American First Magazine

Enter our Short Story writing contest!

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Annual Writing Competition

The American First short story competition is open to entries from August 1st – August 31st (For the love of EVERYTHING, please don’t submit for this contest until August haha). Genres don’t matter so long as the work comes from you and only you. Nonfiction or fiction will be accepted, just so long as it is not AI generated in any way.

Please use standard manuscript formatting and don’t go over 5,000 words.

Simultaneous submissions and previously published works are not permitted for the contest. We ask for First Rights to publish on our website and our first print run.

Everyone’s work will be judged based on:

  1. Technical skills – Grammar, structure, and style
  2. Originality – Does this story have anything new to say or offer a fresh angle on common topics?
  3. Characterization – Make us fall in love with your characters, or hate them
  4. Setting – Is the scene set? Paint us word imagery.
  5. Plot- We need a solid beginning, middle, and end…or at least a climax if you’re playing with new structures to dazzle us.

Prizes:

3rd prize will get their entry fee back, a free critique of the winning piece, a free American First Magazine Bookmark, and a winner’s certificate.

2nd prize will get $10 prize money ($15 if you do a triple entry), a free critique of another nonfiction piece up to 3,000 words, a free American First Magazine bookmark, AND a winner’s certificate.

1st prize will get $15 in prize money ($20 if you do a triple entry), a free edit of a nonfiction story up to 6,000 words, a free American First Magazine bookmark, an American First Magazine coffee mug, AND a winner’s certificate.

All winners and honorable mentions will be featured in our first print edition early next year.

Submit by paying your entry fee and then emailing your story (or stories), in August, to: americanfirstmagazine@gmail.com or americanfirstmagazine.proton.me

We will reply with a confirmation of receipt of payment and entry (All unpaid entries will be disqualified)

Fees

Single entry: $5

Payment link: https://buy.stripe.com/00gaG38J1cza3hm3cc

Double entry (2 stories per author): $8

Payment link: https://buy.stripe.com/eVag0n4sL2YA8BGeUV

Triple entry (3 stories per author): $10

Payment link: https://buy.stripe.com/5kAeWj2kDfLm8BG8wy

Paid Substack subscribers get up to 6 free entries. No more than 3 stories per author will be accepted through regular paid (non-subscriber) entries. Sure, upping the odds is great, but we don’t want to overdo it.

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