Creative Writing Competitions to Enter in May

Tags

Bath Novel Award, Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Prize, Bridport Prize, Colm Toibin International Short Story Award, Frome Festival Short Story, Peggy-Chapman Andrews First Novel Award, The Chairman's Prize, The Poetry London Prize, The Sitcom Mission, The Times/Chicken House Children's Fiction Competition, Writing Magazine Competitions, Yeovil Literary Prize

STOP PRESS: Maggie Richell-Davies’ novel, The Servant, is now available on Amazon – and was only published because she entered and won the HWA/Sharpe Books 2020 Unpublished Novel Award. Competition details were posted on on this blog, so that could have been YOU!    https://amazon.co.uk/dp/B087SD83VV

With so many of us in lock-down, and experts saying book reading can boost the brain and relieve depression, it is up to us to keep making up stories until the happy day when we can again spend time in our favourite coffee shop.

The Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition for new writers. The winner receives a publishing contract with Chicken House Books, with an advance of £10,000 and the offer of literary representation from Kate Shaw of the Shaw Agency. They are additionally running The Chairman’s Prize, which is given to a manuscript hand-picked by Chicken House publisher Barry Cunningham. The winner gets a publishing contract and £7,500, plus the offer of representation by Kate Shaw. Writers must be unpublished and unagented, with BAME authors particularly encouraged to apply. Enter original, unpublished novels for children of any age between 7 and 18, plus a synopsis. Entry fee: £18. Closing date: 4 May. Details: http://www.chickenhousebooks.com 

The Poetry London Prize is for original, unpublished poems up to 80 lines. Prizes: £5,000; £2,000; £1,000. Entry fee £4 for Poetry London subscribers and £8 for non-subscribers. Closing date: 1 May. Details: https://poetrylondong.co.uk/

Fancy yourself as a scriptwriter? The Sitcom Mission is open to submissions for a fifteen-minute sitcom script with a ‘bold and exciting central character or characters’, good dialogue and the catalyst of an exciting incident to kick-start the story. Plus, of course, it needs to be funny. A good script should get your work in front of major industry professionals. Entry fee is £10 and the deadline is 11.59pm on 3 May. Check out the submission details: http://www.comedy.co.uk/sitcom_mission/info/

Bath Novel Award 2020. First 5,000 words, plus single page synopsis. Open to unpublished, self-published, and independently published authors. £3,000 first prize, plus manuscript feedback and agent introductions to shortlisted authors. Entry fee: £28. Deadline 31 May. Details: bathnovelaward.co.uk

Colm Toibin International Short Story Award. Short stories 1,800-2,00 words. Prizes: 700 Euros; 500 Euros; 300 Euros. Entry fee: 10 Euros. Closing date: 13 May . Details: http://www.wexfordliteraryfestival.com  [Note: a member of ninevoices won this last year. Why not you, this year?]

Blue Pencil Agency First Novel Prize. The first chapter of an unpublished novel, up to 5,000 words. Prize: £1,200 in prizes, manuscript review, introduction to judge, literary agent Nelle Andrew. Entry fee: £20. Closing date 31 May. Details: http://www.bluepencilagency.com

Frome Festival Short Story. Short stories 1,00 to 2,200 words. Prizes: £400; £200; £100. Entry fee: £8. Closing date: 31 May. Details: http://www.fromeshortstorycompetition.co.uk

The Bridport Prize – Peggy Chapman-Andrews First Novel Award for 5,000-8,000 words, plus 300 word synopsis. Must be unpublished, unagented and unplaced in any other competition. First prize £1,500 plus mentoring and agent introduction. Runner-up £750, plus mentoring and agent introduction. Three shortlisted writers receive £150, plus inclusion in anthology. Entry fee: £20. Deadline: 31 May. Details: bridportprize.org.uk

The Bridport Prize – Poetry for up to 42 lines. Must be unpublished, unagented and unplaced in any other competition. Prizes: £5,000, £1,000, £300, 10x£100. Entry fee: £10. Deadline: 31 May. Details: bridportprize.org.uk

The Bridport Prize – Short Story for stories up to 5,000 words. Must be unpublished, unagented and unplaced in any other competition. Prizes:£5,000, £1,000, £300, 10x£100. Entry fee: £12. Deadline: 31 May. Details: bridportprize.org.uk

Yeovil Literary Prize for novels (opening chapters and synopsis, up to 15,000 words). Short stories: maximum 2,000 words. Poems up to 40 lines. Writing Without Restrictions. Western Gazette Best Local Writer. Prizes Novel £1,000; £250; £100. Short story and poetry: £500; £200; £100. Writing without restrictions: £200; £100; £50. Local prize: £100. Entry fee: novel £12; short story £7; poetry £7, £10 for two, £12 for three. Writing Without Restrictions: £5. Closing date 31 May. Details: http://www.yeovilprize.co.uk

And don’t forget that the invaluable Writing Magazine – still winging its way to subscribers and also available on-line – holds its own regular writing competitions and provides details of many available elsewhere.

