Welcome to On The Premises, a short story magazine!
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On The Premises is an on-line fiction magazine founded in 2006 by Tarl Kudrick and Bethany Granger. We publish issues in HTML and PDF formats (and maybe someday, ebook formats).
Stories published in On The Premises are winning entries in short story contests launched every June and December. Each contest challenges writers to produce a great story based on a broad premise that we supply. Winning stories are published in individual magazine issues each April and October.
We also hold “mini-contests” four times a year, in April, May, October, and November. Winning mini-contest entries are published on our web site’s mini-contest pages.
We have published authors who live on six different continents–all we’re missing is Antartica. (In May 2019, we published a mini-contest winner from South America, so we’ve now got authors from all six of the continents with substantial populations.) All our stories are written in English.
Our Purpose
On The Premises wants to promote newer and/or relatively unknown writers who can write what we feel are creative, compelling stories told in effective, uncluttered, and evocative prose. Our contests have no entry fees. Winners receive cash prizes and publication.
Prize Money Has Increased!
| Short Story Contests | Mini-Contests | |
|---|---|---|
| First Place | US $250 (up from $220) | US $35 (up from $25) |
| Second Place | US $200 (up from $160) | US $25 (up from $15) |
| Third Place | US $150 (up from $120) | US $15 (up from $10) |
| Honorable Mention | US $75 (up from $60) | Publication (no money) |
As stated in our newsletter–and we received zero complaints about this idea–we’re raising the prize funds from 2021 onwards, but from now on, authors who are paid in currencies other than US dollars will have any applicable currency exchange fees subtracted from their prize payments. Starting in 2021, our author contracts will reflect this change.
We Will Critique Stories That Don’t Win (Yes, the Critiques are Back)
See here for more information. We will not critique mini-contest entries; they’re too short for a critique to be useful.
Our Newsletter
If you want to know when new contests begin, subscribe to our (free, short, ten-times-a-year) newsletter. By “ten-times-a-year” we mean every month except March and September. Those are the months we spend working with the authors on editing their stories and we don’t have much to say during those months.
We have an old blog about writing and editing, and you can visit us on Facebook too.