Need a great last-minute gift? Learn more about gifting one of our challenges at www.nycmidnight.com#gifts. Schedule a personalized email to be delivered on the date of your choice. Happy holidays! 🎁

The Final Round of the Rhyming Story Challenge 2025 is underway! The final assignment of the competition is Open (genre), On the fence (theme), and flabbergasted (emotion). Best of luck to the 56 finalists with their 400-word rhyming stories over the next 48 hours!

The 2nd Round results for the Rhyming Story Challenge 2025 are up at nycmidnight.co/4aJyp0Z! Congratulations to the top four in each group for advancing to the Final Round, which kicks off this Friday, December 12th. Best of luck to them, and thanks to all who participated!

Who forgot they signed up for the @nycmidnight.bsky.social 250-word micro-fiction contest this weekend? (👈🏻 this guy) Who got Suspense/Thriller as a genre and has never written in that genre? (👈🏻 this guy) Who keeps looking at the ticking clock with worry and... 💡(👈🏻 this guy) #5amWritersClub

The 250-word Microfiction Challenge 2025 is officially underway! View your genre, action, and word assignment, a countdown to the deadline, and upload link at nycmidnight.co/3Y8xD66. Best of luck to the 3,200+ writers participating worldwide over the next 48 hours!

The 250-word Microfiction Challenge kicks off at 11:59 PM TONIGHT (NYC time), and registration closes soon! Join thousands of writers around the world as they create super short stories this weekend. Learn more & register at www.nycmidnight.com/250. Good luck to all the participants!

We are proud to present the story that won last year's 250-word Microfiction Challenge! Read "Hey, Google" by Paul Leonard (Australia) at bit.ly/3XpVOwL. Original illustration is by Yevgenia Nayberg. Enjoy, and get ready for the 250-word Microfiction Challenge 2025 kicking off this Friday, Dec. 5th!

The Final Round of the 500-word Fiction Challenge 2025 is underway! The final assignment of the competition is Open (genre), appreciating (action), and a business card (object). Best of luck to the 88 finalists with their 500-word stories over the next 48 hours!

The winners of the Flash Fiction Challenge 2025 have been announced at nycmidnight.co/4o7rMJa! Congratulations to Leila Murton Poole (UK) for adding the win to her collection, which now stands at a total of five across all our challenges. Thanks to everyone who participated!

The 2nd Round results for the 500-word Fiction Challenge 2025 are up at bit.ly/4pfpxEx! Congratulations to the top four in each group for advancing to the Final Round, which kicks off this Friday, November 14th. Best of luck to them, and thanks to all who participated!

The 2nd Round of the Rhyming Story Challenge 2025 is underway! View the list of participating writers, genre/theme/emotion assignments, and a countdown until the deadline at nycmidnight.co/3WHZFoA. Best of luck to the 432 participating writers over the next three days!

The 1st Round results for the Rhyming Story Challenge 2025 are up at www.nycmidnight.com/rsc/2025-1st...! Congratulations to the top 8 in each group for advancing to the 2nd Round, which kicks off this Thursday, November 6th. Best of luck to them, and thanks to all who participated!

The Scary Story Challenge 2025 is officially underway! View your scare/action/character assignment, a countdown to the deadline, and upload link at bit.ly/3X3VZ0i. Best of luck to the 3,600+ writers participating worldwide over the next 48 hours, and Happy Halloween! #ScaryStoryChallenge

The Scary Story Challenge kicks off TONIGHT, and there is still time to register! When the competition begins at 11:59 PM New York time, writers worldwide will be challenged to craft scary stories in 48 hours. Learn more and register at www.nycmidnight.com/scary. Happy Halloween! 🎃

The Scary Story Challenge kicks off in one week! On October 31st, writers worldwide will be challenged to create scary short stories in 48 hours. Learn more and register at nycmidnight.com/scary. Good luck, writers! #scary #scarystories

The 100-word Microfiction Challenge 2026 kicks off on March 20th! The 7th annual competition will challenge writers worldwide to create very short stories based on genre, action, and word assignments in 24 hours. Learn more and register at www.nycmidnight.com/100. Good luck, writers!

