Home of the Ghost Story Awards
On December 15, we will begin accepting submissions to our annual Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition, for supernatural short-short fiction of under 1,000 words.
We’ve made some important changes to the contest—including increasing the cash awards. You can read all about it on our contest page.
It’s Halloween, and that means it’s time to post the winner of The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award competition, along with our two honorable mention stories.
Head to our Story Page to check them out. Enjoy!
Interested in gleaning a bit of insight into what we’re looking for as we comb through submissions to The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award and The Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition?
If so, we recommend reading our recently updated editor interview with Duotrope, one of the leading online resources for writers. Beyond that . . . read as many of our past winners and honorable mentions as you can. Read them all, in fact!
And good luck! We look forward to enjoying your work.
The image above shows the back cover of 21st Century Ghost Stories—Volume I. The book anthologizes all the winning and honorable mention stories in the Ghost Story Awards contests from 2015 to 2018. There are 29 tales in all—full-length short stories from The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award contest, as well as short-short pieces from The Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition.
Winners and honorable mentions in our currently ongoing fall 2018 Supernatural Fiction Award, as well as all future Ghost Story Awards contests through the summer of 2021, will be published as part of 21st Century Ghosts Stories—Volume II.
The Ghost Story Awards winners for the past three years:
“This astonishing anthology gathers award-winning work by contemporary short-fiction writers from around the English-speaking world, all of whom drew their inspiration from the supernatural. Each of these fine authors, whether from the U.K., the U.S., Ireland, Canada, Australia, or elsewhere, puts his or her own thought-provoking, 21st century spin on some aspect of the paranormal—there are ghosts, of course, but you’ll also find tales revolving around demons, zombies, spirits in the Voudou pantheon, out-of-body episodes, doppelgangers, shape-shifters, hallucinations, dreams, imaginary people, mythical beings, and Things You Just Can’t Explain. These 29 stories are chilling, or funny, or a bit of both, and they all will continue to turn in your imagination long after you’ve finished reading them.” Click here to order a copy.
Important note: 100% of sales profits will be donated toward different environmental, wildlife, and community projects undertaken by The Wildlife Trusts. (www.wildlifetrusts.org)
The fall Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award competition is now open for submissions—and we’ve got a couple of exciting pieces of news.
The first is that we’re eliminating the position of second honorable mention, with it’s $100 cash prize, and instead we’ll be awarding two honorable mentions, each of which will receive a $250 award—plus, of course, custom illustration, and both online and print publication. The cash award for the winner will remain at $1,000. [Read more…] about FALL FICTION CONTEST
Happy Solstice! The Ghost Story proudly announces the winner—our first from the U.K.—and two honorable mention in the Supernatural Fiction Award competition.
To read them, head on over to our Contest Page. And don’t forget to spend a little time appreciating Andy Paciorek’s custom illustration for each piece!
In addition to being published here, the authors of all three short stories received cash awards, and their work will be included in the second volume of 21st Century Ghost Stories, our paperbound anthology due out from Wyrd Harvest Press in 2021.
We will begin accepting submissions for our fall Supernatural Fiction Award contest on August 1.
Midsummer (the summer solstice) falls on June 21, and that’s when we’ll be announcing—and publishing—the winner and two honorable mentions in The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award competition.
In addition to being published here, the authors of all three short stories received cash awards, and their work will be included in the second volume of 21st Century Ghost Stories, our paperbound anthology due out from Wyrd Harvest Press in 2021.
We will begin accepting submissions for our fall Supernatural Fiction Award contest on August 1.
We continue working hard on our first supernatural-story anthology, 21st Century Ghost Stories—Volume I, which is due out in August. The paperbound book (Wyrd Harvest Press; Durham, U.K.) will include all winning and honorable mention stories published to date in The Supernatural Fiction Award and The Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition.
Our illustrator, Andy Paciorek, has created images for about one third of the 29 stories so far—and this one is one of our favorites. It illustrates “A Brief Respite,” written by English writer C.L. Dalkin, which was our 2016 Screw Turn winner. Enjoy.
Much of the recent attention from readers and contest participants has been on Volume 2 of 21st Century Ghost Stories—and for good reason. The Winner and two Honorable Mentions in the current Supernatural Fiction Award competition will be published in this second volume, which is scheduled for publication by Wyrd Harvest Press in 2021. In fact, between now and October 31, 2021, all winners and honorable mentions in both Ghost Story contests—the biannual Fiction Award and our annual Flash Fiction Competition—will be slated for publication in Volume 2.
However, we’re excited to remind you that Volume One will be out in just a few months, and it will contain all the stories that were winners, or won honorable mentions, from the summer of 2015 through the winter of 2018. In all, that’s 29 full-length short stories and flash fiction pieces for your reading enjoyment.
Not only are we currently editing and designing Volume One, but British illustrator Andy Paciorek has been busy creating a visual interpretation of each piece. The illustration above is a good example of what you’ll see throughout our upcoming anthology. We can’t wait until a copy is in our hands. . . .