Cosy Short Story Competition by the Hogwarts Headliner

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SHORT STORY COMPETITION official headliner competition

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During this cosy time of the year, the Headliner would like to proudly present a chance for the community's writing to be featured within the school newspaper! We will be hosting a short story competition, which was previously announced as part of our November edition, in the "Campfire Stories 101" article by me. This short story competition will follow the overall theme of:

Cosy Bonfire / Cosy Fireplace

There will be three categories of short stories to choose from. Players may choose one category and have their character write a story that suits the overarching theme of cosy and the specific category for which they choose to write. The three categories are as follows:

-----Cute & Funny---- Prize: Bewitched Snowballs Spell Runner-Up: 2 galleons

-Epic & Adventurous- Prize: Fire-Making Spell Runner-Up: 2 galleons

Mysterious & Puzzling Prize: Unlocking Charm Runner-Up: 2 galleons

Please do not talk to other users about the story you submitted, as there will be an anonymous voting process to ensure fairness!

THE RULES & INFORMATION

You(r characters) will have time to submit entries to the competition until the 7th of January, 2026 - 23:59 of any timezone.

The competition is exclusive to Hogwarts students, so no adults or iNPCs may participate in this competition.

As the Headliner is an in-character newspaper, the competition will be accessible to your characters, which means that, if you wish to participate, you acknowledge that the story you submit to the Headliner is written by your character.

The winner for each respective short story category will receive a spell prize as listed. The runner-up (second place) of each respective category will receive a price of 2 galleons.

You may only submit one short story; it is important that you provide the category for which you have written!

All entries must follow the submission form provided in the next section, or your entry to the competition is invalid!

Please send your competition entries to me via owl - [Shortcut].

The Form:

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Code: Select all

[b]Character Name:[/b] [i]insert your account / character name here, no pseudonyms[/i]
[b]Category:[/b] [i]select one: Cute & Funny, Epic & Adventurous or Mysterious & Puzzling[/i]
[b]Word Count:[/b] 

[b]Short Story Name:[/b] [i]please provide a name for your story![/i]
[b]Short Story:[/b]
[size=75][i]please insert a short story with a [b]minimum[/b] of 350 words and a [b]maximum[/b] of 450 words. please do not provide any sort of coding in this story, aside from putting emphasis on words using [i]italics[/i] etc., as we have our own coders in the headliner.[/i][/size]

[b]Acknowledgements:[/b] 
[size=75][i]please tick (☑) the following statements if you agree with them. if you do not agree with them, you are sadly unable to participate in this competition.[/i][/size]
☐ I acknowledge that this story - while written by me - will officially be viewed as in-character written by my character.
☐ If I win, I allow the Headliner team to publish the submitted short story, giving credit to my character.
☐ If I win, I allow the Headliner team's editors to make edits in the form of grammar and writing corrections, as is their job.
☐ I am not currently a member of the Headliner team.
☐ I acknowledge that publicly talking about the story I submitted [i]before[/i] the winners of the competition are announced can result in [color=darkred]disqualification[/color] from the competition.

[size=75]- please do not talk about your submitted story or the category to which you submitted a story so that we can more easily maintain anonymity and fairness in the winner selection process -[/size]

FAQ

What effort is put into this competition to ensure anonymity?
Each submission is handled by me – the person to whom you are supposed to owl the form. In the process of forwarding the competition entries, I will remove your character name and present the short stories to the rest of the Headliner team in an anonymous manner. I, myself, will not vote for any of the short stories that have been submitted. Your names will be revealed only after the votes have concluded, thus making an effort to maintain anonymity.

Can I submit for more than one category?
No. You may only pick one category to which you want to submit a short story.

Am I allowed to include HiO characters in my story?
For the sake of anonymity and also the ease of not needing permission from every mentioned person in this competition, we ask that you do not use any existing HiO characters. Similarly to the homework system, please use exclusively made up characters or pseudonyms.

When will the winners be announced?
As of right now, it is undecided whether the winners of the competition will first be announced within the next issue in February, or separately once the votes have concluded and the winners have been chosen in January.

I already own the spell for the category I want to participate in, can I pick another prize?
In that instance, you can either sell the prize or gift it to someone else, but the prizes of the competition are not changeable. So, no, you may not pick another prize.

What is the timeline of the competition?
You will have until January 7th, 2026 to submit your short stories via owl. After that, there will be up to a week for the Headliner team to discuss and vote on the anonymised short story entries. The winners of the competition will be announced either with the February issue, where they will be featured as articles, or as part of a separate announcement ahead of the published articles. Once the issue has been published or the winners have been announced, the respective prizes will be handed out to the winners and the runners-up.

- if you have any other questions feel free to reach out to me (Oonagh) -