The Mythic Alley coven is extremely excited to announce that we will be launching The Romantasy Retellings Novella competition this autumn!

Our imprint was founded by a group of fantasy romance writers wanting to self-publish but finding the cost of professional services prohibitive. We banded together to share the breadth of our skills, experience and knowledge, in order to do justice to our stories, both for our readers and ourselves. The Romantasy Retellings Novella Competition has been created with the same ethos because:

“Independent Doesn’t Have to Mean Alone”

Rather than a monetary prize, we are offering a package of services to help (up to three*) winners publish their romantasy novellas. Everything from edits, cover design, formatting guidance and mentoring, to the offer of publication under the Mythic Alley imprint, with the writer retaining full rights to their winning novella and 100% of their royalties.

Further to this, every £25 entry fee grants, not only the ability for writers to submit their work, but a year’s exclusive subscription to the Mythic Alley Substack, where we will be posting regular writing craft and self-publishing advice tailored to each stage of the competition and nurturing a writing community for independent authors of romance.

We will also be open to donations to fund entry places for marginalised writers. Every time the donation pot reaches £25, we will run a sweepstake in order to award a marginalised author a free entry into the competition.

We’ll be looking for the first five thousand words of your romantasy novella, retelling the fairytale of your choice, along with a two-page synopsis, before those shortlisted will be asked to submit their completed novella.

The submission window will open on 19^th October 2026

and closes at midnight on 30^th November 2026.

Follow us here, on social media, or on Substack for free, to be the first to see our full entry details for the competition and the sweepstake, and our terms and conditions – coming soon!

*Entry fees directly support our Mythic Alley team to offer the services that make up the prize. Each time we pass the required amount to compensate the coven, we will offer another winning spot (with a maximum of three). The more entries there are, the more winners we can offer the prize to!