Writing Competitions to Enter in November

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Bath Children's Novel Award, Bluepencilagency Pitch Prize, Caledonian Novel Award, Cinnamon Press Literature Award, Cranked Anvil Flash Fiction Competition, Ecologisers EcoSanta Short Story Santa Competition, Fish Short Story Competition, New Writers Flash Fiction, Paul Torday Memorial Prize, Retreat West Novelette in Flash Prize, TripFiction Sense of Place Creative Writing Competition, Writers Bureau Flash Fiction Competition

Don’t take fright, but if the year looks like drawing to a close without any of your writing New Year Resolutions being accomplished, one of the following competitions might save you from agonies of guilt.

Caledonian Novel Award for the first 20 pages plus 200-word synopsis of a novel by an unpublished writer. Prizes: £1,500, trophy. Entry fee: £25. Closing date: 1 November. Details: https://the caledoniannovelaward.com

Scribble Annual Short Story Competition for stories up to 3,000 words on the theme of ‘Neighbours’. Prizes: £100, £50, £25; publication in Scribble. Entry fee: £4. Details: http://www.parkpublications.co.uk

Blue Pencilagency Pitch Prize. First 500 words of an opening chapter and 300-word synopsis. Prizes: one-on-one meeting with agent for up to ten writers. Entry fee: £10. Closing date: 6 November. Details: http://www.bluepencilagency.com

TripFiction Sense of Place Creative Writing Competition. Stories up to 2,500 words, in which the location is as important as the story. Prizes: £1,000, £500, £250. Entry fee: £10. Closing date: 6 November. Details: http://www.tripfiction.com/sense-of-place-creative-writing-competition/ (Please note that we are unsure about this competition, which is detailed in Writing Magazine as being current, but whose website seems to refer to 2020…!)

Retreat West Novelette in Flash Prize. 3,000-8,000 words total, made up of flashes up to 500 words each. Prizes: £150, £100, £50; publication. Entry fee: £14. Closing date: 28 November. Details: http://www.retreatwest.co.uk

Bath Children’s Novel Award. An international prize for unpublished and independently published writers of children’s novels, picture books and chapter books. Send first 5,000 words and synopsis. Prizes: £3,000, manuscript feedback. Cornerstones online course worth £1,800. Entry fee: £29. Closing date: 30 November. Details: bathnovelaward.co.uk

Cinnamon Press Literature Award for 15 poems up to 500 lines each, 2 short stories or up to 10,000 words of a novel. Prizes: publishing contract. Entry fee: £18. Closing date: 30 November. Details: http://www.cinnamonpress.com

Cranked Anvil Flash Fiction Competition for short stories, up to 500 words, quarterly. Prizes: £150, £75, £30. Entry fee: £5, £8 for two, £10 for three. Closing date: 30 November. Details: http://www.crankedanvil.co.uk

Fiction Factory Flash. Short stories up to 1,000 words. Prizes, £200, £50, £25. Entry fee: £5. Closing date: 30 November. Details: hppt://fiction-factory.biz

Fish Short Story Competition for stories up to 5,000 words. Prizes: 3,000Euros for first, a week at Anam Cara Writer’s Retreat in west Cork plus 300 euros expenses for second, 300 euros for third, seven 200 euro honorable mentions. Entry fee: 20 euros for the first 10 euros thereafter. Closing date: 30 November. Details: http://www.fishpublishing.com

Ecologisers EcoSanta Short Story Santa Competition. Stories for children featuring Santa as an eco-champion, under 2,000 words. Prizes: £100. Entry fee: £5. Closing date: 30 November. Details: http://www.ecosanta.co.uk

New Writers Flash Fiction for flash fiction up to 300 words. Prizes: £700, £200, £100. Entry fee: £6. Closing date: 30 November. Details: https://newwriters.org.uk/flash-fiction/

Paul Torday Memorial Prize for a first novel by a writer 60 and over. Prizes: £1,000. FREE ENTRY. Closing date: 30 November. Details: http://www.societyofauthors.org

Writers Bureau Flash Fiction Competition for stories up to 500 words on an open theme. Prizes: £300, £200, £100 plus Writers Bureau course worth over £374. Entry fee: £5, £10 for three. Closing date: 30 November. Details: http://www.wbcompetition.com

No apologies for keeping you awake at night with guilt. Grab that pen, or keyboard, and start writing… But do, please, double check all details before entry in case of last-minute changes or cancellations.

