Writing must be in English or te reo Māori.

Entries must be a single story/poem of no more than 5000 words.

All published pieces will receive $60.

There is no entry fee, each writer can submit up to two pieces.

The editors and judges of the compilation are ineligible to enter.

Pieces must be by an individual author.

Entries must not include photos or illustrations.

Once an entry is submitted, it is final, no changes can be made to it before the close of the selection period.

Submissions open 1 April 2019 and close midnight on 31 December 2019. Submissions must be submitted via email, in MS Word format. The filename should be the title of the piece. Don’t include your name anywhere within the MS Word document. This allows selections to be chosen anonymously.

Our decision regarding the selected entries is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

Biographical information of some/all successful entries may be included in the final compilation. We will collect this information from successful entries following notification of intention to publish. This information may also be used in promoting the compilation.

Intellectual property rights remain the property of the entrant. However, successful entries grant Writers’ Cafe the royalty-free right to publish your work.

We will publish successful submissions in “The best of Auckland writing 2019”. Writers’ Café reserve the right to publish successful submissions elsewhere on our platforms, including but not limited to our website, social media and newsletter.

Successful submissions will be notified in January 2020. You are welcome to continue submitting your writing pieces elsewhere while we hold your work, but copyright must be yours for us to publish your work. If you lose copyright due to publication elsewhere (note that many NZ journals only claim right of first publication, after which time copyright returns to you), you can withdraw your piece from our consideration up to the 20th of December 2019. Pieces still with us/submitted to us after that time must have copyright owned by the author of the piece.

We aim to compensate authors and publish the compilation by end of March 2020. We will notify successful entries of any delays to this timeline (compensation will not be delayed beyond March 2020).

Submit your work in MS Word format to submissions@writerscafe.nz