Writing Competitions to Enter in July

Tags

Cinnamon Press Annual Debut Fiction Prize, Daily Mail First Novel Competition

We’d all love to be shortlisted by the Bridport, but here are some other competitions worth considering, which should have fewer entries against which to compete. Working on a poem, short story or piece of flash fiction can provide a useful cure for writer’s block – or a break from the slog of editing a 100,000-word novel. Why not give one of them a go?

Daily Mail Random House First Novel Competition. The first prize in this competition for a novel for  adult readers is a £20,000 advance. Entries must be original, previously unpublished fiction in any genre for adults except saga, sci-fi or fantasy. In addition, entrants must not previously have published a novel with a valid ISBN, or be represented by a literary agent. The prize is an advance against publication and literary representation by Luigi Bonomi of LBA Books Ltd. Manuscripts must be available by March 2019 and the entry deadline is 13 July 2018. Please note, you must enter by post, sending the first 3,000 words of a debut novel, plus a 600-word synopsis, printed in 12pt font and double-spacing on single sides of A4, to Daily Mail First Novel Competition, c/o Penguin Random House Group, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London. SW1V 2SA. Website details: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/first novel

The Brighton Prize wants short stories between 1,000 and 2,000 words, and flash fiction up to 350 words. Short story prizes are: £1,000, plus 2 x £100. Flash Fiction prizes: £500, plus 2 x £50. ‘We love stories that work on the stage as well as they do on the page.’ Deadline 7 July. Details: http://www.brightonprize.com

Ledbury Poetry Festival Competition is for poems of up to 40 lines. Prizes: £1,000 plus a week at Ty Newydd; £500; £250. Entry fee: £5, £3.50 for each subsequent. Deadline 12 July. Details: http://www.poetry-festival.co.uk

Wrekin Writers are inviting entries up to 1,200 words for the 2018 Doris Gooderson Short Story Competition. There is a first prize of £200, a second of £100 and a third of £50. Half of the competition profits are donated to Severn Hospice. The entry fee is £5, and the closing date 12 July. Details: https://wrekinwriters.wordpress.com

Wasifiri New Writing Prize. Poetry, up to five poems; fiction and life writing up to 3,000 words. Prizes: £300 in each category, plus publication in Wasifiri. This is run by The Open University in London, so well worth supporting. Entry fee: £6 for one category; £10 for two categories; £15 for three categories. Closing date 15 July. Details: http://www.wasafiri.org

The H G Wells Short Story Competition is for short stories on the theme of ‘peace’ of 1,500-5,000 words. There is a £250 prize in the adult category and £1,000 in the Margaret and Reg Turnhill Prize for writers under 21. Winning entries will be published in an anthology. Adult entry fee is £10, while under 21 entries are free. Closing date is 23 July. Details:  https://hgwellscompetition.com/

HISSAC Flash Fiction and Short Story Competitions. Flash fiction: max 500 words. Story: max. 2000 words. Fee: £5; £12 for 3; £18 for 5; £25 for 7. Prizes: £250; £50; £25. Deadline: 31 July. Details: http://www.hissac.co.uk

The Olga Sinclair Award, promoted by Norwich Writers, is looking for short stories of up to 2,000 words on the theme of ‘markets’. There will be ten winners, with the top three receiving prizes of £400, £250, £100. All ten will be published in a non-profit-making anthology. Postal deadline is 16 July, online deadline 31 July. Details: https://norwichwriters.wordpress.com/the-olga-sinclair-open-short-story-competition/

Trapeze Books Write Your Own Love Story competition offers a £10,000 book contract plus mentoring from Trapeze author, Anna Stuart. One lucky runner-up will receive a place on a Curtis Brown on-line novel writing course worth £200. Send your first 5,000 words, plus biographical details and a brief synopsis by 30 July to lovestories@orionbooks.co.uk  Full details and advice on what they’re looking for at: https://www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk/sam-eades-on-write-your-own-love-story-a-new-competition/

Inktears Flash Fiction, up to 500 words. Prizes: £250; £50; £25 x 8, plus your story and biographical details published to the readership of the Inktears website (something well worth taking a look at).

