Founded in 20025, the Wigtown Poetry Prizes are some of the UK's best established writing competitions, offering awards in all three of Scotland's languages with a prize pot of over £3,000.
Wigtown International Poetry Prize offers £1500 to the winning entry.
Separate prizes celebrate the best of Scottish Gaelic and Scots language poetry. The Fresh Voice Award acknowledges and supports a rising talent in Dumfries & Galloway.
The Alastair Reid Pamphlet Prize, named in memory of local poet and one of Scotland’s foremost literary figures whose centenary is 2026, offers publication to emerging poets and has provided a launchpad for many writers’ careers.
The guidance below is for entering all the Wigtown Poetry Prizes in 2026.
General Rules - please read carefully
1 - Entries open 2nd February 2026.
2 - Entries close 6th May 2026 at 12.00 noon.
3 - By entering the competition, you agree that your entries comply with the 2026 Competition Rules.
4 - Entries which do not comply with the 2026 Competition Rules will be disqualified and no refund will be given.
5 - Payment and submission of poems is taken as a declaration that entries are the poet’s own original work and that no artificial intelligence (AI) or large language models (LLM) have been used in any part of the process whether generating, creating, drafting or editing.
6 - If evidence of AI / LLM use comes to light, entries will be disqualified and poets will be barred from entering the competition in future.
7 - Entrants must be 16 years of age or over.
8 - There is no restriction on the number of entries submitted by each entrant to each category of the competition, providing the appropriate fee is paid.
9 - Poems may be on any subject.
10 - Poems must not be previously published*, accepted for publication or currently entered into another competition. If a poem is published elsewhere after being submitted for this competition, it must be withdrawn from the Wigtown Poetry Prizes, by emailing: mail@wigtownbookfestival.com.
11 - * Entries for the Alastair Reid Pamphlet Prize involve a collection of poems, and up to half these poems MAY have been published elsewhere.
12 - Alterations may not be made to entries once they have been submitted.
13 - The Judges’ decisions are final.
Online Entry format rules
14 - All entries must be made electronically (use Enter The Prize tab to the left).
15 - For the International, Scottish Gaelic and Scots prizes, each poem must be entered as a separate PDF document. This ensures that your poem is entered with its intended formatting.
16 - For the Alastair Reid Pamphlet Prize and the Fresh Voice Award, each collection of poems should be submitted in a single PDF document. This ensures that your collection is judged as a whole, and that it retains its intended formatting.
17 - All poems are judged anonymously; therefore the name of the poet must not appear on the manuscript or in its file name.
18 - Each separate entry file must be labelled with the name of the poem or collection.
19 - Entry fees are payable within the online entry submission system.
Prize-specific rules, fees and information
20 - Wigtown International Poetry Prize
Prize: £1500 Runner up: £200
Entry fee: Each poem submitted costs £10.00.
a) The competition is open to worldwide entries.
b) Poems must not exceed 40 lines (the title is NOT counted as a line).
c) Entries must be in English, Gaelic or Scots.
d) No member of the Wigtown Poetry Prizes organising committee, or employee or Trustee of Wigtown Festival Company or the Scottish Poetry Library may enter.
21 - Wigtown Scots Poetry Prize
Prize: £500 Runner up: £200
Entry fee: Each poem submitted costs £8.00.
a) The competition is open to worldwide entries.
b) Poems must not exceed 40 lines (the title is NOT counted as a line).
c) Entries must be in Scots.
d) No member of the Wigtown Poetry Prizes organising committee, or employee or Trustee of Wigtown Festival Company may enter.
22 - Wigtown Gaelic Poetry Prize
Prize: £500 Runner up: £200
Entry fee: Each poem submitted costs £8.00.
This prize is sponsored by the Gaelic Books Council.
a) The competition is open to worldwide entries.
b) Poems must not exceed 40 lines (the title is NOT counted as a line).
c) Entries must be in Scottish Gaelic.
d) An English translation or version of the poem may be included if the poet wishes, but it will not be judged.
e) No member of the Wigtown Poetry Prizes organising committee, or employee or Trustee of Wigtown Festival Company or the Gaelic Books Council may enter.
23 - Dumfries & Galloway Fresh Voice Award
Prize: A package of professional support, including mentoring and a week-long retreat at Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre in 2027.
Entry fee: Each entry submitted costs £10.00.
This prize is supported by Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre.
a) This Award will go to a poet living in or coming from Dumfries & Galloway who has never professionally published a full-length collection but shows promise.
b) Entrants must submit 3 - 6 poems, with each poem not exceeding 40 lines (the title is NOT counted as a line).
c) Entrants must specify the nature of their Dumfries & Galloway connection when entering if they are not currently resident in the region.
d) Entries may be in English, Scots or Scottish Gaelic.
e) Wigtown Festival Company reserves the right to invite writers who have not entered to be considered for the Award.
f) No member of the Wigtown Poetry Prizes organising committee, or employee or Trustee of Wigtown Festival Company or Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre may enter.
24 - Alastair Reid Pamphlet Prize
Prize: production and publication of a pamphlet set by Gerry Cambridge
Entry fee: £25 per submission.
a) Entrants must submit 8 – 12 poems, with a limit of 12 A4 pages, not including title page or appendices.
b) Entries must be in English or Scots.
c) No more than half the poems may have been published previously, and entrants must own the copyright of all previously published poems.
d) Wigtown Festival Company reserves the right not to award the Prize in the event that no suitable submission is received.
e) The judge will select one poem from the winning pamphlet to be published on the Wigtown Poetry Prizes website and in Southlight Magazine.
f) No member of the Wigtown Poetry Prizes organising committee, or employee or Trustee of Wigtown Festival Company may enter.
g) The winner will be invited to work with Gerry Cambridge in the design of the Pamphlet but will be expected not to reveal the fact they have won until after the formal announcement of the winners at the Prize-giving event.
h) The winner will receive 30 copies of the finished pamphlet at no cost for their own use; additional copies may be purchased.
Further information
The copyright of each poem remains with the writer. The winners and runners-up must grant Wigtown Festival Company the right to use their winning poems, including in Southlight Magazine, for one year from 2 October 2026.
- Short-listed entries will be revealed on the Wigtown Poetry Prizes website and short-listed entrants will be notified at least one month before the Prize-giving event.
- Winners will be revealed at the Prize-giving event at Wigtown Book Festival 2026 (25th September to 4th October 2026). All those shortlisted will be invited to attend in person. Winners – and where time allows, other shortlisted poets attending the event – will be invited to read during the Prize-giving.
- Winners will be announced on the Wigtown Poetry Prizes website and through other Wigtown Festival Company channels after the Prize-giving event.
- Winning and runner-up poems will be published on the Wigtown Poetry Prizes website after the prize-giving. Winning poems will be published in Southlight Magazine in autumn 2026.
- As a creative organisation, WFC is committed to supporting human creativity, authentic voice and the craft of writing. Our writing competitions prohibit submissions using artificial intelligence or large language models at any stage of the creative process. As part of the submission process, all competitors must declare that their entries are their own original work and that AI / LLM systems have not been used in generating, creating, drafting or editing their work. Systems for detecting AI content are imperfect, so our approach is based on trust, the standards creative communities typically expect, and clear communication of our rules. We expect entrants to the poetry prizes to have the integrity to observe these rules; but if we discover that a winning or shortlisted entry contains AI-generated content: the entry will be disqualified; any prizes will be forfeited; and the entrant will be barred from future competitions.
Telephone: 01988 402 036