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

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Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain, Della Owens, Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Where the Crawdads sing

“At the first gesture of morning, flies began stirring. Inman’s eyes and the long wound at his neck drew them, and the sound of their wings and the touch of their feet were soon more potent than a yardful of roosters in rousing a man to wake. So he came to get one more day in the hospital ward.“

Wounded in the American Civil War, Inman is a Confederate soldier who turns his back on the carnage of the battlefields and begins a treacherous journey back to his homelands in the Northern Carolina mountains and to the woman he loved before the war began.

Charles Frazier’s story also portrays a parallel journey for her – Ada – as she struggles to wrest a living from the neglected land that was her only inheritance on her once-prosperous father’s death. A young woman raised in the niceties of Charleston society, relocated by her pastor father’s ill-health to the backwoods, she might be well-read and able to play the piano, but without servants is reduced to digging undergarments from the bottom of the laundry pile in the hope time has rendered them less stale. She survives on dried-up biscuits and eggs scavenged from hens left to run wild and guarded by a bully of a cockerel who terrifies her.

“The rooster cocked his head at an angle and fixed a shining black eye on her…Ada waved her hands and said, Shoo! When she did, the rooster launched himself at her face, twisting in the air so that he arrived spurs first, wings flogging…Ada hit at it with open-handed blows until it fell away and then she ran to the porch and into the house.”

A sympathetic neighbour sends the intrepid young Ruby to help. A wonderful no-nonsense character, Ruby announces that she will teach Ada how to manage the farm, but has no intention of emptying her chamber pot. She reminds me of the heroine of Della Owens’ book Where the Crawdads Sing, with a mother absent since her earliest years and a wastrel father intermittently abandoning her to her own devices

“The yellow and black rooster walked by the porch and paused to stare at them. I despise that bird, Ada said. He tried to flog me.“

“I wouldn’t keep a flogging rooster.“

“Then how might we run it off?” Ada said, looking at her with puzzlement.

Ruby rose, stepped off the porch and in one swift motion snatched up the rooster, tucked his body under her left arm, and with her right hand pulled off his head.

“He’ll be stringy, so we’d best stew him awhile,” Ruby said.

Frazier’s writing, to my mind is impressively descriptive, whether showing us the rugged beauty of Inman’s homeland or Ada’s exhaustion at unaccustomed work in the fields:

“Her arms were mackled red like a measles sufferer from being pricked and scraped with the cut grass and she had a blood-filled blister in the web of skin between her thumb and forefinger..near collapse…in a fretful hybrid of sleep and wake…she felt she was pitching hay all through the night.”

I have recommended this book to several friends, none of whom have been disappointed. This is actually my third reading of Cold Mountain. It will not be my last.

(P.S. An excellent film of the book has also been made, starring Nicole Kidman and Jude Law)

An Old Book Revisited

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Elizabeth Woodville, Henry VII, Josephine Tey, Philippa Langley, Richard III, Sir James Tyrrel, The Daughter of Time

I read The Daughter of Time as a teenager and it fueled a lifelong fascination with history and an interest in Shakespeare’s misshapen king. It also led me to read a number of weighty tomes about Richard III and the House of York and, this August, to visit Leicester to see their new Richard III Visitor Centre. Our trip included attending some lectures about the finding of Richard’s remains and on our return home sent me onto the internet to hunt out a second-hand copy of Josephine Tey’s novel.