To Hull and Back Humorous Writing Competition. Do you have a well-developed sense of humour? Christopher Fielden is looking for ‘funny stories’ up to 4,000 words and isoffering generous prizes: £1,000; £500; £250; 3 x £50; 14 x £25. Winners and those shortlisted will be published in an anthology, together with a writer’s profile, ‘a delightful picture of you, a short bio telling readers how amazing you are and details of  your website, if you have one.’ Entry fee: £11 for one, £18 for two and £22 for three. Closing date is 31 July. Details: http://www.christopherfielden.com

Original unpublished short stories are invited to enter the Sean O’Faolain International Short Story Prize 2018. First prize is 2,000 euros, plus a week-long residency at Anam Cara Retreat in West Cork, Ireland. There is a second prize of 500 euros and four shortlisted entries will receive 120 euros each. If a winner attends the Cork International Short Story Festival to collect their prize, hotel accommodation, meals and drinks will be provided. The entry fee is 15 euros and the closing date for submissions 31 July. Website: http://www.munsterlit.ie/SOF%20Page.html

Cinnamon Press Annual Debut Fiction Prize. The first 10,000 words of an unpublished novel, novella or short story collection. Prize: A year’s mentoring worth £1,000, plus publishing contract, and 100 copies of your novel. Entry fee: £12. Deadline 31 July. Details: http://www.cinnamonpress.com

Stroud Book Festival International Writing Competition 2018. Poetry up to 40 lines, flash fiction up to 500 words; Katie Fford Award for Mainstream Fiction excerpt up to 3,000 words and 200 word synopsis. Prizes: £500; £250; £100; and 4-night writing retreat. £50 Katie Fford award. Entry fee: £5, £3 each additional. Closing date: 31 July. Details: https://stroudbookfestival.org.uk

Novel Writing Scholarship. Irish author Marian Keyes is funding the Marian Keyes Scholariship, offering a place on Curtis Brown Creative’s six-month on-line course. Writers from under-represented backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply. The course runs between 10 September and 4 March and is taught by Lisa O’Donnell. Writers should be either unmarried and not cohabiting, with an annual income of less than £25,000 and personal savings of less than £5,000, or married or cohabiting with a total household income of less than £35,000 and personal savings of less than £5,000. To apply, send 3,000 words of a work in progress and a one-page synopsis, and complete the online application form. Website: https://writ.rs/mariankeyesscholarship   Deadline: 29 July.

Checking out all these competitions is fiddly, and sometimes I sadly get things wrong, so please remember to check all rules and guidelines before entering.

Something for everybody there, surely? Good luck!

 

Advertisements

Competitions to Enter in June

 

First of all, check out my post of May 7, which gives details of the Richard & Judy New Novel Competition. If you want a crack at winning that £30,000 prize, the deadline is June 14. Soon.

In celebration of the centenary of the creation of Czechoslovakia and other Czech and Slovak anniversaries the free-to-enter 2018 BCSA International Writing Competition has a theme of ‘Anniversary’. The winning prize has been increased to £400 and there is a second prize of £150. Both winners will be published in the British Czech and Slovak Review. The British Czech and Slovak Association is a registered charity with the aim of ‘raising awareness of matters relating to the history, arts, literature, politics and economies and science of Britain and the Czech Republics and the societal transitions in those Republics since 1989’. There are no age, nationality or educational restrictions on entering the competition – and although erudite offerings are welcome, one of the past winners was a humorous story. The closing date is June 30 and full details can be found on their website: http://www.bcsa.co.uk

Farnham Flash Festival has launched a new flash fiction competition for stories up to 500 words, with prizes of £100 (adult category), £50 (age 14-18), and £25 (12-14 and 7-11). The entry fee is £5 per story and the closing date June 10. Details at: http://www.farnhamflashfestival.org.uk

The Moth Short Story Prize 2018 has a first prize of £3,000, a second prize of £250 plus a stay at Circle of Misse writing retreat in France, and a third prize of £1,000. Stories on any theme are welcome, as long as they are previously unpublished. Deadline June 30. Full details: http://www.themothmagazine.com

The biannual Dorset Fiction Award invites entries for its summer competition for short fiction up to 1,000 words. There is a first prize of £500, with the winner and nine runners-up published in an anthology. Entry fee is £7 per story, and the closing date June 9. Website: http://www.dorsetfictionaward.co.uk

