2026 CREATIVE NON-FICTION CONTEST OVERVIEW

Submissions Open: APRIL/30/2026
Submissions Close: JUNE/30/2026

2026 CONTEST JUDGE

Kai Cheng Thom

PRIZES​

FIRST PRIZE: $1,000 +  publication in Room
SECOND PRIZE: $250 + publication in Room
HONOURABLE MENTION: $100 + publication on Room’s website

​SUBMISSION ELIGIBILITY AND GUIDELINES​

• Before submitting, please read about us to see if your work fits within Room’s mandate.
• We accept entries up to 3500 words. Please double-space all submissions.
• Unless form requires, submit your work in 12-point font, Times New Roman preferred.
• You can only upload ONE document (.pdf, .doc, or .docx preferred; can also accept .rtf) per submission on Submittable, so you must submit your entire poetry submission in one file.
• Submissions must be anonymous—please do not include your name or personal details anywhere in your document, including the file name. You will have a chance to include your contact information on the Submittable form. Cover letters and bios are not necessary and will not be forwarded to the judge.
• Each entry must be original and unpublished.
• We accept simultaneous submissions, but if your submission is accepted elsewhere, please notify us and withdraw your submission immediately.
• We do not accept pieces that have used AI at any stage of the writing process.
• Room‘s contests are open to women (cisgender and transgender), transgender men, Two-Spirit and nonbinary people. We specifically encourage writers with overlapping under-represented identities to submit their work.
• Previously commissioned Room writers are disqualified from entering the contest.
• Any submission that does not meet these guidelines will be disqualified. The submission fee is non-refundable. 
• Please direct any questions or concerns to contests@roommagazine.com.

SELECTION

1) A team of readers from Room’s Growing Room Collective chooses a longlist from the submissions pool, which is then forwarded to the contest judge.
2) Our judge reads the longlist and determines a shortlist.
3) Our judge finalizes their selections for first place, second place, and honourable mention.

Writers’ identities remain confidential throughout the entire selection process.

RIGHTS

Room purchases first First North American Serial Rights. Copyright reverts back to you upon publication.

​​​​​​​PAST WINNERS

2025 WINNER​​​​​: Sadie McCarney
2025 SECOND PLACE: Clea Roberts
2025 HONOURABLE MENTION: Minerva Laveaga Luna

2026 POETRY CONTEST OVERVIEW

Submissions Open: FEB/10/2026
Submissions Close: APRIL/10/2026

2026 CONTEST JUDGE

Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch is a mixed-Arab writer, and translator, and co-publisher at Metonymy Press living in Tio’tia:ke. Their book, knot body, was published by Metatron Press in 2020. Their second book, The Good Arabs, published by Metonymy Press in 2022, was granted the honorary mention for poetry by the Arab American Book Awards, the Khayrallah Prize honorary mention, and won the Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal. With co-editor Samia Marshy, they edited El Ghourabaa, an anthology of queer and trans writing by Arab and Arabophone writers, published by Metonymy Press in June 2024. In October and November 2024, they were the writer-in-residence at the Arab American National Museum. You can find out more about them on their website, elitareqwrites.com, or you can sign up for their newsletter, https://softsyrup.substack.com/.

Photo Credit: Hamza Abouelouafaa

PRIZES​

FIRST PRIZE: $1,000 +  publication in Room
SECOND PRIZE: $250 + publication in Room
HONOURABLE MENTION: $100 + publication on Room’s website

​SUBMISSION ELIGIBILITY AND GUIDELINES​

• Before submitting, please read about us to see if your work fits within Room’s mandate.
• An entry (both initial and additional) can include up to three poems or 150 lines of poetry in a single document. Please start each poem at the top of a new page.
• Unless form requires, submit your work in 12-point font, Times New Roman preferred.
• You can only upload ONE document (.pdf, .doc, or .docx preferred; can also accept .rtf) per submission on Submittable, so you must submit your entire poetry submission in one file.
• Submissions must be anonymous—please do not include your name or personal details anywhere in your document, including the file name. You will have a chance to include your contact information on the Submittable form. Cover letters and bios are not necessary and will not be forwarded to the judge.
• Each entry must be original and unpublished.
• We accept simultaneous submissions, but if your submission is accepted elsewhere, please notify us and withdraw your submission immediately.
• We do not accept pieces that have used AI at any stage of the writing process.
• Room‘s contests are open to women (cisgender and transgender), transgender men, Two-Spirit and nonbinary people. We specifically encourage writers with overlapping under-represented identities to submit their work.
• Previously commissioned Room writers are disqualified from entering the contest.
• Any submission that does not meet these guidelines will be disqualified. The submission fee is non-refundable. 
• Please direct any questions or concerns to contests@roommagazine.com.

