WestWord Prize
2026 WestWord Prize
Our annual WestWord Prize wants your best flash fictions up to 1000 words.
Join our community membership to receive one submission to this contest and all our themed editions, plus access to weekly flash fiction writing sessions, monthly writing workshops, and craft posts.
Deadline: 31st March 2026
Max word count: 1000
Entry fee: £10 submission only / £30 with feedback
Online anthology publication: June 2026
Theme: No theme
Prizes:
First prize: £400
Second prize: £250
Third prize: £100
Shortlisted: £25
Judge: Kathryn Aldridge-Morris
Kathryn Aldridge-Morris is a Bristol-based writer whose work has been widely published in anthologies and literary journals including Pithead Chapel, Aesthetica, The Four Faced Liar, Fractured Lit, Retreat West, Stanchion Magazine, Flash Frog, Fictive Dream, Bending Genres, New Flash Fiction Review and elsewhere. She has won the Bath Flash Fiction Award, The Forge’s Flash Nonfiction competition, Lucent Dreaming’s flash fiction contest, and Manchester Writing School’s QuietManDave Prize, and her work has been selected for the Wigleaf Top 50. She was recently awarded an Arts Council England grant to write a novella-in-flash. Her debut collection Cold Toast came out with Dahlia Books in May 2025.
PRIZE ENTRY RULES
Submit stories written in English through Submittable using the button above by 23.59 GMT on the deadline date (sorry late entries will not be included). Please use a clear font of at least size 12 so that we can read it easily!
Please use the name of your story as your Submission title and the document you upload.
Do not include your name on the story document or submission title but provide a short bio as requested in the submission form. All stories are read anonymously so any showing the author’s name will be disqualified.
Please include the word count at the start or end of the story document.
Stories must be your own original work and not have been published online or in print, or have won any other competitions (longlisted and shortlisted in other competitions is fine if the story remains unpublished).
Simultaneous submissions are allowed but if your story wins a prize or is published prior to the winner’s announcement your entry will become ineligible. No refunds of entry fees will be paid.
By entering the competition you agree to your story being published in the winners’ online anthology.
Stories can be in any genre apart from children’s fiction.
You can enter as many times as you like but all entries must be made separately and the entry fee paid each time.
The judge’s decision is final.
Cash prize payments will be made through PayPal or via BACS.
There are no alternative prizes.