Contest Calendar
Creative Non-Fiction | May 1 – July 1
Poetry | July 15 – September 15
Short Forms | October 1 – December 1
Cover Art | November 15 – January 15
Fiction | February 15 – April 15
We have ten free entries to offer to low-income writers for each of our contests in order to encourage barrier-free access to contest submission. We encourage those who may benefit from a free entry, for any reason at all, to contact us at contests [at] roommagazine [dot] com.
Read our Contest General Guidelines
See our Past Winners
Creative Non-Fiction Contest
Our 2023 Creative Non-Fiction Contest is now open!
FIRST PRIZE: $1000 + possibility of publication in Room
SECOND PRIZE: $250 + possibility of publication in Room
THIRD PRIZE: $100 + publication on Room‘s website
DEADLINE: July 1st, 2023
2023 Judge: Tajja Isen
Tajja Isen is the author of Some of My Best Friends: Essays on Lip Service, named a Best Book of the Year by Electric Literature, The Globe and Mail, CBC Books, and Daily Hive. She has edited for Catapult, The Walrus, and Electric Literature, and is co-editor of the anthology The World as We Knew It: Dispatches from a Changing Climate. Born in Toronto, she lives in Brooklyn.
Photo credit: Karen Isen
Entry fee includes a one-year subscription to Room, beginning with issue 46.3 (September 2023).
Poetry Contest
Our 2022 Poetry Contest is now closed. The 2023 Poetry Contest will reopen in 2023.
FIRST PRIZE: $1,000 + possibility of publication in Room
SECOND PRIZE: $250 + possibility publication in Room
HONOURABLE MENTION: $100 + publication on Room’s website
DEADLINE: August 15th, 2022
2022 Judge: Lillian Allen
A leading Canadian poet and an international exponent of dub poetry, Lillian Allen was acclaimed a foremother of Canadian poetry by the League of Canadian Poets. She is a two-time Canadian Juno award winner for her albums of dub poetry, Revolutionary Tea Party and Conditions Critical. She is an arts activist and a cultural strategist who initiated and developed several key equity impacting arts programs. A mentor to the mentors and ‘Godmother of Everything’, Lillian is the recipient of many awards and citations including The Toronto Cultural Champions Award, The Margo Bindhardt Award for significantly impacting the arts in Toronto through both creative work and activism, the William P. Hubbard Award for Race Relations, and an Honourary Doctorate from Wilfred Laurier University for her contribution and impact on Canadian Letters.
A long-time Professor of Creative Writing at OCAD University, Ms. Allen spearheaded the establishment of an interdisciplinary, multimedia Creative Writing BFA program. Lillian Allen’s newest publication Make the World New – The Poetry of Lillian Allen -selected by Ronald Cummings and published by WLU Press in 2021, has received enthusiastic critical acclaim. Her other publications include; Women Do this Every Day and Psychic Unrest, plus several books and recordings for children and young people. Allen continues to perform to large audiences worldwide.
Entry fee includes a one-year subscription to Room, beginning with issue 45.4.
Short Forms Contest
Our 2022 Short Forms Contest is now closed. The 2023 Short Forms Contest will reopen in 2023.
FIRST PRIZE: $500 + possibility of publication in Room
SECOND PRIZE: $500 + possibility of publication in Room
HONOURABLE MENTION: $50 + publication on Room’s website
DEADLINE: November 1st, 2022
Please note: Each entry can consist of one or two prose poems, flash fictions, or flash creative non-fiction works of up to 500 words. Authors are not required to clarify which genre(s) they are writing in, as long as each work is 500 words or less. All submissions, regardless of genre, will be judged in a single category, and two prizes of $500 will be awarded. Winning entries (1st place, 2nd place) have the possibility of being published in upcoming issues of Room.
2022 Judge: Alix Ohlin
Alix Ohlin is the author of six books, mostly recently the novel Dual Citizens and the story collection We Want What We Want. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, and many other places. She lives in Vancouver and teaches at the UBC School of Creative Writing.
Entry fee includes a one-year subscription to Room, beginning with Issue 46.1 (March 2023).
Cover Art Contest
Our 2022 Cover Art Contest is now closed.
