Hello!

The longlist for Ink of Ages Fiction Prize 2027 is out!

Each story has been read and assessed by at least two reviewers, and Joanne and Taabir have made the final selections for this year’s adult and youth longlists.

A huge thank you to our global reading team for supporting us with the record-breaking number of entries. And to our entrants: Thank you for your patience as we’ve been eagerly reading.

Our Readers’ Impressions

There has been such an exciting range of inspirations this year. From ancient historic monuments to werewolves and family legacies, this year’s entries have certainly kept our readers locked in!

The Tudor era has been a notable source of inspiration this year, alongside the Sasanian Empire, the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata, and the Persian myth of the Simurgh.

As expected, there have been quite a few entries inspired by the story of Odysseus this year! Our readers have certainly enjoyed finding unique and creative takes on the ancient Greek epic.

It’s always a delight to learn about new mythological figures, specific events in history, or a family connection that you’ve definitely never heard of before, and we aim to create space to celebrate multiculturalism in fiction from around the world.

We would like to remind everyone to carefully read the rules before submitting. Sometimes we have to disqualify great writing over issues which break our rules but could have easily been fixed before submission.

How we screened out AI-related entries

We’re sure you can imagine this year there’s been a significant number of AI-generated or modified entries. Here are a few of the things we like to look out for:

• Lack of consistency, depth, and sense.

• Lack of connection to characters / superficial characters (even more pronounced if it's supporting characters)

• Lack of dialogue, and when it appears, it's a lot of dialogue-only text on its own.

• Overused rhetorical devices such as things coming in threes and ‘not x but y’ constructs.

• False profundity – trying to sound important when it’s … not.

• Odd last lines overstating themes.

• Repeating ‘cookie-cutter’ structures.

• There are too many to list 🙈

With the intense growth of AI stories this year, our readers have put in a lot of extra effort to ensure the quality of future winning stories, in respect to all the readers and writers who trust our contest.

Our Anthologies

If you’re curious to know which kind of stories are going to win and can’t wait for it, you can check the winners from the previous years while we work on selecting the shortlist.

To read the winning and shortlisted stories from our past contests, you can purchase our printed anthologies from 2024 and 2025 or check out our online archive for a smaller selection of freely available stories.

Our most recently published anthology celebrates 25 winning and shortlisted stories from the 2025 Ink of Ages Prize!

Our writers take us from the valleys of South Wales to Pakistan’s Lake Saif-ul-Malook, from Polish salt mines to the foothills of Chinese mountains. Murder, betrayal, death, and disaster meet hope, resilience, and a sprinkle of humor. In the face of despair, at least there’s family (when they’re not conspiring against you), music, art, dogs, and Danish pastries.

What endures when everything else has turned to dust?

Click the links below to find out more:

Echoes Origins: Ink of Ages Volume One→

Dust Divinity: Ink of Ages Volume Two→

If you read either of our anthologies, please leave us a review. We would love to know what stories resonate with you and a lot of care has gone into both publications.

Congratulations to the 2027 Prize longlist!

Sophia, Haniya, and Joanne

Ink of Ages Fiction Prize is run by World History Encyclopedia and generously sponsored by Oxford University Press, and more details are available on the contest website.

Joanne Taylor
Proofreader & Editor
World History Encyclopedia
www.worldhistory.org