Writing Contests with Cash Prizes and Awards

Writers Contest Listings

Here are some writer contest listings for published and unpublished writers. Get paid for your writing by participating in writer contests.

Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction - http://www.canadacouncil.ca/prizes/ggla
Each year, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Governor General of Canada collaborate to honor the finest in Canadian literature. The categories are: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, children’s literature (text and illustration) and translation. This website also list many grants programs for writers. Categories for grants include: travel grants for writers, grants to literary and art magazines, and grants for professional writers. Prizes: Each laureate receives $25,000. Non winning finalists receive $1,000.

Ernest Hemingway Foundation Pen Award for Pen Fiction www.pen-ne.org
PEN New England, Lesley University, 29 Everett St., Cambridge, MA 02138 www.pen-ne.org pen-ne@lesley.edu

Each calendar year, PEN New England presents two awards to writers whose work has made an outstanding contribution to fiction, non-fiction or poetry in the previous year. The Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, established in 1976 by the late Mary Hemingway in honor of her husband Ernest Hemingway, includes an $8,000 cash prize for a novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a book of fiction. The L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award, which was established by The Boston Globe in 1975, includes a cash prize each for an outstanding work of fiction, non-fiction and poetry with a primarily New England setting and/or by an author principally residing in New England. 

L.Ron Hubbard’s Writers  of the Future www.writersofthefuture.com
No entry fee is required, and all rights in the story remain the property of the author. All types of science fiction, fantasy and dark fantasy are welcome.  Awards: 1st place $1,000, 2nd place $750, 3rd place: $500

The Poetry Center Award  http://old.pccc.edu/poetry/Prize/index.html
The 2009 Poetry Prize $1000 award for a book of poems published in 2008
must be 48 pages or more and have a print run of 500 copies or more

2009 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards Honoring Allen Ginsberg’s Contribution
to American Literature First prize: $1000, second prize: $200, third prize: $100

2009 Paterson Prize for Books for Young People - $500 award for a book published in 2006 for following categoriesPre-K - Grade 3, Grades 4 – 6, Grades 7 - 12

Updated on April 01, 2010