Are Writing Contests Worth Entering?
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Writing Contests
Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about contests and writing fees, in one handy article.
I was once in charge of gathering submissions for my local writing center’s anthology. We posted our guidelines and that we wanted to pay writers $15 per piece. A writer emailed me asking, “How do I pay my $15 fee?” I had to explain that we were paying authors, not the other way around. The writer was surprised, probably because a lot of times these days writing feels like a pay-to-play game.
And in some ways, it is. Many popular authors have won a writing contest at some point. Others have probably paid a submission fee along the way. Many have paid to attend conferences and workshops with networking opportunities.
Writing contests abound. There are 695 contests on Duotrope’s listing of prizes and contests for poetry alone. There are writing contests run by big magazines and writing contests by little academic journals. Some contests pay a great deal, upwards of thousands of dollars, while others may pay a smaller amount. Some contests come with publication, others are a cash payout only. In some ways, this pay-to-pay model mirrors the way artists submit…
