Chalk Circle Short Story Competition 2026 opens

Our short story competition makes a creative comeback this year with a new circular flash fiction challenge guaranteed to get your head spinning.

Alongside our

Chalk Circle 1500 

a more conventional short

story format, we are

launching something new,

Chalk Circle 360

write a piece of circular

flash fiction that turns

360 degrees using

exactly 360 words

(excluding the title).

Like the ancient icon

Ouroboros, the serpent that devours its own tail, a circular flash fiction story ends where it began. Writers may draw inspiration from symbolic Ouroboros features such as self-reflection;

recycling and renewal the assimilation of opposites; the constant cycle of creation and destruction.

Are you open to the challenge? It's easier than you might think. Danielle Sensier, our STRATA Series editor and one of the competition judges, had a go at writing one and this is the result.

Is it true that today's readers prefer short stories and novellas to more time-consuming reads? Academics continue to report on readers' shortened attention span, while industry experts like the Book Seller pointed as recently as 2025 to readers and publishers leaning more into 'slim fiction', and we think they could be onto something.

At Chalk Circle we have always been unashamed fans of reading and writing short stories. Concise, dramatic writing with an engaging plot - basically good storytelling. And we have three published short story anthologies under our belt to prove it! The most recent, STRATA 3 Shifting Tides came out last year. You can still buy a print copy from our online shop or download a digital version at a knockdown price during the competition.

And now it's your turn to tell a story. Create your own engaging 'slim fiction', and you could win a cash prize and see your story published on our website. Any subject is suitable, any genre except children's fiction. Judges are looking for good story telling above all else.

Prizes

The prize money is £200 for the Chalk Circle 1500 and £50 for the Chalk Circle 360 and the winning stories will be published in full on our website.

The closing date is 31 August 2026 but if you want to bag a bargain, enter by 31st July 2026 for an Early Bird Discount

• Chalk Circle 1500 £5 entry instead of £10

• Chalk Circle 360 £3.60 entry instead of £7

  Multiple submissions allowed but with a separate fee for each story.

For more information go to our Competition Rules and How to enter pages.