Writing Competitions to Enter in December

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Audio Arcadia's General Fiction Short Story Competition, Bath Children's Novel Award, Flash 500 Competitions, H E Bates Short Story Competition, Henshaw Quarterly Short Story Competition, Magic Oxygen Literary Prize, Reflex Quarterly Flash Fiction, Times/Chicken House Children's Fiction Competition

 

Yesterday was one of ninevoices’ fortnightly writing days. An opportunity to share work-in-progress, discuss books we’ve read, and encourage one another to persevere – perhaps the most important quality for a writer, after talent. And, to demonstrate its importance, ex officio member Skipper trawled around the room in search of a dropped or donated fragment of food and reminded us with his melting brown eyes to be dogged in our literary endeavours.

Here are some ways:

The Magic Oxygen Literary Prize wants stories up to 4,000 words and poems up to 50 lines on any theme. Prizes are £1,000, £300, £100 and 2 x £50 in each category. The entry fee is £5 and FOR EVERY ENTRY A TREE IS PLANTED IN AFRICA. Worth entering for the good you are doing, with the possible bonus of winning one of the prizes. The deadline is 31 December. Details: http://www.magicoxygen.co.uk

Flash 500 Competitions hold quarterly competitions for flash fiction, up to 500 words. Prizes: £300, £200 and £100. Entry fee is £5 for one, £8 for two. Deadline 31 December. Details: flash500.com

Bath Children’s Novel Award. Send first 5,000 words and synopsis. Prizes: £2,500, various shortlist prizes, including Cornerstones online course worth £1,800. Entry fee: £25. Closing date 2 December. Details: http://www.bathnovelaward.co.uk

Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition for full-length novels of 30,000 to 80,000 words, suitable for readers 7-18. Prizes: publication deal worth £10,000. All longlisted writers receive an editorial report. Entry fee: £15. Deadline 18 December. Details: http://www.chickenhousebooks.com/submissions

H E Bates Short Story Competition for up to 2,000 words. Prizes: £500, £200, £100, £100 for best short story by Northampton writer not winning another prize. Entry fee: £6, or £10 for two. Closing date 3 December. Details: http://www.hebatescompetition.org.uk

RW Themed Flash Fiction Prize. Short fiction up to 500 words on quarterly set themes. December: ‘Running Away‘. Prizes: £200, 2 x £100. Entry fee: £8. Closing date 30 December. Details: http://www.retreatwest.co.uk

Henshaw Quarterly Short Story Competition for stories up to 2,000 words. Prizes: £100, £50, £25. Entry fee: £5. Deadline 31 December. Details http://www.henshawpress.co.uk

Audio Arcadia’s General Fiction Short Story Competition for stories up to 5,000 words. Prizes: anthology publication, royalties. Entry fee: £5.50. Closing date 31 December. Details: http://www.audioarcadia.com

The Exeter Novel Prize is open for entries, and asks for the first 10,000 words (including synopsis) of a novel that has not been accepted for publication by a tradition publishing house. The first price is £500, plus a trophy. Five shortlisted writers will each receive £100 and a trophy. Entrants must not be currently represented by a literary agent.The entry fee is £18, payable by Paypal. Details http://www.creativewritingmatters.co.uk  The closing date is January 1st – technically next year, but the morning after New Year’s Eve isn’t the best time to press all the right buttons on your computer. Do it well ahead of time!

The Moth Poetry Prize awards 10,000 Euros for a single unpublished poem, and 3 prizes of 1,000 Euros for runners up. Closing date 31 December. Details: http://www.themothmagazine.com

 

Skipper would like to remind you to check all details carefully before entering any competitions. Good luck!

 

 

Which Children’s Fictional Characters Still Walk Beside Us? Part II

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Black Beuaty by Anna Sewell

Reading Tanya’s post reminded me that we picked up a copy of Black Beauty in a charity shop this summer – a book my husband and I both loved as children. Perhaps it was where our love of horses began.

In an idle moment – not many of those with a book to edit – I started reading it again. And cried again, as I did as a girl of eleven or twelve.

Books like Black Beauty teach young people about compassion, and the need for kindness in an often cruel world. Qualities as relevant now as they were in Anna Sewell’s day.

Choose your Christmas books well, as Aunt Laura did. They help form the next generation.

 

Which children’s fictional characters still walk beside us?

