The Aurora Prize for Writing 2026 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 an international competition open to writers aged 18 and above.

Prizes

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, free tickets to a masterclass with one of this year’s judges and a WEM gift voucher to the value of a ticket to The Writers' Conference 2027.*

Our second-place winner will receive £150 in cash; third-place will be awarded a WEM gift voucher to the value of a 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/short fiction). 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.

New to our 2027 competition: Shortlisted writers will receive 20% off one Writers' Conference 2027 ticket each. Ticket sales to go live in December.

Judges

We’re thrilled to reveal that our judges for the 2026 creative writing competition are none other than BAFTA award-winning screenwriter and Stonewall Book Award-winning author Dean Atta, and 2021 Desmond Elliot Prize winner and author of The Manningtree Witches A K Blakemore. You can find out more about judges on the Aurora Prize webpage here.

Entries to the Aurora Prize for Writing 2026 are £9 per first entry and £7 per additional entry, with a maximum of 6 entries to be submitted per writer.

Deadline

The Aurora Prize is now open for entries until 13th January 2027 at 11.59 pm.

Award Ceremony

Winners of this year's Aurora Prize for Writing will be announced at our in-person award ceremony on the evening of The Writers' Conference 2027, which is to be held at Nottingham Trent University on 10th April 2027 (more details TBC). While the workshops, talks and panels that are part of the main conference programme will be ticketed, the Aurora Prize ceremony will be free for everyone to join.

WEM Gift Voucher

*You can use your WEM gift voucher on any Writing East Midlands events taking place throughout the 2027 calendar year to the value of one Writers' Conference 2027 ticket. You can also use your WEM gift voucher to refund the price of your Writers' Conference 2027 ticket if you are announced as a first-place or third-place Aurora Prize winner on the evening of the award ceremony and have already purchased a Writers' Conference 2027 ticket.

If you win a first- or third-place prize and choose to use your WEM gift voucher to refund your Writers' Conference ticket, you cannot also use your 20% discount on an additional ticket as a shortlisted writer.

Additional Information

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

We do not accept AI-written/AI-generated writing. Please read our AI Usage Guidance for more information on why this is and what levels of AI usage we deem acceptable.

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/