The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award Winners

Maura Stanton of Bloomington, Indiana, won our spring 2025 short story competition with her story, “School for Robots.” Maura is our second-ever two-time winner of the contest: Her piece, “House Ghosts,” won the fall 2015 Supernatural Fiction Award.

We also had two honorable mentions in our spring competition, each of whom received a $300 cash award. You can access all three winning stories as well as all of our past winners and honorable mentions on our story page.

Our next contest, The Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition for sudden stories of 1,000 words or fewer opens to submissions on June 6. You can review the guidelines here.

The Supernatural Fiction Award . . . Ten Years Ago . . .

The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award
WINNER, Summer 2015

BY RACHEL WYMAN

It was in June, 2015 when TGS published the first winner of The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award: “Guédé,” a story of love and voodoo in New York City, by Rachel Wyman, a Brooklyn dancer and artist who had never previously published a work of fiction. Wyman also painted her own illustration for the piece.

Along with all the other winners and honorable mentions over the past ten years, “Guédé” has remained on the TGS website, and is available here.

In June of this year, with the publication of the Spring TGS Fiction Award winner and two honorable mentions, we will have completed a full decade of biannually providing cash awards and publication to the finest short fiction submitted to us on a supernatural or magic realism theme. [Read more…] about OUR 10th ANNIVERSARY

The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award

As we’ve done every spring and fall since 2015, The Ghost Story is running a competition for full-length short stories on a supernatural or magic realism theme—and we are now accepting submissions.

The winner receives $1,500 plus publication, and we also publish two honorable mention pieces, the authors of which each get a $300 cash award.

If you’re thinking of entering, please read the complete guidelines. The guidelines page also includes a link to our electronic submissions system.

And, if you’d like to read some of our past winners and honorable mentions, they’re all available for your reading pleasure here.

Cheers — The Editor

The Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition

. . . is now CLOSED to submissions.

We’ll be announcing and publishing our winner and honorable mentions on or before February 14. But that’s not the end of opportunities for writers to compete, because The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award, for full-length short stories, opens to submissions on February 15. The deadline is April 30, with winners announced on June 1. You can read more about it here.

Don’t forget to stop back in a couple of weeks to read our top three flash-fiction pieces!

Our Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition

Got a short-short story—under 1,000 words—on a supernatural or magic realism theme that you’re ready to start submitting to publications? Or maybe you’ve got one rattling around in your brain that you’ve been thinking about committing to paper, or to a computer screen?

Well, our Winter contest for flash fiction—AKA sudden, or brief, or short-short fiction—is now open to submissions. If you’d like to have a look at our guidelines, you can access them here.

Happy holiday season — The Editor

Now Available: Volume III

Copies of 21st Century Ghost Stories—Volume III, are now available for purchase directly from our printer. The 433 page trade paperback book, the latest collection in our print anthology series, contains all 39 winning and honorable mention stories published online between summer 2021 and summer 2024 in our two biannual Ghost Story Awards competitions. Those competitions are The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award, for full-length supernatural or magic realist short stories between 1,500 and 10,000 words, and The Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition, for supernatural or magic realist flash pieces of 1,000 or fewer words.

You can order your copy from the Wyrd Harvest Press page on the the printer’s website. Happy reading!

Introducing Our Autumn Fiction Award Winners

As I write this, in New York City two teams are playing in The World Series—AKA, “the fall classic.” But here at The Ghost Story, we’ve had our own fall classic since 2015, when we launched The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award Competition for full-length short stories incorporating a supernatural theme or element. We’ve always announced and published our winner and two—occasionally three—honorable mentions on October 31. So here we are, on the eve of October 31, and here they are: three new chilling, thought-provoking stories for your reading pleasure. Please have a look.

And, if you’re a writer . . . our next supernatural story contest, The Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition (for uncanny stories of 1,000 words or fewer) opens to submissions on December 1. Happy reading, happy writing.

For Fall 2024 . . . is Now CLOSED To Submissions

We will announce and publish the winners here on Halloween

Our contests have been running since 2015. Our next contest is The Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition, for sudden stories of 1,000 words or fewer. You’ll find our guidelines here.

Happy writing, happy reading.

The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award

As we’ve done every spring and fall since 2015, The Ghost Story is running a competition for full-length short stories on a supernatural or magic realism theme—and we are now accepting submissions. The deadline is September 30 at 11:59 PM ET—less than three weeks from this posting.

The winner receives $1,500 plus publication, and we also publish two honorable mention pieces, the authors of which each get a $300 cash award.

If you’re thinking of entering, please read the complete guidelines. The guidelines page also includes a link to our electronic submissions system.

And, if you’d like to read some of our past winners and honorable mentions, they’re all available for your reading pleasure here.

Cheers — The Editor

The Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition

Summer 2024

Directly below, you’ll find three chilling tales for a hot summer: the winner and two honorable mentions in our biannual short-short (under 1,000 words) story contest. Enjoy! Our next contest, The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award, for full-length short stories, is coming right up, opening to submissions on August 1, with a deadline of September 30, and all winning stories published on Halloween. If you’re a writer and that’s of interest to you, have a look at our contest guidelines.