The Chilling Pen Award/ How to Apply (Prize: $900 + more)

The Chilling Pen Award is a short story competition designed to unearth the hidden gems of unpublished authors and ignite their creative spark.

The Chilling Pen Award invites storytellers from all walks of life to showcase their unique voices and enthralling tales. This is your chance to captivate readers, gain recognition, and share your passion for the written word.

Unleash your imagination and let your chilling stories come to life. The review panel will select winners based on a defined set of criteria, considering each of the following:

QUALITY : Clarity, grammar, sentence structure, and overall readability.

ORIGINALITY: Uniqueness and creativity of the plot, setting, and characters.

FEAR FACTOR: The ability to evoke fear, dread, or unease in the reader.

OVERALL IMPACT: The lasting impression the story leaves on the reader.

THE THEME is BETRAYAL: Unveil the complexities of betrayal in this years Chilling Pen award.

Writers from around the globe are invited to  submit their original, unpublished works of fiction or non-fiction that explore the theme of betrayal in all its forms – be it personal, political, or societal.

 

Eligibility for the Chilling Pen Award

• The contest is free to enter
• Anyone from anywhere is free to enter.
• Entrants must be of legal age.

 

Submission Guidelines

• Entries must be written in English.
• The word could must be up to 1,000 words.
• The organizers want the story to be as scary as possible. It must be horror.
• All genres and styles are welcome, including but not limited to, short stories, essays, and poetry.
• Submissions must be previously unpublished and not under consideration elsewhere.
• Each participant may submit one entry.
• Submissions must not use AI. Any entries that are found to be using AI will be automatically disqualified and the author banned from all future competitions.
• The closing deadline for submissions is Midnight 1st October 2023. Submissions may be made any time before then.
• Entries must be submitted via the submission form with a link to a file or document on Google Drive.
• Include your name, email address, and phone number in your submission.
• Authors retain all rights to their work, but provide irrevocable licence to us for publishing of the finished work on the website and social media.
• Your manuscript as PDF attachement. Please include your email at the top of the document
• Your name, email and phone number
• Confirm that the submitted work is previously unpublished

 

Prize

• Winners will be announced on the 31st October 2023
• 1ST PLACE | $500
• 2ND PLACE | $300
• 3RD PLACE | $100
• First, second and third place entries will be published on the website and social media.
• Winners will be contacted before the announcement.