It’s time for the Spring 2024 edition of the Ironclad Short Story Competition!

Ironclad Creative CIC exists to support writers and theatre-makers, with training, networking and chances to showcase their work.

The Ironclad Creative Short Story Competition is for both published and unpublished writers. We’re looking for original writing in English and you can be from anywhere in the world. You are welcome to apply again if you’ve been selected for publication before.

We are looking for short stories that respond in any way to: 7:12am. You can use that in the text, as a theme, or any way you want.
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We accept any prose genre and any length of story up to 6k words. We’re looking for writers who have exciting voices and can move us – that can happen in any genre of prose.

We’re not accepting plays or poetry for this competition.

PRIZES:

• The winning writer will be offered a prize of £100 and publication in the anthology.
• The second place writer will be offered a prize of £50 and publication in the anthology.
• The third & fourth place writers will be offered prizes of £25 each, and publication in the anthology.

Up to 10 other shortlisted writers may be offered publication in the anthology.

We are keen to encourage quality, so suggest writers to check their stories before submitting using Prowritingaid. They have free and paid versions and are the best writing software we know to help improve grammar, readability and check for repetition, ‘sticky’ sentences and suggest alternatives.