Writing WA is proud to announce the next public all-out for our Short Story Showcase!

The Showcase features the work of West Australian authors speaking to different themes, as part of our 2024-25 project Changing the Conversation: Stories in All Spaces, running between October 2024 and October 2025. This project is designed to build new bridges between writing and other creative fields, offering a series of immersive, often experimental experiences designed to reshape how literature is perceived across the community.

• Our next activation and theme is Stories from the Spectrum.
• Submissions are due by 10 am AWST Monday 10 March 2025.
• Writing WA aims to notify the successfully selected authors by the end of that week.
• Selections will be made by Autistic and neurodivergent team members.

We are reaching out to the Autistic community in WA (aged 16 years +) to share your creative works for the Short Story Showcase in honour of Autism Understanding Month. Works from the selected Autistic authors will feature on a pop-up exhibition at the State Library of WA throughout April 2025. We are seeking micro fiction or micro memoir pieces under 125 words that showcase your unique perspective on the world. This includes, but is not limited to, sharing topics of special interest, describing the challenges of navigating neurotypical spaces, sharing the impact of your discovery day/discovery journey/discovery disclosure, providing insight into a heightened sensory experience, or celebrating Autistic strengths.

The judges will be looking for stories that acutely capture the beautifully atypical experience of being Autistic. These stories may make us laugh, feel teary, feel less alone, feel empathy, teach us something new, and/or capture our interest. We particularly encourage writing that is also Autistic in nature, such as, the use of repetition (in honour of echolalia) and language partitioning (e.g., use of parentheses to clarify information – yes, this is an intentionally meta clarification of information within parentheses).

Entry is free and each selected author will be paid $100 for their work. The works will be showcased at the State Library of WA via the Writing WA office as part of a small pop-up window display throughout April 2025. We will be selecting between 6 – 8 stories in this activation.

Send us your stories via the portal here.

Queries: [email protected] or [email protected]

Conditions of Entry:
o Entry is free and open to anyone who is Autistic (formally diagnosed or self-diagnosed), 16 years or older, and currently living in Western Australia.
o Limited to one entry per person.
o Entries should be 125 words or fewer (the title is not included in the word count).
o Entries must feature the author’s unique voice and perspective.
o Entries must be original and previously unpublished.
o The judges’ decision will be final and no correspondence will be entered into.
o By entering the competition, winning entrants grant the organisers a non-exclusive license to use, reproduce, and display their work, including but not necessarily limited to: Love to Read Local website; State Library of WA; Love to Read Local Literary Map; social media.
o Entries containing hate speech, violence, profanity, or illegal material will be disqualified.
o AI-generated writing is strictly prohibited.
o Entrants retain full copyright of their submitted work.

The Short Story Showcase represents one aspect of Changing the Conversation: Stories in all Spaces, a 2024-25 cross-disciplinary project kindly funded by the WA Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries and in partnership with Raine Square. The project is designed to build new bridges between writing and other creative fields, offering a series of immersive, often experimental experiences designed to reshape how literature is perceived across the community.