Writers of the Future Contest: Rules, Deadlines and Who Can Enter

Put together by the TypeTak team for fiction writers. Checked against the official rules on October 24, 2026. The rules can change, so read the contest's own rules page before you send a story.

L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future is a free contest for science fiction and fantasy writers who haven't published much professionally yet. It runs four times a year, and professional writers do all the judging. The current quarter, the first of the 2027 contest year, runs from October 1 through December 31, 2026, and closes at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time on December 31.

At a glance

Quarterly deadlines

The contest year runs from October 1 to September 30. Each quarter closes at midnight Pacific Time on its last day, and an entry has to be received electronically or postmarked by then. A late entry is moved to the next quarter, and the contest tells you when that happens.

You can send one story per quarter, so up to four a year. Entries are final once sent, and the contest doesn't accept revisions. Sending the same story again unchanged makes it ineligible.

What kind of story fits

All kinds of science fiction, fantasy and dark fantasy are welcome, and the entry page also mentions light horror. The rules spell out what they won't consider:

• poetry, plays, screenplays, treatments and outlines
• partial manuscripts and vignettes, meaning scenes without a story or plot
• work for children, picture books and memoir
• mystery or horror with no speculative element
• fan fiction
• anything already published

The judges can reject a story for excessive violence or sex, or for profane, vulgar, racist or offensive language.

Who counts as a professional

You can't enter if you've professionally published a novel or short novel, more than one novelette, or more than three short stories, in any medium. The rules call a publication professional when it paid at least eight cents a word and reached at least 5,000 copies or 5,000 hits.

So a story you sold to a small magazine at a lower rate doesn't count against you, and neither does self-publishing that didn't meet both numbers. Once you win a quarter, you can't enter again.

How to format and submit

Online is the usual route. Go to the Enter the Writer Contest page and follow the steps there.

• Keep your name off the manuscript. Judging is anonymous. Your legal name, pen name, address, phone, email and approximate word count go into the upload form, not the story file. A manuscript with your name or contact details on it is disqualified.
• Double-space it, with the title and page number on every page. This applies to both online and mailed entries.
• Mailing a hard copy? Print in black ink on white paper, one side only, double-spaced, with numbered pages. Put your details on a cover page only. Include a stamped self-addressed envelope if you want the manuscript back, and don't use a service that needs a signature on delivery.

For the page layout itself, the usual short story manuscript format works. We walk through it in Standard manuscript format.

The AI rule

The rules say the story has to be created entirely by you and can't be generated, in whole or in part, by artificial intelligence. The contest administrator decides whether a work breaks this rule, and any prize won with such a story is forfeited. The entry page puts it more briefly: "AI is not accepted."

That's stricter than many contests, which allow AI for spelling checks or brainstorming as long as you say so. We compare the wording across contests in Can you use AI to write a book?.

Prizes, the workshop and the anthology

Each quarter has three winners, paid within 60 days of the announcement. After the contest year ends, a separate panel of judges reads the four first-place stories and picks the grand prize winner, who gets an additional $5,000 and a trophy at the annual awards ceremony.

All quarterly winners are invited to the ceremony for their contest year. The contest pays for travel and the hotel, and for a free writers' workshop in the week before. If the publisher puts out an anthology for that year, winners are contacted about having their stories included.

Is Writers of the Future legit?

Many writers search this before entering. The contest was founded by L. Ron Hubbard, the science fiction writer who also founded the Church of Scientology, and it's run by Author Services, Inc. Some writers choose not to enter because of that connection.

What the rules themselves say is simple: there's no entry fee, you keep your rights, professional writers do the judging, and nothing in the rules asks you to join or support anything. Whether the connection matters to you is your call.

Get feedback in TypeTak before you send it

The contest won't tell you why a story didn't place, and the next window is three months away. TypeTak is an AI writing editor where you write alongside an agent, and its feedback reads your pages and points out what to fix.

• 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 world that agrees with itself. The Consistency card checks the passage against its own timeline and logic and against the lore you've written, 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.

Writers of the Future bans any AI-generated text in the story, so don't paste suggested wording into your entry, and read rule 3 to decide whether you're comfortable using feedback at all. When the story's ready, paste it into the word counter to check it's under 10,000 or 17,000 words.

FAQ

When is the next Writers of the Future deadline?

December 31, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time. After that come March 31, June 30 and September 30, 2027.

Does it cost anything to enter?

No. There's no entry fee, and you keep all rights in your story.

What's the word limit?

Under 17,000 words. Stories under 10,000 words count as short stories and those under 17,000 as novelettes, and both are judged in the same contest.

Can I enter if I've self-published?

Usually yes. You're out only if the work counts as professional publication: at least eight cents a word and at least 5,000 copies or hits.

Can I send more than one story?

One story per quarter, so up to four a year. Winners can't enter again.

Revision log

• 2026-10-24 — First published

Sources

Official

Writer Contest Rules·Enter the Writer Contest

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Novel and short story contests 2026–2027·Standard manuscript format·Can you use AI to write a book?