Read today, the book’s language, with two stereotypical nurses and descriptions of hospital visitors allowed to smoke beside the beds of patients, sounds dated. Yet the story – of a bored and bed-bound detective conducting a cold case examination into the case against Richard – still grips. I found it as impossible to put down as I did all those years ago. My husband is currently devouring it with equal enthusiasm.

With both the book and our August trip fresh in our minds, we recently went to see the film – The Last King – about the amateur historian Philipa Langley’s struggle to persuade archaeologists to dig up a Leicester Social Services Car Park. There were things in the film that jarred and I questioned the indulgence of having the shade of Richard III appearing at Ms Langley’s shoulder – a fanciful invention of the makers of the film. It was also somewhat harsh to the professionals involved in the exercise. Yet one cannot deny that the finding of Richard’s skeleton was due to the dogged persistence of an amateur about whom the professionals were at times dismissive. The archaeologist in charge of the dig, Dr Richard Buckley, when the project was finally agreed and funded, said he expected no more than to establish the location of the Greyfriars church. Were they to find any trace of Richard, he pronounced, he “would eat his hat”. (My earlier post on this subject, on September 3rd, The King in the Car Park, mentions his subsequent consumption of a hat-shaped cake)

I heartily recommend The Daughter of Time to anyone who enjoys a good detective story. The book might even give you a different perspective on Shakespeare’s portrait of the King whom Philippa Langley feels was maligned. Josephine Tey’s novel also raises fascinating questions about what happened after Bosworth. Why, for example, did Henry VII deprive the strong-willed Queen Dowager, Elizabeth Woodville, of an honoured place at his Court? Instead, eighteen months after his accession, he stripped his mother-in-law of everything she owned and ordered her into a Bermondsey nunnery for the rest of her life. Could there have been a need to keep her quiet? And why did it take him so long to question Sir James Tyrrel about the alleged murder of his wife’s young brothers? Why not publish his damning confession when Tyrrel was beheaded, without trial, some twenty years later? A confession which has never subsequently seen the light of day?

We will probably never know the truth of what happened, unless perhaps another Philippa Langley happens along. But both book and film remind us that fact can sometimes be stranger than fiction.

If members of Ninevoices ask me nicely, I will certainly lend them my copy of The Daughter of Time...

Writing Competitions to Enter in October

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Bath Flash Fiction Award, Bedford Competition, Beverley Prize for Literature, Comedy Women in Print Prize, Cranked Anvil Short Story Competition, Creative Mind Horwich, Earlyworks Press Short Story, Fiction Factory Short Story, Flash 500 Novel Opening Chapter & Synopsis Competition, Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize, Grindstone Novel Prize, Imison Award, McKitterick Prize, National Flash Fiction Day Novella in a Flash Competition, NAWG 250 Award for Flash Fiction, Retreat West Prize for Short Stories, Southport Writers' Circle Internation Short Story Competition, The Perito Prize, Tom Gallon Trust Awards

The late lamented Hilary Mantel was not an overnight success, so let her inspire you to persevere with your own creative writing, perhaps by entering one of the competitions below, which have an October deadline. Who knows, a win might lead to you having a book published and being stocked in London’s famous Hatchard’s bookshop.

Grindstone Novel Prize. Submit the first 5,000 words of an unpublished manuscript over 50,000 words. Prizes: £1,000, £500, 4x£125. Entry fee: £8. Closing date: 1 October. Details: http://www.grindstoneliterary.com

The Perito Prize for short stories between 1,000-2,000 words on the specific themes of inclusion, access, diversoity, inclusive design and inclusive environments. Prizes £500 and publication. FREE entry. Deadline: 23:00 GMT 1 October. Details: http://www.weareperito.com/perito-prize

Imison Award for original radio plays by writers new to radio. Prizes: £3,000. FREE entry. Closing date: 2 October. Details: http://www.societyofauthors.org/imison-award

Bath Flash Fiction Award. Thrice-yearly award for flash fiction up to 300 words. Prizes: £1,000, £300, £100, 2x£30. Entry fee: £9. Closing date: 9 October. Details: http://bathflashfictionaward.com

Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize for stories up to 6,000 words. Prizes: £2,000, £200 for shortlisted, £50 book vouchers for longlisted, plus Galley Beggar Press subscription. Entry fee: £10. Closing date: 9 October. Details: http://galleybeggar.co.uk

Comedy Women in Print Prize for stories up to 5,000 words and comedy novels by women in two categories: published writers and unpublished writers. Prizes: £2,000 for published writers and £1,000 plus a free place on the University of Hertfordshire’s MA in Creative Writing for unpublished writers. Wntry fee: Free for published writers, £10 for unpublished writers. Closing date: 14 October. Details: http://www.comedywomeninprint.co.uk

Creative Mind Horwich. Short stories up to 1,500 words or poems up to 40 lines on the theme: ‘travel’. Prizes: £50, £30 and £20 in each category. Entry fee: £3; £5 for three. Closing date: 24 October. Details: http://www.creative-mind.co.uk

NAWG 250 Competition for Flash Fiction up to 250 Words. Prizes: £100. Entry fee: £2.50. Closing date: 25 October. Details: http://www.nawg.co.uk/competition

Bedford Competition for short stories up to 3,000 words, poems up to 40 lines, on any theme. Prizes: in each category: £1,000, £200, £100. Entry fee: £7.50 or 3 for £10. Closing date: 31 October. Details: http://www.bedfordwritingcompetition.co.uk

Cranked Anvil Short Story Competition for stories up to 1,500 words. Prizes: £150, £75, £30. Entry fee: £5, £3 for second, £2 for third. Closing date: 31 October. Details: http://www.crankedanvil.co.uk

Flash 500 Novel Opening Chapter & Synopsis Competition, for an opening chapter no longer than 3,000 words, plus synopsis. Prizes: £500, £200. Entry fee: £10, £18 for two, £26 for three. Closing date: 31 October. Details: http://www.flash500.com

McKitterick Prize for the best first novel, published or unpublished, by an author over the age of 40 on 31 October. Prizes: £4,000. FREE entry. Closing date: 31 October. Details: http://www.societyofauthors.org

National Flash Fiction Day Novella in a Flash Competition. 6,000-12,000 words in individual flash blocks, maximum 1,000 words each. Prizes: £300, £100, £50. Entry fee: £14. Closing date: 31 October. Details: https://nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/index.php/competition/

Beverley Prize for Literature for book-length manuscripts of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, memoir, or criticism. Prizes: £1,000 and publication.Entry fee: £25. Closing date: 14 October. Details: https://store.eyewearpublishing.com

Retreat West Prize for short stories, 1,500-2,500 words, flash fiction, 150-500 words, and micro flash, up to 150 words. Prizes: £400, £250, £20 each shortlisted short stories; £350, £200, £100 and £15 for flash; £200, £100, £50 and £10 for micro. Entry fee: £10 for short stories, £8 for flash, £5 for micro. Closing date: 31 October. Details: http://www.retreatwest.co.uk

Southport Writers’ Circle International Short Story Competition for stories up to 2,000 words. Prizes: £150, £80, £30. Entry fee: £3 or £10 for four. Closing date: 31 October. Details: http://www.swconline.co.uk

Fiction Factory Short Story, up to 3,000 words. Prizes: £300, £100, £50. Entry fee: £6. CFlosing date: 31 October. Details: http://fiction-factory.biz

Tom Gallon Trust Awards for short stories up to 5,000 words by authors who have had at least one story accepted for publication. Prizes: £1,000. FREE entry. Closing date: 31 October. Details: http://www.societyofauthors.org

Earlyworks Press Short story. Short stories in two categories: up to 4,000 words, and up to 8,000 words. Prizes: £200, cash and books. Entry fee: £5 for up to 4,000 words; £10 for 4,000-8,000 words. Closing date: 31 October. Details: http://www.earlyworkspress.co.uk

A fair amount of choice for you here, so do try at least one of them – remembering always to double-check the details before entering. Good luck!

