Writing East Midlands invites short stories of up to 2,000 words per entry and poetry of up to 60 lines in any genre, on any subject for this year's Aurora Prize. Open to UK writers aged 18 and above.
Prizes for the first-place winner include £500 in cash, feedback from a leading literary agent or editor on a piece of work of their choice, a year’s free membership to the Society of Authors, an SoA advisory session and free tickets to a masterclass with one of this year’s judges!
Our second-place winner will receive £150 in cash; third-place will be awarded a free ticket to The Writers’ Conference 2027; and the regional winner (from the East Midlands) will be offered £100 in cash. For the first time ever, we’ll also be offering our shortlisted entrants a 20% discount code for Society of Authors membership, courtesy of the SoA.
Winners will be announced in each category (poetry/prose). A longlist (of 25 in each category) and a shortlist (of 10 in each category) will be published online on the Writing East Midlands website.
Our 2025 judges are T.S. Eliot Prize winner Joelle Taylor, judging our poetry entries, and 2020 Caine Prize winner and former Vice Chair of the Royal Society of Literature Irenosen Okojie, judging for prose.
Entry fee: £9 per first entry and £7 per additional entry, with a maximum of 6 entries to be submitted per writer.
Find out more here
Deadline: 6th August 2025 at 11.59 pm