Forgive me if, in these troubled times, any of the above details turn out to be inaccurate. So, do check them on-line before entry.

Good luck!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How I (Finally) Got Published

Tags

Fish Publishing, How I Got Published, HWA & Sharpe Books Unpublished Novel Award, London's Foundling Hospital Museum, The Historical Writers Association, The Servant, writing groups, Writing Magazine

 

Back in 2015 I visited London’s Foundling Hospital Museum for the first time. It is an emotive place and I couldn’t get the heart-breaking stories it told – about the tokens desperate mothers left in the hope that they might, one day, be able to retrieve their precious child – out of my head. My book, The Servant, is the result.

Founded by Royal Charter in 1739, The London Foundling Hospital came into existence after seventeen years of effort by retired sea captain, William Coram, to make ‘Provision for Foundlings’. His eventual success was due, to a great extent, to his gaining the support of sixteen ladies of high rank, headed by the Duchess of Somerset. Their signatures on The Ladies Petition was presented to George III in 1735.

Initially, it was a short story – The Gingham Square – sent off to a Fish competition which also offered the bonus of a critique of your entry. The story itself (fortunately, as it turned out) failed to be placed, but the feedback I received from their editor was more than positive. It suggested that while the scope of what I had written was overwhelming for the short story form, it had the potential for something larger: a book.

Reader, I set my shoulder to the wheel.

Producing The Servant been a tortuous process which would have been impossible without the support of the outstanding input of other members of ninevoices. Extracts were read out loud at our WIP meetings, red pencils were flourished over purple prose, tactful hints made about pruning my obsessive use of research material, with even the odd encouraging cartoon added in the margin. 

Finally, last September, I learned from the invaluable pages of Writing Magazine that the Historical Writers Association, in partnership with Sharpe Books, were promoting a competition to find an unpublished historical novel. The prize was £500 and a publishing deal. To my delighted amazement, after the excitement of being shortlisted, I discovered that I had won.

Our followers will know that I have been writing and submitting for years and, despite having a couple of short stories published and some encouraging feedback from agents, rejection was the absolute norm. Until now.

Please let me encourage all you other writers out there to keep going. To keep entering competitions. And to find some like-minded writing friends. Not to mention a few supportive beta-reading dogs to rest an encouraging head on your knee.

 

‘The Servant’ is available to buy on Kindle from today, at £2.99: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B087N8H9PB/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=the+servant+maggie&qid=1587807272&sr=8-2

 

Homework # 1: Write about a villain you love to hate, or hate to love

Tags

Andrew Scott, Killing Eve, Moriarty, Pride & Prejudice, Rebecca, Sherlock Holmes

1. Maggie

A Villain from the Pages of Literature : Elizabeth Bennet’s Father

Surely not, you protest? For Mr Bennet of Longbourn is initially an extremely appealing figure. Cultured and educated, we see immediately that he is shackled to a wife seemingly designed to make any man of refinement squirm. While feeling deeply sorry for him, we are amused by his quick wit. By his dry, acerbic humour. And by his frequent retreats from family life into the eighteenth-century man-shed of his study, with its much-loved books and a decanter of the finest Madeira.

We laugh at his waggish humour and at his impatience with what he sees as trivial female concerns:

‘No more lace, Mrs Bennett, I implore you.’

‘If he had any compassion for me, (Mr Bingley) would not have danced half so much! For God’s sake, say no more of his partners. Oh! that he had sprained his ankle in the first dance!’

At the same time, we admire his acute social perception and good humour.

‘For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours and laugh at them, in return.’

Yet this is also a man who is publicly dismissive of his wife, frequently in front of their children and, as we come to know him better, his sarcasm – coldness even – begins to grate. What twenty-first-century wife would not chuck a heavy china ornament at a partner who delivers such careless rejoinders to legitimate concerns about the future of their girls, and what will happen when she and they are eventually evicted from their home?

