The Latest Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award Winners Will Be Published On The Summer Solstice

One way we celebrate the solstice around here is by announcing—and publishing—the best supernatural stories submitted to our biannual fiction contest. The choice usually is hard, because, with a $1,000 cash prize offered to the winner, we draw well over ten dozen terrific tales from all around the globe each time we run the event. Inevitably, however, a handful rise to the top, making us catch our breath either through surprise, by encouraging us to think about life and death from an unfamiliar perspective, or with the sheer beauty of their writing. We’re delighted to say that this season’s overall winner manages to achieve all three of these effects at once—it’s a real treat.

So, if you enjoy starting your summer with a delightful chill, be sure to revisit The Ghost Story website on June 21, when our new fiction winners will be posted. And if you just can’t wait until then for a a few of the best contemporary supernatural stories the world has to offer, why not get a head start by reading our past winners?

Illustration: Scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Titania and Bottom, by Edwin Landseer (1802-1873)

Edgar Award Winning Novelist Takes First Honors In The Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition

SCROLL DOWN TO READ THE STORIES . . . or VISIT THE STORY PAGE

Mindy McGinnis is the winner of the 2017 Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition and the contest’s $300 cash prize for her sudden fiction piece, “Solitude.” In 2016, McGinnis won an Edgar Allan Poe Award for her young adult novel, A Madness So Discreet. The Edgar Awards are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City. They honor the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television, film, and theater published or produced in the previous year.

First Honorable Mention and a $100 cash award went to Daniel Soule, an Englishman living in Northern Ireland, for his story, “The Lostling.”

Second Honorable Mention, with a $50 prize, was taken by Emma Murtagh, of Galway, Ireland, for “Tongues.”

The Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition is for supernatural stories of 1,000 or fewer words. Our next fiction contest is The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award, for which we begin accepting submissions on February 15, 2017. Prizes are $1,000, $250, and $100 for full-length short stories of between 1.500 and 10,000 words. Good luck!

One Contest Closes, Another Opens!

The winner and honorable mentions in the Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition for short-short stories on a supernatural theme will be announced and published on February 14. Stay tuned—and thanks to everyone who participated.

Meanwhile, The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award contest for full-length short stories that incorporate an uncanny element is scheduled to open on February 15, with cash prizes of $1,000 for the winning story, $250 for the first Honorable Mention, and $100 for the Second Honorable mention—plus publication on TGS.

This will be the fourth time we’ve run The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award. Our previous winners are available for your reading enjoyment. May they provide you with some inspiration—and a pleasurable shudder!

Sudden Fiction By A Mexican Master

Mexican writer Juan Rulfo penned the novel Pedro Páramo, (1955) a chilling ghost story that was one of the main inspirations for the Latin American literary boom that became known as Magic Realism. I recently came across this cool (and rare) piece of short-short fiction by Rulfo and, since our Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition is currently open for submissions, I thought it was appropriate to reproduce Rulfo’s story here as an example of how it’s done. Enjoy:

“It was already late in the night when I arrived at that little, lost town in the mountains. To my surprise, the peasants were waiting for me. In silence, without any explanation, they took me to the plaza. They tied me up to the tree in the center of that plaza, and again in silence, they left. [Read more…] about FLASH FICTION BY JUAN RULFO

BY CHARLES DICKENS

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt
whatever about that. The register of his burial was
signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker,
and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and
Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change, for anything he
chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a
door-nail.

Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my
own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about
a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to
regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery
in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors
is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands
shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You
will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that
Marley was as dead as a door-nail. [Read more…] about A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Image: Leslie Lawrenson

Halloween Is When We Announce And Publish The Winning Stories In The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award Contest. Happy Reading!

You can skip right to the winning stories. Or, you can read on. . . .

