Seattle Worldcon 2025 is excited to announce that we are holding 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 must draw inspiration from our Worldcon theme: Building Yesterday’s Future–For Everyone.
Dates
Submissions will be open January 5–20, 2025.
Content
Must be a standalone, short fiction story.
Theme
The story must be inspired by the Worldcon theme, “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.
Word Count
Adult: 3,000–5,000 words – Hard Limit
Young Adults (18 & Under): 2,000–4,000 words – Hard Limit
Submission
One submission per person. Submit stories to writing.contest@seattlein2025.org as an attachment in the email.
Subject: Adult – “Submission Title by Jane Q. Writer”
Subject: YA – “Submission Title by Jane Q. Writer”
Manuscript Format
- .rtf, .doc, .docx formats ONLY
- 12-point Times New Roman, Cambria, or Palatino fonts ONLY
- 1″ margins all around
- Double-spaced lines
- DO NOT put an extra space between each paragraph
- Filename: “Submission Title by Jane Q. Writer”
- For an example of how a properly formatted manuscript should look: Modern Manuscript Format
Prizes
Prizes will include 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.