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A Little Princess, Anne of Green Gables, Apple Bough, Emily of New Moon, Frances Hodgson Burnett, L. M. Montgomery, Noel Streatfeild, Saplings, Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did

The children’s section of our local bookshop has been invaded by older adults buying Christmas presents for grandchildren. Watching them picking up titles from the classics shelf I wondered if they are secretly longing to buy the books they loved as a child rather than today’s bestsellers?

Perhaps all of us can remember the books which seemed to frame our childhood and become part of our identity. They were usually about ordinary children in the real world; they gave us companions who shared the same feelings and troubles. Such books were entertainment and escape, but also something even more valuable. They contained characters who inspired us with a wider vision. Without ever being preachy, they were stepping stones in the confusion of growing up and sorting out what matters in life.

Anne Shirley in the Anne of Green Gables series, Emily Starr in the Emily of New Moon series (L. M. Montgomery), Myra in Apple Bough, Laurel in Saplings (Noel Streatfeild), Katy Carr in What Katy Did (Susan Coolidge), Sara Crewe in A Little Princess (Frances Hodgson Burnett) – just some of the vital friends who lived beside me in childhood and ever since. It’s good to see them still on the shelves in bookshops along with today’s favourites Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Matilda.

Another Book For Your Christmas List

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Books for Christmas, Francis Spufford, Golden Hill, The Miniaturist, Waterstones, Wolf Hall, Writing Historical Fiction

On one of my frequent trawls through the treasures in our local Waterstones I noticed that the wonderful Golden Hill by Francis Spufford is out in paperback. For anyone who enjoys a classy historical novel, this would make a perfect Christmas gift.

Having loved the book in hardback, and enthused about it on this site when it first came out, I thought I’d reproduce those earlier thoughts here. Since that time I’ve re-read Golden Hill several times, seeking pointers on how to write a top-flight historical novel. Francis Spufford makes it look easy, but sadly that isn’t so…

With apologies for repeating myself, here, again, are my thoughts on this outstanding book. I’m still waiting for him to write a sequel, or Hollywood to come up with the film. It’s a cracking tale.

An impatient, personable young man from London has himself rowed from the brig Henrietta to the New York shore of 1746, carrying a bill of exchange in his pocket. It’s for the vast amount of one thousand pounds – and must be honoured within sixty days by trader Master Lovell, who owes this sum to the London company who issued the bill.

Deeply suspicious of this ‘strip of a boy who comes demanding payment of an awk’ard-sized fortune, on no surety‘ – and with London a six-week sail across the ocean, meaning a fraud couldn’t be uncovered before the money falls due – Lovell and his fellow merchants have a decision to take which could ruin them. Is the mysterious Richard Smith genuine? A bold-faced crook? Up to devious political mischief? Or attempting something much darker?

For everyone agrees he’s up to something. He openly admits to it. Yet despite hints and red herrings, nothing will get the truth out of him – not offers of violence, rooftop chases, a duel, a branding, nor the threat of the hangman’s noose. Smith keeps his surprising secret to the final page.

Francis Spufford’s novel is a fine plum pudding of a book, rich with spice and full of silver-sixpence-like surprises. I gobbled it up, swallowing (along with envy of an author who can create such a clever game of pass-the-parcel) layer-upon-layer of story from which the reader must tease out clues to the secret at its core.

The language is gloriously dense in places. But if it is occasionally purple, it’s the colour of a Georgian brocade waistcoat, the texture of the cloth opulent under one’s exploring fingers, yet not necessarily giving helpful information about the wearer’s identity. This is arguably necessary, since modern language would struggle to convey the landscape of a city where church spires look down on a display of trophy human scalps; where the reality of a duel of honour is a blundering struggle through deep snow, with spurting blood and unexpected consequences; where one of the great cities of the world is in the bold process of creating itself.

Then there are Spufford’s wonderful characters: the feline Tabitha, who hates novels yet quotes Shakespeare; the voluptuous Mrs Tomlinson, who makes Smith a saucy but generous offer he cannot, for politeness, refuse; the intriguingly erudite Achilles, ‘a tall African of about Smith’s age, wearing livery, with long limbs and a tight knob of a head like the bole of a dark tree‘ who has a complex and surprising relationship with Septimus Oakeshott, the Governor’s young aide. My heart still breaks over Septimus.

Historical novels don’t have to be bodice-rippers. They can be Wolf Hall. They can be The Miniaturist. They can be Golden Hill. Those of us trying to write about the distant past can only see such mastery, and gnash our teeth with envy.