‘You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.’

‘Let us flatter ourselves. I may be the survivor.’

Eventually, however, considering Wickham’s treatment of the Bennet daughter, Lydia, – seducing a sixteen-year-old and only making an honest woman of her after being handsomely paid off by Darcy – we see how badly his moral compass is skewed:

‘Wickham’s a fool, if he takes her with a farthing less than ten thousand pounds. I should be sorry to think so ill of him, in the very beginning of our relationship.’

Pride and Prejudice, as Jane Austen signals from the beginning, points a beady eye at marriage and how essential mutual respect is to marital happiness. Through dissecting the Bennet’s own shaky partnership – based, we learn, on little more than youthful passion and imprudence – Austen highlights, as evocatively as only she can, the realities of marrying in haste and repenting at leisure.

Disappointment has made Mr Bennet cruel and results in making this reader sigh for the man he might have been, had he either chosen a more compatible wife or made an effort to be more understanding of the fallible woman to whom he has tied himself.

Even Elizabeth, the closest of his daughters to her father, has ‘never been blind to the impropriety of her father’s behaviour as a husband.’ He loves her (being at least prepared to stop a marriage to the ridiculous Collins), and she him, but the soundest lesson he is able to pass on to her is that love alone is rarely enough. And that being a bad father can have dire consequences.

Oh, to be able to create such complex characters as Mr Bennet!

 

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2. Ed

The villain speaks

At least that simpering whining little thing has gone to London.   She’s out of my sight, thank goodness – I can’t bear to see her creeping round this house, this lovely mansion that isn’t hers and never will be.  I do get some pleasure in tormenting her and frightening her but that doesn’t make up for the ache I get when I think of the real mistress.

But the master has gone to London with her.  Why does he stick with her?  And why marry her in the first place?  His wife had been dead for only a year.  How could he fall for her in Monte Carlo?  I suppose he was lonely.  Maybe she just happened to be there and simple male desire made him go for her – men are so stupid that way.  But I can’t think that she would satisfy him in that respect – you can’t imagine her doing anything but just lying there and waiting for it to be over.  Now the real mistress, she’d be lively, adventurous, exciting in bed!   I bet she taught the master a thing or two, for all his debonair man-of-the-world appearance.

Was it because this one is so different?  She’s got no spirit: she doesn’t stand up to me, and she lets that overseer Crawley take advantage of her.  Timid, she is – one example: she hasn’t even asked me what happens to all the food that’s not eaten at breakfast – I know she’s curious about that, but she just hasn’t got the nerve to ask!  How feeble.  And when I showed her her writing desk, where she’d be writing her letters – well, the look of dismay on her face!  The real mistress, she had friends in high society, in London, in foreign places, everywhere.  But this one doesn’t know anyone.   No-one to write to.

The master has to see that he’s made a dreadful mistake in trying to bring this one here.  She’ll never take the place of the old mistress in this house.  I’m seeing to that.  I thought I’d managed to drive him away from her at the ball, tricking her into trusting me and wearing the real mistress’s gown: the look on his face, that was magnificent!    The shame, the horror on hers!  I really thought I’d broken them then.

But it didn’t work.  He still seems to want her. She should’ve got rid of me after that.  But she’s not brave enough.  So I’m still here. I’ll have to do something else, something that will drive her out even if it doesn’t make him kick her out.  This may take a little time, I must plan something even better than the ball gown trick.  I know she’s afraid of me, but I’ll become her friend again, then she might be so pleased, I could do anything.  I’ll do nothing for a few weeks, lull her into a false sense of security.  Yes, that’s it.  Be all smiles when they get back, and for a couple of months …

Can I smell burning  … ?

 

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3. Christine

The trouble with fictional villains is that they don’t always translate to the screen.

Moriarty is a straight bad egg in the books, a moustache-twirling crazy-clever enemy of Sherlock Holmes.  Conan Doyle designed him expressly to meet the need to challenge the ridiculous intellect of Holmes.  We respect and fear Moriarty, but don’t have much in the way of mixed emotions about him….in the books.  Put him on screen, and cast Andrew Scott, and we are confronted with a boyish, gentle psychopath, one with a soft Irish accent and melting eyes…and we kind of want to mother him as well as run away from him.  We see his genius, we admire his suits…we slightly fancy him.  I thought Scott was awful casting when he first appeared, but gradually I grew to adore him.  He wasn’t the villain.  He was the star attraction.  He was hardly a villain at all.

