Writing Competitions to Enter in March

Spring is the time for new beginnings and, perhaps, new writing. So grab your pencil and a coffee and check out these competitions that you could enter in March:

Bridgend Writers’ Circle Open Short Story Competition for stories up to 1,800 words – but with no minimum word count. Prizes: £100, £50, £30. Entry fee: £5, £7.50 for two. Closing date: March 1st. Details: http://www.bridgendwriters.org

Neil Gunn Writing Competition for stories up to 2,500 words and poetry up to 40 lines, interpreting a quote from Scottish Writer Neil Gunn. Prizes: £500, £300 and £200 in each category. Entry fee: £8. Closing date: 4 March. Details: http://www.neilgunntrust.org

Evesham Festival of Words Short Story Competition for short stories up to 2,500 words. Prizes: £150, £50 and £30. Entry fee: £5. Closing date: 11th March. Details: https://eveshamfestivalofwords.org

Searchlight Awards invites submissions for its Best Short Story for Children or Young Adults competition. The top 10 stories will feature in an agent/publisher pitch book, as well as being published in an annual anthology. First prize – £500. Entry fee: £10. Closing date: 21st March. Details: https://www.searchlightawards.co.uk/competitions/

BBC Short Story Award for stories up to 8,000 words. Prizes: £15,000, 4x£600. FREE ENTRY. Deadline: 21st March. Details: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nssa

Harpers Bazaar Short Story Competition for stories up to 2,500 words on a given theme. Prizes: publication plus free weekend break. FREE ENTRY. Closing date: 13th March. Details: http://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/culture/culture-news/a36157/harpers-bazaar-short-story-competition/

Gordon Burn Prize for a published novel or work of fiction that challenges perceived ideas about genre. Prizes: £5000, up to three months’ retreat at Gordon Burns’s cottage. FREE ENTRY. You may enter after 3rd March, with a 7th April deadline. Details:www.newwritingnorth.com

Limnisa Short Story Competition for stories up to 3,000 words on a set theme. Prizes: one week writing retreat at Limnisa, Greece, including full board and accommodation. FREE ENTRY. Closing date details unclear, but expected to be in March: Please therefore double-check details: http://www.limnisa.com

London Magazine Short Story Competition is seeking stories of up to 4,000 words. Prizes: £500, £300, £200. Entry fee: £10, £5 for each extra. Deadline: 31 March. Details: http://www.thelondonmagazine.org

Red Shed Open Poetry Competition for poems up to 50 lines. Prizes: £100, £50, plus £10 for shortlisted poems. Entry fee: £3 for the first poem, £2 for subsequent poems. Deadline: 31 March. Poems can be entered by post, with online entries having a small extra entry fee. Details: currockpress.com/theredshedpoetrycompetition2022.html

Several of these competitions are FREE to enter, so no excuses for not jumping in! But do please check all entry details first, especially the deadlines which can sometimes change at short notice.

Good luck!

Books you’ve lent

Tags

friends, Lending books, Margaret Atwood, Nerdishness, Ownership, The Penelopiad

What is the etiquette about getting back books that you lent someone a long time ago?  Asking for a friend.

My friend used to think that he would never forget which book he had lent to whom.  But it was the disappearance of a prized hardback copy of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad that undeceived me him.  None of the people to whom he might have lent it remembered (or admitted) that they had it.

So he started to note loans down in a special notebook.  But that has created its own problems.

For rereading it recently he saw that one book (signed by the author) had been lent to a friend a full five years ago.  

Put yourself in this situation: various embarrassments can arise. 

Does asking for it back after so long make you seem nerdish?  Untrusting?  In some way accusing your friend of carelessness?  Best to have some specific reason for needing it, rather than just wanting to reclaim a piece of property for the sake of having it at home and not in their house.

Your friend might deny having got it.  If it’s left at that, then the book will never be recovered.  If the denial is challenged – well, do you suspect them of lying?  Surely not – but that corrosive thought is in your mind now. 

Do you ask your friend to check their shelves to make sure?  If they do, and it can’t be found, why not?  Have they in turn lent it to someone else?  Have they lost it – left behind, perhaps, on some Spanish beach?  Has a zealous spouse bent on clearing space given it to a charity shop? 

If it is found – aha!  They may claim (genuinely, let us hope) that it is their own copy.  How to resolve this?  Writing your name in your books is the obvious answer, but is that also nerdish?  Something schoolboys do (or used to, when they still read books rather than looked at screens)? Obviously the worst thing you can do is to write your name in the book in the presence of the person you’re lending it to …

Let’s hope that this ownership problem doesn’t arise.  It’s yours, and they’ve got it, and they’re giving it back.  Do you make the mistake of asking them whether they liked it?  For if they haven’t actually read it, how awkward ….  Would you agree to their hanging on to it so they would sometime get round to reading it?  Then you might have to go through the whole sorry performance again – but how can you politely say no?

This whole area is fraught with difficulty.  And when you look round your house, and see books piled on windowsills and on the floor, because there is no more space on your shelves, then maybe that’s the perfect excuse for letting this particular sleeping dog lie.