FIRST PLACE: $500 + publication on the cover of Room 46.2
SECOND PLACE: $150 + possibility of publication in Room 46.2
THIRD PLACE: $100 + publication on Room’s website
Deadline EXTENDED: February 15th, 2023
Please note: one cover art contest entry includes up to three images and corresponding artist statement(s). All winners will be published with an artist statement and have the option to submit additional artwork for the issue, which, if selected for publication, will be compensated for at our usual rates. Guidelines for the art contest can be found at the bottom of the page.
2022 Judge: Ness Lee
Ness Lee draws upon history and personal narratives to create tender and surreal illustrations, paintings, sculptures and installations. Based in Toronto, their work has been featured at the AGO, the Agnes Etherington Art Center, the Gardiner Museum, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, as well as galleries in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami and Montreal. Lee has also participated in mural festivals in Canada and Internationally in India and Mexico.
Ness Lee’s work is an investigation of the human form dealing with notions of intimacy and self-love. Rather than the emphasis on the physical form, the emotional resonance and presence is brought to focus in periods of vulnerability, discomfort and acceptance. Using various mediums, she explores and echoes these emotions, encompassing its tactile experience into one that is filled with a depth of feeling, playing on humourous rhythms and self-exploration.
Photo credit: Augustine Ng
Entry fee includes a one-year subscription to Room, beginning with issue 46.1 (March 2023).
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION SPECIAL!
For the first time ever, we’re running a Digital Subscription Special for $30! Choose to get a digital subscription instead of print, and we’ll give you a little discount on your contest entry price. All the goodness of Room that you know and love, now on the device of your choice.
We’d love for contests to be free to enter some day in the future, but in the meantime, we want to make our contests and our content as accessible as possible. As such, this is a great option for people looking for a cheaper option, and for our friends outside of Canada who might hesitate to enter our contests: now, you can get a discount AND a subscription that won’t take weeks to deliver. Submit all your beautiful, strange, thought provoking, funny cover art to our contest at the link below.
Fiction Contest
The 2023 Fiction Contest is now closed.
FIRST PRIZE: $1,000 + possibility of publication in Room
SECOND PRIZE: $250 + possibility of publication in Room
HONOURABLE MENTION: $100 + publication on Room’s website
DEADLINE: April 15th
2023 Judge: Heather O’Neill
Heather O’Neill is a novelist, short-story writer and essayist. Her most recent bestselling novel, The Lonely Hearts Hotel, won the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and CBC’s Canada Reads. Her previous work, which includes Lullabies for Little Criminals, The Girl Who Was Saturday Night and Daydreams of Angels, has been shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize two years in a row. She has won CBC’s Canada Reads and the Danuta Gleed Award. Born and raised in Montreal, O’Neill lives there with her daughter.
Entry fee includes a one-year subscription to Room, beginning with issue 46.3 (September 2023).
General Guidelines
- Room‘s contests are open to women (transgender and cisgender), trans men, Two-Spirit, and nonbinary people.
- Each entry must be original, unpublished, not submitted or accepted elsewhere for publication or previously to Room, and not entered simultaneously in any other contest.
- For entrants residing in Canada, each first entry cost $35 CAD to enter, and $7 CAD for each additional entry. For entrants residing in the US: $45 CAD, and $7 CAD. For everywhere else: $55 CAD, and $7 CAD. All first submissions include a one-year subscription to Room. Additional entries do not include an additional free subscription. (Current subscribers will be given an extension on their subscription.)
- We only use Submittable, a secure online submissions management tool, to manage our submissions. For more information about using Submittable, please check our Submissions page.
- Submissions will be anonymous to the judges. Please ensure that your name or any personal details are not included in your submission document; this includes the file name. (You will have a chance to include your contact information on the Submittable form).
- Cover letters are not necessary and will not be forwarded to the judge.
- Previously commissioned Room writers (writers who have been featured on the cover of an issue) and contest judges are barred from participating in subsequent contests at Room.
Writing Contest Rules
- For fiction and creative non-fiction, one submission includes one short story or essay of up to 3,500 words.
- Please double space your prose.
- Submit your work in Times New Roman 12-point font.
- One poetry submission includes up to three poems or a maximum of 150 lines of poetry altogether. (The titles and spaces between lines do not count, only the lines with words on them.)
