A Few Competitions with November Deadlines

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new novel competitions, Short story competitions, The London Magazine

The London Magazine have extended their deadline to 14 Nov. for a short story under 4,000 words. Prizes: £500, £300, £200. Entry fee £10. Website http://www.thelondonmagazine.org.

Caledonia Novel Award. The first 20 pages, plus a 200-word synopsis of a novel by an unpublished writer. Prize: £1,000, plus online publication of the winning extract. Entry fee: £20. Deadline 1 Nov. Website: http://www.caledoniannovelaward.

Scribble Annual Short Story Competition. Stories with the first line ‘The white envelope fluttered down to the carpet/’ Up to 3,000 words. Prizes: £100. £50, £25. plus publication in Scribble. Entry fee: £4. Closing date: 1 Nov. Website: http://www.parkpublications.co.uk

Fish Prize for Short Stories, up to 5,000 words. Prizes: 3,000 Euros for the first; a week at Anam Cara Writer’s Retreat in West Cork plus 300 Euros expenses for the second; 300 Euros for the third. Entry fee: 22 Euros online, 20 Euros via post. Closing date: 30 Nov. Website: http://www.fishpublishing.com

H E Bates Short Story Competition. 2000 words. Fee £6 or two for £10. Prizes: £500, £100, £50. Deadline: 30 Nov. Website http://www.hebatescompetition.org.uk

Ink Tears Short Story Competition. 1,000 to 3,500 words. Prizes: £1,000, £100, 4x£25. Entry fee: £6. Deadline 30 Nov. Website: http://www.inktears.com

Why wait for January to make that resolution to enter more writing competitions?

 

Our Friends in Norwich – Their ‘Mustard’ Short Story Competition

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Anteros Centre, Mustard Short Story Competition, Norwich Writers' Circle, Olga Sinclair

The lovely people at Norwich Writers’ Circle announced the winners of their Olga Sinclair ‘mustard’ themed short story competition on the 20th October at the Anteros Centre in the city of Norwich.

There was wine, food and, best of all, readings of the three winning entries. These tremendous stories and the names of their writers should be on the NWC website soon – https://norwichwriters.wordpress.com – so please make sure you catch them when they hit the web. Rare African snails. A Japanese Cluedo fanatic. A yellow-painted nursery tinted with tragedy. But I mustn’t jump the gun and reveal too much, too soon.

It was a pleasure to be with NWC on the night and although I wasn’t one of the winners I did return home with a certificate for being one of the final ten on the shortlist – together with a handy book bag containing those well-known writers’ essentials: a pen, a poetry book, and a heavy slab of chocolate.

A beautiful city, a vibrant writing community, and advance news that there should be another of their open competitions in 2016. The theme (whisper it) will probably be shoes…

A More Level Playing Field for Writers

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Amazon, book reviews, cheats

We probably all know someone who gets their partner to write a mouth-watering review of their book on Amazon (handy that he’s got a different surname!) to boost their sales. Maybe we’d be tempted to do the same – but hopefully not on an industrial scale.

Amazon, the world’s largest online marketplace, has apparently filed papers in the U.S. against more than 1,000 people it claims offered to write glowing reviews on behalf of unscrupulous authors. This includes a network of freelance forgers operating as so-called ‘optimisers’ who produce batches of favourable write-ups to order for a fee.

Legal experts say that although the Amazon case will rely on U.S. law, this could signal similar moves in Britain to track down perpetrators.

It’s hard enough to get promotion for your work without cheats muddying the water.

Her Fame is Spreading

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Christine's column, Sevenoaks Chronicle, The Courier

Our very own Christine, whose column in The Sevenoaks Chronicle causes its residents to splutter over their Thursday breakfast tables – with amusement, indignation, or recognition of some ridiculous aspect of life – is now also published in The Courier of Tunbridge Wells.

There’s no stopping the girl…

To Hull and Bratislava and Back

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British Czech & Slovak Association, Christopher Fielden, competitions, Hull

Congratulations to Radovana Jágriková on her success in the To Hull and Back writing competition, as announced on the excellent Christopher Fielden website! Radovana won with her story Too. Entries in the competition had to be humorous, but Too I also found unsettling and with what was for me a wholly unexpected twist. It will appear in the To Hull and Back anthology. (See http://www.christopherfielden.com/short-story-competition/results-2015.php for more on the results.)

Radovana I have met before, as in 2013 I had the pleasure of presenting her with the second prize in the British Czech & Slovak Association’s annual writing competition. She won that with Journeys.  That story especially appealed as its setting was the prizegiving at a writing competition! It described the repercussions three years later of a British stag weekend in Bratislava.

One of ninevoices’ own, Maggie Davies, was given a Special Mention in the comp, for her story The Castle (see The Rejection Diaries below). A tale well worthy of its commendation, I can confirm.

The 2016 To Hull and Back competition is already open. Prizes are £1,000, £150 and £75, and the prizewinning and shortlisted entries will be published in an anthology. The glory doesn’t end there, for the cover of the anthology will include a photo of the winner’s face, depicted riding a flaming motorcycle and holding “a quill of wrath”, and their copy will be fixed to the handlebars of a Harley Davidson and ridden from Bristol To Hull and Back. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain.

