and awards for short stories in India?

A story always begins with an idea followed by writing, lots of it. You write you to edit and then you write some more. This involves multiple sleepless nights of doubt, weeks of introspection, and countless discussions with friends and fellow writers. It is only after such an arduous process that you manage to create something you are extremely proud of – a story that’s worthy of winning an award or two at least.

After where to submit my work, the most asked question is which contests to send my work to. Writing competitions are a good way of analyzing your writing skills. Participating in writing competitions also helps you build a great writer’s CV. This list of Contests and Awards for Short stories in India has been created to help writers achieve this.

Simply put, winning an award is one of the ultimate recognition of one’s work. Irrespective of the genre one writes in, winning a contest and getting an award is public applause for one’s writing. That is the reason we encourage aspiring writers to participate in Contests and Awards for Short stories in India. While the ultimate goal might be a book, winning an award can help you gain credibility with a publisher/agent too.  Submitting short stories and winning accolades will help create a reader base and earn a name and fame. Some awards offer money, but if your interest is earning through writing, check out our blog on seven ways to earn money through writing.

So, here’s a list of Contests and Awards for Short stories in India where you can submit your work. There are multiple renowned awards like the Booker Prize, Pulitzer, and the DSC South Asian but these are for full-length novels. Here, we have curated a list of Contests and Awards for Short stories in India where you can send your short stories.

Disclaimers

A few pointers before we share the list of Contests and Awards for Short stories in India:

• Please note, that this list of Contests and Awards for Short stories in India is dynamic and will be updated regularly.
• All the Contests and Awards for Short stories in India have a deadline that has been mentioned clearly along with submission guidelines.
• While they accept all genres, in case of exceptions it has been highlighted.
• All the below-mentioned Contests and Awards for Short stories in India accept submissions only in English.
• The list includes Contests and Awards for Short stories in India that are based in India and which accept submissions from Indian residents. We might make another list in the future which will include international contests and awards.
• If there are any other Contests and Awards for Short stories in India you think we have missed, let us know and we will add them to this list.

[su_note]Disclaimer: Himalayan Writing Retreat has no affiliation with any of these contests or anthologies. We have solely collated a list as a reference guide for writers. In case of any queries, please write to the concerned organizers on the email ids provided on their sites directly. Team HWR will be unable to respond to any queries regarding your submissions to them. [/su_note]

Contests and Awards for Short Stories in India

**Updated as of 10th February 2022**

Story Mirror

Founded in 2015, StoryMirror is a tech start-up focused on building a creative ecosystem that offers everyone a platform to launch themselves in the field of literature

Apart from hosting regular contests in various Indian regional languages, they also host awards like ‘Author of the year’, ‘Author of the Week’ and ‘Most admired Author’.

• Submission Guidelines: https://contest.storymirror.com/
• Submission Guidelines: https://awards.storymirror.com/
• Submission Fees: NIL
• Themes/ Genres accepted: All ( Submissions accepted in English, Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Oriya, Marathi, Kannada and Malayalam)
• Closing Deadline: Competition specific
• Prize: Participants will receive certificates and will also be published on Story Mirror site.
• No. of Prizes to be won: 3
• Literary Quotient: Good

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KDP Pen to Publish Awards 

The KDP Pen to Publish Contest aims at recognizing literary excellence among authors who publish original works in any genre in English, Hindi or Tamil languages on Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) between a specified period by Amazon. Since its inception two years ago, it has managed to bring forth some prominent names in literary world.

• Submission Guidelines: Amazon Pen to Publish Contest Program: Participate Kindle Direct Publishing Pen to Publish Contest & Win Grand Awards- Amazon.in
• Submission Fees: NIL
• Themes/ Genres accepted: All ( Submissions are accepted in English, Hindi and Tamil)
• Closing Deadline: Not yet announced for 2021
• Prize: A Kindle, mentoring by top authors, your work stands a chance to be adapted by Prime Video and be the featured author on Amazon site.

• No of Prizes to be won: 5 each across the 3 languages (English, Hindi, and Tamil)
• Literary Quotient: Excellent

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WELCOME 2022 Writing Contest

Brilliant Flash Fiction is a USA-based nonprofit organization offering publishing opportunities for writers of flash fiction.

• Submission Guidelines: One entry per author. Open to writers worldwide, no age requirement.

  Send your entry pasted into the body of an email and also as a Word attachment (in the same email) to bffwritingcontest@gmail.com. Please place your story title in the subject line of your email.

  Formatting requirements: Please submit your story double-spaced using font-size 12 pt. Times New Roman. This is a blind-judged contest, so please do not put your name on your story. Instead, please submit a brief author bio in a separate attachment with your contest entry. Results will be announced sometime before June 30, 2022.

  Authors retain all rights to submitted work.

