Ends on

Do you battle with Gen Z or Millennial Fatigue? Symptoms include a generalised  sense of impending doom about our planet whilst at the same time tuning  it out entirely to focus on what really matters… why does this person’s  Instagram feed horrify me to my very core, yet I keep going back to see  what the hell they’ve done now? It’s okay, you might just be Under 30!

And congratulations, that qualifies you to use your creative energy to enter our writing competition.

Slinkies is looking for your writing:

  • under 10,000 words
  • of absolutely any genre or style

to publish and promote in our annual anthology of carefully hand-selected submissions. 

Get published! Make sure your ID says you’re under 30 years old. And that you are either currently residing in Australia or are an Australian living overseas. So simple! Submit and be in the running to feel that unadulterated rush of  creating something that other people will read. We particularly welcome  writers from diverse/disadvantaged backgrounds and if you want to send  us something in a language other than English, with translation, do it.  Got illustrations? Made a zine? We love text and we love graphics. 

Entry is free. You may enter as many submissions as you like. Just use a separate entry form for each submission.

$15.00

We are looking for remnant-themed writing for the thirteenth annual  joanne burns Microlit Awards.

Co-hosted by Newcastle Writers Festival and specialist microliterature publisher, Spineless Wonders, this award offers cash prizes and publication. 

The award will be judged this year by the celebrated and award-winning author, joanne burns and the publication will be edited by internationally renowned microlit expert, Professor Cassandra Atherton. 

Send us microfiction or prose poems, up to 200 words, which reflect on some form or aspect of remnant – whether this is a remnant of wilderness or the natural world, the remains of an urban environment, a vestige of a past way of life, the leftovers of a particular professional or personal experience, the tail end of a loved one’s existence, a powerful memory, a valued keepsake or symbolic object, a spectral or ghostly presence, or an emotion that remains after circumstances have changed. You may invoke ideas of leavings, stubs, lees or dregs. You may celebrate the persistence of what’s valuable. You may evoke the power of recollection. You may conjure with the uncanny.  

Whatever the case, send us an evocation from one of microliterature’s many haunted places. Challenge our sense of the real. Show us the past’s power. We welcome submissions that will amaze and unsettle. 

On MicroLit by joanne burns: poetry, fiction, essay, contemplation, perhaps flirtation – condensed, sudden, gnomic, implosive – a kind of petit pointillism – where enough may be more than enough ....

Entry conditions:

  1. Submissions will only be accepted via the Submittable link.
  2. Entry fee is $15.00 for National category. (Please note: only one submission per entry. There is no limit to the number of entries per person.) 
  3. Entrants must be over 18 years of age and must be either an Australian citizen (living anywhere) or a person residing in Australia.
  4. Entries will be judged anonymously. The author’s name must not appear on the manuscript.
  5. The judge’s decisions will be final. No correspondence will be entered in to.
  6. Entries are to be no more than 200 words (exclusive of the title).
  7. Submissions under consideration by another competition or publication or work that has been previously published or awarded will not be accepted.
  8. By entering this competition, writers grant Spineless Wonders and the Newcastle Writers      Festival limited, fee-free, licence to publish their work and/or produce and broadcast it in audio or video format. Intellectual Property shall remain with individual author on the understanding that the work not be published elsewhere until after December, 2024.
  9. The closing date is 30 July, 2023. Entries will be accepted up until midnight AEST. Late entries will not be accepted.

We are looking for remnant-themed writing for the thirteenth annual  joanne burns Microlit Awards.
Co-hosted by Newcastle Writers Festival and specialist microliterature publisher, Spineless Wonders, this award offers cash prizes and publication.
The award will be judged this year by the celebrated and award-winning author, joanne burns and the publication will be edited by internationally renowned microlit expert, Professor Cassandra Atherton.
Send us microfiction or prose poems, up to 200 words, which reflect on some form or aspect of remnant – whether this is a remnant of wilderness or the natural world, the remains of an urban environment, a vestige of a past way of life, the leftovers of a particular professional or personal experience, the tail end of a loved one’s existence, a powerful memory, a valued keepsake or symbolic object, a spectral or ghostly presence, or an emotion that remains after circumstances have changed. You may invoke ideas of leavings, stubs, lees or dregs. You may celebrate the persistence of what’s valuable. You may evoke the power of recollection. You may conjure with the uncanny.  
Whatever the case, send us an evocation from one of microliterature’s many haunted places. Challenge our sense of the real. Show us the past’s power. We welcome submissions that will amaze and unsettle.
On MicroLit by joanne burns: poetry, fiction, essay, contemplation, perhaps flirtation – condensed, sudden, gnomic, implosive – a kind of petit pointillism – where enough may be more than enough ....
Entry conditions:

  1. Submissions will only be accepted via the Submittable link.
  2. Entry for the Hunter category is free. Limit of three submissions per entry.
  3. Entrants must be over 18 years of age and must be either an Australian citizen (living anywhere) or a person residing in Australia.
  4. Entries will be judged anonymously. The author’s name must not appear on the manuscript.
  5. The judge’s decisions will be final. No correspondence will be entered in to.
  6. Entries are to be no more than 200 words (exclusive of the title).
  7. Submissions under consideration by another competition or publication or work that has been previously published or awarded will not be accepted.
  8. By entering this competition, writers grant Spineless Wonders and the Newcastle Writers      Festival limited, fee-free, licence to publish their work and/or produce and broadcast it in audio or video format. Intellectual Property shall remain with individual author on the understanding that the work not be published elsewhere until after December, 2024.
  9. The closing date is 30 July, 2023. Entries will be accepted up until midnight AEST. Late entries will not be accepted.
Spineless Wonders