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.
More challenges
coming soon!
Challenge resources
Whispering Woods Challenge Winners
Congratulations to Morgan Christy Rickards for their winning Whispering Woods story, Guardian at the Gate. Morgan has been a Vocal creator since February 2021, and this is their first time placing in Challenge — well done, starting with a win! Guardian at the Gate draws evocatively from Welsh tales of the Cantre'r Gwaelod, a lost sunken kingdom between the forest and the sea. Heledd’s dangerous adventure pulls her towards the water but her spirit is anchored in the woods: Morgan’s writing is atmospheric and exciting.
Vocal Curation TeamPublished 16 days ago in ResourcesSnacktime Sonata Challenge Winners
Well, your Snacktime Sonatas made us hungry, and that’s about the highest compliment we have. Food — taste, smell, sensation — is a powerful conduit to the past, to memories pleasurable and painful and sometimes bittersweet, a mixture of comfort and challenge. Congratulations to Penny Fuller for Sativa — it’s a first win for Penny — a hymn to the “secret, unbounded/freedoms” of fresh peas in the pod. The narrative voice of the poem doesn’t really want to be outside, but finds joy in the green things of the earth; this is a lovely work of resilience.
Vocal TeamPublished 22 days ago in Resources'The Dragon Beside Me' Challenge Winners.
"The Dragon Beside Me" has ignited the spirits of writers across the Vocal community and PViM have had the exciting opportunity to work beside our friends at Vocal on discerning the winners. No easy feat let us tell you. From initial shortlist to final deliberations, the standard was as high as our spirits.
Proud ViM ProductionsPublished about a month ago in Resources