Competitions to Enter in January

Tags

Arundel Festival Theatre Trail Writing Competition, Bath Flash Fiction and Novella Award, Fish Short Memoir Contest, Kent & Sussex Open Poetry Competition, Lancashire Writers' Group Open Writing Competition, Lucy Cavendish Fiction Award, Mogford Prize for Food and Drink Writing, Plymouth Writers' Group Open Writing Competition, Retreat West First Chapter Competition

If you’re anything like ninevoices, one of your New Year’s Resolutions will have been to write more and to enter more competitions, especially those that might give feedback. Skipper would definitely approve. So it’s time to put on those reading specs and scrutinise the opportunities below:

You’ll need to be quick, as the deadline is to day, but The Exeter Novel Prize is looking for the first 10,000 words of a novel not under contract, together with a 500 word synopsis. Any genre except children’s. Prizes: £500, with five £100 runners-up. Entry fee is: £18 – but for £100 they will give you a 1-page report on your entry. Details can be found at: http://www.creativewritingmatters.co.uk

The Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize for unpublished female authors over 21 to win expert guidance and support from publishing agent Peters Fraser Dunlop, plus a cash prize of £1,500. Deadline: 17 January. Entry fee: £12. Details: http://www.lucy-cav.cam.ac.uk/fictionprize

The Mogford Prize for Food and Drink Writing. Short stories with food and drink themes, up to 2,500 words. (Plenty of inspiration from the last couple of weeks!) Judges Stephen Fry and Pru Leith. Prizes: £10,000, 3x£250. Entry fee: £10. Closing date: 13 January. Details: http://www.mogfordprize.co.uk/

Bath Flash Fiction Novella in Flash Award for flash fiction and novellas between 6,000 and 18,000 words. Prizes: £300, 2 x £100. Entry fee: £16. Deadline: 20 January. Details: http://bathflashfictionaward.com/

Retreat West First Chapter Competition for the first chapter of a novel up to 3,500 words. Prizes: Critique and review. Entry fee: £10. Closing date: 26  January. Details: http://www.retreatwest.co.uk

Arundel Festival Theatre Trail Writing Competition for short plays, 30-40 minutes. Prizes: £250, £150 for each shortlisted play, performance. Free entry – what do you have to lose? Closing date: 31 January. Details: http://www.dripaction.com

Fish Short Memoir Contest for personal non-fiction up to 4,000 words. Prizes: 1,000 Euros, publication; a week at Casa Ana Writers retreat in Andalucia and 300 Euros travel expenses. Entry fee: 17 Euros. Closing date: 31 January. Details: http://www.fishpublishing.com

Kent & Sussex Poetry Society Open Poetry Competition for poems up to 40 lines. Prizes: £1,000, £300, £100, 4 x £50. Entry fee: £5; 3 or more £4 each. Closing date: 31 January. Details: http://www.kentandsussexpoetry.com

Lancashire Authors’ Association Flash Fiction Competition for a story in exactly 100 words. Prizes: £150. Entry fee: £2, £5 for three. Closing date 31 January. Details: http://www.lancashireauthorsassociation.co.uk

Plymouth Writers’ Group Open Writing Competition for  short stories of 1,000-1,500 words. Prizes: £250, £50, anthology publication for top five. Entry fee: £5. Closing date: 31 January. Details: http://plymouthwritersgroup.co.uk

As always, please check all entry details before submitting. Remember those New Year Resolutions and, good luck!

Competitions to Enter in December

Perhaps we are being unrealistic, thinking you might have the time and inspiration over the festive season to enter writing competitions. Yet perhaps this would be the ideal thing to distract you from worrying about not managing to make a home-made Christmas pudding. Or possibly you could tweak your entry into our ninevoices short story competition and send it to fresh fields?

