For your perusal: freelance writing jobs, competitions, and places to publish.
Find something in this list to help bring you inspiration, fame and fortune. This is just a slice of what's out there -- sign up to our Bloc Boost service, and have a personal, curated list of opportunities delivered to you. All the best opportunities and freelance writing jobs for you, when you want them.
Of course, you could also visit our writing jobs or writing opportunities pages which are updated daily.
Writing Awards and Competitions
AlburyCity Short Story Award 2017
Competition Details
Theme: Shadow
Word limit: 3,000
Entry fee: $10
First prize: $1,000
Closing date: 5pm, Wednesday 26 July
Winners and runners up will be announced on Thursday 14 September during Write Around the Murray.
City of Rockingham Short Fiction Awards - Now Open
Entries are now open for the 2017 City of Rockingham Short Fiction Awards, with more than $5000 in prizes on offer.
Authors can submit up to three stories. Entered stories must be inspired by, drawn upon, or use the theme of the artwork "Arts Centre Cafe" by Daniela Selir (1994), which can be found on the entry form.
CLOSING 17/07/17
Elyne Mitchell Rural Writing Award
The Elyne Mitchell Rural Writing Award commemorates internationally renowned Silver Brumby author Elyne’s life and work, and hopes to encourage women all over Australasia to write their stories and send them in. Up to 2500 words referencing an Australasian rural experience. 2017 Theme: ‘Local Stories, People, Places and Events’. Fiction or Non-Fiction: Open Category – $15 per entry- 1 x $1000 prize money. Upper Murray Writers Category – $10 per entry – Open to residents of Towong, Tumbarumba and Indigo Shires – 1 x $500 prize money. Non fiction “bonus” $100 Dymocks Voucher.
CLOSING 17/08/17
Emerging Writer's Short Story Prize
If you win you will receive — a ticket to the Australian Short Story Festival (ASSF) 3-5 November 2017 (Adelaide), accommodation for the duration of the festival (maximum value $500) and return economy airfares (maximum value $500).
In addition, you will receive a one-year annual membership to the Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP) and fully subsidised conference fees to attend the annual conference of the AAWP, where you are invited to read from your work. The editors at Meniscus will consider your work for publication.
Take advantage of this stunning opportunity to celebrate the craft of writing at the Australian Short Story festival. Be welcomed in to the thriving community of writers within the AAWP. Enter your short story and take advantage of this generous publication pathway and networking opportunity for emerging writers.
Good Oil Young Writers’ Award
The Award seeks to encourage and support the development of younger writers interested in exploring ideas, contemporary issues and stories about people and happenings from a contemporary Christian perspective.
The award is open to ALL secondary school students and post-school young adults in Australia, Japan, the Philippines and Kiribati – countries where the Sisters of the Good Samaritan live and minister. Entrants must be eligible to enter one of three age groups:
Secondary Student (Years 7 to 9);
Secondary Student (Years 10 to 12);
Post-School (18 to 35 years of age).
Entrants are invited to submit a piece of writing, between 750 and 1,000 words, adopting one of the following writing styles:
journalistic feature writing (e.g. profiles of people or issues-based articles based on interviews);
opinion writing;
creative writing or first person reflective writing.
In their chosen writing style, entrants are asked to explore the theme “Who is my neighbour?”
Hachette Australia Manuscript Development Program, delivered by QWC
Lord Mayor's Creative Writing Award
The Lord Mayor's Creative Writing Awards are now open for entries. You may submit one entry into each of the following award categories:
Short story (1500 to 3000 words)
The Dorothy Porter Award for Poets (up to 100 lines)
Novella (10,000 to 20,000 words)
Graphic short story (up to eight A4 pages)
Narrative non-fiction (up to 10,000 words)
Life Writing Award for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Writers (up to 3000 words).
The Life Writing Award for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Writers is a new category for 2017 and will be awarded to an outstanding work focused on documenting, discussing or highlighting a uniquely Victorian story of Australia’s First People. This prize recognises the work of unpublished Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers and supports City of Melbourne’s ongoing commitment to promoting the richness of Indigenous culture and reconciliation.
