NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge 2027

Put together by the TypeTak team for fiction writers. Checked against the official challenge page on October 24, 2026. Read the Official Rules on the NYC Midnight site before you register.

The NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge is a timed short story competition open to writers worldwide. You don't send a finished story. You register, and on January 22, 2027 you get a genre, a subject and a character, then have eight days to write a story of up to 2,000 words. The 2027 challenge is the 21st.

At a glance


Early entry deadline	November 19, 2026 ($65)
Final entry deadline	January 22, 2027, 10 p.m. New York time ($72)
1st round starts	January 22, 2027, 11:59 p.m. New York time
Who can enter	Writers anywhere in the world
What you write	A new story on assigned prompts, in four rounds of shrinking length and time
First prize	$8,500
Feedback	Judges' comments on every story you submit
Rights	You keep all rights to your stories
AI	Not allowed in any part of the story

The page also offers $10 off the fee for posting about the challenge on social media.

How the rounds work

Writers are placed at random in groups. Everyone in a group gets the same three assignments, works alone, and is scored only against the others in that group. The top five in each group go through to the next round.

Round	Writing window	Time	Word limit	Results
1st	January 22–30, 2027	8 days	2,000	April 6, 2027
2nd	April 8–11, 2027	3 days	1,750	June 2, 2027
3rd	June 4–6, 2027	2 days	1,500	July 21, 2027
Final	July 23–24, 2027	24 hours	1,250	September 16, 2027

The assignments arrive by email at the start of each round. NYC Midnight warns that these emails often land in spam, so put the round start times in your calendar and check the site if nothing comes.

What you get for the fee

At $65 or $72, this costs more than most short story contests. Here's what the page says you get for it:

Feedback on every story. The judges comment on each story you submit, whether or not you advance. Most contests tell you nothing when you don't place.
At least one story, written to a deadline. Even if you go out in the first round, you leave with a finished 2,000-word story on prompts you didn't choose.
A forum. More than 33,000 writers use the NYC Midnight forum to post stories and review each other's.
Your rights. You keep all rights, and NYC Midnight says it won't share stories publicly without the author's consent.

Two percent of each entry fee goes to a nonprofit you pick from the challenge's list.

Getting ready before January 22

You can't write the story in advance, but you can prepare.

Learn the genres. The genre is assigned, and it might be one you never read. NYC Midnight publishes its genre definitions on the site. Read a few short stories in the genres you know least.
Practice the length. 2,000 words is short for a full arc. Try writing a complete story with a beginning, a turn and an ending in that space before the challenge starts.
Block out the eight days. Plan to have a draft done in the first three or four days and leave the rest for revision.
Check your count before you submit. Paste the final text into the word counter. The later rounds are tighter, down to 1,250 words.

The AI rule

The challenge page says writers may not use AI in creating their story, in whole or in part, and points to paragraph 20 D of the Official Rules. It also says NYC Midnight never uses stories to train AI and checks its judges for AI use every round. We compare AI rules across contests in Can you use AI to write a book?.

Get feedback in TypeTak between rounds

The judges' comments are useful, but they arrive weeks after each round closes. TypeTak is an AI writing editor where you write alongside an agent, and its feedback reads your pages and points out what to fix, so you can practice on old stories while you wait.

What to fix, and how. Press Feedback on the editor toolbar and it reads the passage on screen and answers in this order: Overall impression, Evaluation by aspect, Strengths, Areas to improve. Each point in the last part says what the problem is, why it trips the reader and how to fix it.
A story that agrees with itself. The Consistency card checks the passage against its own timeline and logic and against the details you've noted, with any conflicts at the top.
Repeated words caught on the page. The Style card highlights repeated words, sentence habits and clichés right in the text.

You make the changes yourself. To keep feedback from leaving line edits in the text, turn off Page revision with feedback under Settings > Agent.

NYC Midnight bans AI in any part of a challenge story. Read paragraph 20 D before you use feedback on a story you'll submit, and keep it to practice pieces if you're unsure.

FAQ

When does the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge 2027 start?

The first round starts at 11:59 p.m. New York time on January 22, 2027, and runs until January 30.

How much does it cost to enter?

$65 until the early deadline of November 19, 2026, then $72 until 10 p.m. New York time on January 22, 2027.

What's the word limit?

2,000 words in the first round, then 1,750, 1,500 and 1,250 in the later rounds.

Do you get feedback if you don't advance?

Yes. The judges comment on every story submitted.

Can writers outside the US enter?

Yes. The challenge is open to writers worldwide.

Revision log

2026-10-24 — First published

Sources

Official: NYC Midnight — The Short Story Challenge Register for the Short Story Challenge
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