WestWord

This festive season we'll be counting down to Christmas again with the online publication of 10 seasonal stories.

• The winning stories will be published in December — one a day starting 12th December — and in true advent calendar style the prizes will be revealed when the story is published.      Entry fee: £8      Deadline for entries: 26th October 2025      Max word count: 1000

Stories can have been previously published as long as you retain the publication rights and the publication date was before October 2025.  Competition T&Cs  

• Submit stories written in English through Submittable by 23.59 GMT on the deadline date (sorry late entries will not be included).
• Please include a word count on the story document
• Maximum word count is 1000 (excluding title) but there is no minimum. Please do not submit stories above this word count as they will be automatically disqualified. Sorry!
• Stories must be your own original work and they can have been previously published as long as you retain the publication rights and the publication date was before October 2024.
• By entering the competition you agree to your story being published on the WestWord website.
• If you enter the story elsewhere and it is accepted for publication before judging takes place then you will have to withdraw it and no entry fees will be refundable.
• Stories can be in any genre apart from children’s fiction.
• You can enter multiple stories but the £8 entry fee is payable each time and each story must be submitted separately.
• The judge’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

Submissions are always open for our Folktale Flash series. 

We want flash fiction stories inspired by folktales, myths, legends, fables and fairytales. Send us your modern, surreal, ancient and brilliant takes on the ones that have captured your mind.

What’s the Difference Between a Myth, a Legend, a Folktale, and a Fairytale?

This article by International Storyteller has some definitions that can guide you.

• Max word count: 400 (not including title)
• Submission fee: £5
• Author payment: £25

Submissions are open on a rolling basis for flash fiction stories to appear in our twice-monthly Flash Focus feature. All writers selected will also have an interview about the story that will run alongside it.

There is no theme but our usual submission guidelines apply. Please read the kinds of stories we publish to get a feel for what we like. 

Words: Up to 1000 (excluding the title)

Submission fee: £7 submission only / £22 with feedback

Author payment: £20

ENTRY RULES

• Submit stories written in English through Submittable. Please use a clear font of at least size 12 so that we can read it easily!
• Please use the name of your story as your Submission title and the document you upload.
• Please include the word count at the start or end of the story document.
• Stories must be your own original work and not have been published online or in print, or have won any other competitions (longlisted and shortlisted in other competitions is fine if the story remains unpublished).
• Simultaneous submissions are allowed but if your story wins a prize or is published prior to the winner’s announcement your submission will become ineligible. No refunds of submission fees will be paid.
• By entering the competition you agree to your story being published in WestWord.
• Stories can be in any genre apart from children’s fiction.
• You can enter as many times as you like but all entries must be made separately and the entry fee paid each time.
• The judge’s decision is final.
• Cash prize payments will be made through PayPal or via BACS.
• There are no alternative prizes.

Please do not send us stories with racism, sexism, homophobia, religious hatred or any other kind of bigotry and hate. Any sex must be relevant to the story. Do not send us graphic stories of rape, incest, child abuse, bestiality, or gratuitous violence. We won’t publish it and we do not want to read it.

Authors will retain all rights and copyright to their works. WestWord requests one-time, non-exclusive rights to publish your work.

Short Story Spotlight publishes one short story a month along with an interview with the author about their craft.

• Word count: Up to 5,000
• Submission fee: £8
• Author payment: £35

There is no theme but please read the stories we have previously published to get a feel for what we like.

Submission Guidelines

• All submissions must be sent through Submittable and we cannot accept email submissions. Anything sent via email will not be read.
• Please submit no more than one story per category in each submission period. If you are submitting to more than one category then each submission must be made separately and the submission fee paid each time.
• Please use a legible, easy-to-read font of 12pt or 14pt.
• All submissions must be previously unpublished (never published in print or online, including a personal blog) and in .doc, .docx, or .pdf format ONLY.
• Simultaneous submissions are fine but please withdraw your submission via Submittable if it is accepted elsewhere.
• Our submissions are open to all adult writers worldwide. All work must be written in English.