  Fiction only, please. No poetry or essays.

  All entries must be original and unpublished. This means submissions that have been accepted for publication anywhere else, including blogs, radio broadcasts, personal web pages, etc., are not eligible. Entries of more than 500 words or entries found to be published anywhere else will be immediately disqualified.

  All winning and shortlisted entries will be published on our website.

• Judge: Pamela Painter

  PAMELA PAINTER is the award-winning author of five story collections, most recently Fabrications:  New and Selected Stories.  She is also co-author with Anne Bernays of the widely-used textbook, What If?  Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers.  Her flash stories have appeared in Flash Boulevard, FracturedLit, Matter Press, New Flash Fiction Review, and SmokeLong Quarterly, among others and in numerous anthologies, such as Sudden Fiction, Flash Fiction, From Blues to Bop, Four Minute Fictions, Flash Fiction Forward, MicroFiction, Nothing Short of 100, and New Micro.  She has received grants from The Massachusetts Artists Foundation and the National Endowment of the Arts and has won three Pushcart Prizes.   Painter’s stories have been presented on National Public Radio, and on stage by the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theatre, and in Los Angeles, New York City, and London by Cedering Fox’s Word Theatre Company. Her flash stories also appear on well-known artist Anthony Russo’s YouTube channel CRONOGEO.

• Submission Fees: NIL
• Themes/ Genres accepted: All
• Closing Deadline: 15th April 2022
• Prize:

  $200 first prize
  $ 100-second prize

  $50 third prize

  $20 and publication on our website for shortlisted stories

• Literary Quotient: Excellent

Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors

, Fix Grist’s solutions lab is accepting submissions for their second annual climate fiction short-story contest. Fix was founded on the simple premise that promising solutions to the climate crisis exist.With Imagine 2200, they’re inviting writers to envision a future in which those solutions soar, and our world is radically better.

• Submission Guidelines: Fix Submission Manager (submittable.com)
• Submission Fees: NIL
• Themes/ Genres accepted: Stories must be set anytime between today and the year 2200, and show a path to a clean, green, and just future. We especially want to read — and share — narratives that center solutions from the communities most impacted by climate change and stories that envision what a truly equitable, decolonized society could look like. In 3,000 to 5,000 words, show us the world you dream of building.Of course, we don’t expect you to be overly optimistic or Pollyannaish; 178 years of equitable climate progress will involve hard work, struggle, and adaptation, and we invite you to show that, too.We’re also especially interested in cultural authenticity (a deep sense of place, customs, cuisine, and more); rich characters with intersecting identities; and stories that challenge the status quo in which wealth and power are built on extraction, oppression, and violence. We’ll be looking for these core elements:
  • Hope
  • Vivid characters
  • Cultural setting
  • Creative solutions
  • Decolonized futures

  We will also judge submissions based on the quality of artistic voice, originality, craft, and technique, as well as the depth of the environmental, scientific, historical, and/or cultural background that informs the story.

• Closing Deadline: 5th  May 2022
• Prize: The first-prize story will be awarded $3,000; second prize is $2,000; and third prize is $1,000. Nine additional finalists will each receive $300.
• Literary Quotient: Excellent

Fiction Factory First Chapter + Synopsis Competition 2022

The Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize is supported by Queen Mary University of London, Routledge, and The Literary Consultancy and the prize supports new writers, with no limits on age, gender, nationality, or background.

• Submission Guidelines: First Chapter Competition May 2022 – Fiction Factory (fiction-factory.biz)
• Submission Fees: Entry £15 ‘Early-Bird Special’ for entries received on or before 15th March 2022 / Entry + Optional Assessment £35.00
• Themes/ Genres accepted: All genres will be accepted except Children’s and Young Adult Fiction.
• Closing Deadline: 31st May 2022
• Prize: First Prize: £500 – The winning entry will be read by literary agent Joanna Swainson of the Hardman & Swainson Agency. Joanna is looking for originality and distinctive voices. Winning entries will be published on their website, subject to the author’s permission.
• Literary Quotient: Excellent

Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize 

The Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize is supported by Queen Mary University of London, Routledge, and The Literary Consultancy and the prize supports new writers, with no limits on age, gender, nationality or background.

• Submission Guidelines: https://www.wasafiri.org/new-writing-prize/
• Submission Fees: £10 for a single entry, £16 for a double entry. However, they offer a limited number of subsidized entries at a rate of £6 per entry, which must be accompanied by an explanation of the entrant’s need for subsidized entry (up to 200 words). There is capacity for 25 subsidized entries per month during the months that the prize is open (February-May 2020).
• Themes/ Genres accepted: All
• Closing Deadline: Submission guidelines for 2022 will be announced soon.
• Prize: The winners of each category (There are 3 categories currently – Fiction, Poetry and Life Writing) received a £1,000 cash prize and will be published by Wasafiri in print and online. They will also be offered the Chapter and Verse or Free Reads mentoring scheme in partnership with The Literary Consultancy (dependent on eligibility). Shortlisted writers will be published online with Wasafiri and may be eligible for Free Reads mentoring also.
• No. of Prizes to be won: 3 for the main prize and 10 shortlisted winners.
• Literary Quotient: Excellent

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Create the Future Writing Contest 2022

Create The Future is a small climate project with big ambitions.

