The Speculate Prize for Emerging Writers

We are pleased to announce the inaugural Speculate Prize for Emerging Writers, in partnership with RMIT University. The Speculate Prize for Emerging Writers is a developmental prize open to Australian emerging writers studying at TAFE or university who are keen to share short work that speaks to the otherness, complexity and expansiveness of ‘speculation’ through literature in either content, genre or form.

The winner of the Speculate Prize for Emerging Writers will receive $1,500 prize money inclusive of $250 stipend towards a week-long writing residency at the RMIT McCraith House on the Mornington Peninsula, a free full pass to the 2025 National Writers’ Conference run by Emerging Writers’ Festival, as well as a free Festival Pass for all performance events at the 2025 Emerging Writers’ Festival. The winning piece will also receive digital publication with Emerging Writers’ Festival.

In addition to a winner, one highly commended entry will win $250 prize money, as well as a free full pass to the 2025 National Writers’ Conference, and one free Festival Pass for all performance events at the 2025 Emerging Writers’ Festival.

We want entries that are curious, bold, non-realist (in elements or in their entirety). We are excited by entries that embrace new literary modes and extend the possibilities of short form writing. We want the piece that only you could have written.

Read on for further submission guidelines and entry criteria.

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Submission Guidelines

• •Entries must not exceed 3,000 words

• •Eligible work must speak to the expansive and speculative possibilities of genre writing, all literary prose genres are welcome for submission (fiction and narrative nonfiction; including memoir, travel writing, essay, science-fiction, fantasy, experimental works, cosmic horror, hope-punk, crime, utopian/dystopian, historical, mystery, comedy, epic, drama, romance, biography, and hybrids of these)

• •Your entry must be a complete work that is not an excerpt/chapter of a longer work

• •The entry must be submitted in Word Doc format, and typeset in a serif font (e.g. Garamond or Times New Roman), 12 pt format).

• •Your entry must be written in predominantly English with appropriate translation provided for any non-English portions/words included in the work

• •Entries aimed at adult audiences and young adults (12-18) are welcome, however please note that entries will be read and judged by a variety of readers of varied ages; potentially not the intended audience of your work.

• •Entries of poetry/poetry collections, scripts, plays, picture books, practical non-fiction works (text book, self help works) or full manuscripts over 3,000 words are ineligible for the Speculate Prize for Emerging Writers

• •Only one entry per student will be accepted

• •Previously published works (including on personal blogs, platforms like Patreon or Substack, zines, anthologies or indie publications etc) are ineligible

• •Works under consideration with publishers including other competitions, literary journals or magazines are ineligible

• •Work previously awarded a prize, previously published (self published, commercially published or published as part of a literary journal, website or anthology) is not eligible for submission.

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Eligibility Criteria

• •To be eligible, you must be enrolled in an undergraduate, TAFE, associate, masters or honours degree at an Australian Institution at the time of entry. Student name, course name and institution name are all required for entry. There is no age restriction.

• •Only student writers who are ‘emerging’ are eligible for this prize, meaning that only students who have not had any work published by a commercial publishing house (this includes small press and independent publishers) are eligible. Applicants may have had work published in anthologies and journals, however applicant cannot have full-length manuscript works published.

• •We only accept work by students living in Australia (including international students, Australian citizens, permanent residents, and those on long-term visas including study or work) in order for entrants to be eligible for the developmental residency at the McCraith House in the Mornington Peninsula.

• •The author’s name should not appear within the work. However, using your first name in the context of memoir and/or narrative non fiction work is allowed. If you are concerned with being identifiable, you are also welcome to use a pseudonym within your work for the sake of the entry. However, your full name must be submitted on the form alongside entry.

• •By submitting to this prize, you confirm that your submitted work contains no content that was generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and that no generative AI has been used in the preparation of the submitted work. Non-generative forms of AI used in the preparation of a work for submission need to be accompanied in writing by a disclosure stating as such, as well as specifically identified in this disclosure any and all content of the work that was prepared/created with the use of AI.