Writing Competitions to Enter in April

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Bath Short Story Award, London Independent Story Prize, RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award, Retreat West Micro Fiction

With Easter fast approaching…

With Easter fast approaching, we suggest you let your imagination roam and write an entry for one of the competitions below. How about a story about whoever might live through the portal in this old tree, near Kent’s Scotney Castle? A rabbit family? A fairy band? Some lilliputian people?

On another miniature theme, Retreat West Micro Fiction require exactly 100 words, to a prompt posted on the website each month. Prizes: 50% of the total entry fees received. Entry fee: £4. Closing date 10 April. Details: http://www.retreatwest.co.uk

The Yeovil Literary Prize is for novels (opening chapters and synopsis up to 15,000 words), short stories (maximum 2,000 words), poems (up to 40 lines) and ‘writing without restriction’. Prizes: Novel: £1,000, £250, £100; Short story and poetry, £500, £200, £100; Writing without restrictions: £200 £100, £50. Entry fee: Novel: £12; Short story: £7; Poetry: £7 for one, £10 for two, £12 for three; Writing without restrictions: £5. Closing date: 30 April. Full details: http://www.yeovil

The Bath Short Story Award is for stories up to 2,200 words, in any style, and on any subject. Prizes: £1,200, £300, £100, £50 for the best local writer, £100 Acorn Award for the best story by an unpublished writer. Entry fee: £8. Deadline 19 April. Details: http://bathshortstoryaward.org

Killing It : The Killer Reads Competition from HarperFiction is open for entries from undiscovered crime writers. They want the first 10,000 words of an unpublished commercial crime, thriller or suspense manuscript. Three winners will be chosen, and will receive editorial reports from HarperFiction editors on their full manuscript plus editorial mentoring from a HarperFiction editor. Send the first 10,000 words of a complete or near-complete work, plus a synopsis of up to 500 words and a brief paragraph about yourself. ENTRY IS FREE, but each writer may enter once only. The closing date is 7 April. Details: http://www.killerreads.com/killing-it/

RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award for stories up to 4,000 words. Prize: A reading by a special guest at an evening at the Royal Academy of Arts. FREE ENTRY. Deadline: 15 April. Details: http://pindropstudio.com/

London Independent Story Prize for short stories, max. 1,500 words; flash 300 words; short screenplays, max 30 pages; feature screenplays. Prizes: £100 for stories and flash, Final Draft software for screenplays. Entry fee: £7 for flash, £10 for screenplays. Earlybird deadline: 15 April. Details: http://www.londonindependentstoryprize.co.uk

As ever – PLEASE double-check all entry details, including the deadline dates. We live in changing times and this has altered things like deadlines, or even resulted in cancellations of some competitions.

Someone has to win, remember. Best of luck that it might be you this time round.

Empathy, e-books and Easter

Have the last fifteen months – horrible in all sorts of ways for everyone – changed what we read – and how we read?

Lots of us may have turned to comfort reading – books which make no demands and distract us from the turmoil and sadness around us. Books which help us sleep. Books with happy endings which cocoon us in a safer, more sunlit world. Or historical fiction so we can be transported into another time. The past may have been brutal and squalid for many, but at least it’s escaping from the horrors of the present. Or crime fiction with its pleasures of puzzle-solving and the satisfaction of order restored. Books we loved as children and teenagers, and now search for with nostalgia and a longing to recapture something lost.

Others may have grasped the opportunity to tackle books they’ve always meant to read and somehow never quite got round to – classics, ‘difficult’ authors, unfamiliar genres.

I haven’t managed many of those. The most serious book I have been reading this week is non-fiction: Zero Degrees of Empathy by Simon Baron-Cohen, a professor in developmental psychopathology at Cambridge University and director of the Autism Research Centre. It’s not his most recent book, being published in 2011, and I’ve read it before, but events in the UK drew me back to it. The front flap of my hardback says that it ‘presents a new way of understanding what it is that leads individuals to treat others inhumanely, and challenges all of us to reconsider entirely the idea of evil.’ On the back cover Uta Frith, Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Development at University College London, writes that the book is ‘a compelling and provocative account of empathy as our most precious social resource.’

