A Short Story Competition Open to Trinidad and Tobago Every Month
Quick answer: Short story competition entries from Trinidad and Tobago are welcome at Writory every month. Entry is $8 for one story of 100 to 3,000 words in English or Creole. 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 standard English, Trinidadian Creole or any other language. The deadline is 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST, 2:29 PM in Port of Spain, and every entrant receives a certificate and a five-part score out of 100 on 30 November 2026.
Trinidad's short story record, and where a monthly contest fits
Trinidad and Tobago has one of the strongest short fiction records in the Commonwealth for a country of 1.4 million. V.S. Naipaul's Miguel Street was set on a Port of Spain street decades before his Nobel Prize in 2001. Ingrid Persaud won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize in 2017 with The Sweet Sop and the BBC National Short Story Award the following year. Kevin Jared Hosein won the Commonwealth prize outright in 2018 with Passage. Earl Lovelace took the first OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature in 2012, and Monique Roffey won the Costa Book of the Year in 2020.
The NGC Bocas Lit Fest has gathered the region in Port of Spain every spring since 2011, and Peepal Tree Press has published much of the Caribbean's best short fiction. But the Commonwealth prize closes once a year, Bocas honours published books, and most competitions tell a non-winner nothing. Writory 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.
Creole, standard English, Hindi, Spanish: the terms
A story in Trinidadian Creole, in your own spelling, is read as Creole and scored on the same five-part rubric as an entry in standard English, in the same pool. Trinidadian Hindi, Spanish, Patois or any other language is read the same way. 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 the Commonwealth prize or a Peepal Tree anthology afterwards.
The deadline in Port of Spain time
The round closes at 25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST. Indian Standard Time is five and a half hours ahead of Greenwich; Trinidad and Tobago keeps Atlantic Standard Time, four hours behind Greenwich, all year, with no daylight saving. The gap is nine and a half hours, so the deadline is 2:29 PM in Port of Spain, San Fernando, Chaguanas and Scarborough, on the afternoon of the 25th, in every month of the year.
That means the story should be in before a late lunch on the 25th. A Trinidadian writer who waits for the evening has missed the round by several hours, and the entry rolls into the next one. Upload in the morning, confirm it shows in your account, and the afternoon is yours. 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.
Paying in US dollars from Trinidad, 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 Visa or Mastercard, or through PayPal, at /submit-story. Trinidad's banks have at times capped the US-dollar spending allowed on local cards; the entry fee is a small charge and sits inside any such limit, and if a card is refused, PayPal is the other route. Your bank converts to TT dollars at the day's rate.
The $100 prize is paid by PayPal. Before you enter with the prize in mind, check what a PayPal account in Trinidad and Tobago lets you receive and withdraw, since PayPal's Caribbean terms have shifted over the years. The certificate and the score reach every entrant by email regardless. Optional written feedback is priced separately at entry; the Story Craft course at /academy/story-craft is free.
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 in Trinidad and Tobago enter?
Yes, from either island, on the same terms as writers anywhere else. There is no Caribbean category and no quota. Judging is blind, so the panel sees no name, town or nationality, and every story is read in its own language in one pool against the same published rubric.
How much does it cost from Trinidad?
Entry is charged in US dollars: $8 for one story, $14 for two, $25 for five, paid by card or PayPal. Your bank converts to TT dollars at the day's rate. Winning a round makes the next entry free, and entering three rounds in a row earns a free entry as well.
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 Trinidad?
25 November 2026 at 11:59 PM IST is 2:29 PM in Port of Spain. Trinidad and Tobago does not change its clocks, so the round closes at 2:29 PM Atlantic Standard Time on the 25th in every month. Results and certificates follow on 30 November 2026.
Can I write in Trinidadian Creole?
Yes, and in your own spelling. A story in Creole is read as Creole and scored on the same five-part rubric as every other entry, in the same pool. Language & Craft is marked on precision and rhythm within the language you chose, not on distance from standard English.
Does entering affect the Commonwealth Short Story Prize or Bocas?
Entering here is not publication; you keep all rights and the story stays unpublished unless you win and agree to publication. The Commonwealth Short Story Prize wants unpublished work and has its own rule on simultaneous entries, so read its current conditions. The OCM Bocas Prize is for published books, so it is not affected.
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.