Contest

You may interpret this theme in whatever creative way you see fit.

Poems must be on the theme of ‘dreams’ and we look forward to your interpretations.

The 2025 Myths & Fables Prize seeks poems that engage with mythological figures, cultural lore, personal legends, and reimagined fairy tales. We welcome traditional retellings and radical departures. Invented myths, fractured fairy tales, elegies for forgotten heroes, or whispered epics—let your poetry become the spell.

We’re looking for spectacular stories—up to 6,000 words, fiction or creative nonfiction—that only you can tell.

The first prize for the competition is £1,000 cash and a week’s poetry course with Arvon.

Seeking poems that celebrate the community we have by meditating on the role of the poet in this pivotal moment in time.

Entries can be on any subject, theme or genre.

Writers are free to interpret the theme in any way they choose.

The theme is love – and it’s yours to interpret as broadly, as interestingly, and as tenuously as you wish.

You could be close to your one true love, your worst enemy, your child, or someone you didn’t realise was there at the time. You could be close to achieving something, near to death, close to a realisation or approaching the start of a whole new adventure.

This year's theme is The Witching Hour" so if you can use that theme in a creative way, even better!

Take your reader on a journey in this month's competition for short fiction that in some way involves travel 

Poems should be on the theme of WEATHER (or WHETHER) – we’ll leave it to you how you interpret the theme.

TOS welcomes poetry that tackles spiritual themes and issues without religious jargon or sentimentality.

Show us poetry that drips off the page. Think of rain, oil, blood, wet cement.

In the spirit of Leonard Cohen, we ask that your poems deal in some way with the intersections of Love, Faith, & Sex.

For our final contest of 2025, we’re asking writers to dissect deception in all forms: quiet lies, shams, secrets kept, masks worn, counterfeit stories, and half-truths. We want them all.

For this contest, Four Tulips is looking for short prose and poetry with themes of warmth and comfort. Wining pieces will have rich imagery and be best served with some hot cocoa on a cold winter’s night

We’re looking for all kinds of poetry on the theme of Hunger. As always, we encourage you to bend the rules with both content and form.

For this contest, write a story in which someone or something has returned after a significant absence.