A competition for AI storytellers

Submit a Body of Work that tells a story from start to finish. Be reviewed by expert judges, and compete for a $1,000 grant and a feature in Prompt Magazine.

Free to enter · Open worldwide · Judged on skill · Entries close 12 July

Gratitude as Genesis

Every world in the Canopy of Duat-Heaven starts the same way. Not with a battle. Not with a command. With a gift.

This Body of Work asks a question I keep returning to in my own life and my own craft: what if gratitude isn't a response to creation, but the cause of it. What if a god doesn't build a world because he decides to, but because someone gave him something first, and he didn't know how else to hold what he felt.

Nüwa, the creator, gives Anubis, the keeper of passage, a pagoda library. Not a weapon. Not a throne. A place to keep what matters. Act I is that exchange, quiet and full of weight, two mythologies meeting at the moment before anything else happens.

Act II is what gratitude does to a body that isn't built to hold it. Script-light ignites where his hands touched the gift and spreads outward. Stone cracks open beneath him, not from damage but from pressure, from something too large for the moment to contain. This is not a god performing power. This is a god changed.

Act III steps back from the transformation to show what it built. Two Librarchs, scholar-guardians whose entire purpose is memory and record, stand before a city that didn't exist an hour ago, floating, still forming at the edges. Someone has to write down what just happened. That's what they're for.

Act IV is the world at rest inside its own creation myth. A processional down an avenue lined with jackals, toward a pagoda that is now permanent, now real, now part of the architecture of the world instead of a gift passed between two hands.

I build every piece in this Canopy mythology from the same conviction: African aesthetic tradition, cosmological storytelling, and technical craft are not separate disciplines I'm balancing. They're one practice. This Body of Work is the clearest statement of that practice I've made. Gratitude as genesis. Feeling as architecture. A world built because someone was given something, and couldn't do anything except let it become everything.

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ssdkmusic

@ssdkmusic

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Edition 1 Theme

The Architecture of Feeling

Pick a feeling - (wonder, longing, awe, the quiet kind of joy, it's up to you!) - and build a Body of Work that tells a story about it. Tell one story from start to finish, as a collection of images and/or videos, or as a single edited video. Think short film or mini exhibition, not a single image, clip, or mood board.

We want to feel it, not just see it.

Full competition details

Key Dates

Entries open

Jun 15, 2026

Entries close, judging begins

Jul 12, 2026

Winners announced

Jul 20, 2026

Winners announced in 4d 7h 23m

Awards & Prizes

🏆
Best Overall$1,000 USD grant + 30,000 fast credits + feature in Prompt Magazine
📖
Best Storytelling15,000 fast credits + feature in Prompt Magazine + verified Select portfolio
✨
Most Creative15,000 fast credits + feature in Prompt Magazine + verified Select portfolio
❤️
Community Favourite15,000 fast credits + feature in Prompt Magazine + verified Select portfolio
🎖️
Highly Commended (×10)2,400 fast credits each + print copy of Prompt Magazine + Highly Commended badge

Full prize list

Judging Panel

Angus Russell

Founder, NightCafe

Sarah Impey

AI Community Manager, Runware

Marco Pittarello

Founder, Prompt Magazine

Gully Ahmed

NightCafe community member

About the panel · How it's judged

FAQ

Discuss NightCafe Select

PRO

ssdkmusic

@ssdkmusic

0Creations

View Profile

Key Dates

Entries open

Jun 15, 2026

Entries close, judging begins

Jul 12, 2026

Winners announced

Jul 20, 2026

Winners announced in 4d 7h 23m

Judging Panel

Angus Russell

Founder, NightCafe

Sarah Impey

AI Community Manager, Runware

Marco Pittarello

Founder, Prompt Magazine

Gully Ahmed

NightCafe community member

About the panel · How it's judged

Discuss NightCafe Select

PRO

ssdkmusic

@ssdkmusic

0Creations

View Profile

Edition 1 Theme

The Architecture of Feeling

We want to feel it, not just see it.

Full competition details

Key Dates

Entries open

Jun 15, 2026

Entries close, judging begins

Jul 12, 2026

Winners announced

Jul 20, 2026

Winners announced in 4d 7h 23m

Awards & Prizes

🏆
Best Overall$1,000 USD grant + 30,000 fast credits + feature in Prompt Magazine
📖
Best Storytelling15,000 fast credits + feature in Prompt Magazine + verified Select portfolio
✨
Most Creative15,000 fast credits + feature in Prompt Magazine + verified Select portfolio
❤️
Community Favourite15,000 fast credits + feature in Prompt Magazine + verified Select portfolio
🎖️
Highly Commended (×10)2,400 fast credits each + print copy of Prompt Magazine + Highly Commended badge

Full prize list

Judging Panel

Angus Russell

Founder, NightCafe

Sarah Impey

AI Community Manager, Runware

Marco Pittarello

Founder, Prompt Magazine

Gully Ahmed

NightCafe community member

About the panel · How it's judged

FAQ

Discuss NightCafe Select

Edition 1 Theme

The Architecture of Feeling

We want to feel it, not just see it.

Full competition details

Awards & Prizes

🏆
Best Overall$1,000 USD grant + 30,000 fast credits + feature in Prompt Magazine
📖
Best Storytelling15,000 fast credits + feature in Prompt Magazine + verified Select portfolio
✨
Most Creative15,000 fast credits + feature in Prompt Magazine + verified Select portfolio
❤️
Community Favourite15,000 fast credits + feature in Prompt Magazine + verified Select portfolio
🎖️
Highly Commended (×10)2,400 fast credits each + print copy of Prompt Magazine + Highly Commended badge

Full prize list