Creative Writing Competitions to Enter in September

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Cinnamon Pencil Monitoring Competition, Crowvus Christmas Ghost Story, Hammond House 2022 Literary Prize, London Independent Story Prize, Moth Nature Writing Prize, Norwich Writers' Olga Sinclair Competition, Ovacome.org.uk, VS Pritchett Memorial Prize

Love dogs? Why not write a story about one? Chances are, the judge might have a soft spot for them, too.

Cinnamon Pencil Mentoring Competition for 10 poems, two short stories or the first 10,000 words of a novel. Prizes: a place on Cinnamon Pencil mentoring scheme. Entry fee: £12. Closing date: 13 September. Details: http://www.cinnamonpress.com

This year’s Hammond House 2022 Literary Prize – sponsored by University Centre Grimsby – is on the theme of ‘Changes’ and has five categories. Poetry: up to 40 lines. The prizes are £500, £50 and £20. Short Story: between 1,000 and 5,000 words. The prizes are £1,000, £100 and £50. Comedy: sketches (max four sides of A4) or stand-up scripts (max. two sides of A4). Winning scripts will be performed at the 2022 Literary Festival. This category is new for 2022. Scriptwriting: Scripts for film, TV, radio or short film, up to 10 pages. The prize is £250. Songwriting: lyrics or performed song. The prizes are £100. All entries must be original and unpublished and on the ‘Changes’ theme. Entry is £10 for one entry in a single category. Closing date: 30 September. Details: http://www.hammondhousepublishing.com/competitions

V S Pritchett Memorial Prize for unpublished stories between 2,000-4,000 words. Prizes: £1,000 plus publiction in RSL Review and Prospect online. Entry fee: £7.50. Deadline: 16 September. Details: http://www.rslit.org

Moth Nature Writing Prize for poetry, fiction or non-fiction exploring the writer’s relationship with the natural world. Prizes: 1,000 Euros and a week at The Moth Retreat in rural Ireland. Entry fee: 15 Euros. Closing date: 15 September. Details: http://www.themothmagazine.com

Page 100 Competition from independent publisher Louise Walters Books invites entries of 100 pages of a novel or novella manuscript. The competition is for an unpublished novel/novella of a minimum 20,000 words. Shortlisted writers will be asked to send their full manuscripts. The winner will receive mentoring for six months. The winner and two runners up will each receive a box of Louise Walters Books titles. Entry fee: £6.50. Closing date: 30 September. Details: http://www.louisewaltersbooks.co.uk

Norwich Writers’ Circle Olga Sinclair Open Short Story Competition. Stories up to 2,000 words on an open theme. Prizes: £500, £250 and £100. Entry fee: £9, £7 each subsequent. Closing date: 30 September. Details: http://norwichwriters.wordpress.com

Crowvus Christmas Ghost Story Competition for stories up to 4,000 words. Each author may enter up to two stories. Prizes: £100, £75 and £50. Entry fee: £3 per story. Deadline: 30 September. Details: http://www.crowvus.com/competition

Ovacome Writing Competition for short stories up to 1,500 words on the theme ‘perspective’. Prizes: £250, plus £50 Waterstones voucher. Entry fee: £5. Closing date: 30 September. Details: http://www.ovacome.org.uk

Good luck – and Snowy says please remember to double check your entry details.

The King in the Carpark

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Bosworth Field, Craniofacial Identification, Dr Richard Buckley, Fotheringhay, Horace Walpole, Jane Austen, Josephine Tey, Julian Humphrys, Princes in the Tower, Richard III, Richardians, Shakespeare, Sir Thomas More, The Daughter of Time, The Wars of the Roses, Tudors, Winston Churchill

The Richard III Society commissioned Caroline Wilkinson, Professor of Craniofacial Identification at the University of Dundee, to reconstruct the King’s features. The result was this face, looking younger and less careworn than the traditional portraits. Someone who looks calm, determined and thoughtful. But was he also a murderer?

Towards the end of August, my husband and I finally took a trip originally booked just before the Covid crisis. This was an organised three-day tour centered around the discovery of Richard III’s remains in a Leicester car park and included one lecture by medieval historian Julian Humphrys, on The Wars of the Roses, plus another by the archaeologist heading the dig, Dr Richard Buckley, entitled: ‘The King Under the Carpark – Greyfrirs, Leicester and the Search for Richard III. It also included guided visits to the impressive Richard III Visitor Centre in Leicester, to the Bosworth battlefield, and to the site of Fotheringhay, where Richard was born. It was a fascinating experience.

Richard is one of England’s most notorious kings and his death at Bosworth in 1485 – the last English king to die in battle – heralded not only the start of the Tudor dynasty but a still-continuing dispute about whether he had murdered the two young princes in the Tower.

Hundreds of words have been written on the subject, from those of Sir Thomas More, to Horace Walpole’s Historic Doubts on the life and Reign of Richard III, to Josephine Tey’s novel, The Daughter of Time, where a modern police officer undertakes a ‘cold case’ investigation into Richard’s alleged crimes. As someone interested in character and motivation I, too, have struggled to understand how a deeply pious man – apparently devoted to his older brother, Edward, and entrusted by him with the safeguarding of his sons after his death, could change in the space of months into a child murderer.

Despite having what we now know to be scoliosis, that Richard was both a brave man and a skilled fighter is never questioned. From his teens onward, he was in the forefront of three significant battles and at Bosworth charged Henry Tudor’s position, brought down his standard bearer and killed the six-foot-eight John Cheyne standing between him and the man taking arms against him. Had his horse not been brought down, he might have triumphed.

Richard was respected in the North and forward-thinking in laws he introduced. He refused monetary gifts when making his royal progress, saying he would prefer to have the people’s love. Although he had two acknowledged illegitimate children, he was not a womaniser like his brother Edward, to whom he had shown nothing but loyalty and devotion throughout his life. So why did things change after Edward’s death?

Some questions, like the whereabouts of Richard’s grave, have at least been answered. Others, like the fate of the two princes, remain a mystery. There is evidence that Richard was far from the villain painted by Shakespeare and that ‘facts’ to his detriment provided by Sir Thomas More are questionable. Yet it is also true that Richard seized the throne for himself shortly after his brother’s death and that his two nephews went missing while under his protection. But were they murdered? And, if so, by whom? One imagines that Henry VII would have made strenuous efforts to find out what happened to those boys (his wife’s brothers, after all) and would have relished the opportunity to provide proof not only of Richard’s guilt, but of his unfitness to be England’s king. Perhaps none could be found. Had the boys still lived, of course, they would have been an embarrassment to Henry and provided Yorkist sympathisers with a rallying point. Perhaps at least one of them survived, but needed to lead a discreet existence out of the public eye..

I would like to think the truth will one day come out. Until then, like Jane Austen and Winston Churchill, we must all agree to disagree.

Please note that I am a writer, rather than a historian, and the above ramblings are largely my own…