Deadline: March 3, 2025

The School of Cities, along with the departments of English at the University of Toronto Mississauga and University of Toronto St. George is hosting a short story & image competition inspired by the School of Cities’ annual themes. Submissions are welcome from full-time undergraduate and graduate students at U of T from any discipline, department, or campus.

The competition is divided into two categories: undergraduate and graduate. These will be evaluated separately, and three finalists will be selected from each group:

• Undergraduate competition: one winner and two honorable mentions
• Graduate competition: one winner and two honorable mentions

The submitted story and visual art component should substantively engage with an aspect of urban experience related to one of the School of Cities’ annual themes (climate and justice; migration, belonging, and thriving in cities; or inequality, data, and democracy). They welcome submissions about any city, anywhere in the world!

Prizes

• The winner in each category will receive a prize of $500. The honorable mentions will receive $250 each.

Eligibility

• The contest is open to all full-time students at the University of Toronto, both undergraduate and graduate.
• Entries must be original, unpublished works of fiction and visual art. No generative AI tools have created parts of or the whole story or image.
• Short stories should be up to 1,250 words maximum (Times New Roman, font 12, double-spaced, with 1” margins). They encourage writers to abide by these limits. The judges reserve the right to disqualify stories that do not meet these guidelines. They are looking for literary short fiction for which the visual artwork constitutes an integral additional part. Please do not submit chapters from novels, work for children, non-fiction articles or memoirs, screenplays, poems, etc.

For more information, visit

To apply, click here