Neither a lender nor a borrower be …

Impostor Syndrome

Tags

Goodreads, Historical fiction, Historical Writers'Association Unpublished Novel Award, History, HWA, LisaOwlBeSatReading, Maggie Richell-Davies, Maya Angelou, The Crimson Petal and the White, The Servant

Although our blog has covered the pain of impostor syndrome before – see Maggie’s Kafka sketch of February 7th 2020 – we feel it deserves another mention, especially if it is preventing you from doing your own writing. We are none of us impostors. If we write, we are writers…

Yet most of us do struggle from time to time with the impostor syndrome – the suspicion that we are not proper writers at all, but frauds. That we should take repeated rejections at face value and instead devote our time to learning Mandarin or perfecting our tennis serve. But ninevoices urge you not to give up. To persevere. Because only by persistence will you get a short story published; a book deal; a review of your work that makes your heart sing and all your hard work worth while.

In the last few days Lisa the Book Owl (website OwlBeSatReading) has published a review of Maggie Richell-Davies’ debut novel, The Servant, on both WordPress and Goodreads. Maggie has been rejected many, many times over the years – and written about the experience on this blog – but has refused to lay down either her pen or abandon her keyboard. That is why she has finally been published and why she is gaining some gratifying reviews.

Below is what Lisa has written about her book:

‘Once again, I appear to have chosen historical fiction that’s earned itself a place on my ‘best of 2022’ goodreads shelf.

Maggie Richell-Davies should never doubt her ability to spin a good yarn, The Servant had me hooked from the very first chapter.

Maggie contacted me on Twitter, asking if I would be interested in reading her novel, and on reading the synopsis, I had the feeling it would be the kind of story I’d enjoy.

Disgraced aristocracy, a house full of mysteries; including a locked library, the main character being able to secretly read and write, and characters so vile and despicably realistic, I wanted to shout and swear at them! What’s not to love when a story gives you all the ‘feels’.

The Servant reminded me in many ways of Michel Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White, a firm favourite of mine. The foulness and stench of the setting, the superbly immersive writing, the crass language. So much research went into this creative masterpiece. I’ve learned so much, having to look up words throughout, all adding to my enjoyment. To be both educated and entertained whilst experiencing an author’s imaginative story-telling is essential to the reading experience. It was the most memorable history lesson.

From the description of what people were wearing, to intricate detail of the furnishings, The Servant ticked every box. I couldn’t fault it.

“The Chinese cabinet is the thing I admire the most in that room because of the figures in strange costumes inlaid in the black lacquered wood. There is a river with two people on a hump-backed bridge, lovers perhaps, picked out in mother-of-pearl. A willow weeps from the sloping shore, with a building that might be a temple in the distance and a long-legged bird circling above. The lady holds a curious-looking umbrella and the couple look to be whispering beneath it. I would love to know their story.”

How clear is that piece of furniture in your mind’s eye from that perfect description?

The reactions of characters had me smiling, laughing, and visualising with ease.

“Perhaps she was a beauty in her youth, before her face turned to porridge.”

The way the opinions, thoughts and situations related to present day rang true throughout.

“The rich get away with everything,” Peg mutters, at my shoulder. “Always have. Always will.”

As I reluctantly came to the end of the story (I took my time, taking two weeks to finish as I loved it too much to let it go so soon!) the ‘End Note’ was simply the icing on this glorious historical cake. When an author takes time to explain their story, and its roots, it gives the reader more understanding and a bit of closure. I needed it because I was sad to see Hannah, Peg and Thomas go.

The Historical Writers’ Association (HWA) selected The Servant for their HWA/Sharpe Books Unpublished Novel Award 2020. It was completely deserving of this accolade and I’m hoping somebody, somewhere will take this gem of a novel under their wing and create a tv adaptation or film – I’d watch it with relish!

The Servant is an astonishing story of one woman’s steely determination. Do add it to your TBR piles, make a ‘Beat The Backlog’ exception for this one, because it is EXCEPTIONAL historical fiction. I will be recommending it to everyone.

Thank you, Maggie, for sending me a copy to review. It was a beautiful, dark pleasure.’

LisaOwlBeSatReading

Maggie is naturally ecstatic at this generous review and warns that she might have to buy larger-sized hats, since her head is becoming ridiculously swollen. More importantly, though she hopes that her example will keep you writing and submitting.

Her book is still available on Amazon, with the Kindle/ebook version a modest £1.99.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B087N8H9PB

Jane Eyre Revisited

Tags

Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, Lowood School

“The next day commenced as before, getting up and dressing by rush-light; but this morning we were obliged to dispense with the ceremony of washing: the water in the pitchers was frozen. A change had taken place in the weather the preceding evening, and a keen north-east wind, whistling through the crevices of our bedroom windows all night long, had made us shiver in our beds, and turned the contents of the ewers to ice.”

Chapter VI, Jane Eye

Having been deprived of central heating for nearly five weeks, I have thought often about Jane and the shivering conditions at her charity school. Our bathrooms may currently be icy, but we do have hot water. Perhaps it is timely to follow Jane and count our blessings.