Ruth Rendell Short Story Competition. Flash Fiction: max. 1,000 words. Fee: £15. Prize: £1,000 plus commission to write four further stories for InterAct Reading Service over the course of one year. Judge: Margaret Drabble. Deadline 2 December. Details: http://www.interactstrokessupport.org/ssc2020

Angelica Poetry Competition for poems up to 100 lines. Prizes £50, £20 and publication. Free Entry. Closing Date 1 December. Details: https://anglica.co.uk/poetry-competition/

Chorley & District Writers’ Circle Annual Short Story Competition. Short stories, maximum 2,50000 words, on the theme: ‘On The Edge’. Prizes: £100, £50 3x£20. Entry fee: ££6, or £10 for two. Deadline 15 December. Details: http://www.chorleywriters.org.uk

Magic Oxygen Literary Prize for short stories up to 4,000 words and poetry up to 50 lines. Prizes: £1,000, £300, £100, 2x£50 highly commendeds in each category. A tree planted for every entry. Entry fee: £5. Deadline 31 December. Details: http://www.magicoxygen.go.uk

Henshaw Short Story Competition for stories up to 2,000 words. Prizes: £200, £75, £25. Deadline 31 December. Details http://www.henshawpress.co.uk

The Moth Poetry Prize 2019. Prize of 10,000 Euros for an unpublished poem, with three runner-up prizes of 1,000 Euros. Entry fee: 15 Euros. Deadline 31 December. Details: http://www.themothmagazine.com

Words Magazine Short Story Competition for stories up to 2,000 words on the theme ‘murder’. Free entry. Prizes: £50 and £25. Closing date: 31 December. Details: http://www.wordsmag.com

Arkbound Short Story Competition for stories between 500 and 1,000 words on the theme of ‘time’. Prizes: £100, £50, £25, 3x£10. Entry fee: £3. Deadline: 31 December. Details: http://arkbound.com

Good luck – and please remember to check all details before entry.

STOP PRESS:  

WATCH THIS SPACE, BECAUSE TOMORROW WE WILL BE PUBLISHING THE NAME OF THE WINNER AND RUNNER-UP OF OUR OWN SHORT STORY COMPETITION ON THE THEME OF SUMMER.

Writing Competitions to Enter in November

Tags

Bath Children's Novel Award, Betty Trask, Caledonia Novel Award, Cinnamon Press Awards, Fish Short Story Prize, NAWG Open Competitions for Short Story, Paul Torday Memorial Prize, prize, Scribble Annual Short Story Competition, The Commonwealth Short Story Prize, The Poetry Kit Autumn Competition

November. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. Of curling up by the fireside and reading story books. Or – better still – of sitting by the fireside and composing your very own stories…

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize, open to all Commonwealth writers, is for a story of 2,000-5,000 words. Prizes: £5,000; £2,500. Entry is free. Deadline 1 November. Details from http://www.commonwealthwriters.org/cssp-2020

Scribble Annual Short Story Competition. Maximum 3,000 words on the theme of DECEPTION. Entry is £4, but free to subscribers. Prizes: £100, £50, £25. Deadline 1 November. Details: parkpublications.co.uk/competitions.html

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

Paul Torday Memorial Prize for a first (published) novel by a writer 60 and over. Prizes: £1,000. Free entry. Closing Date: 15 November. Details: http://www.societyofauthors.org

Bath Children’s Novel Award for unpublished and independently published children’s novels. Send first 5,000 words and synopsis. Prizes: £2,500, feedback, Cornerstones online course. Entry fee: £25. Closing date: 17 November. Details: http://www.bathnovelaward.co.uk

The Poetry Kit Autumn Competition for a poem of any length. Entry: £3.50; £8 for three; £10 for five. Deadline: 20 November. Prizes: £100, £50. Details: poetry-kit.org.