VS Pritchett Story Prize for short stories of 2,000-4,000 words. Prize: £1,000 plus publication. Entry fee: £7.50. Deadline June 29. Details: https://rsliterature.org/award/v-s-pritchett-memorial-prize

Bath Flash Fiction Award, max. 300 words. Entry fee £9; £15 for two; £18 for three. Prizes: £1,000; £300; £100; 2x£30. Deadline: 15 June. Details: http://www.bathflashfictionaward.com

The Wigton Poetry Competition 2018 has a first prize of £1,500 and a runner-up prize of £400 for poems of up to forty lines. Three highly commended poets will each win £100. The entry fee is £6.50, three for £17, £5 each subsequent. Closing date June 8. Details (including extra prizes for poems written in Gaelic): http://www.wigtownbookfestival.com/poetry-competition

The Brighton Prize is open for stories in two categories: short stories between 1,000 and 2,000 words, with a first prize of £1,000 and two runners-up each getting £100. Entry fee is £8. Their flash fiction category is for fiction up to 350 words, with a first prize of £500, with two runners-up each getting £50. The entry fee is £6. There is a £100 book token for the best entry in either category from a Sussex-based writer. Winning entries will be published in an anthology. Website: http://www.brightonprize.com. Closing date June 30.

Please check entry details, especially deadlines, really carefully in case of error. And don’t forget Writers’ Forum and Writing Magazine also have competitions, some of them available for non-subscribers.

Richard & Judy New Novel Competition

Tags

Costa Book Awards, Elinor Olifant is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman, Goodhouskeeping Novel Competition, Lucy Cavendish Prize, Margaret Kirk, Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre, Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller, Scottish Book Trust First Chapter Award, Shadow Man

I’ve just caught up with the fact that Richard and Judy have launched another competition to find a first-time author with the potential to become a best-selling writer. Previously Tracy Rees, author of Amy Snow, and Caz Frear, author of Sweet Little Lies went on to enjoy fantastic sales after being chosen by them.

‘Search for a Bestseller‘, supported by W H Smith, is accepting manuscripts from unpublished writers until June 14th. Richard and Judy will then themselves be leading the selection process, helped by editors and agents. The winner will receive a £30,000 publishing deal with Bonnier Saffre, and specialist advice from literary agency Furniss Lawton.

Aspiring authors must submit 10,000 words of original fiction aimed at adults, plus a synopsis of the full novel and a short author biography, via Richard and Judy’s website: http://www.richardandjudy.co.uk/richard-and-Judys-Search-For-A-Bestseller-2018/711

Great novels rarely spring fully formed from their writer’s laptop. I’ve recently finished (and been bowled over by) Elinor Olifant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. As a work-in-progress, this book was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Prize. In 2014, it won the Scottish Book Trust First Chapter Award, allowing Gail to spend valuable time shaping and editing at Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre.  Then, in 2017,  she was the Costa Book Awards winner. Not an overnight success, then. A hard worker rewarded.

Most novels evolve and grow over time. Entering your manuscript into competitions can give you the impetus to finally finish your book. A long-listing, or short-listing might provide the spur to invest in a writing course. Like Gail Honeyman, Margaret Kirk, who won the Good Housekeeping First Novel Competition in 2016 with Shadow Man, credits a crime-writing course at Moniack Mhor with ‘literally changing my life’. Something about that bracing Scottish air perhaps.

Competitions are a tremendous encouragement. Even if you don’t win. Even if you aren’t short-listed, or long-listed. Competitions concentrate the mind. They glue you to that laptop into the small hours and get the book written. Then all that’s needed is editing, persistence and yet more editing.

 

Competitions to Enter in May

 

My apologies for being a bit late with this, but you still have time to enter some first-rate competitions.

Enter full length playscripts for the Nick Darke Award, which has a £6,000 prize, funded by Falmouth University. There is no set theme, but your entry should not have had a production, rehearsed reading or won any other competition. Details: http://www.falmouth.ac.uk/nickdarkeaward. Deadline 21 May.

Short fiction is invited for a new RETREAT WEST CHARITY ANTHOLOGY to support the 2018 Hundred Years March. In November, women in East London will be marching to celebrate the centenary and acknowledge that women’s rights still need to be fought for. All profits will be sent to Hestia, a charity supporting adults and children in time of crisis, including domestic abuse and slavery. Entries should be between 300 and 3,000 words and address themes which are detailed on the website: https://retreatwestbooks.com. Closing date 27 May.