The Scary Story Challenge kicks off next Friday, October 31st! The inaugural competition will challenge writers worldwide to create scary short stories in 48 hours. Learn more and register at www.nycmidnight.com/scary. Good luck, writers! #scary #scarystories

The 23rd annual Screenwriting Challenge kicks off on February 13th and will challenge writers worldwide to create short screenplays based on genre, subject, and character assignments. Learn more, register, and read previous winners at www.nycmidnight.com/scc. Good luck, writers! #screenwriting

The 2nd Round of the 500-word Fiction Challenge 2025 is underway! View the list of participating writers, genre/action/object assignments, and a countdown until the deadline at nycmidnight.co/46SLX6W. Best of luck to the 880 participating writers over the next 48 hours!

The 1st Round results for the 500-word Fiction Challenge 2025 are up at nycmidnight.co/4gQYNXG! Congratulations to the top 10 in each group for advancing to the 2nd Round, which kicks off this Friday, October 3rd. Best of luck to them, and thanks to all who participated!

The 20th annual Short Story Challenge kicks off on January 23rd and will challenge writers worldwide to create short stories based on genre, subject, and character assignments. Learn more, register, and read previous winning stories at www.nycmidnight.com/ssc. Good luck, writers!

We would like to send a hearty congratulations to long-time participant Paulene Turner on the publication of her most recent book, Heartbeats! Heartbeats is a compilation of short stories in a variety of genres, and most were created for our challenges. Learn more at shorturl.at/cGkEW.

The Final Round of the Flash Fiction Challenge 2025 is underway! The final assignment of the competition is Open (genre), A visitor center/centre (location), and leftover food (object). Best of luck to the 66 finalists with their 1,000-word stories over the next 48 hours!

The 2nd Round results for the Flash Fiction Challenge 2025 are up at nycmidnight.co/3IrOVXO! Congratulations to the top three in each group for advancing to the Final Round, which kicks off this Friday, September 19th. Best of luck to them, and thanks to all who participated!

We finally have a winner of the Short Story Challenge 2025! Congratulations to D.R. Forge (New York, USA) for taking the grand prize with their story, "When Dragons Do Laundry." Check out the full list of 2025 winners at nycmidnight.co/4gfpghq. Thanks to all who participated!

The Rhyming Story Challenge 2025 is officially underway! View the genre/theme/emotion assignments, a countdown to the deadline, and upload link at nycmidnight.co/3VxkSRo. Best of luck to the 1,500+ writers participating worldwide over the next 8 days!

The Rhyming Story Challenge 2025 kicks off tonight, and there is still time to register! The 4th annual competition will challenge writers worldwide to create short rhyming stories based on genre, theme, and emotion assignments. Learn more and register at www.nycmidnight.com/rhyme. Good luck!

We would like to send out a massive congrats to Joanne Yi on her debut novel, "All the Tomorrows After"! Joanne helped out behind the scenes with NYC Midnight for several years before moving on to focus on her novel, which was an August Book of the Month pick. Learn more at her website, joanneyi.com

We're proud to present the winning story from last year's Rhyming Challenge! Get the tissues ready, and read "Motel-day" by Louise Walton (Australia) at bit.ly/motel-day. Original illustration by @znayberg. Enjoy, and get ready for this year's Rhyming Challenge on Friday!

Check out the 2nd place story from last year's Rhyming Story Challenge, "The God of Giving Up" by Alexandria Bellani (Canberra, Australia), at bit.ly/45VZc6l. The original illustration is by Yevgenia Nayberg. Enjoy, and get ready for this year's Rhyming Story Challenge on September 5th!

A huge congratulations to Christy Hartman (Canada) for winning the 100-word Microfiction Challenge for the second consecutive year with her final round story, "Impossible Choice." Check out the full list of 2025 winners at nycmidnight.co/4p1p5KM. Thanks to all who participated!

We’re happy to announce that we'll be publishing the top 3 stories from last year’s Rhyming Story Challenge! First up is the 3rd place story, “The End of Nanga Brook” by David Trunkfield (Perth, Australia), at nycmidnight.co/47N21sO. Original illustration by Yevgenia Nayberg. Enjoy!