Winning entries will receive a $2000 category prize. The overall winner of the Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing Award will win an additional $10,000. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are encouraged to apply for all categories.
CLOSING 31/08/17
NYWF/Spineless Wonders Slinkies 100 wd Competition
Terms and Conditions of Entry
1. Submissions will only be accepted via the Submittable.
2. Entry is free.
3. There is no set theme but submissions must be suitable for public display.
4. Submissions will only be accepted in audio file format. Any audio file format will be acceptable (eg mp3, WAV, FLAC, AIFF). For instance, voice memo files uploaded from a phone or computer are acceptable.
5. Audio file names need to include SUBMITTER NAME and TITLE eg <SamAlex-myfirsttime.wav>
6. Multiple entries may be uploaded using the one entry form but each separate entry must be contained in a separate file and labelled appropriately.
7. Entrants must be under 35 years of age and may be either living in Australia or an Australian living overseas.
8. By entering the competition writers grant the National Young Writers Festival and Spineless Wonders limited, fee-free, licence to publish their work and/or produce in other formats such as print or video. Intellectual Property shall remain with the writer and writers will be notified of any use of their work.
9. The closing date is August 1st, 2017. Entries will be accepted up until midnight AEST. Late entries will not be accepted.
10. Competition finalists will be selected by the Spineless Wonders’ Slinkies Editorial Team. The winner and runners up will be chosen via a ballot conducted during the National Young Writers Festival, September 28 to October 1, 2017.
11. Results of the competition will be announced at the Festival on October 1, 2017 and winners and runners up not present at the awards ceremony will be notified by email.
Odyssey House Victoria Annual Short Story Competition
Each submission must be no more than 1500 words and follow the theme “Courage”. It will need to make a reference to alcohol and/or drugs. There is a limit of three entries per person, and the entry fee is $10 per story.
Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest
Now you have the opportunity to join our illustrious lineup by entering The Saturday Evening Post’s Sixth Annual Great American Fiction Contest.
“This contest is a tribute to the Post’s legacy of featuring the most renowned American fiction writers,” says Steven Slon, editorial director and associate publisher for The Saturday Evening Post. “Our goal is to continue the tradition of finding and featuring compelling stories and the authors behind them.”
The winning story will be published in the January/February 2018 edition of The Saturday Evening Post, and the author will receive $500. Five runners-up will each receive $100 and will also have their stories featured online.
Submission Guidelines
Stories must be between 1,500 and 5,000 words in length.
All stories must be previously unpublished (excluding personal website and/or blog publication).
No extreme profanity or graphic sex scenes.
All stories must be submitted by their author in print or in Microsoft Word or PDF format with author’s name, address, telephone number, and email address on the first page.
Entries should be character- or plot-driven pieces in any genre of fiction.
Think local. The Post has historically played a role in defining what it means to be an American. Your story should in some way touch upon the publication’s mission: Celebrating America — past, present, and future.
All entries must be received electronically or be postmarked by July 1, 2017.
There is a $10 entry fee, which helps defray a portion of the cost of operating the contest.
The Scribe Prize
Now in its fifth year, The 2017 Scribe Nonfiction Prize is a unique development award to foster talented writers aged 30 and under writing longform work. Entries between 5,000 and 10,000 words are welcome across all nonfiction genres, including memoir, journalism, essay, and creative nonfiction.
The winner receives:
-
a cash prize of $3000
-
an editorial mentorship to develop their work
-
a generous selection of new-release Scribe books tailored to their reading interests.
The shortlist will be selected by Elizabeth Flux (Editor of Voiceworks from 2013 to 2015, writer for Junkee, Metro, The Lifted Brow, Kill Your Darlings), Tim McGuire (Editorial Committee of Voiceworks from 2015 to 2016, writer for The Australian, Big Issue, Kill Your Darlings, The Lifted Brow, Going Down Swinging), Julia Carlomagno (Senior Editor, Scribe Publications) and Fiona Dunne (Creative Producer, Express Media). The winner will be selected by Scribe Publications.