Stories must contain some element of humour. The closing date is 31 July 2016, and the word limit is 4,000. The entry fee for a single story is £7. For full details, including guidance on what sort of humour might appeal, see http://www.christopherfielden.com/short-story-competition/#Comp2015

The British Czech & Slovak Association’s 2015 competition has closed; the judges’ votes have been counted and verified, and the results will be announced at the BCSA’s Annual Dinner in central London on 27 November 2015. (Some tickets are still available, for both members and non-members – see http://www.bcsa.co.uk/whatsnew.html#dinner for info). The results will also appear here.

The 2016 BCSA competition will be launched in February next year. The themes are likely to be the same as this year’s: either (a) a link or links between Britain and the Czech or Slovak Republics (or their predecessor states), at any point in history or (b) society in transition in those Republics since the Velvet Revolution in 1989. Entry will be free, the closing date will be 30 June 2016, and the word limit 2,000. With migration so topical just now, in 2015 writers were encouraged to consider this as a subject for their entries. Watch this space for any similar suggestion in 2016. To express interest in 2016 you can e-mail me at prize@bcsa.co.uk.

So, repeated congrats to Radovana and Maggie. And here’s to 2016 for the rest of us!

 

 

 

Man Booker Prize Winner

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Man Booker Prize, rejection

Thank you, Marlon James – for sharing with us that your first novel was turned down SEVENTY-EIGHT times.

Along with our thick skins we clearly need gigabytes of persistence.

The Rejection Diaries

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competitions, rejection, Shakespeare

When troubles come, they come not single spies but in battalions...

Did Shakespeare get rejections? Must have done, mustn’t he? Anyway, I’ve had two rebuffs in the last days: a magazine declining one of my stories and a local charitable 400-word competition which has been scooped by someone else. Am I downhearted? You betcha!

HOWEVER, this is proof positive that I’ve been busy writing and submitting, which is a huge accomplishment in itself. I’ve been much more active this year than last and have had a few invaluable fragments of encouragement – a long-listing and a short-listing. Also, although the magazine didn’t want my story, it was recently commended in a competition.

Writers need thick skins. Wine. Chocolate…

When reading makes you tired

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Goldsmiths prize. sunlit novels, Jane Austen

The excellence of the novels shortlisted for the Goldsmiths prize goes without saying. I am telling myself that I will try to read at least one of them.

That might be enough. Or enough without sandwiching them with other kinds of novels. For the prize’s remit is ‘to reward fiction that breaks the mould or opens up new possibilities for the novel form’.

Again this is an excellent thing. It’s good to encourage writers to explore, to experiment with art forms. Didn’t Jane Austen create a new kind of novel?

But I read through the accompanying blurbs for the shortlisted novels with a sinking heart. They all sound rather hard work.

I am not proud of these feelings. The pursuit of enjoyment should not be the primary reason for reading a novel, we should be looking to have our minds and hearts expanded, to be taken on a journey, to learn something about the world we live in.

But there’s the dread that there will only be the unfamiliar or confusing territory, and enjoyment will be in short supply or missing altogether. This is when I find myself reaching with a guilty hand for more ‘sunlit’ novels which tell a story in straightforward language. These may not win prestigious prizes but they don’t leave the reader feeling exhausted.

Writing Magazine Shortlist

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crime story competition, T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land, Writing Magazine

Ninevoices were delighted to discover that our Sarah was recently shortlisted in Writing Magazine’s crime story competition with her dark tale of murder on Tunbridge Wells Common: Oh, Keep the Dog Far Hence.

Well done, Sarah! It’s a tremendous story and must have only missed out by a whisker. The thing about being shortlisted, of course, is that you are now free to enter it somewhere else.

The title, by the way, is a quote from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. (Embarrassingly we didn’t recognise it, either…)

Rejection – The Fairy Story

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Hilary Mantel, Short stories

You’re at the kitchen table, drooping over yet another rejected story. In her basket, Ruby, the cocker spaniel, looks expectant, head twitching and nose up. Then the door bell rings. She must have sensed a visitor. Anyway, she’s at the door ahead of you.

‘Hi, Ruby! I’ve come, as promised.’

The visitor sweeps past you into the kitchen while you remain, frozen, on the doormat. It is Hilary bloody Mantel, isn’t it? Are you going to scream? Faint? Wake up from a dream? And how does this world-renowned woman know your dog?

By now Hilary’s in the kitchen. She picks up your crumpled story, unearths a pencil from her bag, and starts scribbling all over it. ‘Just make me a coffee,’ she says, giving Ruby an absent-minded pat. ‘Instant will be fine, but make it strong.’

You’re in a trance as you boil the kettle. This wonderful writer is sitting at your kitchen table, biting savagely at the end of her pencil and working her way through your story. How did this happen? You’ve nearly lost control of your bodily functions. The power of speech is certainly beyond you.

‘Right.’ She drops the pencil back in her bag and grabs the coffee mug before you spill it. ‘It wasn’t that bad,’ she says, knocking the Gold Blend back in one gulp. ‘Just needed tweaking. My first drafts of Wolf Hall were utter crap, believe me.’

She hands you the empty mug and heads for the door, Ruby at her heels. Then she’s gone, in a flash. You stare down the street. No sign of her. There’s not even a car or a taxi in sight.

Ruby scampers round the side of the house towards the garden through a shaft of sunlight, her flapping ears magnified by a trick of the light into giant golden fairy wings.

 

Okay – you were warned it was a fairy story – BUT wouldn’t we all agree that any story of ours rewritten by someone like Hilary Mantel would become fabulous? No story is without hope. We just have to keep rewriting…