Guidelines

$2,500 Awaits Winners of Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition 2024

Writers of short fiction may now enter the 2024 Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition. The competition has a forty-three year history of literary excellence, and Lorian Hemingway and her small judging panel are dedicated to enthusiastically supporting the efforts and talent of writers of short fiction whose voices have yet to be heard. Lorian Hemingway, a granddaughter of Nobel laureate Ernest Hemingway, is the author of three critically acclaimed books: Walking into the River, Walk on Water, and A World Turned Over.

Ms. Hemingway is the competition’s final judge.

Prizes and Publication:

The first-place winner will receive $1,500 and publication of his or her winning story on our competition website. The second – and third-place winners will receive $500 each. Honorable mentions will also be awarded to entrants whose work demonstrates promise.

Eligibility requirements for our 2024 competition are as follows:

• What to submit:  Stories must be original unpublished fiction, typed and double-spaced, and may not exceed 3,500 words in length. There are no theme or genre restrictions. Copyright remains the property of the author.
• Who may submit: The literary competition is open to all U.S. and international writers whose fiction has not appeared in a nationally distributed publication with a circulation of 5,000 or more. Writers who have been published by an online magazine or who have self-published will be considered on an individual basis.
• Submission requirements: Submissions may be submitted online only at this time. Please visit our online submissions page for complete instructions regarding online submissions. Writers may submit multiple entries, but each must be accompanied by a separate entry fee and separate cover sheet. We do accept simultaneous submissions; however, the writer must notify us if a story is accepted for publication or wins an award or places in any way in another competition (i.e. receives an Honorable Mention, is a semi-finalist, etc.) prior to announcement of our Winners and Honorable Mentions. No entry confirmation will be given unless requested. The author’s name should not appear on the story, but it should appear on the cover sheet, which is the first page of the manuscript document you will submit. Our entrants are judged anonymously. Each story must be accompanied by a separate cover sheet — which should be the first page of the story document — with the writer’s name, complete mailing address, e-mail address, phone number, the title of the piece, and the word count. Manuscripts will not be returned.
• Deadlines and Entry Fees: The entry fee is $15 for each story submitted by September 1, 2024. The late entry fee for stories submitted from September 2 through September 15 is $20. Entries submitted online after September, 2024 will not be accepted for our 2024 competition. Writers may submit for the 2025 competition beginning September 16, 2024.
• How to pay your entry fee: Entry fees for online submissions may be paid with PayPal. You do not need a PayPal account to use this feature.

Announcement of Winners and Honorable Mentions

Winners of our 2024 competition will be posted in January 2025 on our website. Only the first-place entrant will be notified personally.

All manuscripts should be submitted online to the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition. Please do not mail your entries at this time. We are updating our P.O. Box and will notify you on this website when this is complete. For more information, please explore this website or e-mail: shortstorykeywest@hushmail.com.