The Aurora Prize for Writing 2025 is now open for entries! 

This year, Writing East Midlands is accepting short stories of up to 2,000 words per entry and poetry of up to 60 lines per entry; in any genre, on any subject! Aurora is a national competition open to 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. 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.

We’re thrilled to reveal that our judges for the 2025 creative writing competition are none other than T.S. Eliot Prize winner Joelle Taylor, judging our poetry entries, and multi-award-winning author Irenosen Okojie, judging for prose. You can find out more about judges on the Aurora Prize webpage here.

Entries to the Aurora Prize for Writing 2025 are £9 per first entry and £7 per additional entry, with a maximum of 6 entries to be submitted per writer.

The Aurora Prize is now open for entries until 6th August 2025 at 11.59 pm.

We are incredibly grateful to our partners, the Society of Authors, for their generous offer to our winners and for making the Aurora Prize a true celebration of writers and writing!

See Aurora Prize for Writing - Writing East Midlands for full Terms and Conditions

Whether you're looking for work opportunities as a Writer in Residence for one of our community projects, volunteering or work experience, or a position facilitating one of our young writers' groups, fill out this form and put yourself on our radar.

We'd love to hear about your areas of interest. Once you've filled out the form, and submitted your CV and cover letter, we'll be in touch when opportunities become available.

The Open Call will remain open throughout the year to applications for our work with adults. When work becomes available we think will be of relevance to you, we will be in touch to let you know and invite you to apply.

For more information on what we do, visit our website:

https://writingeastmidlands.co.uk/