Baron-Cohen argues that ‘Empathy is like a universal solvent. Any problem immersed in empathy becomes soluble. It is effective as a way of anticipating and resolving interpersonal problems, whether this is a marital conflict, an international conflict, a problem at work, difficulties in a friendship, political deadlocks, a family dispute, or a problem with the neighbour.’

With so much suffering and mental illness everywhere resulting from the pandemic, empathy is something we need more than ever. Reading, as we identify with fictional characters and care what happens to them, must surely be a vital way of building up our capacity for empathy.

 Back to how we read. The pandemic and lockdown has meant that even those of us who love the tactile feel of physical books may have taken to e-books for the first time. No shelf space for more physical books and it’s hard to make room for any with the charity shops being shut.

It’s why I’ve relaunched e-book editions of All Desires Known and Of Human Telling. Hard-hitting stories of family and marital conflict behind closed doors – ‘sharp-eyed, funny and redemptive’. They might be a good e-book read at Easter.

Buy “All Desires Known” on Kindle

Buy “Of Human Telling” on Kindle

Help when writing

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Unsolicited advice

I’ve started to get helpful messages from Mr Microsoft on improving my writing.  Little unsolicited bubbles appear when I’m hard at it composing on Word.  Sometimes, he thinks he can punctuate “better’ than me.   Most frequently he offers to help me be more concise, be more succinct, have a more condensed style, say what I want in fewer words, ramble less.  Such impertinence. 

Every Writer Needs a Cat

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Dr Johnson, Maggie O'Farrell, Margaret Atwood, Tracy Chevalier

xxx

Are writers attracted to cats? Or cats to writers?

In a Zoom interview last year, Maggie O’Farrell spoke of retreating to the solitude of her children’s Wendy House to tackle a poignant passage needed for her book Hamnet. Accompanied by her cat. The previous summer, I attended a talk by Tracy Chevalier during which she admitted that much of her writing was done, not at her computer, but curled up with a pen and notebook on her sofa. Accompanied by her cat. A handful of years before that, Margaret Atwood regaled a masterclass in central London with the story of a stranger knocking on her door with a gift of prawns for her cat, which he had befriended on his walks to the station. He did not know she was a famous author, only someone who would be happy to deliver his gift to her feline friend.

Authors who have complex relations with their cats are not new. Dr Johnson, author of one of the most influential English dictionaries in history, is known for considering his cats as more than useful rodent operators. His most famous feline companion was called Hodge, of whom James Boswell, Johnson’s biographer wrote:

“I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge… I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr Johnson’s breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, ‘Why yes, sir, but I had cats whom I liked better than this, and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, “but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.'”

Hodge lived with Johnson at 17 Gough Square, off Fleet Street in London, his home from 1748 to 1759. Both Boswell and the writer Hester Thrale mention how Johnson would go out himself to buy oysters for Hodge because he did not want his servants to feel demeaned by doing errands for a cat. Which shows not only Johnson’s consideration for his servants, but how much he wanted Hodge to enjoy a favourite treat.

Johnson further demonstrated the Hodge’s importance in his life by inviting his acquaintance, the writer Percival Stockdale, to write the cat’s epitaph:

“Who by his manner when caressed

Warmly his gratitude expressed;

And never failed his thanks to purr

Whene’er he stroaked his sable fur?”

It is surely fitting that outside 17 Gough Square, now a museum to Dr Johnson, stands a statue of Hodge with oyster shells at his feet which was sculpted in 1997 by John Bickly. The animal, modelled on Bickly’s own pet, stands at “about shoulder height for the average adult, which is just right for putting an arm around.”

A writer, like a cat, often needs their own space. And what better companion can there be than a feline presence, perhaps curled on the corner of their desk? In my own establishment, Gizzie will happily allow me to read passages of my work-in-progress out loud to her when I struggle with a piece of difficult prose. Doing that to my husband would put him in an difficult position: might criticism land him in the spare room? Reading aloud to oneself feels awkward: one expects the men in white coats to turn up at any moment. But a pair of considering and intelligent golden eyes will concentrate the mind wonderfully.