The Wundor Short Fiction Contest 2018 is open for entries of up to 45,000 words. Enter novellas, short stories, or even flash fiction (from a single page to 45,00 words) in this competition for unusual fiction. The winner will receive £500 and their book will be published by Wundor Editions. Two runners-up will have extracts of their work published on the website and be considered for publication. The entry fee is £10 and the closing date 31 May. Details: http://www.wondoreditions.com

The 2018 Yeovil Literary Prize offers four categories: Submit a synopsis and the opening chapters (up to 15,000 words) of a NOVEL. Prizes are £1,000, £250 and £100. The entry fee is £12. SHORT STORIES up to 2,000 words. Prizes are £500, £200 and £100, with an entry fee of £7. POETRY, up to 40 lines. Prizes are £500, £200 and £100. Entry fee £7, £10 for two or £12 for three. WRITING WITHOUT RESTRICTIONS. Prizes £200, £100 and £50. Closing date 31 May. Details: http://www.yeovilprize.co.uk

Solution Loans is running a free-entry spring short story competition for stories on the theme of The Wedding Gift. There is a first prize of £200 and online publication, and three runners-up will each win £50. Entries should be between 1,500 and 2,500 words. The closing date id 31 May. Details: http://writ.rs/theweddinggiftcomp

A competition in which fees of £5 per entry will support the animal care Lord Whisky Sanctuary Fund seeks poetry with a maximum of forty lines on the theme of ‘Animals‘. Prizes will relate to the total number of entry fees received – thirty percent for the first prize, ten percent for the second prize, and two further prizes of five percent. Details: http://www.lordwhisky.co.uk/news-and-events. The closing date is 31 May.

Welsh Poetry Competition for a poem of 50 lines maximum on any theme. Prizes are £500; £250; £100. 17 runners-up will be published on site and in an anthology. Entry fee £5. Details: http://www.welshpoetry.co.uk

John Austin Baker Creative Writing Prize for a poem or flash fiction on the theme: Marine Life. Entry fee £5. Prizes: £500; £250; £100; vouchers for children’s winners. Details: AngSocWelAnimals@aol.com

Peggy Chapman Andrews First Novel Award. 5,000-8,000 words, plus synopsis. Fee: £20. Prizes: £1,000 plus mentoring and possible representation; £500 plus manuscript appraisal. £100, plus partial appraisal. Details: http://www.bridportprize.org.uk/peggy-chapman-andrews-award-first-novel. Deadline: 31 May.

Frome Festival Short Story competition for 1,000-2,200 words, on any theme. Prizes: £400; £200; £100. Winning entrants published on the website and may be sent to Women’s Weekly and/or Frome FM for consideration. Entry fee: £8. Deadline 31 May. Details: fromeshortstorycompetition.co.uk

Please take care to check all details before entry.

 

 

 

Competitions to Enter in April

Tags

Bath Novel Award, Binstead Arts Poetry Competition, Bristol Short Story Prize, The Pin Drop Short Story Award 2018, Ver Poets Open Competition

 

 

It’s SPRING, guys. Time for new beginnings. New short stories, new novels, new flash fiction, new poetry. You promised yourself you would write more, remember?

Dark Tales Horror & Speculative Fiction Competition for a short story, maximum 5,000 words. Prize: £100, plus publication. Entry fee: £2.50 (subscribers), or £4 (non-subscribers). Deadline 30 April. Details http://www.darktales.co.uk/contest.php

Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Competition 2018 are inviting 2,500 word entries on the subject of ‘The Looking Glass’. The winner will have the opportunity of publication in Harper’s Bazaar and will receive a two-night stay and three-course dinner for two at Amberley Castle Hotel in Suffolk, plus a selection of gifts from Smythson. There is NO entry fee, but entries must be original and unpublished. Deadline is 9 April Details: http://writ.rs/harpersbazaarstorycomp2018

For its 2018 annual creative writing competition, Brentwood Writers’ Circle has taken the theme of Room 101. Entrants are invited to think of something they hate that should be consigned to Room 101 and write about it in exactly 101 words. Prize momey totals £101: £51 for the winner; £30 for second and £20 for third. Entry is £3 and the closing date is 30 April. Details: http://www.brentwoodwriterscircle.org

Binstead Arts Poetry Competition. Poem: 40 lines max. Theme ‘country’. Prizes: £150; £100; £50, plus an invitation to read poems at the Binstead Arts Festival. Entry: £5, first poem, £3.50 thereafter. Deadline 9 April. Details: http://www.binsted.org/poetry-comp-18.

