2026 WestWord Prize

Our annual WestWord Prize wants your best flash fictions up to 1000 words. Join our community membership to receive one submission to this contest and all our themed editions, plus access to weekly flash fiction writing sessions, monthly writing workshops, and craft posts.

Deadline: 31st March 2026

Max word count: 1000

Entry fee: £10 submission only / £30 with feedback

Online anthology publication: June 2026

Theme: No theme

Prizes:

• First prize: £400
• Second prize: £250
• Third prize: £100
• Shortlisted: £25

Judge: Kathryn Aldridge-Morris

Kathryn Aldridge-Morris is a Bristol-based writer whose work has been widely published in anthologies and literary journals including Pithead Chapel, Aesthetica, The Four Faced Liar, Fractured Lit, Retreat West, Stanchion Magazine, Flash Frog, Fictive Dream, Bending Genres, New Flash Fiction Review and elsewhere. She has won the Bath Flash Fiction Award, The Forge’s Flash Nonfiction competition, Lucent Dreaming’s flash fiction contest, and Manchester Writing School’s QuietManDave Prize, and her work has been selected for the Wigleaf Top 50. She was recently awarded an Arts Council England grant to write a novella-in-flash. Her debut collection Cold Toast came out with Dahlia Books in May 2025.