- When submitting multiple poems, please begin your second and third poems on a new page, in the same document.
- For the Short Forms Contest, submissions may be up to 500 words. Each entry may include up to two submissions, including additional $7 entries.
- Winning entries (1st place, 2nd place) have the possibility of being published in upcoming issues of Room. The final say is given to the editorial team of each specific issue.
- Additional details for each contest can be found on the Submittable page (click link below).
Cover Art Contest Rules
- One cover art contest entry includes up to three images and corresponding artist statement(s). Please copy-and-paste the artist statement(s) in the section marked “Artist Statement” on the entry form in Submittable.
- Artist statements must not exceed 150 words regardless of the number of artwork submitted.
- Submissions will be anonymous to the judges. Please ensure that your name and bio are not included in your submission document (including the file names) or on your artist statement. You will have a chance to send us your bio once your work has been selected for publication.
- Please upload your artwork in JPG or PDF form. Maximum file size 1 MB. Winners will be contacted for high resolution work.
- There are no official guidelines for artwork dimensions, but please note that we will have to crop any artwork so that it fits the cover space (approximately 6 inches x 9 inches with a bleed). You can check out past covers of Room here.
- Works that have been published on your own website or on the interior pages of a book or magazine, and/or have been featured in a public exhibition are eligible. Submissions must not have appeared on the cover of another publication or entered simultaneously in any other contest or competition.
Past Contest Winners
Creative Non-Fiction Contest 2021: The Winners!
The results are finally here! Here are the winning entries to our Creative Non-Fiction Contest as selected by our esteemed judge, Dr. Njoki Wane. A major congrats to these three writers! Here are what our judge has to say about the winning submissions: First Place:...
I Can Feel Him Breathing
I Can Feel Him Breathing is the honourable mention for the 2021 Creative Non-Fiction Contest, as selected by Judge Dr. Njoki Wane. _____________ In the morning I stand in front of the bedroom closet, half-dressed, wrestling with the sliding door. The door won’t...
Creative Non-Fiction Contest 2021: The Longlist
It's finally here: our 2021 Creative Non-Fiction Contest longlist! Congratulations to these thirteen writers, and a heartfelt thank you to all those who submitted work to this year's contest. Light and Shadow: One Painting, Two Lives, Emily McKibbon Zebrafish, Neive...
Your Skinny Daddy
Joya Guzmán is a Mexican-Canadian emerging writer and translator at home in northern Mexico and the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Sḵwxwú7mesh, and Tsleil-Waututh Peoples known as Vancouver. Her prose and poetry have been published or forthcoming in Acentos Review, Room Magazine, SOMOS Magazine, and others. Joya Guzmán is a nom de plume.
Fiction Contest 2021: The Winners
The results are in! Congrats to these three talented writers for being selected as the winners of our 2021 Fiction Contest! First Place: Of Dust, by N.B. N.B. is a queer friend, writer and researcher who cares a lot about the meaning of care. She is currently...
Cover Art Contest 2020: The Winners
The results are in. Major congrats to the three winners of our 2020 Cover Art Contest! First Place: MENTAL LOAD 02, by Masha Nova Masha Nova explores womanhood, feminism, and ongoing events in her latest collage work. Born in 1992 and raised in Russia (Siberia), as a...
Cover Art Contest 2020: Honourable Mention
Honourable Mention: My Father Catches Me Confronting Memory, by Tea Gerbeza During my adolescence, I often returned to photographs of my family during the Yugoslavian civil war, packed away in a shoebox. Memories stacked on each other. Even though I was barely a...
Mind the Sentencing Gap
Mind the Sentencing Gap is the honourable mention for the 2020 Short Forms Contest, selected by Judge Lisa Bird-Wilson. It is meant to be read in the graph it is presented in above; the text version of the piece is below. --- The day dawns cool; it turns mild by noon....
Poetry Contest 2020: The Longlist
Here they are: the sixteen longlisted poems from our 2020 Poetry Contest!
Memories and Where to Keep Them
“Memories and Where to Keep Them” is the honourable mention for Room’s Creative Non-Fiction Contest 2020. Before my mother left, when my mind was still small and pink like two fists held together, we saw a miracle in the sky. I was still allowed outside then. Whenever...