Bath Novel Award for your first 5,000 words and a synopsis. Prizes: £2,500; manuscript feedback and agent literary introductions; Cornerstones Literary Consultancy online editing course. Entry fee: £25. Deadline: 30 April. Details: http://www.bathnovelaward.co.uk

Ver Poets Open Competition for a 30 line poem. Entrants must be over 16. Prizes:£600; £300; £100, plus publication and invitation to read winning poems at poetry afternoon. Entry Fee: £4; £10 for three. Deadline 30 April. Details: https://verpoets.co.uk/poetry-competitions

Bristol Short Story Prize. Story: max. 4,000 words. Prizes: £1,000; £700; £400, plus 17x£100. Entry fee £8. Deadline: 1 May Details: http://www.bristolprize.co.uk

The Pin Drop Short Story Award 2018 is inviting entries of original, unpublished stories up to 4,000 words for its annual award, staged by Pin Drop in association with the Royal Academy of Arts. The winner will receive £500 with the winning story narrated live by an actor at a special event at the Royal Academy. The event will be recorded for Pin Drop’s podcast series.Entry is FREE and the deadline is 15 April. Details from http://www.pindropsudio.com

Please check the websites for full details, and remember that Writing Magazine and Writers’ Forum also have competitions, many of which are open to non-subscribers.

Competitions to Enter in March

Poets under the age of thirty on 1 January 2018 who have a Scottish parent, were born, brought up in or have lived in Scotland for the last three years are invited to submit a collection of their poetry for the biennial Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. The winner will receive £20,000 (that isn’t a misprint!), a runner-up £2,500 and other shortlisted poets will receive £1,000. Sadly deadline is TOMORROW, 2 March, but you could just about make it. Please check details with care at: http://www.edwinmorganaward.com/award.html

The Good Housekeeping Novel Competition. Deadline for this (which is free to enter) is 30 March – but it must be sent by POST and you also need their application form, from the February magazine. More details are in my post of the 9th February, or can be found online by googling: How to Get Your Novel Published Good Housekeeping

The London Magazine Novel Writing Competition 2018. This inaugural competition, in collaboration with Author Enterprises, is accepting international entries for literary fiction, between 40,000 and 120,000 words, to be submitted with a 400 word summary. All entries must never have been published, self-published, published on any website, blog or online forum, broadcast, or have won or been placed in any other competition. A caution against putting too much of your precious work online if you hope to subsequently sell it or get agent interest.

First prize is £1,000 and your novel published by Author Enterprises. Second prize: £200; third prize: £100. The entry fee is £20 per manuscript, the opening date 1st March 2018 and closing date 30th April 2018. They require your completed manuscript and you need to study their website thelondonmagazine.org for their rules and submission details.

Fowey Festival Adult Short Story Competition 2018 is in honour of celebrated Fowey author Daphne du Maurier and the title for this year’s entries is “Don’t Look Now“. They ask for up to 1,500 words in any prose style. Prizes are: £100 and £75. Entry fee is £5 and the closing date is 16 March. You may only enter one story. Details: foweyfestival.com

Windsor Fringe Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing is for unpublished and unperformed one-act plays (30 minutes or less, no more than six actors) by amateur playwrights. Prizes: Three winning scripts will be selected for performances during three Drama Nights at the Windsor Fringe Festival in October, with £500 for an overall winner announced on the last night. Entry fee: £10. Closing date 5 March. Details http://www.windsorfringe.co.uk

Evesham Festival of Words 2018 Short Story Competition, with categories for adults (2,500 words) and children (500 words) for stories on any theme. Prizes: £150 adult; £30 children. Entry fee: £5 adult, junior free.  Deadline: 23rd March. Details: eveshamfestivalofwords.org

Henshaw Press Short Story Competition. 2,000 words. Prizes: £100; £50; £25. Entry fee: £5.Deadline 31 March. Details: henshawpress.co.uk

There are also, of course, numerous competitions in Writing Magazine and Writers’ Forum.

