The Robyn Herrington Memorial Short Story Contest
In a spirit of optimism, we're assuming the pandemic will run its course and things will settle down in time for When Words Collide to run as usual in August. If the conference is cancelled, the 2020 contest will be cancelled as well. If you submit a story before we pull the plug, contest volunteers will still send you a brief critique, so hit that keyboard and show us what you've got!

About the Contest
You are invited to submit your original, unpublished written works of fiction to the 2020 Robyn Herrington Memorial Short Story Contest, "In Places Between". There is no entry fee, but entrants must be members of the When Words Collide Festival.
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Contest Rules and Requirements
  • Deadline for submissions is midnight on May 1, 2020
  • All authors must be members of the When Words Collide convention
  • There is no contest entry fee
  • Short stories of up to 4,000 words maximum
  • Two submissions per entrant maximum
  • The contest is open to submissions now.

Competition Format
  • A separate first page that includes the author’s name, address, email, and phone with the word count and title of the story. The actual story will have no author information on it, including in headers: we do blind judging.
  • The name of the story should be in the header on each page, and the pages should be numbered.
  • All submissions should be in .rtf, .doc, or .docx format. You can submit a .txt file if you really want to, but we'll mock you.
  • Please email all submissions to ipb.contest (at) gmail.com.

Stories are judged on a combination of factors, including professional presentation, originality, ingenuity, entertainment factor, character, plot, spelling, grammar, and other authorial skills.

Prizes ($CDN)

$125.00 – First Place

$100.00 – Second place

$75.00 – Third place

$25.00 – Honorable mentions (7)

The top ten stories will be printed in the annual In Places Between book. A copy of this publication will be provided to each of the top ten authors.


​How You Can Help

We're always looking for volunteers, donations, or sponsors. We also hire artists to illustrate the final ten stories. See the "Artists" and "Volunteer" pages for details, or the "Donate" page if you'd like to help fund the contest. Get in touch with us directly at ipb.contest@gmail.com, or speak to Brent Nichols.

In Places Between is sponsored by CoolSeriesCovers.com
Specializing in affordable premade book covers for series, especially science fiction and fantasy. We also do custom covers, print and audiobook covers, 3D mockups and images for ads.  www.CoolSeriesCovers.com