April 2025 – Hysteria Timeline

Hello everyone,

We are counting down the days to the launch of this year’s Hysteria Writing Competition here at Hysteria HQ. Very shortly, we’ll also announce the line-up for this year’s reading team, and my deepest thanks go to everyone who has volunteered, it feels like a big family reunion.

I often get emails after it’s started, and once again after the deadline for entries has passed, asking me what happens next and the timing of events, so I thought it might be helpful to put together a handy infographic listing all the stages of the competition. You’ll also find a handy bullet list at the end of this post for anyone who is visually impaired.

Event list

• March – invitation sent out to the mailing list inviting people to join the reading team.
• 1st May – competition launches.
• 30th June – competition closes.
• July – reading month for reading teams.
• August – finalisation of short listed entries for each category.
• September – anthology is put together and finalists are announced.
• November – category winners are announced at the anthology launch event.
• December – anthology is available to buy as last minute stocking filler.
• January and February – winners offered a publishing contract and do an online interview.