Welcome to the Great Story Competition 1

(ended)

Please read our submission guidelines thoroughly before you submit your stories to us. Submissions that don't conform to these guidelines are unlikely to be read.

Closing Date: 31 May 2023.

Theme: Our judges have chosen the theme of 'location' and given you four options to choose from:

1. Ancient Egypt

2. Malaya in the 15th Century

3. Transylvania in the 1800s

4. Jamaica in the 15th Century

What this means is that we will accept any genre (except the ones listed under the Submission Guidelines below) as long as the story is set in any one of the locations mentioned above.  

Submission Guidelines

• Previously unpublished: All stories must be unpublished (online and offline) and in English (no translations). We cannot accept stories that have been published on personal blogs, magazines or in any other form.
• Genre: We accept fiction, creative non-fiction and fictional memoirs. Regrettably, we do not publish flash fiction, novellas or novels. We are not the right place for YA or children’s literature. We will immediately reject stories that are overtly transgressive, gratuitously violent and/or sexual, religiously intolerant, and anything homophobic or racist.
• All writers: The competition is open to writers above the age of eighteen (18) and from anywhere in the world.
• Fees: The fee for this competition is £5.00 per story. There are no refunds on entry fees for any reason. So please make sure of your stories are perfect before you submit them to us. The fees we collect go towards funding the costs of running this competition.  
• Free Places: We are making a number of free places available to under-represented or disadvantaged authors. If you wouldn’t be able to compete without a free entry, please email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the words FREE ENTRY REQUEST in the subject line. This is based on mutual trust and respect and limited to one story per writer. It will not make any difference to how your story is read, judged or promoted.
• Payment Process (IMPORTANT): Once you click the 'Submit & Proceed to Payment' button below, we will receive your stories, BUT your submission isn't complete. You will be brought back to this page to make payment via PayPal. Scroll down the page and you'll see the PayPal button. Your submission will only be complete after we receive notification of successful payment of the necessary fees. 
• Multiple submissions: You may submit up to 3 stories per person, but each submission must be accompanied by a separate submission fee.
• Simultaneous submissions: You may send your work to other places (i.e. we are fine with simultaneous submissions). Please notify us promptly if your piece is accepted elsewhere (Congratulations!) Please note that if you decide to withdraw your work, entry fees are non-refundable
• Word Count: Between 1,500 and 5,000 words. Please include a content warning if it’s necessary.
• Formatting: Please use Times New Roman font (12 point), double space your text and keep a 1-inch margin on all sides. Do not include your name or any identifying information in the story itself as the stories are read blind by our judges. 
• Bios: Please include a third person author’s bio of no more than 100 words with links to any social media or personal websites.
• Twitter and Email: Our Twitter handle is @httags (https://twitter.com/httags). Follow us, say hello and we'll happily follow you back. Our Email address is: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 
• Decision: The judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entertained.

Prizes:

• First: £100 and inclusion in a print anthology (the publication process is scheduled to begin in the last quarter of 2023). You must have a PayPal account to receive payment and the amount deposited into your account will be excluding the fees that PayPal charges for each transaction.
• Second: £50 and inclusion in a print anthology (the publication process is scheduled to begin in the last quarter of 2023). You must have a PayPal account to receive payment and the amount deposited into your account will be excluding the fees that PayPal charges for each transaction.
• Third: £25 and inclusion in a print anthology (the publication process is scheduled to begin in the last quarter of 2023). You must have a PayPal account to receive payment and the amount deposited into your account will be excluding the fees that PayPal charges for each transaction.
• Honourable Mentions: (up to 5) £20 each and inclusion in a print anthology (the publication process is scheduled to begin in the last quarter of 2023). You must have a PayPal account to receive payment and the amount deposited into your account will be excluding the fees that PayPal charges for each transaction.

Terms and Conditions

• You acknowledge that you are the author of the story / stories.
• You are granting us non-exclusive rights to publish your story on howtotellagreatstory.com. We will also be granted non-exclusive archival rights to display the written work for as long as our site exists.
• We ask for First Electronic Publication Rights and credits when your work is republished.
• We will, however, be able to retract work via announcement if we are legally required to. Additionally, retraction on our part in case we discover plagiarised content or someone, whether the original creator or someone else, brings it to our notice.
• When we plan our anthology, we will first request permission to do so from the winning authors.
• Copyright remains with you, the author.
• We reserve the right to not award any of/all of the places where circumstances are beyond our control, or if the panel’s overall verdict is that the quality of entries is not up to the required standard. 
• If you are unsuccessful, we'd love you to submit again during the next submission window. 

Your Submission:

Judges

Hardeep Singh has been creating multi-media content for websites, corporate and marketing videos since 2005. He has a keen interest in writing, reading and writes scripts for commercials, corporate videos and short movies. With his law degree and having previously worked in handling the Group Operations of a royalty-based family for nearly 10 years, have contributed to his ability to visualise structural ideas and concepts. He is an avid follower of works by Wilbur Smith, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. He also loves works that question our perception of things, which is why he enjoys movies by Christopher Nolan. His biggest inspiration is his twelve-year-old son, who looks at things in a very creative and "out-of-the-box" way.

Mbeke Waseme’s latest publication is How to Live, Work and thrive abroad (2022). Her two poetry books are Exploring all of me (2019), And then it was 2020 (2020).  She has chapters in This is Us: Black, British, and Female (2019), Trusted Black Girl, challenging perceptions and maximizing the potential of black women in the UK workplace, edited Roianne Nedd (2018). Her short stories and poems are in Fifth Estate, Dovetails, Pure Slush, Home, The Writers Café. Flexible publishers, and her essays and academic articles have been published in Pambazuka, 72M and Anastamos. In 2020, she released the first recordings of my poems We Women who travel and Hold me with Xolo Spkg and both are on The Unravelling Soul – Part 1 by Xolo Spkg (2021).

Swagata Sinha Roy, an Assistant Professor with Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, has been an educator almost all of her adult life and that means for close to 40 years. She has found a calling in education related activities. Her interests include literatures of the diaspora, all forms of poetry and the conversion of written narratives into celluloid. And early childhood education. With a Bachelor’s degree in English literature, Masters in English, M.Phil in African literature and a doctorate in Malaysian literature, she encourages the delving into narratives for the readers to understand life in various perspectives. Having taught in educational institutes in Brunei and Malaysia, she has vast experience of what works best for students who are made to study English language courses. Swagata enjoys journaling, reading both fiction and non-fiction as well as writing poems, especially haikus. She co-organises various book and poetry clubs that have many active members. She labels herself as an observer of life and an armchair traveler who oftentimes disappears into books.

Captivate Your Audience With The Art Of Presentation Storytelling

Thank you for your payment. Your submission is now complete. A receipt for the fees you've paid has been emailed to you. Log into your PayPal account to view transaction details.

We look forward to reading your story/stories.

The shortlist should be announced within two weeks or so after the competition closes.

Winners and Honourable Mentions should be announced a month or so after the competition closes. 

As we are a very small team, we will focus on contacting those writers whose stories have been shortlisted. Please keep an eye on our Twitter page (@httags - https://twitter.com/httags ) for all announcements. If you've not been contacted, please take it that your story was not shortlisted this time round. We regret that we are unable, at this time, to provide feedback for your stories.

Thank you.

Kind regards,

The readers & editors of Great Story Competition