SMHAF 2025: Writing Competition Now Open
Full details
Enter the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival’s 2025 writing competition with new writing inspired by mental health and our theme of ‘Comfort & Disturb’.
The writing competition is one of SMHAF’s most enduring successes, providing an opportunity for first-time writers to be published alongside established names.
The awards ceremony helps us to discover what our festival is really about, as people from across Scotland and further afield take inspiration from our theme in poignant, powerful, personal and often ingenious and surprising ways.
Writing programme comes to Aberdeen
This year’s awards event will take place in Aberdeen during SMHAF 2025, with shortlisted writers invited to read from their work on the night.
The Aberdeen event is the second of our writing awards events to tour to new locations in Scotland, following a fantastic evening last year at V&A Dundee. As always, the competition is open to everyone but this year we particularly encourage entries from people based in Aberdeen and the surrounding area.
Photo: Grant Anderson
We are also delighted to announce that our writing competition and programme is presented in partnership with WayWORD at the University of Aberdeen.
Shane Strachan, Director at WayWORD, said:
WayWORD empowers young people to produce a cross-arts literary festival in Aberdeen which celebrates new work and ideas, amplifies diverse voices and breaks down barriers to culture in our community.
It is part of the WORD Centre for Creative Writing at the University of Aberdeen where we are passionate about researching and promoting the benefits of creativity on mental health.
We are therefore thrilled to be partnering with Scotland’s Mental Health Arts Festival on their creative writing competition this year, and look forward to hosting the prizegiving in Aberdeen for the first time.
Keep an eye on our website and social media channels for more updates about the programme, including a series of writing workshops taking place over the summer.
Competition details
The theme for 2025 is ‘Comfort & Disturb’. This can be interpreted in any way you choose – the limit is your imagination. For this year’s competition, there are three categories:
- FICTION: Short fiction pieces, including short stories, between 500 and 2000 words.
- POETRY: Poems, up to 40 lines.
- CREATIVE NONFICTION: Creative writing with a factual basis, between 500 and 2000 words. Examples can include letters, diary entries, autobiographical writing, personal essays, and creative journalism.
Photo: Ingrid Mur
The shortlisted writers and a winner in each category will be selected by a jury of writers and mental health professionals. In recent years, jurors have included Sarah Bernstein, Tom Bird, Jenni Fagan, Kirsten Innes, and Graham Morgan. Hosts for the event have included Ian Rankin, Rhiannon Mudaliar, Hannah Lavery, and Catherine Simpson.
The jurors’ shortlisted entrants will be invited to read their entry at the awards ceremony in Aberdeen during the festival. The shortlisted and winning pieces of writing will also be published in an illustrated print and digital book.
You can read examples of work from previous writing competitions here.
How to enter
Entries are open now. The closing date for the competition is 11.59pm on Monday 4 August. We cannot accept any entries received after this date.
Photo: Ingrid Mur
Entries must be submitted as a document (.doc or .docx) or PDF (.pdf) file using our online submission form. You will also be asked for your contact details and a short description of your piece.
The competition is free to enter and open to all. Entrants can be based anywhere in Scotland, the UK, or internationally. Entries must be your own original work. They must not have previously been published either in print or online, and must not have been submitted to the writing competition in previous years. Please see the submission form for full guidelines.
If you have any questions about the competition, require any support, or need to submit in another format for accessibility reasons, please get in touch at smhaf@mentalhealth.org.uk.
Enter the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival’s 2025 Writing Competition with new writing inspired by mental health and our theme of ‘Comfort & Disturb’.
The closing date for entries is 11.59pm on Monday 4 August. Good luck!
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