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  

Poetry Contest

Our 2023 Poetry Contest is now open!

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

EXTENDED DEADLINE: September 30th, 2023

2023 Judge: John Elizabeth Stintzi

John Elizabeth Stintzi is a writer, cartoonist, and editor who grew up on a cattle farm in northwestern Ontario. Their work has been awarded the 2019 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, The Malahat Review’s 2019 Long Poem Prize, the Sator New Works Award, and has been shortlisted for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award and the Raymond Souster Award. JES is the author of the novels My Volcano (longlisted for the Brooklyn Public Library’s Book Prize for fiction, and named a book of the year by Kirkus Reviews and the New York Public Library) and Vanishing Monuments, as well as the poetry collection Junebat. They are currently at work illustrating their first graphic novel: Automaton Deactivation Bureau.

Entry fee includes a one-year subscription to Room, beginning with issue 46.4.

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).

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).

Creative Non-Fiction Contest

Our 2023 Creative Non-Fiction Contest is now closed. The CNF Contest will open again in Spring, 2024.

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).