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8 Writing Competitions with Deadlines in October 2024

  • Writer: Kristi My
    Kristi My
  • Oct 1, 2024
  • 6 min read

It's the first day of October, which means more than the start of Spooky season. It means a new month with writing deadlines. It is so helpful for me to compile a list that I thought I would continue on with it here today. I have to admit that I only included writing competitions this time around because that is where I feel my focus should be right now. It's really open season with magazines, so that list would become outrageously long.


As someone who appreciates working on a deadline, I like knowing about competitions even if I don't end up submitting to them because they can provide inspiration when it is missing in my life.


Full Disclosure/Disclaimer: I will be pulling the submission details from each website instead of writing it up myself because I would hate to disseminate inaccurate information. I'm not going to say that this is a full and comprehensive list of places to send writing this month. After all, many fantastic places are taking work that I haven't included on this list. These are just a few that I found and pulled together as a writer who is interested in getting my work out there while not having to pay a reading fee.


If you're here reading this, I am going to wish you good luck. The competition can be so stiff sometimes that it become scary.


Three pumpkins sitting on concrete with a blurred background.
Imagine the pumpkins representing first, second, and third place in a competition.

Writing Contests and Competitions October 2024

Submitting directly to a writing contest is different than submitting to a magazine because the awards could be different (from a money prize to a publication opportunity). The turnaround time could also be different, since the organizations that have put out these contests have set aside time to judge them. When you submit to a magazine, you could be waiting anywhere between a month and beyond a year, depending on how big their submission pool is. Be sure to do your research and think about what your goals are before submitting to one.

  1. A Story Initiative: 2nd Edition

Deadline: October 2

Website for Further Information: https://short-edition.com/en/contest/principal-foundation

Description: "Submit your short story starting August 19 as part of the second edition of Money Chronicles: A Story Initiative from Principal Foundation and supported by Short Edition and the Center for Fiction.

Principal Foundation believes talking about money empowers people and communities to build more financially secure futures. It’s time to bring our experiences – positive and negative – out of the shadows.

We want to read your imaginative and meaningful short stories (fiction and creative nonfiction) touching on themes related to money and personal finance. Introduce us to protagonists whose relationship to money may be on the verge of unexpected or needed change. Your tale may be the inspiration someone needs to reimagine their relationship with money."


A jar of money being held in an outstretched hand.
Sometimes I think of a reddit post my sister showed me once about a person who went to engineering school just for the money.

  1. Toad Shade Zine

Deadline: October 31, 2024

Website for More Information: https://toadshadezine.com/submissions/

Description: "We’re going to open for submissions for Issue #2 on 9/15/2024 and close them on 10/31/2024. The theme is Black and White. I’ve made a picture, too. Apply it how you want. Do you have a character who doesn’t believe in nuance? Have all the colors been arrested and imprisoned? Make up a story, apply your interpretation, and send it in.

The winning story will get $50 again. Four more stories will be selected, $20 each this time.

Someone just asked about poetry. Send in a poem if you like, totally fine by me.


Last time, I had to force my co-workers to read the stories after they all said, “Oh yeah, that sounds like so much fun!” when I originally asked them if they wanted to judge the stories. It did turn out to be a lot of fun in the end. It was so much fun, in fact, that I’m getting a whole new batch of judges this time. Same setup as before, maybe we’re not qualified, but I’ve never let that stop me. The reading will be blind and fair. It didn’t matter last time, but let’s cap the stories at 2,000 words. No minimum. We’ll close early if we get 150 submissions, but that seems unlikely."


Two mushrooms growing side by side in the wild.
I guess this is the closest I could come to showing Toad, the Nintendo character.

  1. John Updike Tucson Casitas Fellowship

Deadline: November 1

Website for Further Information: https://blogs.iwu.edu/johnupdikesociety/the-jur-emerging-writers-prize/

Description: "A two-week residency at the Mission Hill Casitas within the Skyline Country Club in Tucson, Arizona—casitas that John Updike owned and where he wrote during a part of each year between 2004-2009. Offered annually the last two weeks in May. The fellowship includes a $1000 prize provided by The John Updike Society, which administers the fellowship. The casitas stay is made possible by a generous donation from Jan and Jim Emery, owners of the casitas, which will have a collection of Updike books on site for the use of fellows. Updike wrote in all genres, so writers with any type of literary project are welcome to apply, as are scholars working on Updike criticism. Since Updike was an artist as well, multimedia projects will also be considered. Applications are due Nov. 1 of the previous year, with the winner and other applicants notified by Jan. 1. To apply, send a one-half to one-page proposal that details the project, any progress made thus far, the final form the completed project will take (e.g., where it might be published, or whether it’s part of a larger work), along with a one-paragraph bio/artist’s statement. Creative writers should also provide a five-page (and only five-page) writing sample."


Red rocks and dessert land with some spots of green under a blue sky.
If I remember Phoenix correctly, this view was within vicinity for much of my visit there.




If you decide to enter any of these, cheers to you. I'm wishing that we all get a little lucky, especially since there are twenty-one difference opportunities to do so this August 2024.


A hand holding three dice.
Good luck to us! Sometimes I feel like I'm just rolling the dice.

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