⏳ Weekly Writing Contest | October 26: Ghost of First Drafts Past
This week's guest judge is Kailey Brennan DelloRusso, founder and editor-in-chief of Write or Die Magazine and columnist at Chill Subs. Submit your entry by Friday, October 31st at 12pm ET/4pm GMT.
Welcome to the Weekly Writers’ Hour Contest!
This week’s challenge invites you to revisit a piece of writing you left behind—an unfinished draft, an abandoned line, a half-formed thought—and breathe life back into it.
*PLUS* Our friends at Chill Subs are adding 1 year of their Best membership to this week’s first-place winning prize bundle. Read more below.
📝 PROMPT
Resurrect an abandoned idea or fragment.
If you’d like, use this prompt as a prelude to First Draft November—a month-long novel writing challenge helping you hit 50,000 words from our friends at Chill Subs.
Unpublished pieces of 500 words or less in any genre are eligible.
Submissions are due by Friday, October 31st, at 4pm GMT / 12pm ET.
Keep reading for more information on prizes and FAQs – plus an introduction to this week’s guest judge, founder and editor-in-chief of Write or Die Magazine Newsletter and columnist at Chill Subs, Kailey Brennan DelloRusso.
Happy writing!
The Writers’ Hour Magazine Team
Meet Our Guest Judge: Kailey Brennan Dellorusso
Kailey Brennan DelloRusso is a writer from Plymouth, MA. She’s the founder and editor-in-chief of Write or Die Magazine and a columnist at Chill Subs. Her work has been published in TrashLight Press, Dreamworldgirl Zine, World Insane, and in various online publications. She is represented by Creative Artists Agency. You can find her on Substack, YouTube or Instagram.
Kailey is also leading First Draft November, a month-long challenge for writers who are ready to get that novel they’ve been dreaming of on the page.
A Note from Kailey
There was a reason you abandoned this idea.
Why?
Fear? Distraction? Insecurity? Maybe you thought it was too weird, too unhinged, or simply too much.
Or maybe you thought it lacked a spine, like it had nothing to hold it upright. But stories don’t die; they wait for you to come back and make sense of them. They haunt you until you do.
Start by finding the reason you left this idea or fragment behind. What emotion sits underneath that decision? Can you bring that to your story, to your dialogue, to your characters? That emotionality could be where the real story is hidden.
For this prompt, I want to see you follow your curiosity. Be bold. Return to the version of yourself who was purely excited about this idea, before doubt crept in. Let that energy guide you back to what first made you want to write it. Scare me, shock me, show me the real you.
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)
*NEW* 1-Year Chill Subs Best Membership (£150 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 31st 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 22nd.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 Secret in the Pages!
We are thrilled to share the contest results for the week of September 28. Writers were invited to describe a secret tucked inside a book. Special thanks once again to our guest judge Anna Beer, author of Death of an Englishman: An Oxford Mystery.
First Place: The Message by Nicole Jagusch
Second Place: The Reliquary by Robert Skipper
Third Place: The Warden Observes by Raymond Brunell
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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