Enter the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival’s 2025 Writing Competition with new writing inspired by mental health and our theme of ‘Comfort & Disturb’.
This year’s competition is presented in partnership with WayWORD, a literary cross-arts festival celebrating unconventional forms of expression in Aberdeen. It aims to provide opportunities for both new and established writers to create new pieces exploring mental health in diverse ways.
This year’s theme for all categories is ‘Comfort & Disturb’. This can be interpreted in any way you choose – the limit is your imagination.
There are three categories and you can submit no more than one piece in each category:
- FICTION: Short fiction pieces, including short stories, between 500 and 2000 words.
- POETRY: Poems, up to 40 lines.
- CREATIVE NONFICTION: Prose writing with a factual basis, between 500 and 2000 words. Examples can include letters, diary entries, autobiographical writing, creative journalism, and personal essays.
The Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival (SMHAF) and the writing competition are led by the Mental Health Foundation. The festival is supported by Multi-Year Funding from Creative Scotland and a range of national partners.
The closing date for the competition is 23:59 on Monday 4th August 2025. We cannot accept any entries received after this date.
Submission Guidelines
Please read the guidelines in full before submitting.
- Entry to the competition is FREE.
- Entrants must be over 16 years of age.
- Entries must be typed and in English or Scots.
- Entries must explore mental health and the theme of ‘Comfort & Disturb’ in some way.
- Entries must be the entrant’s own original work and must not have previously been published in print or online.
- Entries must be anonymous. Please do not include your name anywhere on your submission file as this will mean that we are unable to judge your entry anonymously.
- Entries may have been written at any time as long as they have not been previously published or submitted to the SMHAF writing competition.
- Entries in the Fiction and Creative Nonfiction categories must be between 500 and 2000 words. Entries in the Poetry category must not exceed 40 lines.
- By entering you are agreeing to be published in any media, website or anthologies associated with the competition, as approved by the Mental Health Foundation. However copyright of any work submitted remains with the author.
- All entrants will be notified of a decision by Monday 1 September 2025. If you do not receive this notification, please check your junk folder before contacting us at smhaf@mentalhealth.org.uk.
- Shortlisted entrants will be invited to read their entry at the Writing Awards ceremony at SMHAF. This will take place in Aberdeen on Wednesday 29 October. Category winners and the overall winner will be announced on the day.
- We will inform all submitters if there are any changes to the above timetable.
- Due to a high number of entries we cannot provide individual feedback on your piece.
