There are no restrictions on genre: fantasy, sci fi, memoir, fiction/nonfiction, etc – we don’t care as long as it’s written and told with quality and care. The story itself cannot exceed 4,500 words.

The winning story will be featured on Story Unlikely’s website, will be strongly considered for our annual (print) sample magazine, and may be sent out as the bonus story for signing up, which means a lot of exposure to the winner. All three placing stories will be published in the monthly issue.

The submission period runs from October 1st through January 31st.

We are keen to encourage quality submissions, 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.