Writing Competition: Glossy Planet

Glossy Planet is a lit mag that responds to the world in real time. Every month, we drop a new challenge tied to what’s happening in the headlines, the culture, and the moment. Think: the literary version of a group chat, if your group chat included a bunch of writers trying to make sense of it all.

We want your flash experiments, microessays, poems, weird little lists—anything under 1,000 words that makes us stop and feel something. We’re here for impact and heat, not polish or perfection. If you’re writing in response to the world, not hiding from it, we want to hear from you.\

Closes on Wednesday, October 15, 2025

Entry Fee: $10.00 

The scariest monsters aren’t hiding under the bed. They’re the ones we made ourselves. Write about the monsters of our own making and how they haunt us today, whether that’s AI and tech, structural violence, climate collapse, or something just as insidious.

We are not looking for ghost stories or urban legends. Instead, send us writing that responds to what you doomscroll through. We’re seeking recipes for social justice, prose that explores the perils of smartphone addiction, poems about inflammatory rhetoric and the platforms they build, survival tips for the singularity, and more. Show us what “monsters of our own making” means to you.

We welcome all forms: fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, hybrid, or something even genre goblins can’t categorize. Please submit up to 1,000 words of prose and up to two pages of poetry. If it’s urgent, sharp, and dripping with weird, we want to read it.

Send us your words that are as alive and unruly as the moment. Three winners will be selected and published at the end of November.

Prizes:

First place: $1,000 and publication

Second place: $200 and publication

Third place: $100 and publication

Guidelines:

• Submissions are open to all writers, no matter your publication history.

• Send us unpublished work only. (Yes, even if it’s published on your blog.)

Length

• Prose: Up to 1,000 words.

• Poetry: Up to two pages. (If you’re a little over the word count and can’t chop it without killing the monster, send it anyway.)

• Submit prose double-spaced in a standard format, like Times New Roman. Absolutely zero Comic Sans.

• We have no format requirements for poetry or other works.

• Send your work as one document.

• If your piece doesn’t quite fit any of the genres listed, select the closest one and note how you would describe it in your cover letter.

• Simultaneous submissions are fine, but let us know if your piece is picked up elsewhere. Otherwise, we’ll curse you.

• Multiple submissions are welcome, but each requires its own $10 entry fee.

• In your brief cover letter, include a brief bio, what genre you’re writing in, and your publication history. If you haven’t published before, that’s great! Send it!

• We accept your own translations of your unpublished work.

• International submissions are welcome, as long as the work is primarily in English. Code-switching/meshing is also welcome.

• Absolutely no AI-generated or AI-assisted work.

• Please consider including a content warning if your work engages in potentially triggering content. Your work will not be judged based on this warning, and we will appreciate the consideration you're giving to our reading staff.

We aim to reply within four weeks.
Questions? Contact us at:

contact@glossyplanetmag.com

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Submit your entry here.