Too many options when it comes to submitting your work? Here’s our top five comps and subs for January 2026.
Name: Blanket Gravity Magazine
Deadline: 10th January 2026
Wordcount: up to 5,000 words
Genre: Short fiction and nonfiction
Description: Blanket Gravity Magazine is a journal for fiction, creative nonfiction, and visual art. As mentioned on their website, they are interested in moments of emotional intensity, and how their effects ring out on the bigger picture of our identities. They are looking for writing and art that explore mental health or emotional life. By “mental health,” they mean art that tries to make sense of emotional struggle or uncertainty, as well as our thoughts about who we are, what other people mean to us, and the nature of the world. For nonfiction, they hope to receive personal essays by people with lived experience of mental illness or emotional struggle. They pay $40 per accepted piece.
Entry fee: Free
Website: https://www.blanketgravitymag.com/
Name: Women’s Prize – Discoveries 2026
Deadline: 12th January 2026 (11.59pm UK time)
Wordcount: up to 10,000 words
Genre: Novel
Description: Discoveries 2026 invites unpublished and unagented women writers in the UK or Ireland to submit the opening of a novel. Entrants only need to have written the first 10,000 words of a novel for adults, and share a brief synopsis of how the story will continue. The winner of this year’s Discoveries will receive an offer of representation from Curtis Brown and £5,000; one promising writer, named the ‘Discoveries Scholar,’ will win a free scholarship to attend a three-month Writing Your Novel course with Curtis Brown Creative; the shortlist of six authors will each be offered a one-to-one session with a Curtis Brown agent plus a free place on a six-week Curtis Brown Creative course of their choice.
Entry fee: Free
Website: www.womensprize.com/discoveries-2026-open-for-entries/
Name: Parracombe Prize 2026
Deadline: 31st January 2026
Wordcount: up to 2,026 words
Genre: Short Story
Description: The Parracombe Prize, now in its 6th year, sprung from a group of people within the Parracombe Community whose love of literature and writing has evolved into this short story competition. There is no theme or special subjects. The winner receives £150, second place will receive £50, and there are two prizes of £25. Anyone living in the postcodes EX31 to EX39 is eligible for the second prize. Thirty-five of their favourite stories will appear in an anthology which will be launched at Parracombe’s annual arts and literary festival in May.
Entry fee: £5 per entry
Website: prize.parracombe.org.uk
Name: Magma Poetry Competition
Deadline: 31st January 2026
Wordcount: The Judge’s Prize: Poems between 11-50 lines; The Editor’s Prize: up to 10 lines
Genre: Poetry
Description: There are two categories in the Magma Poetry Competition. There’s The Judge’s Prize, which this year will be judged by Rishi Dastidar. Secondly, there’s The Editors’ Prize which is judged by a panel of Magma Editors. First prize for the Judge’s and Editors’ Prize is £1000, second prize £300 and third prize £150. The three prize-winning poems from each category will be published in Magma and there will also be five special mentions for each of the prize categories. All winning and commended will be published on the Magma website.
Entry fee: £5 for first poem; £4 for second; £3.50 for third and each subsequent poem.
Website: https://magmapoetry.com/competition/
Name: F(r)iction Magazine
Deadline: Submissions currently open
Wordcount: Short Fiction: 1,001-7,500 words; Creative Nonfiction: up to 6,500 words; Flash Fiction: 1,000 words or less; Poetry: three pages or less per poem, up to five poems per submission.
Genre: Fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry
Description: F(r)iction magazine is a literary anthology that accepts unpublished short fiction, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry. They embrace, the new, the weird, and the unconventional. On their website they say: “We believe that great publishing should push the boundaries of literary convention and advocate for new, emerging, and marginalized voices.”
Entry fee: $2.50 per submission
Website: https://frictionlit.org/
