Submissions for 2025 are closed

Ten stories will be selected.

We pay $45.00 for each selected story.

The top ten stories will be printed in the annual In Places Between book. A copy of this publication will be provided to each of the ten winning authors, volunteers, and contributing artists. 

 These are in ascending order with the least advanced tips at the beginning, and tips for more experienced writers toward the end.
 

• Read It Before You Send It 
  Your story made sense to you while you were typing it, but are you sure it's as clear as you think it is? Don't type it up and immediately send it in. Save it, leave it for at least a day, and read through it tomorrow. Make sure it all makes sense. Maybe leave it for another several days and read it one more time before you send it in. We get stories that, frankly, make no sense at all, along with stories that have simple, obvious mistakes. Make sure you've at least read it once before you send it.
   
• Your Story Should Not Be One Huge Paragraph
  Hit the ENTER key from time to time. We get stories that are one enormous paragraph. Other stories have one or two paragraphs per page. They're tough to read. Break your story up into paragraphs. In particular, when you have dialogue, start a new paragraph whenever there's a new speaker (more on that later). But sections without any dialogue need to be broken into paragraphs too.
   
• Don't Add Pictures or Fancy Formatting 
  I'll just remove it all before I send it on the judges.
   
• You Probably Don't Punctuate Dialogue Correctly 
  When I was reading last year's contest entries, it reached a point where I was surprised when someone actually punctuated dialogue correctly. Don't guess. Don't wing it. Learn the basic rules of punctuation and use them. There's only a few rules, and they aren't difficult. 
    

“My dialogue ends with a comma because the sentence continues after I stop speaking,” Jordan said. ”If dialogue contains a complete sentence, end with a period. Use a comma if the sentence continues,” he added. “Sometimes, the dialogue is the entire sentence.”

Kim said, “Start dialogue with a capital letter if it's the first bit of dialogue in the sentence.”

“However,” added Jordan, “start with a lower-case letter if it's a continuation of dialogue within the same sentence.”

“This is a new paragraph because it's a new speaker,” said Kim.
 

• It Doesn't Really Matter What Colour Someone's Hair Is 
  You probably describe your characters more than you need to. It doesn't help the story to include a catalogue of hair colour and eye colour and so on. Check some of your favourite books. There is probably much less description of the characters than you think. Detailed descriptions can actually hurt a story, because they interfere with the reader imagining the character. This is especially true of your protagonist. The reader likely wants to imagine themselves as the character. Don't interfere. Give the reader's imagination some room. 

Each year we recruit artists to illustrate each of the ten stories in the contest book. We pay $30 per illustration, plus a copy of the contest book.
 

We need a black and white illustration, sized to fit a 5.5 inch wide page. We want digital images or scanned files, ideally 1500 pixels wide by no more than 2500 pixels tall so it will print nicely at 300 DPI.
 

We'll send you a copy of the story you'll illustrate in mid-May, and you'd need to deliver the art by mid-June.
 

If you're interested, send an email to info (at) ipbcontest.ca with "Artist" in the subject line. 

Writing Better Fiction, a guide to the craft of writing by some of Canada's best writers and editors, is for sale now. Grab your copy at the shared authors table at When Words Collide, or use the links below to get an ebook, or a paperback from Amazon.

​The ebook from Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07VXK9LRT
The Amazon paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1086454243
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/writing-better-fiction
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/1132703770
Apple: https://books.apple.com/us/book/id1474494245

 Robyn Meta Harrington was a treasured part of Calgary's writing community until her untimely passing in 2004. An active member of IFWA, SFWA, and SF Canada, she had stories and poetry published in a wide variety of magazines and anthologies. One of her stories was even produced by CBC Radio. Robyn played an instrumental role in saving a local writing contest that was in imminent danger of being cancelled. When she passed away the contest was renamed in her honour. 
 

Robyn was passionate about writing and about helping her fellow writers. We're proud to continue In Places Between in her name. 

 Inquiries, submissions, and complaints should be directed to info (at) ipbcontest.ca. Nice clear subject lines would be appreciated.