Please check all details before entering any of these competitions in case the rules have altered or my fingers have slipped into error.

 

Twenty-Six Little Bones

 

My entry to the Hysteria 2017 Short Story Competition, which was shortlisted and subsequently included in their anthology, Hysteria 6, can now be read under ‘Writings‘ at the head of this page.

As I’m about to compile our Competitions to enter in March piece I think I may be forgiven for mentioning that this competition was included in this feature, last summer – so your own story could well have been printed alongside mine…

Good Housekeeping Novel Competition

This rather wonderful, FREE, competition gives you until 30 March to enter the first 5,000 words of your unpublished novel (in the women’s fiction genre), a 100 word mini biography of yourself, and a full synopsis (no more than two sheets of A4 paper).

The prize is a book deal with Orion Publishing and a £6,000 advance.

You also need an original copy of the entry form, from January Good Housekeeping. While this edition is no longer available in the shops, you probably know someone who still has a copy – or might even be able to scrounge the entry form from a copy in your doctor’s surgery or hairdresser’s (please ask permission first!)
The winner of their last competition, Margaret Kirk, whose entry, Shadow Man, set in atmospheric Inverness, currently sits on our own bookshelves, wrote this page-turning whodunnit ‘on a chair in the living room with the cat on my knee’. I have the chair; I have the cat; what’s stopping me?

 

 

 

Unusually the competition asks for a hard copy to be sent to Orion Books, so give yourself enough time to interact with your printer. I’m actually looking forward to the nostalgia of queuing up at the Post Office with my brown envelope…

 

Good luck!

 

 

Writing Competitions to Enter in February

‘Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,

Or what’s a heaven for?’

Chipping Norton Literary Festival Penny Shorts Short Story Competition. Short story, up to 2,500 words. Longer short story, up to 5,000 words. Entry fee: £5 (short story); £8 (longer short story). Prizes: £500; £100; £50. Plus publication on Penny Shorts. Details: http://www.chiplitfest.com/short-story-competition. Deadline 7 February.

Bath Flash Fiction closes on 11 February. There is a 300 word limit with prizes of: £300; £100; two commendations of £30 each. Entry is £9 for one; £15 for two.50 longlisted entrants will be offered publiction in their 2018 end of year print and digital anthology plus a free print copy.

CWA Debut Dagger are looking for the opening of a crime novel not exceeding 3,000 words, plus a synopsis of 500-1,000 words. The winner receives £500 while all shortlisted entrants get written feedback from the judges on their entries and get exposure to agents with an interest in crime writing. Entry is £36 and you must not have previously had a book published. Deadline 28 February. Details: thecwa.co.uk

The CWA also run the Margery Allingham Short Story Competition to find a story of up to 3,500 words which fits into legendary crime writer Margery’s definition of what makes a great story: ‘The Mystery remains box-shaped, at once a prison and a refuge. Its four walls are, roughly, a Crime, A Mystery, an Enquiry and A Conclusion with an Element of Satisfaction in it.’ This is open to published and unpublished authors, but the story itself must not have been published previously. Prize is £500, plus two passes to Crimefest 2019. Entry is £12 per story. Deadline again is 28 February. Details: thecwa.co.uk

Nottingham Writers’ Club invites entries from non-professional writers for its National Short Story Competition 2018. They want a story of up to 2,000 words in which a season plays a major part. Entry fee:  £6 for one story, £12 for two and £5 for each of three or more on-line entries. Prizes are: £200; £100 and £50. Details: http://www.nottinghamwritersclub.org.uk

Are your children following in your footsteps? This competition is open to children aged 5-13 only, and is free. BBC Radio 2,500 Words Short Story Competition Flash Fiction max. 500 words. Details: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00rfvkl

