The thrill of being shortlisted 2

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Being shortlisted, Generations, Homework, Link Age Southwark

Shortlists follow shortlists ….   I too am now enjoying this thrill (see Sarah’s previous post) having just heard that I was shortlisted in the 25^th birthday writing competition run by the excellent Link Age Southwark. The competition’s theme was friendship and/or generations, and I sent in “She’s Leaving Home”, a story of parents packing their daughter’s belongings into the family car. This was the fruit of some ninevoices’ set homework. So it can pay to do that homework!

I look forward to reading the stores that won the prizes in the Link Age Southwark comp.  Well done those guys!

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The thrill of being shortlisted

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Being shortlisted

I’m always heartened by writers’ honesty about disappointment – and, TBH, I have a lot more time for posts with titles like ‘The Rejection Diaries’ than for ones like mine above.  But … yesterday Maggie posted her excellent monthly round-up of forthcoming competitions and as, minutes later, I found I’d been shortlisted for the Colm Tóibín International Short Story Award, I thought I’d just say how jolly grateful I am to her for her monthly reminders.

Do have a go at one of the October competitions she lists.  You might get placed – and it’s such a boost!

Writing comp with a Slovak or Czech dimension

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Anniversary, BCSA, Communism, Czech, Defenestration of Prague, Munich, Prague Spring, Slovak, Thirty Years War

A writing competition with a Central European twist! Exercise your imagination in a Slavic dimension in the British Czech and Slovak Association’s 2018 International Writing Competition, now open. If you win, £400 could be yours, presented at the Association’s annual dinner (so you and a companion would get a free meal as well), and your entry would be published in the British Czech & Slovak Review.

Anniversary – this year is the centenary of the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918, but there are many other anniversaries to choose from in the history of the Slovak and Czech peoples: 1618 (the Defenestration of Prague and the outbreak of the Thirty Years War), 1848 (the Year of Revolutions), 1938 (Munich), 1948 (the Communist takeover) and 1968 (the Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact invasion). (1989 was a year out!) You may know of others. So ‘Anniversary’ is the suggested theme in the 2018 BCSA writing competition.

Fiction or fact – either is welcome. The first prize of £400 and the second prize of £150 will be awarded to the best 1,500 to 2,000-word pieces of original writing in English which must be on (1) the links between Britain and the lands now comprising the Slovak and Czech Republics, or (2) describing society in transition in the Republics since 1989. Topics can include, for example, history, politics, the sciences, economics, the arts or literature. ‘Anniversary’ is this year’s suggested theme, but is not compulsory.

Submissions are invited from individuals of any age, nationality or educational background. Entrants do not need to be members of the BCSA.  Entry is free. Entries must be received by 30 June 2018. An author may submit any number of entries. The competition will be judged by a panel of experts.

Entries should be submitted by post to the BCSA Prize Administrator, 24 Ferndale, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN2 3NS, England, or by e-mail to prize@bcsa.co.uk.

For full Submission Guidelines and the Rules of the competition apply to the Prize Administrator at the addresses given above. Details are also shown at http://www.bcsa.co.uk/2018-bcsa-international-writing-competition/ .

Administrator’s tip:  If I could pass on one lesson from recent years, it is to read the instructions: in 2016 and 2017 several entries were disallowed (no matter how well written) because they did not deal with the prescribed subjects. Enjoy the writing!

The most delightful competition ever

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Barbara Pym, Barbara Pym Society North American Conference

If you are a fan of Barbara Pym and looking for the perfect short story competition to enter, the Barbara Pym Society’s 2018 Ellen J Miller Memorial competition could be made for you.

What could be more blissful than the brief which is that entries must prominently feature one or more characters from Barbara Pym’s published novels, in any setting or situation the author chooses? Readers of Barbara Pym know how her characters continue to live beside them, in moments of recognition, both painful and comic, while offering endlessly comforting human solidarity …

The prize for the winning entry is $250 and the story will be read at the Society’s annual North American Conference held in Boston March 2018. The deadline is 4 December. Details at http://www.barbara-pym.org/

 

 

Ninevoices Summer Competition – the winner!

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Endangered words, Nature, Winners

Ninevoices are delighted to announce that the winner of our Summer Competition is ‘The Last Walk’ by Karen Martyn. Congratulations, Karen! The prize of £100 will soon be coming your way.

In our competition entrants had to use one or more words taken from a list of little-known words with meanings related to nature, such as smeuse (Sussex dialect for a hole in a hedge left by the repeated passage of a small animal – see photo) or petrichor (the smell of dry earth and rock that comes before and during rainfall). The required length was 99 to 199 words.

