⏳ Weekly Writing Contest | October 12: A Day in the Life
This week's guest judge is Mason Currey, author of the Daily Rituals books. Submit your entry by Friday, October 17th at 12pm ET/5pm BST.
Welcome to the Weekly Writers’ Hour Contest!
This week’s challenge invites you to notice what pulses beneath routine.
📝 PROMPT
Write a day. It could be a real, ordinary day: the habits, the interruptions, the rhythms that define you. Or it could be an imagined day—one you long for, one you fear, or one you invent for a character.
Write in the genre of your choosing, shaping the everyday into something that reveals the life beneath the routine.
Unpublished pieces of 500 words or less in any genre are eligible.
Submissions are due by Friday, October 17th, at 5pm BST / 12pm ET.
Keep reading for more information on prizes and FAQs – plus an introduction to this week’s guest judge Mason Currey, author of The Daily Rituals books and Subtle Maneuvers on Substack.
Happy writing!
The Writers’ Hour Magazine Team
Meet Our Guest Judge: Mason Currey
Mason Currey is a writer and editor living in Los Angeles and the author of the Daily Rituals books.
In addition to compiling the Daily Rituals books, Currey was a design-magazine editor for ten years, working as the managing editor of Metropolis, the executive editor of Print, a senior editor at Core77, and the programming chair for the 2015 Core77 Conference. His freelance writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, and Slate, and he has delivered talks on the creative process to high school and college students, writers’ groups, and the partners of the design consultancy IDEO.
Currey is currently writing a new nonfiction book and publishes a fortnightly newsletter Subtle Maneuvers on routines, rituals, and wriggling through a creative life.
A Note from Our Editorial Team
This week’s challenge invites you to trace the contours of a single day and see how much of a life it contains.
It could be a real day—one you just lived, or one you can’t stop returning to—or a day entirely imagined. The task: take this seemingly mundane sequence of moments and make it compelling. Fill it with details that tell us who the person is, what they want, and what holds their life together (or threatens to unravel it).
How to Submit:
Submissions should be made through our online submission platform, Submittable, and formatted as a Word Doc.
For more details, please read the full Contest Guidelines.
The winning entries will receive:
First Prize:
$65 USD (£50 GBP)
Publication in Writers’ Hour Magazine
3-months of London Writers’ Salon Silver Membership (£79 value)
Commemorative Writers’ Hour trophy mug
Second Prize:
Publication in Writers’ Hour Magazine
1-month of London Writers’ Salon Silver Membership (£29 value)
Third Prize:
Publication in Writers’ Hour Magazine
FAQs:
What genres can I write in?
All genres - fiction, nonfiction, poetry, etc - are welcome.Is there a word limit?
Your piece must be 500 words or less. Pieces that exceed this will not be considered. There is no minimum word limit.Do I need to submit in a specific format?
Please follow the instructions outlined in the Contest Guidelines.When is the deadline to submit?
Submissions are due by Friday, October 17th at 5pm BST / 12pm ET / 9am PT. Submissions received outside this window will not be considered.When will the winner be announced?
The winner will be contacted via Submittable, and the winning entries will be published in Writers’ Hour Magazine by Saturday, November 8th.Can I submit a piece I’ve already published?
Only previously unpublished pieces are eligible for this contest. (Published means anything that has already been made publicly available in print or online.)Can I use AI tools (like ChatGPT) to help write my contest submission?
No. We do not accept any AI-assisted writing for contest entries. All submissions must be the author’s original work and human-generated. Use of AI will disqualify you from this and any future contests.
Congratulations to the winners of Living Art!
We are thrilled to share the contest results for the week of September 14. Writers were invited to bring a painted or sculpted figure to life on the page. Special thanks once again to our guest judge Emma Darwin.
First Place: The Boy in the Sky by Ali Abazeed
Second Place: American Gothic: A Love Tale by Georgina Currie
Third Place: Duendecitos, by Francisco de Goya by Ella Holliday
Congratulations to the winners, and thank you to everyone who participated. It’s a pleasure to share these pieces with you, and we can’t wait to see what you create in the next contest!
PS: ✍️ Write with us daily at Writers’ Hour
Come work on your submission at Writers’ Hour—our daily silent writing sprints—where writers around the world gather together to write. It’s the perfect environment to focus, share space with other writers, and make progress on your contest entry.
🔒 Paid Subscriber Perk: Editorial Feedback Lottery
This week, three paid subscribers will be chosen at random to receive personalized feedback from our editorial team on their contest submission.
How to enter the feedback lottery:
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