Elizabeth II – 1926-2022

Thank you, Ma’am.

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…

Writing Competitions to Enter in August

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Edinburgh Flash Fiction, Oxford Flash Fiction, Searchlight Writing for Children Awards, The Aesthetica Creative Writing Award, The Anthology Short Story Award, The Hysteria 22 Writing Competition

Searchlight Writing for Children Awards have prizes of £500 for the best Children’s Picture Book and £1,000 for the Best Novel Opening. Entry fees, £9 and £14 respectively. Deadline: 22 August. Details: http://www.searchlightawards.co.uk

The Hysteria Writing Competition invites entries of short stories up to 1,000 words, flash fiction up to 250 words and poems up to twelve lines, all on the theme of ‘peace’. Each category winner will receive £300. Winners and runners-up will be published in the Hysteria 9 anthology. Entry is £3 per submission. Closing date: 31 August. Details: https://lindaph.co.uk/hysteria-writing-competition/

Enter poetry and short fiction in the £5,000 international Aesthetica Creative Writing Award 2022. The winner in each category will receive £2,500 and publication in the Aesthetica Creative Writing Annual. The poetry winner will receive full membership of the Poetry Society, a twelve-month subscription to Litopia, a one-day course courtesy of the Poetry School and a five-day Arvon Course. The short fiction winner will receive a consultation with Redhammer Management, a twelve-month subscription to Litopia, and a five-day Arvon course. Twenty short-listed fiction entries and forty short-listed poetry entries will be published in the Aesthetica Creative Writing Annual. Enter short fiction up to 2,000 words and poems up to 40 lines. Works may have been previously published. Entry is £12 for one poetry entry and £18 for one fiction Entry. Closing date: 31 August. Details: https://aestheticalmagazine.com/creative-writing-award/

The Edinburgh Award for Flash Fiction is for fiction on any subject, no longer than 250 words. The winner will receive £1,000 and there are second and third prizes of £300 and £150. The top three winners also receive a year’s free membership of the Scottish Arts Club in Edinburgh. The top twenty shortlisted writers will be invited to a Flash Bash at the Scottish Arts Club in February 2023. The £500 Golden Hare Award will be given to the best piece of flash fiction from a writer resident in Scotland. Entry is £7 per story. Closing date: 31 August. Full details: http://www.storyawards.org/flashfiction

The 2022 Exeter Story Prize is for unpublished stories up to 5,000 words. First prize £500 and second and third prizes of £250 and £150. The Trisha Ashley Award will be given for ‘humorous, engaging and quirky’ stories and will receive £200. Each contestant to the Short Story Prize will receive a few lines of feedback. Entry is £12 per story and the deadline is 31 August. Details: http://www.creativewritingmatters.co.uk

The Anthology Short Story Award is for fiction up to 1,500 words on the theme of ‘Courage’ and the winner will receive 500 Euros and publication in Anthology plus a year’s subscription. Entry is 15 Euros per story. Closing date: 31 August. Details: https://anthology-magazine.com/

The Oxford Flash Fiction Prize is for unpublished stories no longer than 1,000 words. Prizes: £1,000, £200 and £100. Entry is £6 for one entry, £10 for two and £14 for three. Closing date: 31 August. Details: https://oxfordflashfictionprize.com/

Please note that there are competitions that have been cancelled and others which have changed their submission details, in particular their deadlines – so be careful to check all details before entering anything.

Summer on the beach waiting for the dog to return from her swim, lounging by the pool, or in the garden – all perfect opportunities to compose something new, or mull over an existing idea for one of the above competitions… Poppy wishes you the best of luck!

Writing Competitions to Enter in July

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Exeter Literary Festival Short Story Competition, Hastings Literary Festival Writing Competition, HG Wells Short Story Competition, HISSAC Annual Open Short Story Competition, Ilkley Literature Festival Short Story Competition, Sean O'Faolain Short Story Competition, W&A Working Class Writers' Prize

Skipper, one of the four-legged supporters of ninevoices, suggests that you abandon your armchairs and get down to some serious writing.

