HG WELLS SHORT STORY COMPETITION

Application Deadline: Monday, 8th July 2025, 11pm (BST)

LOCATION: United Kingdom

The annual HG Wells Fiction Short Story Competition offers a £500 Senior and £1,000 Junior prize and free publication of all shortlisted entries in a quality, professionally published paperback anthology.

ELIGIBILITY:

HG Wells welcome, and receive, entries from across the world. The competition is open to any writer, anywhere, from any country

HG Wells was a self-taught writer, so we warmly encourage anybody to give it a go

The competition for those 21 and under is free to enter and for the over 21s costs £10 (£5 with student ID) to enter.

Entries must be in English.

Double quotation marks should be used for speech and single quotation marks for other appropriate purposes.

The length must be 1,500 to 5,000 words.

Entry to the competition are online only, with entrants submitting their story (as a PDF or text document) and any fee as appropriate via our entry form

All submissions should be the writer’s original work. You should not submit the work of others, either in part or in translation.

The story may not be published, or accepted for publication, elsewhere including for other publications by the shortlist announcement date (Saturday 21st September).

There is a template available below to make ensure your story is formatted correctly. You do not have to use it, but if it helps, please do so. However, whether you use the template or not, the pages should be numbered but the entrant’s name should not appear on any page except on the entry form

All entries must relate to the theme for this year’s Competition: The Middle Ground

Entrants must read the Competition Rules before submitting their story/stories.

BENEFIT:

The annual HG Wells Fiction Short Story Competition offers a £500 Senior and £1,000 Junior prize and free publication.

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