Welcome to the 2026 Word Festival Writing Contest
in collaboration with The Stonecoast Review

The Word Festival of Blue Hill is thrilled to offer an opportunity for writers to share their best work of short fiction, 1500 words or less. We especially encourage aspiring, unpublished creatives.

There are 2 entry categories: Adult (18 and older) and Youth (14-17).

Submissions are limited to 1500 words or less. Each submission can be a short story or an excerpt from a longer work, but must be prose.

Prizes will be awarded to a winner in each category. Each winner will receive a $100 cash prize, publication of their work in The Stonecoast Review in the winter 2026 edition, published in print and online, and an offer to read their work publicly during the annual Word Festival in Blue Hill, Maine, to be held October 22-25, 2026.

There is a submission fee of $15 to cover contest costs.

Submissions must be received by midnight July 15, 2026.

Winners will be notified by September 1, 2026.

The contest judge is Leah Scott-Kirby, Editor Emeritus of The Stonecoast Review. She earned her BA in literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and her MFA from Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine. She is drawn to writing that:

takes risks with language, form and perspective. I appreciate work that isn’t afraid to be strange, to dig into the unknown, to say the thing we all feel but haven’t found the words for yet. A good story doesn’t just tell the truth: it reveals it in a way that makes us relish it together, that startles us awake. I love work that feels alive on the page, that lingers, that unsettles in the best way.

The Stonecoast Review is a literary journal published biannually by the University of Southern Maine, under the auspices of the highly regarded Stonecoast MFA program. Established in 2000, the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing promotes a progressive, multi-genre literary education. Many award-winning novelists, playwrights and poets, faculty and alumni alike, claim Stonecoast as their artistic home. The Stonecoast Review invites inclusive and ethical storytelling by a diversity of voices representing all races, ethnicities, cultures, genders, sexual identities and abilities. The Review promotes the work of emerging writers from underrepresented groups and embraces the principles of the Stonecoast MFA Program’s “Writing for Inclusivity and Social Equity” (WISE) initiative.

Format requirements for submissions:

• 1500 words or less

• 12 point font

• Double-spaced

• Times New Roman (or equivalent)

• Word docs or PDF only

• Pages numbered, lower right

• No name typed on your work pages or identifying information in the submission

• Cover page with your name, age category, address (including email address) and your identification number if you have paid electronically (see below)

• Payment of the $15 submission fee

Hard copy submissions must be type written or a computer printout in black ink on white paper, printed only on the front of the paper. Enclose your cash or check for $15 payable to BHCD with “Word” in the check memo line. Deliver to Blue Hill Books in Blue Hill, Maine, or mail to: Word Writing Contest, c/o Blue Hill Books, PO Box 926, Blue Hill, ME 04614.

Electronic submissions may be made as follows: Click here to pay by credit card or PayPal. Press the donate button on Word’s website. You will receive an electronic payment confirmation. The last four digits are your identification number (ID). Include your ID in your cover letter to keep your submission anonymous for judging purposes. After you have completed payment online, please proceed to submit your cover letter and entry to WordWritingContest@gmail.com

All entries must be the original work of the entrant, in English. Submissions will be disqualified if they contain plagiarism, material generated in whole or part by computer software, contains excessive violence, vulgarity, racist or offensive words. By submitting your work, you are verifying that you are not plagiarizing another’s work and that you have not included any material generated in whole or part by computer software.

Submissions must be previously unpublished, defined as having appeared in a magazine, journal, book, anthology, online platform or otherwise presented to a public audience.

Each entrant may submit only one story.

By entering the contest, the entrant agrees to follow all contest terms and rules.

Word reserves the right to reject all entries.

This contest is void where prohibited by law.

The contest accepts only entries that do not require a signature to receive them.

All rights in your submission remain the property of the author.

The contest reserves the right to change contest rules without notice.

The following are ineligible to enter the contest: members of the Word Festival committee, editors and staff of The Stonecoast Review, faculty and staff of the Stonecoast MFA Program, contest judge(s) and immediate family members of any of the foregoing. Immediate family member includes domestic partners, spouses, children, siblings, parents, grandparents and grandchildren.

Questions concerning these contest rules and terms may be addressed to the contest organizers at WordWritingContest@gmail.com.

2025 Word Writing Contest Winners Announced

Word is thrilled to announce that short stories by two Southern Maine residents have won the second annual Word Festival Writing Contest.

Patty Morris of Cape Elizabeth and Lucy Griset of Brunswick will see their stories published in the 2025-26 winter edition of The Stonecoast Review, literary journal of the Stonecoast MFA program at University of Southern Maine. Word Writing Contest entries were judged by Leah Scott-Kirby, the review’s fiction editor emeritus. 

The two winners also received prizes of $100 and were invited to read their stories aloud at Word’s Blue Hill literary arts festival October 23-26. 

Morris, the contest’s adult winner, describes most of her work as “fiction and songs that call for reflection and, often, activism.” Her work in progress is nonfiction about three mothers’ quests for a lifesaving drug during the Ukranian war.  

Her winning short story, “Sealy, A Rock,” explores a woman’s complex relationships and traumas as she searches the shore for a rock that once gave her life meaning and hope.

She will read the story at the festival on Saturday, October 25, before that evening’s keynote conversation between journalist/historian Colin Woodard and journalist Alicia Anstead. The evening will begin at 7 p.m. at the Blue Hill Congregational Church. 

Griset, the youth winner, is a freshman at Brunswick High School. In her story, “Unconditional,” climate change affects a small coastal island and forces its inhabitants to reckon with their worst fear: Do they stay or do they go? 

Griset is unable to attend the festival, so a video of her reading appears below.

And for those of you who missed seeing Patty Morris read her winning story during the festival:

And, please consider submitting YOUR story for next year’s writing contest.

 Meet the 2024 Contest Winners

In person and online, festival-goers this year will meet the winners of the first-ever Word Festival Writing Contest.

The adult winner, Elizabeth Kirschner of Boston and Blue Hill, will read her short story, “A Doll’s Fingerprints,” at 6pm during the Word.Art opening Thursday, October 24, at Cynthia Winings Gallery.

Oona McPhearson, 16, of Brooklin, the youth winner, is at school in New Mexico and won’t attend the festival. They read the winning short story, “Frosted Glass,” in the video below.

Kirschner will join Claire Millikin and Karin Spitfire in reading at the opening.

With a July 15 deadline, the contest invited writers to submit works of fiction no longer than 1,500 words. Word collaborated on the contest with the University of Maine’s  renowned Stonecoast MFA program and its literary journal, The Stonecoast Review. Leah Scott-Kirby, the review’s editor-in-chief, served as contest judge.

The two winners each received $100, and their stories will be published in the 2024-25 winter edition of The Stonecoast Review.

“Both stories exemplify the best of contemporary fiction,” Scott-Kirby said, “fearless in their exploration of dark, emotional landscapes while offering readers a deeply personal and resonant experience.”

Kirschner is a writer, teacher, and master gardener. She lives in Boston, but spends much of her summer in Blue Hill  with her little dog, Albert. She has published six volumes of poetry, a memoir, and a collection of short stories. She's working on a series of hybrid essays.

McPhearson, a student at United World Colleges in Montezuma, NM, has been writing on her own since the age of eight, later taking creative writing classes online through Writopia Lab. “Mostly I write short stories and flash fiction,” she said, “although more recently I’ve begun writing quite a bit of poetry.”