His first suggestion is that you read our previous blog, of 21st June, advising that the British Czech & Slovac Association’s 2022 writing competition deadline has been extended to Sunday 31 July. Full details can be found there and we think you really should give this serious consideration. Competition is not as fierce as that for things like the Bridport and even if you have never been to Prague, you could surely make something up. After all, you write fiction, don’t you?

The annual HG Wells Short Story Competition was founded by renowned BBC aeronautics engineer Reg Turnbull and his wife Margaret. There are two categories. The Junior Prize is free to enter and has a prize of £1,000. The prize in the Senior category is £500. The 2022 contest is for original unpublished short stories of between 1,500 and 5,000 words on the theme of ‘Switch’, which can be interpreted as broadly as the writer wishes. Winners and shortlisted entrants will be published in an anthology. Entry in the senior category is £10, or £5 with student ID. Closing date: 11 July. Details: https://hgwellscompetition.com/

Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award is looking for between 20,000 and 25,000 words of a prose WIP by a first-time author. Prizes: £10,000; runners-up £1,000, FREE Entry. Closing date: 1 July. Details: http://www.deborahrogersfoundation.org

Working class authors who don’t have a publishing contract or an agent are invited to enter the W&A Working Class Writers’ Prize with an entry of an unpublished writing sample of up to 2,000 words. Submissions may be in any genre and should include a two-page synopsis of the full manuscript and a 200-word piece of writing about the entrant and why this prize speaks to them. First prize is £200, two hour-long mentoring sessions with the prize judge (TBA), access to a number of W&A writing and publishing events, a year’s membership of the Society of Authors, a W&A writing guide bundle and a selection of Bloomsbury books. Five shortlisted entries will receive a W&A writing guide bundle plus a year’s membership of the Society of Authors and support from the W&A team. Entry is FREE. Closing date: 18 July. Details: https://writ.rs/wawcw22

Doris Gooderson Short Story Competition for stories up to 1,200 words. Prizes: £200, £100, £50, winning entries may be published in the annual Wrekin Writers Anthology. Entry fee: £5. Closing date: 12 July. Details: https://wrekinwriters.wordpress.com/doris-gooderson-short-story-competition/

Ilkley Literature Festival Short Story and Walter Swan Poetry Competitions. Short stories 1,000-2,000 words; poems up to 30 lines. Prizes: £200 for short stories, £200, £100, £75 for adult poems; £100, £75, £50 for 18-15s poems. Entry fee: £5 Closing date 31 July. Details: http://www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk

Exeter Literary Festival Short Story Competition for stories on any theme except children’s, up to 750 words. Prizes: £200, £100, £50. Entry fee: £5; £9 for two. Closing date 31 July. Details: http://www.exelitfest.com

Hastings Literary Festival Writing Competition for stories up to 2,500 words; short memoirs, up to 4,000 words, or 60-line poems; poems up to 40 Lines. Prizes: £250, £50 each category. Entry fee: £7.50, £10 for two. Closing date: 31 July. Details: http://www.HastingsLitFest.org

HISSAC Annual Open Short Story Competition. Stories up 2,000 words, flash fiction up to 500 words. No connection to Scotland is needed by theme or entrant. Prizes: £200, £75 and £50 in both categories. Entry fee: £5, £12 for 3, £18 for 5. Closing date: 31 July. Details: http://www.hissac.co.uk

Sean O’Faolain Short Story Competition for stories up to 3,000 words. Prizes: 2,000 Euros, week-long residency at Aman Cara Writers’ and Artists’ Retreat, 500 Euros, 4×250 Euros. Entry fee: 18 Euros. Closing date: 18 July. Details: http://www.munsterlit.ie

Do make sure you check the details of any entry you are considering.

Skipper hopes for great things from you. Please don’t disappoint him.

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!