Writing Contest

Purpose of the contest

We are going to make a magazine of short stories and we would like to publish one of yours! We are looking for stories in the following 5 genres.

• Literary fiction and Satire / 1000-2000 words 

• Travelogue / 500-2000 words 

• Mystery short story / 500-2000 words 

• Science Fiction / 1000-2000 words 

• Fantasy not Sci-fi / 1000-2000 words 

Each genre is judged by a different member of our staff. Each story will be beta-read and checked for serious mistakes and then passed to our judges for final determination. We will determine the following 3 actions. 

• Rejection. We will inform you of rejection when our judges have time.

• Publishing. We will inform you of the judges approval and include your work in our magazine.

• Winner.  We will inform you of your win at the end of the contest in November (or sooner) and make arrangements to pay you. We can pay through Paypal or another method, depending on the status of the economy and your current location.

DEADLINE: 9/1/25 September 1st. Deadline extension possible.

PAYOUTS!

Winners get $250 per genre win!

The prize money has already been raised through the kindness of our sponsors. The main purpose of the entry fee is for four reasons.

1. Pay for the time of our beta readers as well as the publishing cost of our magazine.

2. Keep out AI-generated slop from cheap chiselers.

3. Increase our payouts to winners should we get over 600 submissions. 

4.  Fund our research into improving ESL teaching methods and materials. We are a non-profit so the funds will not be used for our own enrichment.

Guidelines:

#1: No excessive violence (graphic torture, extreme combat, gorn, etc) or sexually suggestive material, hate speech, genocide apologia, etc.

#2: No material that violates the laws of the Republic of Korea regarding defamation of character or historical revisionism.

#3: No material copied from another source. This includes poorly retranslated material or AI-generated stories. AI-edited stories are fine. 

#4: Only unpublished works allowed. If we find your work on the internet somewhere else, we will not publish it.

#5: Once a contest is finished, your right to publish submitted work is considered restored, provided that you have not won the contest. If the story wins, then the author provides this site right to publish the story on this site or elsewhere (We are planning to publish a new literary magazine at the end of the year). The copyright to the story shall transfer to the GNU-DLE website, in perpetuity, until the website closes. Copyright can be transferred back to the author by request under certain circumstances. ‘Publish’ includes all forms of electronic publication, including podcasts.

#6: Work that is not properly formatted and spell-checked will be rejected.

#7: Do not expect to be contacted prior to the end of the contest. Once the winner’s announcement has been passed, the winner(s) shall be contacted. If you have not heard from us after the announcement, then you have not won. Please refer to guideline #5

#8: Please read the guidelines and contest rules before submission. Material that violates the rules shall be unceremoniously deleted. All decisions made by the judges regarding the winners are final.

#9: By submitting, you are agreeing to all contest rules. Contest rules are subject to change.

Submission instructions:

Send your completed submission to: DLEwritingcontest@koreamail.com in the form of a Word document or RTF or paste it into the body of your email. 

In the Subject box, write your name and “Submission title & Genre”. This will make sure the right eyes see it and the right judge gets it. 

Then click the submission button below. If you're in Korea, include in your message that you're here and we will send you a bank account #.