“It was sad. I would rather talk to my idea of a person, a fantasy ghost-person that existed only in my imagination, than talk with my own parents.” Patty Yumi Cottrell, author of Sorry to Disrupt the Peace (McSweeney’s, 2017) and a recipient of a 2018 Whiting Award in fiction, reads from her essay “My Abyss.”
Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.