NOTE: We no longer require the submitting magazine to deal with rights’ permissions (see item 3).
(1) The Write Well Award is open to short stories and flash fiction only (NO poetry, essays, or creative nonfiction) of any length up to 10,000 words. We will accept serialized pieces submitted as a whole as long as they do not exceed this length.
(2) There are no restrictions on content or subject matter except that which is deemed illegal.
(3) We will contact winning authors to secure their permission to reprint their pieces. Those who decline permission will not be included among the winners. By submitting a story, the publisher agrees to waive any exclusive reprint rights needed to have it published in the Write Well Award anthology, should it be one of the winners.
(4) While we leave it to the discretion of the submitting editor whether to notify the author that his/her piece has been submitted for this award, we do recommend notifying the author.
(5) Submissions must come from the editor or publisher of the journal or online press and must have appeared in the magazine in the 2017 calendar year or in an issue designated for that calendar year.
(6) Each journal or online press may submit up to THREE pieces for consideration. We are not accepting work self-published by authors at this time.
(7) Submissions must be uploaded directly to this website as a full text version in either Word (doc, docx) or RTF format. No PDF documents will be accepted.
(8) Each submission should be the final version as published, not the author's original version.
(9) Do NOT upload files with tracked changes or editing comments still in them.
(10) Because all entries will be judged anonymously, you must REMOVE the author's name and the magazine’s name from the text, title, and file name of the submission. At the time of submission, the author's name and press's name will be entered along with the submitting press's contact information and the author’s email address, all of which will remain private and are deleted at the end of the contest.
(11) Ensure that your submission adheres fully to these guidelines. If time permits, we will attempt to notify the submitter if there is a problem, but we reserve the right to delete pieces without such notification if they do not adhere to these guidelines.
You may contact us through the website (ABOUT/CONTACT US) if you have any questions.