They work to alleviate climate anxiety and enable behaviour change through climate optimism, creativity, and empowerment, working with a range of people and organisations to change the narrative on the climate crisis to one of hope and imagination.

• Submission Guidelines: Writing competition – Create the Future
• Submission Fees: NIL
• Themes/ Genres accepted: For the inaugural Create The Future competition, we’d like you to answer one or more of the following questions:
  

  “What happens if we do take action to protect the planet? What does a sustainable future look like to you? What happens when we dare to dream?”

  You can interpret these questions as loosely as you wish and explore it from any perspective. When assessing submissions, we will be looking for any of the following:

  • Fresh, new ways of thinking about and strengthening our connection to the rest of the living world
    For example, poems, creative essays or short stories about our connection to each other and the world around us
  • Bold, imaginative predictions or hopes for the future
    For example, solarpunk, utopian and speculative fiction. To get you started, think about a day in the life of someone your age in 100 years’ time. What are the most common jobs? How do you travel? What do you wear? Where do you shop? What does your town/city look like?
  • Stories that show us how we get from here to there
    For example, an imagined retrospective/letter to our generation from someone living in 50 / 100 years’ time
  • We are particularly keen to hear from voices that are not usually represented within the environmental movements, including but not limited to indigenous writers, writers of colour, writers from working-class backgrounds, writers with disabilities, and other marginalised voices.
• Closing Deadline: 13th February 2022
• Prize: UK-based winners
  • First prize: £50 and 1x Delphis Eco Home bundle
  • Second prize: 1x Delphis Eco Kitchen bundle
  • 3rd prize: 1x Delphis Eco Bathroom bundle
  • International winners
    • First prize: £50
• Literary Quotient: Excellent

Commonwealth Short Story Prize

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded for the best piece of unpublished short fiction (2,000–5,000 words) in English. Regional winners each receive £2,500 and the overall winner receives £5,000. Translated entries are also eligible, as are stories written in the original Bengali, Chinese, French, Greek, Kiswahili, Malay, Portuguese, Samoan, Tamil, and Turkish.

The contest will open for the 2022 Commonwealth Prize next year and the winners will be announced in early 2023.

• Submission Guidelines: www.commonwealthwriters.org/our-projects/the-short-story/
• Submission Fees: NIL
• Themes/ Genres accepted: All
• Closing Deadline: Yet to be announced
• Prize:  The overall winner of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize will receive £5,000 and the remaining four regional winners £2,500. If the winning short story is translation into English, the translator will receive additional prize money.
• No of Prizes to be won: 5 regional winners and one overall winner
• Literary Quotient: Excellent

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Raymond Carver

Now in its 21st year, the Raymond Carver Short Story Contest is one of the most renowned fiction contests in the world. Featuring prominent guest judges and offering $3000 across five prizes, the contest delivers exciting new fiction from writers all over the world. The contest winners are published in their annual fall issue in October.

• Submission Guidelines: https://www.carvezine.com/raymond-carver-contest/#.U1ec2_mSwSa
• Submission Fees: $17 online / $15 mailed.
• Themes/ Genres accepted: No genre fiction (romance, horror, sci-fi); literary fiction only.
• Closing Deadline: 15^th May 2022
• Prize: $2000 (1st), $500 (2nd), $250 (3rd), and two $125 (Editor’s Choice) apart from being published in their annual fall issue in October.
• No. of Prizes to be won: 5
• Literary Quotient: Excellent

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Bath Short Story Prize

The International Bath Short Story Award is organized by Jude Higgins, Jane Riekemann, and Anna Schlesinger. And this year, 2020, award-winning short and short-short story writer, Alison Woodhouse, has joined the team. Launched in 2012 the BSSA has rapidly become established as one of the prominent short story competitions in the UK receiving over a thousand worldwide entries each year and producing a yearly anthology of short-listed and winning authors.

