Get Posted/Get Published: February Frivolity 2025

Spring Flower in February, via Canva.com

Final weeks of this month might feel flustered as we remember all that we still need to do before February turns to March. In this vein, apologies for the writing deadlines in this month’s blog appearing to be last minute. There are some good ones though, so don’t click away yet.

From this month onwards, Literary Mama Blog Editors will be giving you upcoming writing opportunities and calls to get posted and published for the month ahead. When there are opportunities for submitting to Literary Mama, we will ensure you are the first to know.

Fighting against the words of Douglas Adams, author of The HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “I love deadlines. Especially the whooshing sound they make as they pass by,” we can make our flurries of productivity work in our favor this and next month.

Opportunities for submitting your writing abound at this time of year, and here are a few of our Literary Mama selected options:

You might just make the submission deadline of February 28th for this year’s WFWA STAR Award Contest. The General Category has already been filled but the Debut Category is still open. Entry Closes: February 28, 2025, midnight, EST. Entry fee: $50 WFWA Members
and $65 non-WFWA Members.

Black writers are eligible for the Ann Petry Award that seeks a work of previously unpublished prose, either a novel or a collection of short stories or novellas, with a 25,000-word minimum (approximately 150 pages, double-spaced, Times New Roman 12pt font) by a Black writer. Entries will be accepted via Submittable only. Prize: $3,000 Deadline: March 31, 2025.

For nonfiction writers, consider the Hazel Rowley Prize, which is open to first-time biographers writing in English. Prize: $5,000 + an agent’s reading of the manuscript + a year’s membership in BIO. Entry fee: $25 and the Deadline: March 1, 2025.

If you have your first chapter in place ready for submission somewhere, why not submit to the Chapter One Prize which is for all genres: Young Adult, Crime, Fantasy, Horror, Humor, Mystery, Romance, Science Fiction, and Thriller. An international writing contest for unpublished novelists, it aims to find the best opening chapter of a novel-in-progress written in English. Submissions close on March 3, 2025. Top Prize: $1,000 and the Entry fee: $20 with deadline of March 3rd 2025.

For those with love still on your mind this February, you may be interested in submitting to Indignor House Publishing. The Indignor Play House Annual Short Story Competition. Open for submissions themed ‘The Evolution of Love’. Each entry will be edited, judged based on various writing criteria, and selected works will be published in an anthology. Top Prize: $500. Additional prizes: 2nd: $250 | 3rd: $150. Entry fee: $25. Deadline: March 01, 2025.

Be frivolous and fruitful these final weeks of February.