The Aurora Prize for Writing 2026 is open for entries!

The Aurora Prize for Writing 2026 is now open for entries! Writing East Midlands (WEM) is seeking original and unpublished short stories of up to 2,000 words per entry and poetry of up to 60 lines per entry; in any genre, on any subject! Aurora is a national competition open to writers aged 18 and above, with winners announced in each category (poetry/prose). The competition is run by WEM in partnership with The Society of Authors.

Prizes for each of our first-place winners include £500 in cash, feedback from a leading literary agent or editor on a piece of work of their choice, a year’s free membership to the Society of Authors, an SoA advisory session and a WEM gift voucher to the value of one Writers’ Conference 2027 ticket!

Our second-place winners will each receive £150 in cash; third place will each be awarded a WEM gift voucher to the value of one Writers’ Conference 2027 ticket; and our regional winners (from the East Midlands) will each be offered £100 in cash.

A longlist (of 25 in each category) and a shortlist (of 10 in each category) will be published online on the Writing East Midlands website, with shortlistees each receiving a 20% discount on a year’s membership to the Society of Authors and a 20% discount on The Writers’ Conference 2027 tickets.

We’re thrilled to reveal that our judges for the 2026 creative writing competition are none other than BAFTA award-winning screenwriter and Stonewall Book Award-winning author Dean Atta, judging our poetry entries, and 2021 Desmond Elliot Prize winner and 2023 Dylan Thomas Prize shortlistee A K Blakemore, judging our short fiction entries. You can find out more about judges on the Aurora Prize webpage here.

This year, Writing East Midlands has made some exciting changes to our international competition. Not only has the prize opened later in the year, with entries now accepted from October until the deadline on 13^th January 2027, but we are delighted to reveal that winners will be announced live and in person by our judges at an extra special award ceremony closing The Writers’ Conference on 10^th April 2027.

As part of the competition, both judges will also be delivering an online masterclass on their chosen craft (poetry/prose) in the new year (dates TBC). All winners in both categories will be offered a free ticket to the masterclass of their choosing. Both masterclasses will be a great chance to listen to the expert advice of these award-winning writers and find out what the judges of an international writing competition are looking for in a winning entry. Keep an eye out for more details on each masterclass coming soon!

We are incredibly grateful to our partners, the Society of Authors, for their generous offer to our winners and for making the Aurora Prize a true celebration of writers and writing!

The Aurora Prize for Writing is a fantastic opportunity to get your work out there and your name recognised, while also being an eye-catching accolade to keep under your belt when approaching agents. Previous winners and shortlisted writers include saga and cosy crime author Glenda Young, HarperCollins-published literary fiction author Ella King and Button Poetry-published poet Carson Wolfe.

Entries to the Aurora Prize for Writing 2026 are £9 per first entry and £7 per additional entry, with a maximum of 6 entries to be submitted per writer.

The Aurora Prize is now open for entries until 13^th January 2027 at 11.59 pm.

To enter your poetry or short stories, please visit the Aurora Prize for Writing webpage on the Writing East Midlands website, here:

https://writingeastmidlands.co.uk/for-writers/aurora-prize-for-writing/

or

https://bit.ly/AURORAPRIZE