CLOSING 10/09/17
Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Competition
The Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Competition is an annual short story competition open to writers from around the world, submissions accepted from May to August annually. It is dedicated to one of Ireland’s most accomplished story writers and theorists, sponsored by the Munster Literature Centre.
If the winner comes to Cork to collect their prize, we will provide hotel accommodation, meals, drinks and VIP access to the literary stars at the Cork International Short Story Festival (September 13-16, 2017). The Munster Literature Centre is a not-for-profit organisation; all moneys raised from the competition benefits writers and writing.
CLOSING 31/07/17
Stringybark 'Dog Eat Dog' Award
681 Clichés to avoid in writing or read the Wikipedia article: to get a sense of its meaning.
1. Address the theme;
2. Be written for an adult audience (that is, we aren't after children's stories); and
3. Be 1500 words or fewer in length.
2018 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award
Writer Magazine - Let there be light
Deadline: August 21st, 2017
Grand prize: $1,000 and publication in our magazine
Word count: 2,000 words or less
Other prizes: Our second-place winner will receive $500 and publication on our website, writermag.com; our third-place winner will receive $250 and publication on writermag.com as well.
Freelance Writing Jobs and Internships
Residencies, Festivals, Fellowships and Funds
Aspiring Writers Mentorship Program 2017
The competition opens 1st February 2017.
Closing date for manuscripts is 31st July 2017.
The mentorship is sponsored by HarperCollins Children’s Books Australia.
Charlotte Waring Barton Award
The winner of the 2017 Aspiring Writers Mentorship Program receives the Charlotte Waring Barton Award and a comprehensive mentorship which includes:
2 x 3-hour guidance sessions with an established HarperCollins author.
1 x 1-hour session with a HarperCollins editor.
1 x 1-hour session with a publishing expert in HarperCollins Marketing Communications Manager.
1 x 1-hour session with a HarperCollins publisher.
If the winner resides outside of Sydney, HarperCollins reserves the right to conduct all sessions via Skype.
Author's League Fund
Since 1917, the Authors League Fund has been helping professional writers and dramatists who find themselves in financial need because of medical or health-related problems, temporary loss of income, or other misfortune.
Most of those we help suffer severe health problems but have inadequate insurance; some face eviction; many are older writers whose income has ceased through no fault of their own.
The Fund exists to help professional writers continue their careers, even their lives, with dignity by providing open-ended, interest-free, no-strings-attached loans to pay for pressing expenses.
CLOSING 31/10/17
Climates of Change: Callout
The conference conveners are seeking papers dealing with the theme of change in all of its forms, though the call for papers has a list of potential subjects to help you brainstorm. Click here for more information.
Unlike in previous years, in which presenters could have their papers peer-reviewed and published on our website, we will be working with a journal to produce two special issues: one for general delegates, and one for postgraduate and early-career researchers. More details about this arrangement will be announced closer to the date.
Dickinson House Fellowships
2017 Emerging Critics Fellowships
We are offering three fellowships to emerging Australian critics: each fellow will have the opportunity to write three long essays for publication on the Sydney Review of Books website in 2017-18. Fellows will receive editorial support and mentorship as they write these essays, as well as each being paid $3000.
Haven Foundation
The Haven Foundation gives financial assistance to provide temporary support needed to safeguard and sustain the careers of established freelance artists, writers and other members of the arts and art production communities who have suffered disabilities or experienced a career-threatening illness, accident, natural disaster or personal catastrophe. Grants are awarded and renewed at the discretion of the Haven Foundation Board.
CLOSING 31/10/17
Playwriting Australia – Seeking Stageplays
Playwriting Australia is seeking original plays. They approach the selection of plays with care and precision. It is a multi-stage process that involves a number of different readers assessing plays across a detailed list of criteria. It is a process that also allows for readers to be in conversation with them and with each other, ensuring quality control of readers' responses.
They believe terrific new writing must be produced and they do this reading to give playwrights opportunities to develop and/or showcase their best new plays in order to see the work reach production.
All plays submitted to Playwriting Australia are read in their entirety.
Submissions are ongoing.