Big on Ideas, but Short on Words? THE BIG IDEA COMPETITION is a joint initiative by The Blair Partnership and top UK children’s publisher Chicken House Books. So if you have a great idea, but don’t want to write it yourself, then this could be for you. The aim is ‘to find a great idea which will be written by a well-known children’s author, published by Chicken House Books and potentially developed for television, theatre or other media by The Blair Partnership. If domestic commitments mean you’re short on time, this could be the one for you – and get you noticed in the children’s publishing world. The idea should be presented in no more than 750 words. There is a £1,000 prize for the winner, who will be named on the published book alongside the author and paid an agreed royalty on every copy sold. There are also five runners-up prizes of £1,000 and these entries MAY also be taken up and turned into a book. Entry is free and the closing date 23 February. Details: http://thebigideacompetition.co.uk

Morgen’s Monthly 100-word Competition is for micro-fiction: 100 words exactly, excluding title. Themne: The Outskirts’. Entry is free and prizes consist of online creative writing courses or a full-edit critique. Details: morgenbailey.wordpress.com/100-word-free-monthly-competition

There are also, of course, competitions in Writing Magazine and in Writers’ Forum which are well worth entering. Members of ninevoices have been shortlisted in some of these – so be encouraged to consider submitting something. By clicking on ‘Writing‘ above you can see two stories entered by Tanya which achieved prizes and publication.

Please remember to check all details before entering, guys. Good luck!

The quote is from Robert Browning – and the picture is to remind us that you should always aim to punch above your weight…

 

 

 

 

 

 

So Your New Year Resolution Was to Enter More Competitions?

 

 

At ninevoices‘ pre-Christmas feast there were vehement protestations from everyone about entering LOTS of competitions in 2018. Here are some we might kick off with:

Bath Flash Fiction Award is inviting entries for its Novella-in-Flash Award. First Prize is £300, with two runner-up prizes of £100. The winners will also be published in a three-novella collection.   Entry fee is £16 and novellas in flash should be between 6,000 and 18,000 words, with the individual flashes (chapters) each being no longer than 1,000 words. Entries must be aimed at adult or young adult readers. Deadline is 29 January.

Grindstone Open Prose Competition. Flash fiction of maximum 100 words. Entry fee: £6. Prizes: £250; £100; £50; £10. Critique voucher to two runners-up. Deadline 28 January. Details: http://www.grindstoneliterary.co/competitions

Magma Poetry is inviting entries for its current poetry competition. There are two categories. The Judges’ Prize is for poems of 11-50 lines and will be judged by Mona Arshi. The Editors’ Prize, for poems up to 10 lines, will be judged by a panel of Magma editors. Prizes in both categories are £1,000 for first, £300 for second and £150 for third. The prizewinning poems will be published in Magma, and winning and commended poets will be invited to read their work at a special event in spring 2018. Enter original unpublished poems by 15 January. Entry fees are £5 for the first poem, £4 for the second and £3.50 for any subsequent entries. Check details at: https://magmapoetry.com/

The Keats-Shelley Prize 2018 is open for entries of poetry and essays. The theme for poems is Liberty; a celebration of Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound. Essays may be on any aspects of the Romantics, their lives and works. Poems may be up to 30 lines, and essays up to 3,000 words. All entries must be original and unpublished. There is a prize fund of £3,000. ENTRIES (up to two poems and up to two essays) ARE FREE, and must be by email. An entry form can be downloaded from: http://www.keats-shelley.co.uk

The Plough & Ronald Duncan Short Poetry Prize. For a poem of maximum 10 lines. Entry fee: £5. Prizes: £1,000; £500; £250.  Deadline 31 January. Details: http://www.theplough-prize.co.uk

The Plough Open Poetry Competition. For a poem up to 40 lines. Entry fee: £5. Prizes: £1,000; £500; £250. Details: http://www.theplough-prize.co.uk

The Lancashire Authors’ Association Open Flash Fiction Competition is inviting entries of stories of EXACTLY 100 words, excluding the title. Format entries as Word docs in double spacing on single sides of A4 and accompany each entry with a separate front page which includes name, address, email address, telephone number and story title. Entries can be sent by post or email. The entry fee is £2 per story, or three for £5, payable by Paypal or cheques made out to Lancashire Authors’ Association. The prize is £100. Closing date is 31 January. email: 100words@lancashireauthorsassociation.co.uk. Postal entries: The Competitions Secretary, 2 Pardoe Close, Hesketh Bank, Preston, Lancashire PR4 6PT.  As always, please check all details before entering anything suggested above.

And remember, even if you don’t win, being shortlisted offers welcome encouragement – and might even get you published in an anthology…!