Gujarati Short Story Competition: ગુજરાતી ટૂંકી વાર્તા સ્પર્ધા
Quick answer: Gujarati short story competition entries are open at Writory from September 2026: an original વાર્તા of 100 to 3,000 words in Gujarati script, entered online for ₹199. Every story is read in Gujarati and judged blind against a published five-part rubric; the top prize is ₹5,000, and every entrant receives a certificate and a score out of 100.
Write the વાર્તા in Gujarati and enter it online. Every story is read in Gujarati against the published rubric, the fee is paid in rupees, entries close on 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST, and every entrant receives a certificate and a score out of 100.
A વાર્તા read in Gujarati, on its own terms
The Gujarati ટૂંકી વાર્તા has a hundred-year record to stand on. Dhumketu's Post Office, from his 1926 collection Tankha, is still the story a Gujarati reader names first; Jhaverchand Meghani carried the folk voice of Saurashtra into print; Pannalal Patel took the Jnanpith in 1985; Suresh Joshi and Chandrakant Bakshi pulled the form toward the modern city. A contest that asks a Gujarati writer to submit in English discards all of it. Here the story stays in Gujarati, is read in Gujarati by readers who know the language's registers, and is scored on the same published rubric as every other entry.
Five parts, weights published: Storytelling & Structure 25, Character & Emotional Impact 25, Language & Craft 20, Originality & Voice 20, Impact & Resonance 10. Under Language & Craft, Gujarati prose is judged as Gujarati prose, so the cadence of Kathiawadi speech, Surti slang or the Amdavadi habit of folding English into a sentence is weighed as a choice, not corrected as an error. Judging is blind; names, cities and earlier entries are removed before reading. There is no Gujarati category and no Gujarati prize: every story, in every language, sits in one pool and one scored list.
The deadline keeps Ahmedabad time, and the diaspora's sums are short
Entries close on 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST. Indian Standard Time is the clock in Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara and Rajkot, so a writer in Gujarat has nothing to convert; 11:59 at night means 11:59 at night. Results and certificates follow on 30 November 2026, on a dated page anyone can open and check against a certificate. The first contest runs from 1 September to 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST, with results and certificates on 30 November 2026. From December the contest is monthly: entries close on the 25th, results on the 30th, and the next round opens the moment they land.
Gujarati is written in Leicester, Edison, Toronto and Nairobi as much as in Gujarat. On 25 November, 11:59 PM IST is 6:29 PM in London and Leicester, 1:29 PM in New Jersey and Toronto, 10:29 AM in California, 9:29 PM in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, 10:29 PM in Dubai and 5:29 AM on the 26th in Sydney. Those figures hold through the northern winter; when British and North American clocks move forward in spring, add an hour. Submit a day early as a rule. A story finished after the deadline is not wasted; it becomes the first entry of the round that follows.
Entering and paying from India
The story goes in at /submit-story, typed or pasted in Unicode Gujarati. Text prepared in an older Shree Lipi or Gopika font has to be converted to Unicode first, or the letters arrive broken. Stories run from 100 to 3,000 words in any genre, the writer must be 13 or older, and the work must be original and yours. Entry is ₹199 for one story, ₹349 for two and ₹699 for five, paid in rupees by UPI, card or netbanking; no foreign card is involved.
The top prize is ₹5,000, paid in rupees, and the winner enters the next round free; that earned pass is the only free entry there is. Whatever the placing, every entrant receives a certificate with a verification link and the full five-part score out of 100. Most Gujarati story competitions run by magazines, sahitya sabhas or Diwali ank editors return nothing to the writers they do not print; this one returns a written assessment. You keep every right to the story and may publish it anywhere afterwards.
Before you send the વાર્તા
Writory Academy's Story Craft course at /academy/story-craft is free and in English; its lessons on scene, cause and the ending that pays off the opening apply to a Gujarati story without alteration. Read the rubric once, then read your own story asking the five questions the judges will ask. Optional written feedback on an entry is available, and for a Gujarati story it is written in Gujarati, so the notes are about your sentences, not a translation of them.
The first story results arrive on 30 November 2026, so there is no Gujarati winner to name yet. The sister poetry contest has published winners from India, the United States, Ireland, Kenya and Slovenia on dated pages, and the story contest keeps its record the same way. A વાર્તા that a college annual passed on, or that Chitralekha never answered, will be read here in full and scored in writing.
The published rubric, 100 points
- Storytelling & Structure (25 points): Does every scene cause the next, and does the ending pay off the opening?
- Character & Emotional Impact (25 points): Do we want something with your character, and does the story make us feel it?
- Language & Craft (20 points): Clean, deliberate prose: rhythm, precision, and nothing wasted.
- Originality & Voice (20 points): The angle only you could write, told in a voice that sounds like nobody else.
- Impact & Resonance (10 points): What the story leaves behind after the last line.
How it works
Submit an original story of 100 to 3,000 words by 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST. Every story is judged blind against the rubric above, and results arrive on 30 November 2026: every entrant receives a certificate with their name and a score out of 100. Writers keep all rights. Monthly winners earn free entry to the next round. Enter at https://writoryofficial.com/submit-story.
Common questions
Can I submit the story in Gujarati script?
Yes. Gujarati in Gujarati script is what this page exists for. Type or paste the story in Unicode Gujarati at /submit-story. Romanised Gujarati is accepted too, but a story in its own script reads as it was written, and both are scored on the same published rubric.
What is the fee for Gujarati writers in India?
₹199 for one story, ₹349 for two, ₹699 for five, paid in rupees by UPI, card or netbanking. Winners enter the next round free. There is no separate fee for Gujarati and no discount; every language pays the same and is read on the same terms.
Do I get a certificate if I do not place?
Every entrant does. It carries your name, the contest round and a verification link on writoryofficial.com, and it arrives with your five-part score out of 100 on 30 November 2026. Students file it with college applications; working writers quote the score, because a number out of 100 says more than the word participated.
Is there a separate prize for the best Gujarati story?
No. Every story, in every language, competes in one pool for the same top prize of ₹5,000. A Gujarati વાર્તા is read in Gujarati and marked on the same rubric as an English or Hindi entry, so it competes in the same field rather than in a side category.
Can I write in Kathiawadi, Surti or a Gujarati-English mix?
Yes. Kathiawadi, Surti, Kutch-inflected Gujarati or the everyday Amdavadi mixture of Gujarati and English are all legitimate choices for fiction. Language & Craft asks whether the choice is deliberate and consistently handled, not whether it matches a textbook or a Doordarshan bulletin.
When do results come out?
On 30 November 2026 for the first round, on a dated public page, with certificates and scores delivered the same day. The first contest runs from 1 September to 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST, with results and certificates on 30 November 2026. From December the contest is monthly: entries close on the 25th, results on the 30th, and the next round opens the moment they land.
More story contest pages
About Writory
Writory (writoryofficial.com) is an international monthly poetry contest founded in 2025 by Shivay Mehra. Poets from 31 countries have entered, readers come from over 150 countries, and every submitted poem is judged and scored out of 100 across five criteria: creativity, emotion, structure, language and impact and resonance. Every entrant receives a certificate; winners receive cash prizes and are published by name. Entries close on the 25th of each month and results are announced on the 30th. Writory is listed by Duotrope, Poetry Kit, Christopher Fielden's competition list and Creative Writing NZ, among other organisations. Past results are public at past winners and the leaderboard.