I haven’t read the Villanelle novels that arrived on screen as ‘Killing Eve’.  Perhaps Villanelle is written just as Jodie Comer plays her, but I can’t imagine anyone could get down on paper what Comer does on screen.  She’s the coldest sociopath, who kills on a whim for mischief, in hideous (but often blackly hilarious) ways.  Yet she’s also wonderful, a riot of convincing accents and disguises, who find endless pleasures in life, who is by turns childlike and hostile with her handler Konstantin.  We understand why Eve is so fascinated with her.  We don’t want to be fascinated ourselves, but somehow, appallingly, we are.

But the most unsuccessful translation of a villain from book to screen, for me, remains Daniel Cleaver in Bridget Jones’ Diary.  In the book he’s an out-and-out sh*t.  We feel his villainy ooze from every paragraph.  Dump him, Bridget! we silently implore. Run to Mr Darcy!  But on screen, they had Renee Zellweger forced to choose between Colin Firth and Hugh Grant.  Both utterly butterly, I’m sure we agree.  But Daniel’s charm was supercharged by Grant.  Watching him, I felt I could almost overlook his dishonesty, ruthlessness and lechery.  The producers didn’t think this through. After all,  there’s not much chance any of us will ever need a suitor to spring us from a Thai prison.  But a man who can make us laugh and fancy us because of our Big Pants? A man who makes us feel sexy at all times?

You begin to understand the attraction of Wickham.

We have done our homework

The ninevoices have been Zooming it up a treat.  We’ve got over the novelty of seeing everyone else’s backgrounds, and the shock of our double chins, and have managed to get down to some actual work.  In the interests of self-discipline (we all know that the week has turned into one long Sunday), we’ve been setting ourselves some modest homework, which some of us have actually managed to do.

We thought we’d share our results with you, and let you know our next homework, and we’d be delighted if you could share your own writing on the subject.  You could put it into a comment, or email us at ninevoices9@gmail.com.

First homework subject coming up….

What’s behind you?

The lockdown reveals us to ourselves in unexpected ways.

The ninevoices are used to getting together every fortnight. We thought: lockdown isn’t going to stop us.  So we first tried Skype (four voices, five faces, and most of the conversation consisting of “How do I turn the picture on?”).  Then we tried Zoom (eight faces, nine voices, thanks to some stalwart mobile-phone patching by Anita).  We’ll try Zoom again, if only because nine faces lends itself beautifully to a 3 x 3 grid, and no-one suddenly decamps to a corner and goes mute.

© Smartmeetings.com

Like everyone in the world who’s trying to keep in touch through Skype and Zoom and Facetime and Whatsapp video and Google Hangouts and lots of other clever apps, we’re discovering that it’s not just our voices and faces we’re presenting to the world.  It’s what’s in the background – our homes.  Admit it – you look at all those video phone-ins from journalists and presenters, and what you’re really thinking is: “I like your lamps” or “Gosh, you’re very traditional” or “Do you really have bookcases in your basement?”.

So I think we’ve all learned to pick our spots.  We position the laptop in the corner of a tidy room, or in front of the serious books, or angled towards the good curtains, or certainly away from the carnage of unwashed dishes in the kitchen.  We position the webcam at eye level or above, we face a window. We brush our hair carefully to disguise how we’re turning into Boris Johnson.  We’re learning to edit our lives to show ourselves to the world to best advantage.

Late night host Seth Meyers in his Covidic attic studio. Well jel.

Which makes me think: as writers, do we do the same?  In our writing, do we show our unmade beds and the curtain sagging from the runners? Do we reveal that we don’t mind dirty plates hanging round on a table for a week or two?  Or do we arrange the books on the shelf so that the Philip Roths hide the George RR Martins?  Is our writing a place where we present ourselves as a slightly different person?

© Yale climate connections

I do know that when a friend emailed that she planned to Facetime me in ten minutes, I hastily took off a jumper decorated with food stains, and rushed out to the garden to take the call, having first worked out which bit of foliage would look prettiest behind me.  After the call I went straight back indoors.  It was the worst kind of self-instagramming, but was somehow necessary to disguise the fact that the only way I could have had tidiness in shot behind me was to Facetime her while sitting on the loo.

How do YOU roll?  What’s behind you in the Zoom frame?  What does your writing carefully edit out?

Christine, who currently looks like