Seattle Worldcon 2025 held a short story writing contest with adult and young adult entry categories. The winners in each category will be recognized at the convention, receive free memberships to the convention, and have their stories published in an upcoming anthology by Grim Oak Press. Stories drew inspiration from our Worldcon theme: Building Yesterday’s Future–For Everyone.
About the Contest
With short story submissions from all over the world, the Worldcon in Seattle 2025 Short Story Contest was fierce. The contest theme was: “Building Yesterday’s Future—For Everyone.” This theme was selected to invoke nostalgia for the hopeful science-fictional era of the early 1960s, when Seattle held its first (and until now, only) Worldcon, followed up by the Century 21 Exposition (a.k.a. 1962 World’s Fair), showing the world a vision of its technological future, complete with freshly built Monorail and Space Needle.
Stories were limited to 3,000–5,000 words for adult contestants, or 2,000–4,000 words for young adults (18 and under).
Prizes included a membership to Seattle Worldcon 2025 for the winners (and for the guardian of the YA winner) as well as publication in a forthcoming anthology by Grim Oak Press.
Winners were not required to allow Grim Oak Press to publish their stories. If published, the winners will receive additional compensation of $0.10/word. Grim Oak Press asked for six months exclusivity on all stories that they publish, non-exclusive after that.
Finalists
Finalists for the Adult Category:
- “Crossovers” by Dave O’Neill
- “Follow For More: Captain Garvey Fights the Space Junk!” by Sarah Darbee
- “Into the Open” by Jela Schmidt
- “Lost and Found” by Lucie Lukačovičová
- “Prerequisites for the Creation of a Possible Predicted World” by Chisom Umeh
Finalists for the Youth Category:
- “1962: The Year the World Changed” by Elizabeth V. Schaffer
- “And Justice For All” by Sharada Puranam
- “The Dream Terminal” by Michelle J. Diaz
Congratulations to all of the finalists! Worldcon in Seattle thanks all of the authors who submitted stories to the contest.
Winners
The winners will be announced soon!