NSW Regional Arts Fellowships
The Fellowship is open to professional artists, practitioners, creative partnerships or groups, and arts and cultural workers at any stage in their career from all art forms, including dance, design, digital arts, history, Aboriginal arts, literature, music, theatre, screen, community arts, curatorial and the visual arts.
In 2017, three Regional Arts Fellowships will be awarded.
NSW State Library Research Grants/Fellowships
The biennial $75,000 Coral Thomas Fellowship is among the State Library’s suite of competitive fellowships that support the research, writing, teaching and experience of Australian history and culture.
The State Library’s Fellowships program includes:
– Coral Thomas Fellowship $75,000 over two years
– Nancy Keesing Fellowship $20,000 over one year
– CH Currey Memorial Fellowship $20,000 over one year
– Australian Religious History Fellowship $20,000 over one year
– David Scott Mitchell Memorial Fellowship $12,000 over one year
– Merewether Fellowship $12,000 over one year
NSW Writer’s Fellowship
The Fellowship is open to writers of fiction, literary non-fiction, children’s and young adult literature, poetry, graphic novels, literary digital and new media work and writing for performance.
Varuna Writer Fellowships
A Varuna Residential Fellowship offers writers and illustrators working across a wide range of literary genres and forms the gift of uninterrupted time and to develop a new work in an inspiring environment and a collegial atmosphere.
Fellowships include full board and accommodation including a private writing studio at Varuna the National Writers House in the world heritage Blue Mountains region of NSW.
Varuna assesses applications on merit and clarity of work plan and encourages writers from diverse backgrounds and at all stages of their career development to apply.
Varuna will award thirty Fellowships in 2017 with residencies of two or three weeks available to be taken between January and end of May 2018.
Western Sydney Arts Fellowship
The Fellowship is open to professional artists, creative partnerships or groups, and arts/cultural workers at any stage in their career from all art forms, including dance, design, digital arts, history, Aboriginal arts and culture, literature, music, theatre, screen, community arts, curatorial and the visual arts.
Writing NSW Early Career Writer Grants
Funding available: up to 4 grants of $5000 each (plus GST)
Opening date: 3 July 2017
Closing date: 30 July 2017
For project period: 1 February 2018 to 31 December 2018
Applicants must be early career writers who have had no more than two full-length works professionally published or performed and must not have previously received a grant of $5000 or more for their writing from either State, Territory or Federal governments or their agencies. At least one grant will be awarded to a writer from regional NSW, provided an application is received that meets all of the grant criteria.
Activities to be funded by the grant may include:
Creation, production or publication of new work
Professional development or mentoring
Cultural exchanges or other travel that will assist in the production or presentation of new work
Audience development activities conducted by the writer (but not for payment of marketing professionals)
Access costs for regional writers or for writers with disability may be included in the proposal.
Writing NSW Emerging Writing Organisation Grants
Funding available: up to 3 grants of $5000 each (plus GST)
Opening date: 3 July 2017
Closing date: 30 July 2017
For project period: 1 February 2018 to 31 December 2018
Emerging organisations must have started operating no earlier than 1 January 2014 and successfully delivered at least one activity to support writers and writing culture. They must not have previously received a grant of $5000 or more from State, Territory or Federal governments or their agencies. At least one grant will be awarded to an organisation based in regional NSW or Western Sydney, provided an application is received that meets all of the grant criteria.
Funding may be used to assist emerging organisations, groups or collectives to deliver projects such as, for example:
Events or other writing-related activities
Development of digital or other platforms for writing
New forms of support or audience development for writers
Collaborative writing-related projects
Writing NSW Writer & Scientist Grant
The writer and scientist must apply jointly for the grant of $2000 ($1000 each). Scientists may work in any field of science or technology, including medicine, mathematics, science, engineering or IT. Writers may work in any genre and be at any stage of their writing career.
Funding available: $2000 plus GST ($1000 each for the writer and technologist)
For project period: 1 February 2018 to 31 December 2018
Publications Seeking Submissions
Allen & Unwin Friday Pitch
Allen & Unwin know how difficult it can be for writers to get their work in front of publishers, which is why we’ve created our innovative and pioneering submissions system – The Friday Pitch.
