The 30th annual Parsec Short Story Contest opens on January 1st and closes on March 31st.
There is never a fee to enter the Parsec Short Story contest thanks to the donations from our members and supporters . . . people like you! Thank you for your support!
If you would like to help support the annual contest, please make a donation here.
Your donation ensures the continuation of this contest.
VIEW PREVIOUS WINNERS HERE
The 2026 Contest theme is “Metamorphosis“
Send us your stories of complete transformations, inside and out. Of inevitable moments of sudden, irrevocable change. Of destruction that leads to unexpected growth.
Please note: We do not accept stories written by AI! We trust you to honor this request. Any submissions known to be created using AI will be automatically disqualified. (Use of spell check and voice-to-text dictation tools are unobjectionable.)
Dates and Deadlines: Contest opens on January 1st and closes on March 31st at 11:59:59pm EST.
Winners will be notified in July. All winners will be announced during the Confluence Conference.
Word count for all entries: No minimum, no more than 3500 words.
Requirements: Stories will be judged on writing quality and effective use of the contest theme.
Number: A maximum of one (1) submission per person is allowed.
We welcome submissions from young writers for our Youth Story Prize! Teen writers age 19 or younger and currently attending high school may submit to either the main short story contest or to the youth story prize, but not both.
Eligibility: The contest is open to non-professional writers who have not met the eligibility requirements for SFWA Full Membership. Writers meeting the SFWA Associate level of membership are eligible to submit to the contest.
Previous first-place winners and current year contest coordinators, readers and judges are ineligible to enter.
Publication status: Submitted stories must be original, previously unpublished*, and unsold to any other market.
*Please read the FAQ’s for info on “previously unpublished.”
Manuscript submissions should be in modern or classic proper manuscript format; double-spaced, and either Courier or Times New Roman font.
Acceptable MS formats include .doc, .docx, and .rtf.
Submitting to the contest implies consent for printing in the Confluence program book. The first place story will be printed in the Confluence program book. All rights revert to the author upon publication.
Coordinators and first readers screen the entries and the ten best submissions are then read by the judges. Decisions of the judges and coordinators are final.
Still have questions? Please see our FAQ’s page before contacting the contest coordinator. A contact form is available on the FAQ’s page.
How to Submit:
Electronic submissions will be accepted through Submittable January 1st – March 31st.
If this is your first time using Submittable, you will need to create a FREE account with them. Instructions for this will appear after you hit the submit link. It’s easy and quick.
Prizes:
First-place receives $200 and publication in the Confluence program book.*
Second-place receives $100
Third-place receives $50
Youth Story Prize receives $50
The Youth Story category is for ages up to 19 years IF you are still enrolled in and attending high school at the time of submission.
Payments to winners will be in August.
Coordinator:
Jamie Lackey lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and their cats. She has had over 200 short stories published in places like Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Apex Magazine, and Escape Pod. She has a novella and two short story collections available from Air and Nothingness Press, and she’s created seven successful crowdfunding campaigns to self-publish a novel, four novellas, a novelette, and three short story collections. In addition to writing, she spends her time reading, playing tabletop RPGs, baking, mushroom hunting, and hiking. You can find her online at www.jamielackey.com.
Judges:
Sue Burke is a writer and translator. Her novel Semiosis, which imagined a planet where plants are intelligent, was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and the Locus Best First Novel Award. Its sequels are Interference and Usurpation, and her other novels are Immunity Index and Dual Memory. She has also written short stories, poetry, journalism, and essays, and she won the 2016 Alicia Gordon Award for Word Artistry in Translation from the American Translators Association. She’s a wide-horizons Midwesterner currently living in Chicago, Illinois. More information is at https://sueburke.site/
Bram Stoker Award–nominated author Douglas Gwilym has been known to compose a weird-fiction rock opera or two. He co-edits The Midnight Zone (featuring enduring favorites, unforgettable monsters, and strange new talent), reads classics of the proto-Weird on YouTube, and is looking for a home for his collection They Take Our Best & Other Weird Tales. Put his stories in your head at Shoreline of Infinity, Penumbric, LampLight, Lucent Dreaming, Tales from the Moonlit Path, and Tales to Terrify.
Hammond Diehl’s work has appeared in Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, Diabolical Plots, Flametree Press and more. Hamm lives in Los Angeles and writes under the comforting blankie of a pseudonym. Follow Hamm, if you like, via Bluesky at @hammonddiehl.bsky.social.
Thank you to our first readers!
Open submission period: Jan 1st – March 31st annually
Thank you to our 2026 contest sponsors!
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Your donations made this contest possible!