There's a version of the writing life where you finish a piece, feel pleased with it for an afternoon, then let it sit in a folder until it's too late to matter. And there's a version with a calendar. UK competitions, magazine reading periods and literary festivals run on cycles that repeat with reasonable predictability, which means you can plan around them rather than discovering a deadline the day after it closed. What follows is a rough map of that year. Treat the dates as indicative — organisers shift windows, drop prizes and change rules — and always confirm on the organiser's own page before you rely on anything.
Why the writing year has a shape
Most prizes open several months before they close, because judges need time to read. Spring deadlines usually produce autumn shortlists. Autumn deadlines produce results the following spring. Magazine reading windows are often tighter: a journal might read for three weeks in January and again in July, then close submissions for the rest of the year. Anthologies tend to announce calls three or four months out from publication.
Once you notice this rhythm, you can work backwards from it. A story you want in front of a judge in May needs a finished draft by March, which means the messy first version belongs in January. The deadline stops being a cliff edge and becomes a milestone.
January to March: the quiet stretch
This is drafting season. Submissions inboxes are recovering from December, editors are catching up, and many magazines reopen after a winter break. It's also when a good number of pamphlet competitions, novel awards and small-press reading windows open, so it's worth checking the pages of presses you admire rather than waiting for a newsletter to tell you.
Use the first quarter for two jobs: writing new work, and clearing out last year's near-misses. That story that placed nowhere in a summer competition may simply need a sharper opening and 300 fewer words. February is a good month for that kind of editing, because there is very little external noise.
April to June: the big prize season
If you only enter one thing a year, this is when the best-known short story and poetry prizes tend to sit. The Bridport Prize's deadline usually falls in mid-May. Several regional and national awards close across April, May and June, and festival programming starts to bite — Hay Festival typically lands in late May or early June, with fringe events and open-mic slots appearing alongside it.
Two practical notes. First, don't leave it to the final evening; entry systems get busy, and a payment page that times out at 23:50 is a genuinely miserable experience. Second, check whether the competition wants your piece anonymised. Plenty do, and a stray name in the header can get you disqualified.
Have a housekeeping pack ready
- A short bio at two lengths — roughly 30 words and 80 words — in plain text.
- Two versions of your manuscript: one with your name and contact details, one completely anonymous.
- A note of the exact word count, and whether the title is included in it.
- Formatting basics: double spacing, readable font, page numbers, no decorative fonts.
- A folder of confirmation emails, saved by competition name and date.
Build this once and every submission afterwards takes minutes rather than an evening.
July to September: festivals and anthology calls
Edinburgh's book festival runs through August, Bloody Scotland arrives in September, and Wigtown and Durham follow soon after. Festival season is good for two things: hearing writers talk honestly about rejection, and meeting editors face to face at small-press fairs, where a five-minute conversation can be worth more than fifty cold submissions.
August is also the month when publishing goes quiet. Agents, editors and judges take holidays, so decisions slow to a crawl. Rather than refreshing your inbox, use the stillness to write, and to prepare for the autumn crush. Anthology calls for winter and spring publication often appear now, with relatively short windows.
October to December: the autumn pile-up
This is the busiest stretch of the year. The National Poetry Competition usually closes at the end of October. Cheltenham, Manchester, Durham and other literature festivals cluster in October, bringing with them competitions, flash events and commissions. Novel competitions with autumn deadlines and mentoring schemes with January cut-offs all tend to open around the same time.
December is the trap. Deadlines that fall between Christmas and New Year are dangerous, because offices are closed, emails go unread and postal deliveries thin out. If a competition closes on 31 December, aim for the first week of the month. You'll thank yourself later.
Building a calendar you'll actually use
Aim for a system simple enough that you keep it going in a bad week.
- Choose ten to fifteen places worth your time: a mix of competitions, journals and one or two anthologies. More than that and the admin eats the writing.
- For each, note the deadline, the entry fee, the word limit, the format rules and the results date. Fees vary and they add up, so decide your annual budget early and stick to it.
- Set your own submission date three weeks before the real one. That's your buffer for formatting, proofreading and a last read-aloud.
- Block one admin hour a month. Check what's opening, what's closing and what's still awaiting a response.
- Keep a spreadsheet: title, word count, where sent, date sent, fee paid, outcome. A piece rejected twice is not dead — it's a piece that needs a different home or another edit.
- Check the rules on simultaneous submissions, reprints and rights before you send. Some places accept work that has appeared elsewhere; many don't.
Before you press send
- Word count checked, including or excluding the title as specified.
- Anonymity rules followed to the letter.
- File format correct — usually .docx or .pdf, occasionally plain text.
- Payment completed and receipt saved.
- Rights and reprint terms read, not skimmed.
Keeping the year humane
Competitions are a structure, not a religion. Entering three well-chosen prizes with work you've genuinely polished will serve you better than scattering twelve rushed entries across the calendar and burning through your entry-fee budget by March. Rejection is the normal outcome for almost everyone, including writers you admire, so plan for it: note the result, file the piece, and move to the next window.
Above all, let the calendar serve the writing rather than the other way round. The deadlines are only useful if there's something worth sending. Protect a few hours a week for drafting, keep your housekeeping pack ready, diarise the openings that matter to you, and the year will do a good deal of the remembering on your behalf.
Photo: Matheus Bertelli / Pexels
