Welkin Mini

The Welkin Mini

The Welkin Mini is a biennial competition to celebrate micro fiction and creative non-fiction up to 100 words. Like the main Welkin Prize, it is free to enter and aims to be a welcoming space for all writers.

The competition will open for entries on the 1st December 2025 with a deadline of 15:00 GMT on the 2nd January 2026. Details and rules can be found below.

Prizes

Prizes are as follows:
1. 1st place (£50 voucher***)
2. 2nd place (£30 voucher***)
3. 3rd place (£20 voucher***)
4. Highly commended (£10 voucher***)
***Vouchers are redeemable against Matt Kendrick editorial services and writing courses, and must be used within six months.

Entry Fee

This competition is free to enter. Each writer may only submit one piece at a time. If that piece is declined (entries will be judged on a rolling basis), a second (or third or fourth entry) may be sent in its place.
Writers who feel in a position to do so may opt to donate a “coffee” on my Ko-fi page. These donations will be used to fund free and reduced-price places for my Write Beyond The Lightbulb courses, as well as to provide free editing and mentoring opportunities for low-income writers, and to support other opportunities that seek to level the playing field. I may also decide to use such donations to run this competition again in the future.

Key Dates

The competition is open for entries from 1st December 2023.
The deadline for entries is 2nd January 2024 at 15:00 GMT. Entries received after this date will not be eligible.
The longlist will be announced on the 8th January 2024.
The shortlist will be announced on 11th January 2024.
Non-winning shortlisted pieces will be published from 12th January 2024 onwards.
The winners will be announced from 27th January 2024 onwards.

Criteria

Entries must be no more than 100 words. Titles are not included in the word count. There is no minimum requirement. Word count will be checked at https://wordcounter.net/
Entries should be written in English. However, all variants and dialects of English are welcome.
The competition is for micro fiction or creative non-fiction. Vignettes and genre fiction are welcome. Traditional poetry or essays are unlikely to be successful.
The competition doesn’t have a theme. Entries can be on any subject and written in any style.

Eligibility

Entrants must be 18 years or over on the closing date.
This is an international competition open to entrants from all countries.
Entries must not have been previously published or accepted for publication, either online or in print, prior to the announcement of results. This includes blogs and personal websites.
As the competition is being organised by Matt Kendrick, pieces written and shared on his Write Beyond the Lightbulb courses are not eligible; nor are pieces that have been sent to Matt for feedback or line edits.
Entries which are deemed to be racist, sexist, homophobic, ableist or otherwise promoting views not in-line with the normative writing-community position will be disqualified.
Entries must be the sole work of the entrant. Any pieces that are deemed to have plagiarised existing work or breached copyright (e.g. by use of song lyrics) will be disqualified and will become ineligible for any prize monies.
The use of AI in the writing of entries is strictly prohibited.

Format

Entries must not include your name, address, email, telephone number or any other personal information.
Entries should use Arial, 14pt font and should be single-spaced***.
The filename of your entry should be the title, punctuation removed. If your title is longer than five words, please only use the first five words. If your entry is untitled, please use the first five words of the piece itself.
***PLEASE NOTE: If you need to format your piece differently for accessibility reasons, please feel free to do so. This will not affect the judging of your piece.

Judging Process

Entries will be judged on their individual merits.
All entries will be judged solely by Matt Kendrick - please bear in mind that any competition or judging process is highly subjective.
Depending on the number of entries, the longlist will consist of up to fifty stories.
Depending on the number of entires, the shortlist will consist of up to twenty stories.
The judge’s decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

Publication of Results

The longlist, shortlist and winners’ announcements will be posted to this website on the above dates.
Competition entrants will be notified in a BCC email at each of the above stages to let them know that a results update has been published. Please note that individual feedback on unsuccessful entries will not be possible.
Winning authors will be contacted regarding their prizes as soon as practicable after the winners’ announcement.
Payment of prizes will be in the form of gift vouchers for use on Matt Kendrick editorial services and writing courses.
The two winning entries and highly commended entries will be published on this website. Shortlisted entries may also be offered publication. The competition organiser reserves the right to suggest edits prior to publication – the author will be consulted on any proposed changes.
Authors will retain all rights and copyright to their works. The Welkin Writing Prize requests one-time, non-exclusive rights and non-exclusive electronic archival rights to show your work indefinitely on this site.

Enter

Entry is via Google form. If you wish to enter but do not have a Google account, you may send your entry via email to welkinprize@gmail.com. However, if you do have a Google account, it would be appreciated if you could use the Google form to reduce admin time on behalf of the competition organiser.
If using the Google form, please carefully check your email address before submitting your entry.
Please note that you will NOT receive a confirmation email.
Each writer may only enter one piece at a time. If that piece is declined, you may then enter a new piece in its place.
Simultaneous submissions are accepted. However, please notify the competition organiser if your piece is accepted elsewhere.
No alterations post-entry will be accepted.

Submit

Matt Kendrick