The Vocal+ Fiction Awards
Enter our biggest Challenge yet: 25 winners, $125,000 in prizes, and Vocal's first ever book of short stories by our creators.
Prizes
- Total prizes:
- $125,000
- 25 winners receive:
- $5,000
25 Grand Prize winners will each receive $5,000, and be published in Vocal's first ever book, a collection of short stories by our creators.
1,000 runners up will be selected, and will each receive a free year of Vocal+ membership.
Status
CompletedTimeline
Submissions opened
Oct 13, 2021
Submissions closed
Dec 30, 2021 4:59 AM CUT
Results
Feb 25, 2022
Prizes
- Total prizes:
- $125,000
- 25 winners receive:
- $5,000
25 Grand Prize winners will each receive $5,000, and be published in Vocal's first ever book, a collection of short stories by our creators.
1,000 runners up will be selected, and will each receive a free year of Vocal+ membership.
Status
CompletedTimeline
Submissions opened
Oct 13, 2021
Submissions closed
Dec 30, 2021 4:59 AM CUT
Results
Feb 25, 2022
About this challenge
*Note from the Vocal Team: The Judges have spoken, and 1,025 Vocal+ Creators have been selected as finalists for The Vocal+ Fiction Awards! See if your story made the list here!
We've now had over 100,000 stories entered into Vocal Challenges, and we have given away over $500,000 directly to our creators through Challenges. And we're celebrating these milestones with our biggest Challenge to date.
For this Challenge, there is no prompt, genre or theme you must stick to, or requirement your story must meet. Submit your best piece of short fiction, between 600 and 4,000 words, in any style, genre, or topic of your choosing.
25 grand prize winners will be selected to receive $5,000 each, and have their stories published in Vocal's first ever book—a collection of short stories by Vocal creators, available for purchase, estimated for release in the spring of 2022. 1,000 runners up will be selected to receive a free year of Vocal+.
Learn more about this Challenge here.
*Note that due to high volume, submissions that have been entered into the Vocal+ Fiction Awards will not necessarily be moderated within the standard 24 hour timeframe. Please anticipate a 3-4 day wait period for all stories entered into the Challenge to be moderated. Thank you for your patience.
How to enter
Your story must be between 600 and 4,000 words and adhere to our Community Guidelines. Stories published on Vocal and entered into the contest up until December 29, 2021, at 11:59 PM EST will be entered for consideration. Official Rules for the Challenge can be found here.
The Vocal+ Fiction Awards are exclusive to Vocal+ members. To learn more and upgrade to Vocal+ visit https://vocal.media/vocal-plus.
To be eligible to win the grand prize, second place, or third place prizes, you must be over the age of 13 and residing in a country where Stripe is available at the time of entry. A complete list of countries where Stripe is available can be found here—winners will need to have a Stripe account created and connected in order to receive the prizes. For this reason, entrants located outside of any of these countries will not be eligible to win.
Open challenges
Challenges you can enter now for a chance to win.
Out of Season
Write a story about something appearing, happening, or returning at exactly the wrong time of year.
$1,000 Grand Prize10 days leftNegative Space
Write a poem shaped by what's missing. Let an absence, omission, or empty space become as important as what you put on the page.
$1,000 Grand Prize17 days leftYou Are Here
Write a story entirely in second person that puts the reader somewhere they aren't supposed to be.
$1,000 Grand Prize24 days leftOctober
Write a poem that makes October feel like a place you can enter.
$1,000 Grand Prize31 days leftDead Air
Write a horror story about a broadcast, recording, phone call, or transmission that should not exist.
$1,000 Grand Prize38 days leftScroll No More
Imagine that every smartphone in the world suddenly stops working. Write about what happens next.
$1,000 Grand Prize45 days leftNo One Remembers It That Way
Write about a memory that you and someone else remember completely differently.
$1,000 Grand Prize52 days leftSteal From Yourself
Return to something you wrote years ago and use one idea, image, character, or line from it to create something entirely new.
$1,000 Grand Prize59 days leftNot on the Menu
Write about something memorable you ate that you'd never find on a restaurant menu.
$1,000 Grand Prize66 days left
Challenge resources
Twenty-Four Hours Challenge Winners
The best Twenty-Four Hours entries weren’t really about fitting as much as possible into a day. They were about showing us a version of a place that felt personal, shaped by favorite stops, old memories, local quirks, and the little things you only notice only after knowing somewhere for a long time.
By Vocal Curation Team5 days ago in Resources
The Most Overrated Challenge Winners
The Most Overrated challenge wasn't really about tearing down popular things. A lot of the best critiques came from writers who understood the appeal, sometimes even loved the work, but had one particular thing they couldn’t get past. That made for arguments that felt less like hot takes and more like conversations with something the writer had actually spent time thinking about. They gave credit where it was due, then got specific about characters, choices, or ideas that kept the hype from matching their experience.
By Vocal Curation Team13 days ago in Resources