Please do not send us stories with racism, sexism, homophobia, religious hatred or any other kind of bigotry and hate. Any sex must be relevant to the story. Do not send us graphic stories of rape, incest, child abuse, bestiality, or gratuitous violence. We won’t publish it and we do not want to read it.

Authors will retain all rights and copyright to their works. WestWord requests one-time, non-exclusive rights to publish your work.

May 2026 Edition

THEME: CURRENT

 Send us your short fiction inspired by the theme. How you interpret it is entirely up to you!  

WORD COUNTS

• Short Stories: up to 3000 words
• Flash Fictions: up to 1000 words
• Micro Fictions: up to 350 words

We charge a small submission fee (£5) in order to pay writers and cover our production, design and admin costs. We understand that this will be unaffordable for some people so we have 4 free submissions available in each period. Contact us to get one. No need to provide any explanation or evidence, just ask. They are allocated on a first come, first served basis.

If you would like to sponsor a submission so we can increase the number of free submissions available, then you can do that here.

Author Payment

For each edition, the writers we publish will share 50% of the submission fees received (after Submittable fees are deducted). All stories selected for an edition will receive the same payment no matter the length of the story.

We will also nominate stories for prizes (Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Best Microfictions, etc.).

Submission Guidelines

• All submissions must be sent through Submittable and we cannot accept email submissions. Anything sent via email will not be read.
• Please submit no more than one story per category in each submission period. If you are submitting to more than one category then each submission must be made separately and the submission fee paid each time.
• Please use a legible, easy-to-read font of 12pt or 14pt.
• Do not include any images with the story.
• All submissions must be previously unpublished (never published in print or online, including a personal blog) and in .doc, .docx, or .pdf format ONLY. WestWord requires first publication rights but copyright remains with the author.
• Simultaneous submissions are fine but please withdraw your submission via Submittable if it is accepted elsewhere.
• Our submissions are open to all adult writers worldwide. All work must be written in English.

Please do not send us stories with overt racism, sexism, homophobia, religious hatred or any other kind of bigotry and hate. Any sex must be relevant to the story. Do not send us graphic stories of rape, incest, child abuse, bestiality, or gratuitous violence. We won’t publish it and we do not want to read it.

To find out what kind of stories we like, read our journal.

Authors will retain all rights and copyright to their works. WestWord requests one-time, non-exclusive rights to publish your work.

Submissions are open on a rolling basis for hermit crab stories - narratives that find their home in borrowed structures like menus, recipes, quizzes, instruction manuals, school reports, or any other existing format. Like the hermit crab inhabiting a found shell, these stories use unconventional frameworks as vessels for their narratives.

There is no theme but please read the stories we publish to get a feel for what we like.

Our usual submission guidelines apply (see below).

Published stories will be considered for our nomination for prizes (Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Best Microfictions, etc.).

• Words: Up to 1,000 (excluding the title)
• Submission fee: £6
• Author payment: £25

If you’re a member of our WestWord Community you get one free submission a year included with your membership and the submission link has been added to the Member Goodies page. 

Submission Guidelines

• All submissions must be sent through Submittable and we cannot accept email submissions. Anything sent via email will not be read.
• Please use a legible, easy-to-read font of at least 12pt or ideally 14pt.
• All submissions must be previously unpublished (never published in print or online, including a personal blog) and in .doc, .docx, or .pdf format ONLY.
• Simultaneous submissions are fine but please withdraw your submission via Submittable if it is accepted elsewhere.
• Our submissions are open to all adult writers worldwide. All work must be written in English.

Please do not send us stories of overt racism, sexism, homophobia, religious hatred or any other kind of bigotry and hate. Any sex must be relevant to the story. Do not send us graphic stories of rape, incest, child abuse, bestiality, or gratuitous violence. We won’t publish it and we do not want to read it.

Authors will retain all rights and copyright to their works. WestWord requests one-time, non-exclusive rights to publish your work.

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.