Too many options when it comes to submitting your work? Here’s our top five comps and subs for April 2026.
Name: Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest
Deadline: 1st April 2026
Wordcount: maximum of 250 lines
Genre: Poetry
Description: This competition is now in its 25th year and is seeking the best humour poems. Judges for this year’s competition are Jendi Reiter and Lauren Singer Ledoux. Winner will receive $2,000, second prize $500, and third prize $250, then honourable mentions will receive $100. The top thirteen entries will be published online.
Entry fee: free
Website: https://winningwriters.com/our-contests/wergle-flomp-humor-poetry-contest-free
Name: The Gravity of the Thing
Deadline: Submission Window: March-April
Wordcount: short stories: up to 3,000 words; flash fiction: under 500 words; poetry (including prose poems); micro fiction: under 50 words
Genre: short story; flash fiction; poetry; column pieces
Description: The Gravity of the Thing is an independent online magazine dedicated to the publication of defamiliarized writing. Their editors are always excited to discover new ways writers are experimenting with language. On their website this is what they say about defamiliarized writing: “Defamiliarization is an artistic or literary technique that presents the common in an unfamiliar way; that which has been taken for granted is re-envisioned, made strange, to achieve new effects and create unique reading experiences.” They do not charge for submissions but are unable to pay contributors at this time.
Entry fee: free
Website: https://thegravityofthething.com/
Name: Tears in the Fence
Deadline: Currently open for submissions for their summer edition
Wordcount: Poetry: any length; long fiction: up to 3,500 words; flash fiction: up to 100 words
Genre: Poetry (incl prose poetry); fiction; flash fiction; creative non-fiction; interviews; translations; reviews and essays
Description: Tears in the Fence is an independent, international literary magazine and, as stated on their website, they are looking for the unusual, perceptive, risk-taking as well as imagistic, lived and visionary. Some linkage between language use and more than one event in any line would grab the editor’s attention. Contributors receive a copy of the issue they appear in.
Entry fee: Free
Website: https://tearsinthefence.com/
Name: Urban Pigs Press
Deadline: 1st May 2026
Wordcount: 500-2,000 words
Genre: Short Fiction
Description: Urban Pigs Press are now open for submissions for their next charity anthology. All profits from this collection will go the Suffolk-based foodbank charity, Find – Families in Need. For this anthology titled – The Still Hungry anthology, they are looking for short fiction inspired by the prompt ‘Hunger’. They are open to a wide range of genres but are particularly interested in crime, horror and gritty realism. Contributors will receive a PDF and a digital copy of the anthology, but to maximise the donation to their chosen charity the publisher is not offering payment.
Entry fee: Free
Website: https://urbanpigspress.co.uk/
Name: The Creative Future Writers’ Award
Deadline: 5th May 2026
Wordcount: short fiction and creative non-fiction: up to 2,000 words; poetry: up to 50 lines
Genre: Short fiction; creative non-fiction; poetry
Description: The Creative Future Writers’ Award is an annual development programme aimed at writers from underrepresented backgrounds. The theme for this year’s award is ‘material’. Fifteen winners will be chosen by a panel of authors and industry experts. There are cash prizes of £75, £50, and £25, plus writing development prizes from prominent literary agencies, and winning entries will be published in anthology alongside guest writers.
Entry fee: Free
Website: https://www.creativefuture.org.uk/for-writers/creative-future-writers-award/