Momaya Press Short Story Writing Competition. Deadline: April 30th.

Competition Guidelines | Momaya Press Short Story Writing Competition

Competition Guidelines

Momaya Press’s Short Story Competition is open to writers of any nationality writing in English and offers the opportunity for winners to be published in the Momaya Annual Review 2015.

Accepting Entries Now through 30 April 2015

The Theme:
This year’s theme is Treasure, one of those quirky English words that can be used as a noun or a verb. Will your character have something they treasure and fear to lose? Or will they casually discard something (or someone) only to realise afterwards that they have lost what they treasured most? Stories about treasure can evoke many genres from adventurous (Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson) to terrifying (The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs) to allegorical (The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg one of Aesop’s Fables).

Rules of Entry:

• Entries may be up to 3,000 words long
• Deadline for submissions is 30 April 2015
• Any subject or style is welcome
• The competition is open to writers from all countries, but entries must be written in English
• We expect entries to have been checked for proper spelling and grammar.

How to Submit:

• Your short story must be submitted via email and payment must be completed.
• Every short story must be accompanied by an entry fee of £8 (or US $12) via Paypal. Payment by cheque in British Pounds may be sent via mail to our UK mailing address, listed on the “About Momaya” page.
• You may submit more than one short story
• You may submit stories that have been published before, as long as you retain the copyright.

Additional conditions:

Copyright of published stories remains with the author. The judges’ verdict is final. No correspondence will be entered into once work has been submitted. Stories cannot be altered or changed after they have been entered. Any story submitted may be published in the Momaya Short Story Review, whether or not they have won.

The Prizes:
First Prize: $200 (£110) and one copy of the Momaya Short Story Review
Second Prize: $100 (£55) and one copy of the Momaya Short Story Review
Third Prize: $50 (£30) and one copy of the Momaya Short Story Review 2015

In addition, 7 honourable mentions will be chosen for publication, as well as stories which placed in our top 30 and fit our chosen theme for the year. All winners will be published in the Momaya Short Story Review, which will be available to purchase online in November 2015.

The Judges:

Alice Shepherd works in website management and digital marketing. Prior to this, she was an Assistant Editor at Penguin, where she worked on a wide range of commercial fiction. Having started her publishing career at Abner Stein literary agency, she then went on to work at Headline Publishing Group. She continues to edit manuscripts in her own time.

Andy Callus is the Deputy Bureau Chief for Reuters in Paris, France. He began his working life in 1980s Fleet Street, and has reported for Reuters and other newswires in Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore and Hanoi.

Frances Jessop is an editor at Random House, dividing her time between Vintage paperbacks and literary sports books at Yellow Jersey Press. She started her career in academic publishing, where she worked at Blackwell Publishing in Oxford managing social sciences journals, before moving to trade publishing and London via a year in a literary agency at the William Morris Agency.

Jasper Joffe is the founder of Joffe Books. He is a well-known contemporary artist with a track record of provocative and inspiring projects such as The Free Art Fair. Joffe Books is an independent publisher based in Shoreditch, London, close to the creative and digital communities which inspire it. It is making the most of the unprecedented opportunities offered by digital publishing to discover great new writers and reach new audiences.

Polly Courtney is the author of six published novels including Golden Handcuffs, a semi-autobiographical exposé on city life, and It’s a Man’s World, a controversial take on the world of lads’ mags. A fierce champion of the underdog, she is known for breaking free from HarperCollins in protest at the titles and cover designs assigned to her books. Her latest novel, Feral Youth, came out in June 2013 and is set in the build-up to the summer riots. More information can be found on pollycourtney.com

Read what the judges and writers have to say about the Momaya Press Awards Ceremony and the Momaya Press Annual Review. In the video below, Cally Taylor shares her experience of being published by Momaya Press in 2008. You can view more videos on our YouTube channel.