The STAR Award is designed exclusively for the published women’s fiction author.

The STAR Award has two categories.

• A general category for all full-length published women’s fiction, regardless of time period of the premise or additional plot element.*
• The second category is ‘Outstanding Debut.’ To be eligible, the entry must be women’s fiction and the author’s first ever published work in any genre.

The STAR Award Contest is limited to the first 50 entries in each of the two categories.

Open to all authors of book-length women’s fiction (60k words or more). Books must be written in English but do not need to follow standard American English spelling and grammar rules. All work must have an ISBN and copyright page with an original copyright date in the calendar year 2024. If an entry doesn’t meet these requirements, it will be disqualified and entry fees forfeited. No novellas or short story collections are accepted.

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.