Each time we reopen our biannual competition to submissions—every spring and summer, in other words—we stress very emphatically that traditional ghost stories are just one of the many types of tales eligible to win The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award. In fact, we’re eager to read anything written on a supernatural theme or containing a supernatural element, regardless of whether it contains an actual ghost. What we’re most insistent on is good writing and a gripping story. And our most recent competition perfectly exemplifies these very values.

None of the tales we’re publishing this time around—Not the Winner, Honorable Mention, or Second Honorable Mention—features a single old-school spook. Instead, all of the stories fall into a broader category that perhaps we could call “psychological fantasy.” In other words, most of the supernatural events featured within them appear to occur almost entirely in the minds of the people who experience them. In one of these stories, the protagonist is bedeviled by internal demons he thought he’d left far behind him; in another, a man at the end of his life confabulates a disturbing and unforgiving image of God; and in the last, isolation, uncertainty, and an ancient tragedy cause two characters to be strongly affected by their imaginations in very different ways.

Fiction of any kind is at its best when it’s not predictable, and all three of these award-winning pieces will keep you guessing until the very end. Congratulations to their authors—and many thanks to photographer Leslie Lawrenson for his wonderful illustrations.

Come on inside to help us celebrate our winners, and to enjoy a Halloween read that is at once chilling and thought-provoking.

Our next contest is the annual Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition for stories of 1,000 words or fewer. Keep your eyes peeled, because we’ll start accepting flash fiction submissions in mid December.

And if you’re planning to submit a full-length supernatural story to the next Ghost Story contest, we’ll start taking entries for those again in March—and we’re looking forward to reading yours!

Finally, if you’d like to leave a comment, or to discuss our stories or the contest in general, please visit our Facebook page.

NOW CLOSED: The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award

With prizes of $1,000, $250, and $100, our fall fiction award competition for full length short stories on a supernatural theme is now open to submissions. Please visit our contest page for guidelines and further information. Good luck!

BTW . . . if you’d like to learn about other international contests for uncanny fiction, Almond Press, in the UK, curates an extensive list.

Ghost Hour. Illustration: Alice Popkorn

Submissions Closed!

The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award competition is now closed to submissions. Response was fantastic, with story entries pouring in from around the world. Thanks to everyone who participated. We’ll be announcing (and publishing) our winner and two honorable mentions on Midsummer’s Eve, in June. Visit our contest page for information about the next Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award competition.

One Contest Closes, Another Opens!

The Screw Turn Flash Fiction Competition for short-short stories on a supernatural theme is now closed to submissions. Thanks to everyone who sent us a story—you’ll be hearing from us soon. The winner and honorable mentions will be announced and published on February 14.

Meanwhile, The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award contest for full-length short stories that incorporate an uncanny element is scheduled to open on February 15, with cash prizes of $1,000 for the winning story, $250 for the first Honorable Mention, and $100 for the Second Honorable mention—plus publication on TGS.

This will be the third time we’ve run The Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award. Our previous winners are available for your reading enjoyment. May they provide you with some inspiration—and a pleasurable shudder!

Ghost Hour. Illustration: Alice Popkorn

Submissions Closed!

The contest is now closed to submissions. Thanks to everyone who participated. We’ll be announcing (and publishing) our winner and honorable mention on Halloween. Visit our contest page for information about the next Ghost Story Supernatural Fiction Award competition.

If you’re a writer of paranormal, supernatural, fantasy, horror, or magic realist fiction, beware the witching hour as September 30th draws to a close. That’s when we’ll stop accepting submissions to the short fiction competition in which we will award $1,000 to the writer of the best supernatural story, and $100 for an honorable mention. Of course, we’ll also publish both stories here on TGS.

If you’ve already submitted your tale, we’ll be in touch with you about the results before the end of October—and your work will be published here on Halloween. If you’re still working on your piece, keep at it; the more polished your prose, the better your chances, and you’ve still got a few days left. But don’t let the sand run out of the hour glass; that midnight bell inevitably will toll.

And if you’re still thinking about entering, you might want to have a look at our complete contest guidelines.

Good luck!