Contest Submissions

Current Contest: An Evening at Lake Geneva

This contest opens October 2nd and closes October 30th.

In 1816, a group of writers including Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and John Polidori were staying in a mansion near Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Due to unforeseen bad weather, the group stayed inside for three days and, to pass the time, read eerie narratives to one another. One evening, the group decided to write ghost stories of their own, as a test of each writer’s skill. This contest was the original inspiration for both Frankenstein and The Vampyre, which have since become classics of gothic literature.

This Halloween season, Inscape Journal invites you to imagine that the 1816 contest has reopened. Write alongside some of the most chilling tales ever put to paper. Your ghost story can take any form of prose or poetry, and may include whatever natural or supernatural elements you’d like. The only objective is to send shivers down our spines. We want you to “awaken thrilling horror—one to make the reader dread to look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart.” Send us your best terrifying tale.

Prose

Word Count: 500 to 3,000 words

1st Place – $50

2nd Place – $25

Poetry

Up to 80 lines

1st Place – $50

2nd Place – $25

The Dos

• Submission fee: $5 for each submission, and only one piece per submission.
• Genre: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, or Visual Art.
• Submission length: 500 to 3,000 words or up to 80 lines of poetry.
• Format: Please submit written works as a DOC, DOCX, or PDF file. 
• Language: Literary submissions must be written in English and may not exceed specified word limits.
• Who can submit: Anyone!

The Dont’s

• Don’t include your name in any of the attachments.
• Don’t submit previously published work. Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but please let us know if your piece has been accepted somewhere else.
• Current Inscape staff members may not enter or be considered for publication.
• We do not accept pieces that invoke the name of deity as an expletive. We also ask that you refrain from submitting anything depicting gratuitous sexual, violent, or otherwise morally objectionable content.
• Inscape celebrates original human creativity; in that spirit, submissions must be created by the author and/or artist and may not include any material generated by artificial intelligence.

Any submission that does not follow these guidelines will not be considered. Visit our contests page and get a feel for what we publish.