• Submission Guidelines: https://www.bathshortstoryaward.org/rules-2/
• Submission Fees: There is no limit to the number of entries but there is a fee of £8 for each story submitted.
• Themes/ Genres accepted: Any genre
• Closing Deadline: 11th April, 2022
• Prize: 1st £1200; 2nd £300; 3rd £100, with a local prize of £50 , for the best entry from any BA, BS, GL or SN postcode unplaced in the main competition. In addition there is The Acorn Award of £100 for the best entry from an unpublished writer, unplaced in the main competition.
• No. of Prizes to be won: 5
• Literary Quotient: Excellent

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The Iowa Short Fiction Award & John Simmons Short Fiction Award

• Submission Guidelines: https://www.uipress.uiowa.edu/authors/iowa-short-fiction.htm
• Submission Fees: NIL
• Themes/Genres accepted: All
• Closing Deadline: Mailed between August 1st to September 30th, 2022
• Prize: Award-winning manuscripts will be published by the University of Iowa Press under the Press’s standard contract.
• Literary Quotient: Excellent

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Anthology Magazine Short Story Competition

Anthology Magazine Short Story Competition is open to original and previously unpublished short stories in the English language by a writer of any nationality, living anywhere in the world.

• Submission Guidelines: short-story-award-submissions-open-anthology-magazine-2021
• Submission Fees: Early Bird: 30 April 2022 – €10 per story
  Deadline: 31 August 2022 – €15 per story
• Themes/Genres accepted: Stories submitted must be on the theme of ‘Courage’ and not exceed the maximum of 1,500 words. Writers can submit as many entries as they wish.
• Closing Deadline: 31st August 2022
• Prize: The winner will receive a €500 cash prize and the chance to see their work published in a future issue of Anthology. The winner will also receive a one-year subscription to Anthology magazine
• Literary Quotient: Medium

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Muse of the Month- Short Story Contest by Women’s Web

Women’s Web as the name suggests is a site dedicated to encouraging women to share their stories. Since 2014, Women’s Web hosts a monthly short story contest where each month they give out a cue, which in turn is based on a theme decided for the year. The participants are expected to write a short story based on the cue and submit it.

• Submission Guidelines: Muse Of The Month December 2021 With Ranjani Rao – Women’s Web: For Women Who Do (womensweb.in)
• Submission Fees: NIL. However, the submission has to be uploaded after registering with Women’s Web. The registration is free.
• Genre/Themes accepted: All but in accordance with the cue shared based on the theme of the year.
• Closing deadline: Varies from month to month. Usually mid of the month. The last date to submit entries for the July 2022 prompt is by 3 P.M of 14th July, 2022
• Prize: The top 5 winners are published in mostly the last week of the month, Monday to Friday, and get an Amazon voucher as a prize. Furthermore, since 2016, all the winning stories of the year are automatically eligible to be chosen from, for the year end e-book that the Women’s Web team publishes and is released at the Orange Flower Awards.
• Literary Quotient: Excellent

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Bristol Short Story Prize

The Bristol Short Story Prize is an international writing competition based in Bristol, UK, which aims to publish great short stories and promote the stories and writers as much as possible.

• Submission Guidelines: Bristol Short Story Prize | Short Story writing competition to promote great stories and writers (bristolprize.co.uk)
• Submission Fees: £9 ( There are 250 free online entries available to those for whom the entry fee is a barrier to submitting to the 2022 Bristol Short Story Prize – for instance, those on low income or without paid employment. The free entries will be offered on a 50 per month basis with any remaining carried over to the following month. Those wishing to enter using the free entry option may do so via our online entry facility. There is one free entry available per person. No email request or any other method of application is necessary to use the free entry option. No distinction between free entries and those submitted paying the entry fee will be made during the reading and judging processes.
• Genres or Themes Accepted: The maximum length of submissions is 4,000 words (does not include title), there is no minimum length. Stories can be on any theme or subject and are welcome in any style including graphic, verse or genre-based (Crime, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Historical, Horror, Romance, Children’s etc.)
• Closing Deadline: May 4th, 2022
• Prize: Published in an anthology. Prizes for 2022 are: 1st prize-£1000, 2nd prize -£500, 3rd prize -£250. Each of the 17 remaining shortlisted writers will receive £100. An additional prize of £100, The Sansom Award, in recognition of the contribution to Bristol publishing of John and Angela Sansom, will be presented to the highest placed story by a Bristol writer. If no story by a Bristol writer is selected for the 2022 Bristol Short Story Prize longlist, Bristol Short Story Prize reserve the right not to present the Sansom Award. In the event of two or more stories by Bristol writers being selected for the 2022 Bristol Short Story Prize longlist, Angela Sansom will select the winner of The Sansom Award.
• Literary Quotient: Excellent

The Writing Quarter Short Story Prize 2022

• Submission Guidelines: Competition – The Writing Quarter
• Submission Fees: NIL
• Genres/Themes accepted: The Writing Quarter runs a monthly free-to-enter short story competition. This is an ongoing monthly competition with the deadline being the last day of each month.
• Closing Deadline: Last day of each month
• Prize: $ 30
• Literary Quotient: Medium