A Short Story Competition Open to Writers in Spain Every Month, in English, Spanish or Catalan
Quick answer: Short story competition entries from Spain are welcome at Writory every month, in English or Spanish. Entry is $8 for one story of 100 to 3,000 words in any genre. Judging is blind against a published rubric, every entrant receives a certificate and a score out of 100 on 30 November 2026, and writers keep all rights.
Entry is $8 for one story of 100 to 3,000 words in English, Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Basque or any other language. The deadline is 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST, evening in Madrid, and every entrant receives a certificate and a five-part score out of 100 on 30 November 2026.
The cuento in Spain, and where a monthly contest fits
Spain's most famous prizes go to novels. The Premio Planeta, awarded in Barcelona each October since 1952, is the richest literary prize in the language, and the Premio Nadal, announced every 6 January since Carmen Laforet won the first one in 1944, is the oldest. But the cuento has its own house: Páginas de Espuma in Madrid publishes almost nothing else and runs the Premio Ribera del Duero for story collections, and Cristina Fernández Cubas won the Premio Nacional de Narrativa in 2016 for La habitación de Nona, a book of stories.
Beyond Castilian, Bernardo Atxaga's Obabakoak won the Premio Nacional in 1989 in Basque, Manuel Rivas's stories did the same in 1996 in Galician, and Irene Solà took the EU Prize for Literature in 2020 in Catalan. Those prizes come once a year and speak to the winners. Writory's contest closes every month, reads every story blind against a published rubric, and sends every entrant a certificate and a score out of 100 on 30 November 2026, in whichever of Spain's languages, or in English, the story was written.
Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Basque, English: the terms
Every story is read in the language it was written in and judged in one pool against the same five-part rubric. Stories run from 100 to 3,000 words, in any genre, entered online at /submit-story by anyone aged 13 or over. Your name is removed before the panel reads. The rubric is public: Storytelling & Structure 25, Character & Emotional Impact 25, Language & Craft 20, Originality & Voice 20, Impact & Resonance 10.
The top prize each round is $100, the winner enters the next round free, and free entry is otherwise earned, never open. You keep all rights, and nothing is published without your permission, so a story entered here can still go to a Spanish revista, a concurso de cuentos or a publisher afterwards. 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.
The deadline in Madrid time, and one hour earlier in the Canaries
The round closes at 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST. Indian Standard Time is five and a half hours ahead of Greenwich; mainland Spain and the Balearics are on Central European Time, one hour ahead, from late October to late March. So the 25 November deadline is 7:29 PM in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Seville and Bilbao. During summer time the same deadline is 8:29 PM. The Canary Islands run an hour behind the mainland, so in Las Palmas and Tenerife it is 6:29 PM in winter and 7:29 PM in summer.
Half past seven is early by Spanish evening standards, which is exactly the trap. A story filed at midnight Madrid time on the 25th has missed the round by four and a half hours and rolls into the next one. Upload before dinner, and check that the entry shows in your account before you go out. Every entrant hears back on 30 November 2026, winners and non-winners alike, with the full five-part score.
Paying in US dollars from Spain, and how the prize is paid
Writory is based in India and charges entrants outside India in US dollars: $8 for one story, $14 for two, $25 for five. Pay by card or PayPal at /submit-story. Bizum does not reach a foreign merchant, so use a Visa or Mastercard debit or credit card, or PayPal; your bank converts at the day's rate, roughly €7 for a single entry at the time of writing. We do not print a euro price because the rate would make it wrong within weeks.
The $100 prize is paid by PayPal, which works with Spanish bank accounts and pays out in euro. Written feedback on a story is an optional extra at entry, priced separately; the certificate and score come with every entry. The Story Craft course at /academy/story-craft is free, in English, and takes an evening. Its lessons are short and built around the same five rubric parts the judges score.
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 writers living in Spain enter?
Yes, whatever your citizenship, from the mainland, the Balearics or the Canaries, on the same terms as every other entrant. There is no Spanish category and no quota. Judging is blind, so the panel sees no name, city or nationality, and every story is read in its own language in one pool.
What does entry cost in euro?
Entry is charged in US dollars: $8 for one story, $14 for two, $25 for five. Your card or PayPal account converts at the day's rate, roughly €7 for a single entry at the time of writing. Winning a round makes the next entry free, and entering three rounds in a row earns a free entry.
What does every entrant receive?
A certificate in your name and a score out of 100 across the five rubric parts, delivered on 30 November 2026, the same day the winners are announced. You are not told your rank or the size of the field; the score describes how your own story was read against the rubric.
What time is the deadline in Spain?
25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST is 7:29 PM in Madrid and Barcelona during Central European Time, which covers the late-November deadline, and 8:29 PM during summer time. In the Canary Islands it is one hour earlier. IST means Indian Standard Time. Results and certificates follow on 30 November 2026.
Can I write in Spanish, Catalan, Galician or Basque?
Yes, in any of them. Each story is read in the language it was written in, not translated, and scored on the same five-part rubric as every English entry in the same pool. Language & Craft is marked on precision and rhythm within the language you chose. Latin American Spanish is read as correct.
Can I pay with Bizum?
No. Bizum only works between Spanish banks and Spanish merchants. Pay with a Visa or Mastercard debit or credit card, or through PayPal, at /submit-story. The charge is in US dollars and your bank converts it to euro at the day's rate.
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.