We’re once again asking you to send us stories that play with setting, that reimagine our world, or take us into places we’ve never been! Play with the edge of genre, but make sure your character is still the star of your story.
From July 20 to September 20, 2026, we welcome submissions to the 2026 Fractured Lit Elsewhere Prize.
“Oh, there are so many lives. How we wish we could live them concurrently instead of one by one by one. We could select the best pieces of each, stringing them together like a strand of pearls. But that’s not how it works. A human’s life is a beautiful mess.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Elsewhere
For this contest, we want writers to be our tour guides through the unfamiliar, to engage their imaginations widely, and to write the stories that no bot or AI could write! We love unique, specific characters who are grounded in their story worlds, challenge the rules, and make dynamic choices!
For this prize, we are accepting micro and flash fiction, so we’re inviting submissions of stories from 100-1,000 words.
We’re thrilled to partner with Guest Judge Gina Chung, who will choose three prize winners from a shortlist. We’re excited to offer the winner of this prize $3,000 and publication, while the second- and third-place winners will receive publication and $300 and $200, respectively. All entries will be considered for publication.
Good luck and happy writing!
"I’m always looking for stories with good sentences, memorable characters who get to make choices and experience consequences, and, most of all, voice. Voice, for me, is what lingers long after any details about plot or setting may have faded from memory; it’s that almost undefinable yet utterly recognizable quality of a story that makes you sit up and think, “Now this I have to pay attention to.” It’s also what makes me, as a reader, trust the writer and know that this story is going where they want it to, not where they think I want it to go."
― Guest Judge: Gina Chung
Deadline: September 20 at 11:59 p.m. PDT