SELECTION

1) A team of readers from Room’s Growing Room Collective chooses a longlist from the submissions pool, which is then forwarded to the contest judge.
2) Our judge reads the longlist and determines a shortlist.
3) Our judge finalizes their selections for first place, second place, and honourable mention.

Writers’ identities remain confidential throughout the entire selection process.

RIGHTS

Room purchases first First North American Serial Rights. Copyright reverts back to you upon publication.

​​​​​​​PAST WINNERS

2024 WINNER​​​​​:Junxin Tang
2024 SECOND PLACE: Leena Halees
2024 HONOURABLE MENTION: Jessica Lee McMillan

Submissions Open: OCT/15/2026
Submissions Close: DEC/15/2026

2026 CONTEST JUDGE

jaye simpson (she/they) is an Oji-Cree Saulteaux Indigiqueer from the Sapotaweyak Cree Nation. simpson is a writer, advocate and activist sharing their knowledge and lived experiences in hope of creating utopia.

she is published in several magazines including Poetry Is Dead, This Magazine, PRISM international,  SAD Magazine: Green, GUTS Magazine, SubTerrain, Grain and Room. They are in four anthologies: Hustling Verse (2019), Love After the End (2020), The Care We Dream Of (2021), and Queer Little Nightmares (2022). Their first poetry collection, it was never going to be okay (Nightwood Ed.) was shortlisted for the 2021 ReLit Award and a 2021 Dayne Ogilvie Prize Finalist while also winning the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award for Published Poetry in English. a body more tolerable, her second book of published poetry was recently shortlisted for a Lambda Literary Prize.

she is a displaced Indigenous person resisting, ruminating and residing on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-waututh), and sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) First Nations territories, colonially known as Vancouver.

PRIZES​

FIRST PRIZE: $1,000 +  publication in Room
SECOND PRIZE: $250 + publication in Room
HONOURABLE MENTION: $100 + publication on Room’s website

​SUBMISSION ELIGIBILITY AND GUIDELINES​

• Before submitting, please read about us to see if your work fits within Room’s mandate.
• Your entry can be in any genre up to 500 words: one or two prose poems, flash fictions, flash creative non-fictions, or hybrid pieces. Longer submissions will be rejected automatically.
• Unless form requires, submit your work in 12-point font, Times New Roman preferred.
• Authors are not required to clarify the genre(s) they are writing in. All pieces submitted will be considered on their individual merit as standalone pieces. All submissions, regardless of genre, will be judged in a single category.
• You can only upload ONE document (.pdf, .doc, or .docx preferred; can also accept .rtf) per submission on Submittable, so you must submit your entire poetry submission in one file.
• Submissions must be anonymous—please do not include your name or personal details anywhere in your document, including the file name. You will have a chance to include your contact information on the Submittable form. Cover letters and bios are not necessary and will not be forwarded to the judge.
• Each entry must be original and unpublished.
• We accept simultaneous submissions, but if your submission is accepted elsewhere, please notify us and withdraw your submission immediately.
• We do not accept pieces that have used AI at any stage of the writing process.
• Room‘s contests are open to women (cisgender and transgender), transgender men, Two-Spirit and nonbinary people. We specifically encourage writers with overlapping under-represented identities to submit their work.
• Previously commissioned Room writers are disqualified from entering the contest.
• Any submission that does not meet these guidelines will be disqualified. The submission fee is non-refundable. 
• Please direct any questions or concerns to contests@roommagazine.com.

SELECTION

1) A team of readers from Room’s Growing Room Collective chooses a longlist from the submissions pool, which is then forwarded to the contest judge.
2) Our judge reads the longlist and determines a shortlist.
3) Our judge finalizes their selections for first place, second place, and honourable mention.

    Longlist Announced: FEB/3/2026
    Shortlist Announced: FEB/10/2026
    Finalists Announced: FEB/17/2026

Writers’ identities remain confidential throughout the entire selection process.

RIGHTS

Room purchases first First North American Serial Rights. Copyright reverts back to you upon publication.

​​​​​​​PAST WINNERS

2025 WINNER​​​​​: Shaheen Virk
2025 SECOND PLACE: Lana Kouchnirk
2025 HONOURABLE MENTION: Ella Ramsay