New Writing Scotland is an annual volume publishing poetry and prose from both emerging and established writers. Every piece appears here in print for the first time, and has been drawn from a wide cross-section of Scottish culture and society. It is published by the Association for Scottish Literature is an educational charity that aims to promote the study, teaching and writing of Scottish literature, and to further the study of the languages of Scotland. 

New Writing Scotland publishes works by writers resident in Scotland or Scots by birth, upbringing or inclination.

All forms of writing are invited: autobiography and memoirs; creative responses to events and experiences; drama; graphic artwork (monochrome only); poetry; political and cultural commentary and satire; screenplays; short fiction; travel writing or any other creative prose may be submitted. We have a maximum recommended length of 3,500 words in total. Please do not send complete novels or other long works, although self-contained extracts are acceptable. The work must be entirely your own and produced without the assistance of generative AI. It must be neither previously published nor accepted for publication and may be in any of the languages of Scotland.

From 1 August 2025, submissions are invited for New Writing Scotland 44, publishing in summer 2026. Prose pieces should be double-spaced and carry an approximate word-count. Please do not put your name on your submission; instead, please provide your name and contact details, including email and postal addresses, on the covering letter. If you are sending more than one piece, please group everything into one document. The deadline is midnight (GMT) on 31 October 2025.

Visit our Submittable page to submit your work

We have limited space in each edition, and therefore shorter pieces are more suitable – although longer items of exceptional quality may still be included. A maximum length of 3,500 words is suggested. Please send no more than four poems, or one prose work. Successful contributors will be paid at a rate of £50 for the first published page and £25 for each subsequent published page.

Submission is free. Authors retain all rights to their work(s), and can submit and/or publish the same work(s) elsewhere after they appear in New Writing Scotland.