Futurist Letters is proud to announce our first-ever essay competition, with submissions open now through September 19th. This event is funded in part by the generous subscriptions of our new paying members. Thank you and welcome to everyone who recently joined the community. We are very excited to continue in our spooky autumn tradition of themed competitions. I promise, it will get more wholesome in November.
The competition, Oneshotted, calls for you to dig up all those worrying facts of the world you'd rather not relay in pleasant company. We are looking for unpublished original essays 800-3,500 words designed to scare, surprise, and unsettle the reader as much as possible. The rules are simple:
Every fact you present must be true to the best of your knowledge.
No discussion or description of gore or sexual violence, human or animal. It’s a cheap shortcut.
The essay should not require a religious or supernaturally-inclined disposition on the part of the reader to be scary.
It can be persuasive, descriptive, historical, speculative, or entirely experimental. We encourage you to take that daring leap into the subject you just can't shake. Thrill and unsettle us. Do as you will.
The judges for this competition are the illustrious
and myself. The winner will receive $200 and publication in the journal. We would like to reserve the right to select and publish honorable mentions as well, for our standard rate of $40 per piece. We ask that any selected works remain exclusive to Futurist Letters for six months following publication. Intellectual ownership of all submitted work, selected or not, is retained by the author.To submit, please email our submissions inbox below with the phrase 'ONESHOTTED SUBMISSION' included in your subject line.
futuristsub@askariproductions.com
Submissions should be in standard manuscript format as .docx files. Pseudonymous submissions are welcome.
There is no limit on the number of submissions per author, and there is no submission fee. We ask you kindly to not submit any previously-published work. We also ask (although it is not required) that you share both this competition announcement and the eventual winning piece on social media, if you plan on submitting. We are a small journal, and all publicity makes a big difference.
Because of limited resources we can only respond to selected entrants. All submissions should be sent in no later than September 19th, 2025. A winner will be announced on October 3rd, the following week, and published in the month of October as part of our Future Weird collection.
If you are looking for our standard non-competition submission guidelines, you can find them here.
As always, we thank you for your readership, your submissions, your patronage, and your commitment to artistic vitality.
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