Protopian Prize Fiction Contest

The Protopian Prize is a new fiction contest that invites writers, storytellers, and dreamers to imagine futures that are neither flawless nor catastrophic—but workably better than today. “Protopian”—a word coined by Kevin Kelly, one of our contest’s judges—means an achievable, optimistic future characterized by continuous, incremental progress rather than revolutionary leaps or a static, perfect state.

This year’s inaugural competition has two categories for previously unpublished short stories of between 500 and 6,000 words. The categories are:

1. The Public AI Prize invites us to imagine AI development, ownership, policy, and tools, built for — and following the basic principles of — public benefit;
2. The Democratic Futures Prize invites us to imagine institutions, tools, and organizational methods that expand and enhance public autonomy and shared control over societal futures.

One winner from each category will win $5,000 and publication in an anthology titled, In the Loop: Stories from the Future of People, Power, and Machines, published by MIT Press and edited by judging leads Gideon Lichfield and Ruthanna Emrys, alongside invited stories by professional science fiction authors.

The contest is hosted by Metagov and the Public AI Network. Metagov is a research-and-infrastructure nonprofit dedicated to collective self-governance in a digital age. The Public AI Network AI is a growing coalition working to bring about AI as public infrastructure: provisioned like electricity, water, roads, libraries, or the Internet itself.

Is this competition legit?YES! – Based on our research this event is legitimate and the organizer is well established. However, as with any event, please remember to do your own research before submitting your work.

FAQ
If you are curious how writing competitions work, or it’s your first time entering one, we recommend reading our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page first.