Everything Change Climate Fiction Contest 2020

Welcome to the Everything Change Climate Fiction Contest, presented by the Imagination and Climate Futures Initiative at Arizona State University. 

Inspired by the incredible international response to our climate fiction contests in 2016 and 2018, we are proud to announce our third contest in 2020—a momentous year for climate action, and an unprecedented opportunity to reimagine how humans will live on this planet in the future.

Work will be selected and judged by Claire Vaye Watkins, a Guggenheim Fellow, winner of The Story Prize, and the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, and author of Gold Fame Citrus, a climate fiction novel that was named a best book of 2015 by The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and NPR. Claire will join an interdisciplinary group of judges with expertise in climate science, sustainability, creative writing, and environmental literature.

All genres are welcome. The author of the winning story will receive a $1000 prize, and nine finalists will receive $100 prizes. The winning story and finalists will be published in an anthology by the Imagination and Climate Futures Initiative at Arizona State University.  

The Provocation

The beating drum of the climate crisis is a constant reminder that our planet is a closed, limited system, and that we’re currently living far beyond its boundaries. We are looking for short stories that help us imagine how humans can live within Earth’s planetary boundaries—at the individual level, yes, but more importantly at the level of organizations, communities, and societies, and at the level of a global human civilization.

What would our world look like if we actually respected and lived within planetary boundaries? How would we organize our homes, communities, cities, and nations? How would we live with and relate to each other at the global level? How might politics, culture, relationships, and identities—all of the messiness of human lives—change in a world where we’re grappling seriously with the climate crisis, and perhaps even trying to restore some of the damage we’ve already done to the planet and its ecosystems? What kinds of obstacles, conflicts, and transformations will arise during these humongous shifts? How can we ensure that a sustainable or even climate-positive future is also a just and equitable one?

Submission Guidelines

• Submit up to one (1) work of short fiction with a maximum length of 5,000 words. 
• Your submission must be under 5,000 words.
• Your submission must contain no identifying information (including your name) anywhere within the document. 
• Submissions that exceed 5,000 words or contain any identifying information about the author will be disqualified.
• Submissions must be original work that has not been previously published in print or online. 
• While the presence of other languages in the text is acceptable, the majority of the work must be written in English.
• Participants must be 18 years or older. U.S. and international submissions are welcome. ASU students and employees are welcome to participate. 

The deadline for the submission is April 15, 2020 by 11:59 PM Mountain Standard Time (GMT-7). Our judging process will be blind: judges will not have access to any identifying information about the authors, including their names, places of origin, or ages.

To read Everything Change: An Anthology of Climate Fiction, Volume II, which collects the grand prize winner and finalists from our 2018 contest, visit https://climateimagination.asu.edu/everything-change-vol-2. 

To learn more about the Imagination and Climate Futures Initiative, visit http://climateimagination.asu.edu. If you have questions, email us at icf AT asu DOT edu.

Support for the 2020 Everything Change Climate Fiction Contest is provided by Ingka Group, the largest retailer and a strategic partner in the IKEA franchise system, operating nearly 380 IKEA stores in 30 countries. Learn more about Ingka Group and its commitment to sustainability at https://www.ingka.com/about-us/sustainability. Ingka Group and its representatives will not be involved in the judging process, the decision-making around the winners of the contest, or the editorial process for the Everything Change book.