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Our current competition: New Writers Novel Prize 2026 – Deadline: 31st October 2026. Top Prize: £1,000 + Lifetime Access to The Novel Factory (Version 3).
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At NewWriters.org.uk, we curate the best and most trusted current and upcoming writing competitions for writers in the UK and internationally — including flash fiction, short stories, poetry, novels, and non-fiction. Each competition listing includes the deadline, prize details, word limit, entry fee, and eligibility so you can quickly decide which contests fit your writing goals.
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For poets looking to make a name for themselves, The National Poetry Competition, run by The Poetry Society, is hard to beat. Apart from the gigantic £5,000 prize for winning the competition (and the sizeable cash prizes for coming second or third), this competition is one of the greatest around when it comes to prestige.
The three judges are award-winning poets who have published numerous excellent collections between them, and it won’t be easy to catch their attention. But with a very reasonable entry fee of £9.00, it could be worth giving it a go if you have a poem (or two) you are particularly proud of.
More on the 2026 judges:
Niall Campbell is a poet from the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. His latest collection, The Island in the Sound, was published in September of 2024 by Bloodaxe Books. He works as a librettist and is the editor of the acclaimed poetry journal, Poetry London. He lives in Fife.
Dr Malika Booker lectures at Manchester Metropolitan University, and co-founded Malika’s Poetry Kitchen (A writer’s collective). Pepper Seed was shortlisted for the OCM Bocas and the Seamus Heaney Centre 2014 prize. A Cave Canem Fellow, Complete Works Fellow, Malika was elected a Royal Society of Literature Fellow (2022) and is the first woman to win the Forward Prize for Best Single poem twice: ‘The Little Miracles’ (2020) and ‘Libation’ (2023).
Luke Kennard is an award-winning poet and novelist who lives in the West Midlands. His sixth collection, Notes on the Sonnets won the Forward Prize in 2021. He is a professor of literature and creative writing at the University of Birmingham.
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