Writers can spend a lot of time and money submitting their work. Often we submit to contests. Winning any contest can be a positive addition to your resume. Winning a prestigious contests can help catapult your career forward in profound ways.
And even if you’ve been doing it for years, it can be overwhelming to figure out where to submit. So, here are some resources to help you find appropriate places to submit you work.
The Writer’s Market. This is the classic source for where to publish, including contests. This excellent soup-to-nuts guide also gives examples of how to write an effective cover letter (and everything else!). If you haven’t read this book, you should. Free at your library.
The best online source for upcoming contests might be calendar on the Poets & Writers website. The magazine is fantastic, and I subscribe. However, I believe you can also just view the online calendar. Here is the link.
There is also the online Duotrope, which has a massive list of where one might publish, including contests. To use the site there is a yearly subscription fee.
To figure out which contest / publication is most highly regarded, I use the ranking from Pushcart. The best site I’ve found that lists publications in ranked order is Clifford Garstang’s Perpetual Folly site. Here is the link for fiction journals. Using this list is not exactly perfect because it does not rank contests. However, most of the journals listed are ones with contest, so you’ll get the point. Not perfect, but good enough.
I am sure there are many other great ideas on how and where to send your work. If you have suggestions, please leave comments for others to benefit from your research.