Our decision came after much discussion (really!). Entries came from across the world – from three continents, in fact. We were impressed by the imagination and ingenuity shown in the way our chosen words were deployed.

A close runner-up was ‘Stop the Rain’ by Christina Dalcher.

Special mention should also be given to the following entries:

‘Before and After’

‘The Mangrove Mist’

‘The Scent of Descent’

‘The Gloaming’

Our thanks to all those who sent us entries. Sorry there could be only one winner!

Ninevoices Summer Competition

Thank you all for your entries. We will discuss them at our next meeting and announce the winner mid-month.

Stop Nurdling and Write

Ninevoices Summer Competition ends on Thursday, 31st August 2017. A mere 99-199 word story incorporating at least one of the endangered words associated with nature featured in our 22nd June post could win you £100. The entry fee is £5 and any profits will go to the charity PMRGCA-UK.

Ninevoices Summer Competition

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Endangered words, Nature

Last month a Times article highlighted the dwindling use of certain words associated with nature. Featured in a sidebar were eleven such words as follows:

Owl-light Twilight
Roarie-bummlers Fast-moving stormclouds
Shivelight Lances of light cast through a woodland canopy
Petrichor Smell of dry earth and rock that comes before and during a rainfall
Glashtroch Incessant rain
Gludder Fleeting sunshine between showers
Neptunes-uouue Sea mist
Smeuse Sussex dialect for a hole in a hedge left by the repeated passage of a small animal
Landskein Weave of horizon lines on a hazy day
Stravaig Scots and Irish for wandering aimlessly
Nurdle East Anglian dialect for wandering aimlessly

Ninevoices challenges our followers to write a story (not a poem or piece of descriptive prose) of between 99 and 199 words using one or more of these words in a manner organic to the story. For stories of equal quality, your chance of winning will rise if you’ve used more than one of these words or introduced another such word (defined in a footnote outside the word count. The title is also excluded from the word-count).

The deadline is 31st August 2017. The entry fee is £5 payable via PayPal. The prize is £100 for the best story. Entries should be sent to ninevoices@ymail.com.

Any profits above the prize amount will go to the charity PMRGCA-UK

 

—HOW TO ENTER—

Please send each entry separately to ninevoices@ymail.com.

Stories should be sent as Word documents or pdfs.
In the email, tell us:

• Your name
• Your phone number (including country code if not in the UK)
• Your writing name (which is what will be shown if we publish the story)
• The title of your story

—PAYMENT—

Please pay us £5 per entry.

For multiple entries, please pay as separate transactions.  It would help us if you could mention the title of the story in the notes area.

Pay here:

 

 

 

 

Brexit can win you £300, plus a free dinner

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Brexit, Czech, Slovak, the EU, Vietnamese, Writing competition

Brexit – that’s the suggested (but not compulsory) theme in this year’s British Czech & Slovak Association’s writing competition.

Last year’s was the EU, and that resulted in a winning entry describing how a Referendum Night party turns sour for a Czech girl living in England. In 2015 it was migration, and the winning entry put you in the place of the Vietnamese minority in the Czech Republic today.

So let Brexit rip – at least in your imagination, for or against – and go for the £300 prize, the free dinner you get when it’s presented to you at the Association’s annual dinner at a hotel in London’s West End, and the publication of your piece in the December 2017 issue of the British Czech and Slovak Review.

The second prize is £100. Entry is free.

Fact or fiction – both are welcome.  The first second prizes will be awarded to the best 1,500 to 2,000-word pieces of original writing in English on the links between Britain and the Czech/Slovak Republics, or describing society in transition in the Republics since the Velvet Revolution of 1989.

There’s still time – the closing date is 30 June.

For further info go to http://www.bcsa.co.uk/the-bcsas-2017-writing-competition/, or approach the BCSA Prize Comp Administrator at prize@bcsa.co.uk, or at 24 Ferndale, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN2 3NS, England.

The Exeter Novel Award

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Briony Collins, Broo Doherty, News

Many congratulations to Briony Collins who yesterday won the Exeter Novel Award with her wonderful-sounding civil rights novel Raise Them Up.  Here she is sitting next to Sarah (front row, second from right).

Our lovely judge was Broo Doherty of DHH Agency. If you’d like to see her thoughts on the six shortlisted novels, go to: http://www.creativewritingmatters.co.uk/2016-enp-award-ceremony-and-judges-report.html