A Short Story Competition in English, and in Any Other Language
Quick answer: A short story competition in English at Writory welcomes English stories from any country, native speaker or not, alongside stories in every other language, all read in their own language and judged blind in one pool. Entry is $8 for 100 to 3,000 words, and every entrant receives a certificate and a score out of 100.
Enter an English story of 100 to 3,000 words for $8 by 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST. Every entrant receives a certificate and a score out of 100 on 30 November 2026, and stories in other languages are read in their own language, in one pool.
English is welcome, and so is everything else
Most searches for an English-language competition come from writers who have been turned away elsewhere: a contest for residents of one country, a magazine that wants a particular kind of English, a prize whose rules quietly assume a native speaker. Writory has none of those filters. An English story from Lagos, Manila, Dublin or Ohio is entered the same way, at /submit-story, for $8, and read blind against the same rubric. There is no separate English category and no residency requirement.
The contest also takes stories in any other language, and reads each in its own language rather than through translation. There is one pool, one set of five criteria and one results list. So an English entrant is not competing in an English category; they are competing with everyone. That cuts both ways. The field is wider, and no one is graded on a curve for writing in a second language.
What this means for a non-native English writer
Language & Craft carries 20 of the 100 points and asks for deliberate, controlled prose, not for a particular accent on the page. A plain sentence can score well. What loses marks is not a non-native idiom but carelessness: agreement errors in the first paragraph, dialogue nobody would say, a point of view that slips without purpose. Those are revision problems, and a careful second-language writer often makes fewer of them than a fluent one writing fast.
The other 80 points do not ask about English at all. Storytelling & Structure (25), Character & Emotional Impact (25), Originality & Voice (20) and Impact & Resonance (10) are about what happens, who it happens to and what it leaves behind. Judging is blind, so no judge knows where a writer is from or what their first language is. The scorecard every entrant receives on 30 November 2026 shows the five marks separately, so a writer can see whether English cost them anything, or whether structure did.
One practical note: if your story includes words from another language, leave them in. Originality & Voice rewards the angle only you could write, and the texture of a bilingual household or a particular city is often that angle. English with a specific place in it reads as voice. English scrubbed to sound like nowhere reads as nobody. Judges reading blind cannot tell a deliberate choice from an accident unless the prose makes it clear, so keep such words consistent from first use to last.
Dates, fees and what you receive
Entries close on 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST, with results and certificates on 30 November 2026. IST is Indian Standard Time, five and a half hours ahead of UTC; for a writer in the United Kingdom that is early evening, for the US east coast early afternoon, for Manila the early hours of the 26th. Fees are $8 for one story, $14 for two, $25 for five. Winners take $100 and free entry to the next round, and their names appear on a dated results page that anyone can check.
Every entrant receives a digital certificate carrying their name and the contest month, and a score out of 100 split across the five dimensions. Each story entered earns its own certificate and score. Writers keep all rights, so a story entered here can be sent to an English-language magazine the same week. The free Story Craft course at /academy/story-craft covers prose, dialogue and point of view, which is the module most second-language writers ask for first.
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
Do I have to be a native English speaker to enter in English?
No. English stories are accepted from writers in any country, and judging is blind, so no judge knows a writer's first language or where they live. Language & Craft, 20 points, rewards control and precision rather than a native idiom, and the other 80 points do not concern English at all.
Is British or American spelling preferred?
Neither. Use whichever you write in, and keep it consistent across the story. Judges mark Language & Craft on deliberateness and clarity, and a story that switches between 'colour' and 'color' reads as careless, while one that holds either throughout reads as controlled. Indian, Nigerian, Filipino and Australian English are equally welcome.
Will my English story be judged separately from stories in other languages?
No. There is one pool. Every story is read in its own language and scored on the same five dimensions, and the results list ranks all of them together. An English writer competes with everyone, which means a wider field and a certificate whose score means the same thing in every language.
Can I mix English with another language in one story?
Yes, and often you should. Dialogue in a family's home language, place names, a word that has no English equivalent: these are voice, and Originality & Voice carries 20 points. Make sure the story still works for a reader who does not know the second language, through context rather than footnotes.
Does the contest accept writers from every country?
Yes. There is no residency or nationality rule. The requirements are an original story of 100 to 3,000 words, an entrant aged 13 or over, and online entry at /submit-story, paid in dollars for international writers. Entries close on 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST, and every entrant receives a certificate and score.
Can I get feedback on my English specifically?
The scorecard every entrant receives separates Language & Craft from the other four marks, so you can see at once whether prose or structure cost you more. For sentence-level reasons, optional written feedback quotes your own lines and explains what the strong ones do that the weak ones do not.
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.