Always a wonderful feeling to submit! Despite despairing at the genre assignment, I have to say I rather adore my story in all its darkness! Thanks @nycmidnight.bsky.social for pushing me out of comfort zone as always! #Writing #WritingComps #NothingBetterThanTheFeelingOfSubmitting

The 500-word Fiction Challenge 2025 is officially underway! View your genre/action/object assignment, a countdown to the deadline, and upload link at nycmidnight.co/41K87Gu. Best of luck to the 3,400+ writers participating worldwide over the next 48 hours! #500WordChallenge2025

The 500-word Fiction Challenge kicks off tonight, and there is still time to register! The 3rd annual competition will challenge writers worldwide to create short stories based on genre, action, and object assignments in 48 hours. Learn more & register at nycmidnight.com/500. Good luck, writers!

We are proud to present the winning story from last year's 500-word Fiction Challenge! Read "Watchmaker's Hands" by @scmillsbooks.bsky.social at nycmidnight.co/411DmwA. Original illustration by Yevgenia Nayberg. Enjoy, and get ready for this year's 500-word challenge kicking off on August 15th!

🥳 Congratulations to Tom and the top finishers in @nycmidnight.bsky.social's Screenwriting Challenge 2025! We're happy to have been a title sponsor for this year's contest and want to thank all participants.

Check out "When The Blue Smoke Drowns" by Rachel Harbaugh (USA) at nycmidnight.co/4m6qeyR, which took home 2nd place in last year's 500-word Fiction Challenge. Synopsis: An Appalachian woman ponders life after Hurricane Helene. Illustration by Yevgenia Nayberg. Enjoy!

We have a winner of the Screenwriting Challenge 2025! Congratulations to Tom Glasson (Sydney, Australia) for winning the competition with his final round screenplay, "An Abundance of Five." View the full list of winners at nycmidnight.co/4op0FdG. Thanks to all for participating!

The 250-word Microfiction Challenge kicks off on December 5, and registration is open! The 7th annual competition will challenge writers worldwide to create very short stories based on genre, action, & word assignments in 48 hours. Learn more & register at www.nycmidnight.com/250

The 2nd Round of the Flash Fiction Challenge 2025 is underway! View the list of participating writers, genre/location/object assignments, and a countdown until the deadline at nycmidnight.co/455TSN6. Best of luck to the 616 writers participating over the next 48 hours!

The 1st Round results for the Flash Fiction Challenge 2025 are up at nycmidnight.co/4l4Ezu2! Congratulations to the top 7 in each group for advancing to the 2nd Round, which kicks off this Friday, August 1st. Best of luck to them, and thanks to all who participated!

The Final Round of the Short Story Challenge 2025 is underway! The final assignment of the competition is Open (genre), Swim against the tide (subject), and a gentleman of leisure (character). Best of luck to the 40 finalists with their 1,250-word stories over the next 24 hours!

We’re happy to announce that we will be publishing the top 3 stories from last year’s 500-word Fiction Challenge! First up is the 3rd place story, “Tomorrow, Today,” by Melissa Jornd (Streamwood, IL, USA) at bit.ly/4mb16qa. Original illustration by Yevgenia Nayberg. Enjoy!

The 3rd Round results for the Short Story Challenge 2025 are up at nycmidnight.co/4foOauR! Congratulations to the top 5 in each group for advancing to the Final Round, which kicks off this Friday, July 25th. Best of luck to them, and thanks to all who participated!

The Final Round of the 100-word Microfiction Challenge 2025 is underway! The final assignment of the competition is Open (genre), prioritizing (action), and stun (word). Best of luck to the 168 finalists with their 100-word stories over the next 24 hours!

The 2nd Round results for the 100-word Microfiction Challenge 2025 are up at nycmidnight.co/408skoR! Congratulations to the top 8 in each group for advancing to the Final Round, which kicks off this Friday, July 11th. Best of luck to them, and thanks to all who participated!

The @nycmidnight.bsky.social challenges have done more to help me grow as a writer than anything else I’ve done. If you’ve never tried them, give one of them a shot!

We're happy to announce our inaugural Scary Story Challenge, which kicks off on October 31st and will challenge writers worldwide to create scary short stories in 48 hours. Learn more, register, & read some examples of scary stories at nycmidnight.com/scary. Good luck, writers!

The Final Round of the Screenwriting Challenge 2025 is underway! The final assignment of the competition is Open (genre), No-frills (subject), and a taskmaster (character). Best of luck to the 36 finalists with their screenplays over the next 24 hours!