The Friday Pitch allows for writers of all genres to have their work considered by one of our in-house Submission Editors.
Please select the genre of your work, and follow the links to the appropriate submissions page for more details.
CLOSING 31/12/17
Best Australian Writing (Poetry, Essay, Fiction etc) Submissions Open
Word count: There is no official minimum or maximum length for stories, essays or poems, but please keep in mind that space limitations make very long pieces harder to accept. Please consult previous years’ collections to get a sense of a typical upper and lower limit.
Formatting: There are no particular requirements when it comes to formatting. If in doubt, double-spaced, single-sided, stapled and Times New Roman are safe bets. There is no official entry form. Please include your name and contact details, preferably an email address as well as a postal address, with your submission. Please also include the name and contact details, preferably an email address as well as a postal address, and the contact details of your literary agent if applicable.
Owing to the number of submissions we receive, submissions cannot be returned and the editors are unable to comment on individual submissions.
CLOSING 15/07/17
Creative Non Fiction True Story Magazine
The Creative Nonfiction Foundation is pleased to announce that, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, we’ve started a new monthly magazine. Each issue of True Story will features one exceptional work of creative nonfiction, and is distributed in print and digitally (though not available online). Submissions should be between 5,000 and 10,000 words long, on any subject, in any style.* Surprise us! The only rules are that all work submitted must be nonfiction and original to the author, and we will not consider previously published work. We’ll pay $300 on publication and give you 10 free copies of “your” issue.
CLOSING 31/12/17
Monthly Catch at Penguin
Do you have a manuscript you would like Penguin to consider? Penguin Group have what’s known as the ‘Monthly Catch’. During the first week of every month, you can submit unsolicited manuscripts for their consideration.
CLOSING 31/12/17
Manuscript Monday - Pan Macmillan
Manuscript submissions sent on any other Mondays or day of the month will not be read so we advise you to wait until the next month if you miss the deadline.
We are looking for:
Commercial fiction – women’s fiction, romance, thriller, crime, historical, humour, paranormal, fantasy
Literary fiction and non-fiction – novels, short stories, and narrative non-fiction only
Children’s books and young adult – junior and middle grade fiction, young adult/crossover fiction; we are not accepting picture book submissions
Commercial non-fiction – history, memoir, mind body spirit, travel, health, diet, biography
Please familiarise yourself with what we publish. We do not publish scripts, plays or poetry in Australia and will not assess them.
Academic submissions are not accepted during Manuscript Monday.
Pitch to Overland
What are the class politics of millennials?
Many argue that Jeremy Corbyn’s recent polling of a significant majority of the UK youth vote reflected the young’s disenchantment with austerity politics, high student fees and a contracted job market, issues which appeared to be heard by the left Labour candidate. Others would argue that millennials, a technologically consumed generation keen on echoing each other’s ‘woke’ online sentiments, naively ‘virtue-signalled’ their way to the polling stations.
Couldn’t it be both? Are millennials tuned-in radicals of a new variety, as yet unrecognised by the establishment? Or are any generalisations (so to speak) off the mark?
What is going on at writers’ festivals?
Dan Dixon recently wrote in Overland, ‘Writers’ festivals are strange institutions, often literature-adjacent rather than literary. Discussions tend to revolve around the idea of books rather than the books themselves: what a book means, how it was made, how the author feels about it. When we subject writers to interrogation before an audience, what is it we want from them?’
Are writers’ festivals just good opportunities to discuss the writing that compels us and for writers to promote their wares? Or do they fetishise writers and writing in a way that is bourgeois and indulgent, lending themselves to bourgeois and indulgent politics?
Define solidarity
According to academic, and critic of the campaign against the Adani coal mine, Marcia Langton, ‘cashed-up green groups, some funded by wealthy overseas interests, oppose mining projects with often-flimsy evidence and misrepresent the evidence to the public.’ Also, they persuade ‘the media and the public that a small handful of Indigenous campaigners who oppose the legitimate interests of the majority of their own people, are the truth-tellers and heroes.’
Langton, lawyer Noel Pearson, and other prominent Indigenous activists who have the ears of government and industry, use the language of Aboriginal self-determination to argue that ‘the left’ should stay out of Indigenous politics and economic decision-making.
