Using The Prize Calendar

Start with what you have finished

Open the calendar after you know the form in your hand. A 900-word story, a group of poems, the first 5,000 words of a novel, a pilot script, a memoir chapter. Then filter. Genre covers flash, short story, poetry, novel, memoir, nonfiction, speculative, and scripts. Age covers open prizes and the bands for young writers and under-30 prizes. Region covers worldwide, the UK, North America, Australia, Africa and the rest. Status covers open now, closing soon, opening, and closed.

If you filter first and write second, you will spend the month chasing themes. Sometimes that is what you want. Most months it is not.

Use the fortnight list as a short meeting

The “closing this fortnight” strip is the part to check once a week. It is ordered by deadline, with a countdown. Read the cards. A card will usually tell you the prize, the fee, the form, and a line on who it is for. Blue Pencil Agency’s short story award, for example, is aimed at unrepresented writers and pays an agent introduction as well as cash. That is a different opportunity from a magazine flash contest that pays a small sum and considers every entry for publication.

If a card fits, open the official site before you do anything else. The calendar links out. It does not take your entry, and it should not be the last page you read. Fees, limits and eligibility move.

Trust dates, then check them

Open competitions show a close date. Repeating prizes sometimes show a typical close, based on last year’s pattern, so you can plan. Treat that as a season, not a promise. Bookmark the ones you might enter later. Bookmarks on this site stay in the browser you are using, so they will not follow you to another laptop. If a prize matters, put the date in your own list as well.

Read the prize, not just the number

A large prize pool is not automatically the right entry. A timed battle with a prompt is a different weekend from a novel award judged by agents. Look for the words that tell you what happens if you are listed: publication, mentoring, a place on an industry day, an introduction, production. Those are the prizes that showed up in the careers on the stories page. Cash is good. A reader with a job in publishing is the other good.

Leave the ones that are closed

Closed cards stay visible so you can see the shape of the year. They are not a dare. If you missed it, note the month and come back when the next cycle opens. The “opening” filter is the better use of a quiet Sunday. That is where you find deadlines far enough away to finish something properly.

Use the other studios for the work before the fee

The Prize Calendar sits with a set of free writing studios by Stewart Ferris, linked from the studios page and from stewartferris.com. They are not competitions. They are rooms for the job in front of you.

• The First Line if the opening is the thing a judge will see first, which it is.
• Write Anyway, if the draft is not happening and the deadline is real.
• Dossier and Nomina, if the people in the story are still names without lives.
• Threshold, if a novel or script needs a map before you send the opening chapters.

None of these will pick the prize for you. They will make the entry less rushed.

A twenty-minute visit

Once a week is enough. Filter to your form and your region. Scan closing soon. Open two official sites. Bookmark one future prize. Write down the fee. Close the tab. The calendar is useful when it sends you back to the page you were writing. It is less useful as a place to refresh. Open the calendar.