The Speculate Prize for Emerging Writers

The Speculate Prize for Emerging Writers, presented in partnership with RMIT University, is a developmental literary prize open to Australian emerging writers currently enrolled in VE or university study. The prize celebrates short-form writing that embraces the otherness, complexity and expansiveness of speculation — whether through content, genre or form. Entries must be original, unpublished works of no more than 3,000 words. All literary prose genres are welcome, including fiction, narrative nonfiction, science-fiction, fantasy, experimental works, memoir, essay, horror, hopepunk, and hybrids of these. Work must be complete (not an excerpt), written predominantly in English, and submitted as a Word document. The winner receives $1,500 prize money, a week-long writing residency at RMIT's McCraith House on the Mornington Peninsula, a full pass to the 2026 National Writers' Conference, a Festival Pass to the 2026 Emerging Writers' Festival, and digital publication on the Emerging Writers' Festival website. A highly commended entrant will receive $250 prize money, a full pass to the National Writers' Conference, and a Festival Pass. The Speculate Prize is looking for work that is curious, bold and non-realist — writing that extends the possibilities of short-form literature and could only have been written by you.