Submissions open
Creativity50
Opens 3 August 2026 · closes 4 September 2026, 11:59pm
Horror, romance, comedy, literary, sci-fi, something nobody has a name for yet, we don't mind. Submit your piece, get feedback from other writers, redraft it...
Submissions close in
Up to 2,000 words.
Any genre. Any style. Creativity unleashed.
Fifty pieces of writing. Fifty writers. No genre, no house style, no box to tick. Whatever you have always wanted to write — write it here.
Can you write something brilliant?
Horror, romance, comedy, literary, sci-fi, something nobody has a name for yet — we don't mind. Submit your piece, get honest feedback from other writers, redraft it, and the fifty best will be published in paperback and online.
Surprise us
Every other competition hands you a theme and asks you to colour inside it. This one does the opposite. The only brief is that it has to be yours, and it has to be good.
Write the thing that doesn't fit anywhere else. The idea you've been told is too odd, too quiet, too big, too much. Bring us the voice nobody else has.
Together we'll build a collection that has no business working — and works anyway.
Start now
Don't wait for the best idea. Waiting is where good writing goes to die. Writers write.
Write it badly, get it read, then make it better. That's the whole process, and it's the reason this works.
Keep it simple
• Any genre. Any style. Any form. If it's writing, it counts.
• Your work must be original and previously unpublished.
• No pieces submitted to previous Create50 projects.
• You can enter as many times as you like.
• You must read and give feedback on other writers' work — this is how the community earns its keep.
• One redraft per piece is included, so use the feedback.
• Be decent to each other. Abusive behaviour means removal, no refund.
• Once submitted, entries are final and can't be withdrawn.
• Judging is final, and we may select fewer than fifty pieces if the work isn't there.
About the rights you give us
You keep the copyright in your work. Always.
If your piece is selected, you grant us a non-exclusive right to publish it in the Creativity50 collection. You're free to develop the idea further — expand it, adapt it, take it anywhere you like. We only ask that selected pieces aren't published elsewhere for twelve months, and if a better opportunity comes along, tell us and we'll release you from that.
What do you need to do?
Read the rules (below).
Write your piece and submit it (or find something you wrote before.)
Read and give feedback on other writers' work.
Redraft using what you learn, and resubmit your final draft.
Meet the team
Project Leader And Tester
Passionate about all things film, I have spent my life watching movies, making movies and helping others make their movies too. Most recently I have been directing Splinter Unit on 'Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning', parts 1 and 2 for Paramount. I also executive-produced 'The Enfield Poltergeist' for Apple TV+. Deeper into my past, my early major projects include action thriller 'The Runner', serial killer thriller 'White Angel' and paranormal horror 'Urban Ghost Story'. I co-created and authored The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook series, published by Bloomsbury. There are now eight books in the series. More recently I have run a series of London-based festivals, kicking off with the London Screenwriters Festival which attracts over 1,000 professional screenwriters from around the globe annually. I also set up and run TEDxEaling, an annual TEDx conference on storytelling and human communication. In 2009, I made the multi-award-winning and Oscar-shortlisted 'Gone Fishing', the whole process being heavily documented on my blog. In 2014 I completed my fourth feature film, the crowd-created 50 Kisses which entered the Guinness Book Of Records for most screenwriters on a feature film. Following this success, I founded Create50 to continue the idea of crowd-created projects. Twisted50, our first book, was published on Halloween 2016 and immediately toppled Stephen King from the top spot on Amazon. Five books have followed in the Twisted50 series and we are working on the sixth now. During the summer of 2016 I trained to become a master Firewalk instructor and now regularly take people across the hot coals for charity. Late 2017 I directed the short film 'Seeing Him' which collected a ton of awards too. Over the following years I continued to make award-winning shorts, such as Meet The Nativity and Never Too Late. In the summer of 2022 I premiered Impact 50, the second feature-length movie from Create50. This time I directed the segment at the start of the film, with Olivia Williams as the President, and written by Joe Eszterhas. In the summer of 2022, I also joined the Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 productions as Splinter Unit director. At Halloween 2023, the Apple TV+ show that I co-executive-produced, 'The Enfield Poltergeist', premiered. I run regular filmmaking workshops for filmmakers both online and in person. Some people ask how I began making films? Like most filmmakers of my generation, it was with a Super 8mm camera, summertime and school friends, usually after watching a behind-the-scenes TV programme on a Hollywood movie like Star Wars. My first film was a zombie horror called Necronomicon, heavily influenced by John Carpenter's The Fog. And I was hooked for life. Contact me at Ealing Film Studios, Ealing Green, London, W5 5EP, UK
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