We once again begin our creative journey. It’s a lot like growing up. Your story begins as a baby, a mere proposal. It grows into the child of your first draft. Then it’s the awkward teenage years as you coax it through the critique group. And, finally, it comes of age in your final draft.
While the theme is “Coming of Age”, we invite you to make of that what you will. Like well-cellared wine. Or stock options vesting. Or the emergence of zombies on a rare celestial event.
As a member of the Hong Kong Writers Circle, you are invited to submit your proposal for a work of poetry, short fiction, flash fiction, or creative nonfiction by the deadline of June 1, 2025 to hkwc.anthology21@gmail.com. This should be a brief sketch (under 100 words) of your envisaged submission on the theme. If you are NOT a current member, you need to join us or renew your membership before 15 August to be accepted for publication.
Please Note: we are looking for more tightly written stories this year and have set the maximum word count to 3,500. However, if you believe that your story requires a word count extension, we will be happy to discuss this with you after reading your first draft. But we would love to see more stories written in under 2,000 words.
We would also welcome more genre stories. Send us fantasy, speculative fiction, sci fi, horror and romance (but please, no erotica—Julian is English).
Human Writers Only: We will not accept any stories written by AI.
Key Dates
1 Jun — Deadline for proposals
14 Jun — Feedback given from the editors
15 Aug — First drafts due (max 3,500 words)
Early Sep — Editor-critiqued first drafts returned
Mid-Sep — Critique groups assigned
15 November — Final drafts due
Confidentiality
As writers, we understand the importance of establishing trust amongst our peers. The creative process can be a delicate and often fragile thing. We want to ensure that all our work is conducted within a safe space this year. All exchanges with editors and within critique groups will be subject to Chatham House Rules: participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.
For a detailed writing guideline, check out the attachment here.
Jay Oatway and Julian Lyden
The 2025-26 Anthology Editors
Hong Kong Writers Circle 
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