The machinations of white solidarity politics are complicated and are often a problem. But is this an argument being used to ride roughshod over Indigenous voices that are already struggling to be heard?
We would love to receive responses from Indigenous writers on this topic, and on all other topics.
Note: we are open to pitches on any subject.
Peril - Open Submissions
This poetry edition is presented in part with the Queensland Poetry Festival 2017, running this year from August 24-27 at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, Brisbane. This year’s theme at QPF is ‘Distant Voices’, and this edition of Peril will include the work of poets featured on the bill, as well as the wonderful work submitted in response to this open call.
Mother tongues, other tongues. Motherland, otherland. How do we speak to each other? We want to know the many ways in which you connect, or disconnect, to home and culture and belonging. We encourage poets from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds to explore language and communication, history and migration, family, identity, and everything in between.
How does language—and loss of language—impact our identities, and the way we interact in the world?
In Australia, our linguistic and cultural ‘homes’ are ever in a state of flux. Despite our vast and varied cultural backgrounds—despite our First Nations history, and present—the social, cultural, and political power of English remains dominant as ever.
What does the momentum of English mean for our other languages? How much do we lose when a language disappears altogether? When a language disappears how many dreams and stories disappear with it?
Right Now
Right Now is committed to covering human rights issues in Australia through free, accessible, creative and engaging online, print and radio media. Creative writing is a great way to explore human rights in Australia: from poetry to flash fiction to long and short pieces. Ongoing.
Scum Mag
Scum is interested in publishing feminist-friendly work of any variety, but as a general rule your piece should be under 1000 words (50 lines for poetry) and able to be classified as “fiction”, “culture”, “memoir”, “column”, “poetry”, and/or “review”. They tend not to publish traditional reviews of books and films—to get a feel for the reviews they do publish, check the review tag. Feel free to pitch to them if you’re not sure if your piece is a good fit. (Please note that they don’t accept pitches for fiction or poetry.)
Submissions to Scum are open the first week (from the 1st to the 7th) of every month. The rest of the month, submissions are closed. They pay $60 per piece of writing.
Seizure - Flashers
At Seizure, short-form work is living large. Flashers is the online home of Australian flash fiction.
Each week we publish work between 50 and 500 words that could be written in an hour and read in a minute. We are looking for short, sharp snippets of prose. But flash fiction is so much more than a quick-fix for the time-hungry wordaholic. Flash fiction attracts writers and readers for its peculiar challenges – and authors have to make every word count.
Accepted pieces will have an accompanying illustration by a volunteer artist that matches and complements the writing. Thanks to the Australia Council, we are able to pay our Flasher contributors $50 for each published piece.
CLOSING 31/12/17
Visible Ink: Open Submission
Our theme this year is "The End". It is common to feel these days that we are in the end of times. Justifiable, given our current circumstances—it really seems like we are slouching towards the apocalypse. However, not many know, but the word apocalypse originally meant “truthful revelation. In an age where there is systematic silencing, we feel it is applicable. So, we encourage submissions to interpret this concept of “The End” and how it applies to almost every aspect of the human experience.
We are accepting literary non-fiction and fiction, interviews, poetry, flash fiction, visual art and photography. All submissions must be original and unpublished. We do not accept simultaneous submissions of written work.
If selected, we pay:
$75 for fiction & non-fiction
$50 for poetry, visual art, photography and flash-fiction
Restrictions on length:
2,000 words max for all fiction & non-fiction
50 lines for poetry
250 words max for flash-fiction
CLOSING 31/07/17
The Wrong Quarterly
The Wrong Quarterly are a London-based journal who publish "inventive" works of nonfiction, life writing and essays up to 5,000 words and fiction up to 6,000 words. Submissions are accepted from both British and international writers. Ongoing.
Have you got something the community should know about? A job vacancy, competition or call for submissions? Upload it to our live opportunities board for free!
Writers Bloc Community
The Writers Bloc is a community for writers. We provide free anonymous workshopping, advice, events, opportunities, and a paid publishing platform.