Creative Writing Competitions to Enter in March

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BBC National Short Story Award, Daphne du Maurier, Hastings Literary Festival Writing Competition, White Review Short Story Competition

Two members of ninevoices entered – but failed to win – the same writing competition during the course of February (names/details redacted to save their blushes). HOWEVER, one of them succeeded in being shortlisted, while the other was longlisted. Surely the equivalent of being awarded a silver and a bronze medal at the Olympics?

The point we are trying to make is that engaging with a writing competition offers advantages in addition to a possible prize cheque. It concentrates the mind, pushes you to either compose something new or to polish a piece of work that has been languishing on your hard drive. If your entry is either longlisted or shortlisted, it proves you stand above the crowd. Perhaps most importantly, it exercises your writing muscle.

Bridgend Writers’ Circle Open Short Story Competition for stories between 1,500 and 1,8700 words. Prizes: £100, £50, £30, plus publication on website. Entry fee: £5 for one, £7.50 for two. Closing date 1 March. TODAY. Details http://www.bridgendwriters.org

BBC National Short Story Award, up to 8,000 words. Prizes: £15,000, 4x£600. FREE ENTRY. Closing Date: 9am on 15 March. Details http://www.bbc.co.uk/nssa

Hastings Literary Festival Writing Competition for short stories up to 2,500 words; short stories by BAME writers up to 5,000 words; poems, up to 40 lines; and flash fiction, up to 500 words. Prizes: £200, £100, £50 in each category; mentoring for best Sussex entry. Closing date: THIS COMPETITION APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN CANCELLED, BUT THEIR TWITTER WEBSITE DOES HAVE A VIDEO SAYING THEY HOPE TO GO AHEAD WITH 2021 FESTIVAL. BEST THEREFORE TO KEEP CHECKING FOR NEWS. Details: http://www.HastingsLitFest.org

White Review Short Story Competition for stories between 2,000-7,000 words, “by emerging writers”. Prizes: £2,500. Entry Fee: £15. Closing date: changed from 4 March to 26 April. Details: http://www.thewhitereview.org

Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize for published and unpublished (at least 50,000 word) adventure novels. Prizes: £15,000. FREE ENTRY. Deadline 7 March. Details: http://www.wilbur-niso-smithfundation.org

Harpers Bazaar Short Story Competition. Stories on the theme of “Threads”, up to 2,200 words. Prize: publication, plus a weekend break at The Mitre, Hampton Court. Entry appears to be FREE. Deadline: 15 March. Details: shortstory@harpersbazaar.co.uk

Fowey Festival Short Story Competition, for stories not exceeding 1,500 words. With Daphne du Maurier’s popular collection of short stories in mind, the title of the competition is “Breaking Point”. Apparently when Daphne du Maurier was writing the collection – entitled “Breaking Point” – she “found solace and peace after a turbulent period”. A timely thought. Prizes: £200 and £100. Entry fee: £10, which goes towards supporting the future of the Festival. Deadline: 7 March. Details: ww.foweyfestival.com

Evesham Festival of Words are seeking short stories of up to 2,500 words on any theme. Prizes: £100, £50, %30, plus an engraved trophy for the winner. Entry fee: £5. Closing date: 12 March. Details: http://eveshamfestivalofwords.org

Short Fiction/University of Essex International Short Story Competition, for stories up to 5,000 words. Prizes: £500, plus publication; £250; £100. Entry fee: £9. Deadline: 31 March. Details http://www.shortfictionjournal.co.uk

Writers Bureau Annual Short Story Competition for stories up to 2,000 words. Prizes: £300; £200; £100 £50, plus a choice of Writers Bureau courses. Entry fee: £5. Closing date: 31 March. Details: http://www.wbcompetition.com

We live in confusing times, so do PLEASE check all details before entering any of the above. Good luck with those entries!