⏳ Weekly Writing Contest | February 23: The Uncanny
Submit your entry by Friday, February 28, 5pm GMT / 12pm ET
Welcome to the Weekly Writers' Hour Contest!
This week's challenge invites you to step into the unsettling space between the familiar and the strange.
Prompt: The Uncanny
Write about a familiar place or moment that suddenly feels strange and unsettling, as if quietly altered.
Explore the tension between the familiar and the unfamiliar—what’s causing the unease, and is it real or imagined?
Unpublished pieces of 500 words or less in any genre are eligible.
Submissions are due by Friday, February 28th at 5pm GMT / 12pm ET.
Keep reading for more information on prizes and FAQs – plus an introduction to this week’s guest judge, Emma Stephenson, Director of Communications and Events at Gotham Writers.
Happy writing!
The Writers’ Hour Magazine Team
Meet Our Guest Judge: Emma Stephenson
Emma Stephenson is the Director of Communications and Events at Gotham Writers and editor of their literary magazine, The Razor. She has a voracious appetite for stories, and since her graduation from Emerson College’s Performing Arts program, she has gravitated to places where stories are front and center: including Symphony Space in New York City, the Columbia Publishing Course in Oxford, England, and a brief stint selling tickets at an aging movie theater.
Gotham Writers Workshop is a creative home in New York City and online where writers develop their craft and come together in the spirit of discovery and fellowship.
📅 Check out the Gotham Writers Genre Fiction Conference (March 1-2, 2025)
A Note from Emma
The recent Wicked film adaptation has me thinking about one of my all-time favorite essays on craft: Karen Russell’s “Engineering Impossible Architectures.” In the essay she discusses the importance—especially in a speculative story—of “Oz” details and “Kansas” details.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a better metaphor for weaving together the ‘familiar’ and the ‘unfamiliar’ in a story.
Imagine you’re just a teenage girl, preoccupied with the things that teenage girls are preoccupied with, feeling overlooked and undervalued (didn’t we all at that age?). That’s the story’s (literal) Kansas. That universal tug of teenage angst. The family that won’t pay attention to you. The farm that you live on with its cast of charming friends and workers. The story sets us up here because it’s familiar—we may not be from Kansas ourselves, but we know what that family and what that place feel like.
This is really what makes the sudden trip to Oz so wild and disorienting. Sure, a story that begins and ends in that whimsical, colorful world could be splendid. In fact, L. Frank Baum wrote lots of beautiful stories set exclusively in Oz. But the emotional power of Dorothy’s whiplash, the way that home is suddenly thrown into stark relief through the topsy-turvy absence of it—that is what pulls the narrative along in such a satisfying way.
I’m always on the lookout for Kansas details when I read a speculative story. The Oz details are what make it fun and exciting, but the Kansas details are what make it real. What put me right there in the thick of it. And what’s more compelling than the gap between reality and fantasy? I want to see how a story walks between the two and how it brings them together. Give me a big, gorgeous Emerald City and make me want nothing more than to click my heels home.
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, February 28 at 5pm GMT / 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 entry will be published in Writers’ Hour Magazine by Saturday, March 14th.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.)Is there a fee to submit?
No, there is no fee to submit. However you must be subscribed to Writers’ Hour Magazine in order for your submission to be considered.
Congratulations to the winners of Query Letter!
We are thrilled to share the contest results for the week of February 2. Writers were asked to step into the role of a pitching author and write a query letter that hooks a literary agent. Special thanks once again to our guest judge, James Spackman.
First Place: Query Letter for Swallow the Sun by Amy Sayle
Second Place: Query Letter for The Fine Art of Shadows by Matthew Tucker
Third Place: Query Letter for The Final Boy by
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 this week.
PS - Write with us
Come work on your submission at Writers' Hour—our daily silent writing sprints—where writers from around the world come together to work on their projects. It’s the perfect environment to focus, share space with other writers, and make progress on your contest entry.
damn I missed the deadline :(