About

Rejection Competition is open to all writers of all levels, all genres, all ages, and all over the world.

Every year, Reneé Bibby runs a friendly competition to see who can acquire the most literary rejections in a calendar year. Inspired by Kim Liao’s Lit Hub article “Why you Should Aim for 100 Rejections a Year,” the competition reframes rejections as “wins.” 

Read more about the motivating benefits of Rejection Competition in Michelle Ross' article on Atticus Review.

What are the timelines?

• The competition runs January 1st–December 31st every year.

• Writers can join at any point of the year but are encouraged to join at the start of the year to enjoy the motivation of competition.

What counts as rejections?

• The competition is for publication rejections (poetry/essay/CNF/stories) but not novels, agent representation, residencies, or writing positions.

• It’s the rejection date that counts, not the submission date. If you submit the piece in the previous year but receive the rejection in the current competition it counts towards that year’s competition.

• Each rejection of a single piece counts in the tally, i.e., a single piece may have multiple rejections; or, for example, even if pieces are submitted together the individual pieces are counted as their own rejections.

• It’s purely rejections, not publication ratio. Part of the competition includes celebration of acceptances but winners claim their division solely on the number of rejections.

What do writers win?

• There are currently no prizes attached to winning. When Reneé launched the competition in 2017 all of the participating writers were in Tucson and at that time it was possible for everybody to gather in a year-end celebration to hand off the Wings of Triumph, a ridiculously oversized trophy (pictured below). Since then, the pandemic and the prohibitive costs of shipping Wings of Glory to people outside of Tucson has made this a bragging rights competition only.

• Winners will be honored with publication on this site with a link to their website and announcements on Reneé’s public social media.

How do writers participate?

• First step it so to sign up following the procedures, below.

• Every month, writers enter their rejection tally into a shared Google Sheet that is built and managed by Reneé.

• Keep writing, keep submitting, tallying your rejections, and reporting them in the spreadsheet.

• Writers can also report their acceptances and awards in the shared Google Sheet.

Can I invite others to join in?

Absolutely! This competition is open to all writers! To invite others, please share this page with any interested people as it will answer most of their questions and provides the easiest way to register.

2025 Sign Up Now Open!

Your email will not be shared with other participants.

Winners

2023

Division 1
BEE LB, 310 rejections

Division 2
Jake Dennis, 159

Divison 3
Anam Tariq, 53 rejections

2022

Division 1
Lisa Bass, 269 rejections

Division 2
Timi Sanni, 121 rejections

Division 3
Aina de Lapparent, 36 rejections

2021

Division 1
Eric Scot Tryon, 364 rejections

Division 2
Lisa Harris, 147 rejections

Division 3
Sharon Wexler, 26 rejections

2020

Division 1
Kim Magowan, 191 rejections

Division 2
Sharni Wilson, 109 rejections

Division 3
Lisa MacDonald, 25 rejections

2019

Division 1
Michelle Ross, 172 rejections

Division 2
Lisa Harris, 77 rejections

Division 3
Lisa MacDonald, 15 rejections

2018

Michelle Ross, 207 rejections

2017

Alice Hatcher, 177 rejections