National Association of Writers’ Groups Open Competitions for Short Story/Poem on the theme of BETRAYAL. Prizes for each category: £200, £100, £50. Entry fee: £5. Deadline 30 November. Details: nawg.co.uk/competitions

Fish Short Story Prize. Word limit 5,000 words. Prizes: 3,000 Euros; Week at Anam Cara Writers’ Retreat; 300 Euros; 200 Euros for 7 runners-up. The 10 best submissions will be published in the Fish Anthology 2020. Entry is 20 Euros (12 Euros for subsequent). Deadline 30 November. Details: http://www.fishpublishing.com

Betty Trask Prize for published or unpublished, traditional or romantic (not experimental) first novels by authors under the age of 35. Prizes: £20,000 total, to be used for foreign travel. Free entry. Deadline: 30 November. Details: http://www.society ofauthors.org

Cinnamon Press Awards for 10 poems, 2 short stories or up to 10,000 words of a novel. Prizes: publishing contract. Entry fee: £16. Deadline: 30 November. Details: http://www.cinnamonpress.com

The above competitions pretty much offer something for everyone, so please curl up by that fireside and get composing, or revising, or editing…

Just remember to carefully check all entry details before doing so.

National Bookshop Day

Tags

Bookshops, Daunt's Bookshop, Libraries, London

Let’s all raise a glass in praise of our wonderful bookshops. Along with libraries, they are the best friends of all readers and writers.

My other half and I spent time (and a modest amount of money) in Daunt’s Bookshop in London yesterday. A magical place in Marylebone..

It is tempting to save a pound or two by buying books from Amazon – though by the time you’ve added postage, the difference may not be great – but let’s not shoot ourselves in the foot by making book selling on the high street uneconomic. We don’t want to deny ourselves the thrill of one day seeing our own efforts on public display, do we?

 

Writing Competitions to Enter in October

Tags

2020 Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award, 2020 Debra Rogers Foundation Writers Award, Cinnamon Pencil Mentoring Competition, Dalkey Creates Writing Festival, Lichfield Cathedral Poetry Festival Poetry Competition, McKitterick Prize, Retreat West, SWC International Short Story Competition, Tom Gallon Trust Awards

Light in Our Darkness is the theme for The Word Poetry Competition, which is part of the first Lichfield Cathedral Poetry Festival, inspired by the 50th anniversary of the Moon landings. The first prize is £100, second prize of £50 and third of £25 in the age categories of 17-25 and 26 and over. The winners will also be displayed in Lichfield Cathedral. Poems should be original, unpublished poems that use ideas around creation, cosmology, space travel and astronomical discovery and reflect the origins of the universe and space, light and time. All poems must have a title. Entry is free. The deadline is 3 October and details can be found at: http://www.lichfield-cathedral.org/journeys/the-word-poetry-competition

The Dalkey Creates Writing Festival international contest is for short stories up to 2,000 words and poems up to 30 lines, with winners in each category receiving 1,000 Euros. The entry fee is 15 Euros and the closing date 6 October. Details: http://www.dalkeycreates.com

Virginia Prize for Fiction, for unpublished novels, at least 45,000 words, by women. Prizes: Development and publication of the winning novel. Entry fee: £25. Closing date: 1 October. TODAY! Details: https://aurorametro-com/virginia-prize-for-fiction/

Imison Award for original radio plays by writers new to radio. Prizes: £3,000. Closing date: 6 October. FREE ENTRY. Details: http://www.societyofauthors.org

London Short Story Prize for stories up to 5,000 words by writers with London postcodes. Prizes: £1,000, 2x£250. Entry fee: £10. Closing date: 7 October. Details: http://www.spreadtheword.org.uk

Bath Flash Fiction Award for up to 300 words. Prizes: £1,000, £300, £100, 2x£30. Entry fee: £7.50, £12 for 2, £18 for 3. Closing date: 13 October. Details: bathflashfictionaward.com

Retreat West fiction for up to 500 words; short stories 1,500-5,000 words. Prizes: flash: £350, £200, £100, £15 for each shortlisted; short stories: £400, £250, £150, £20 each shortlisted. Entry fee: £8 flash; £10 short story. Closing date: 27 October. Details: http://www.retreatwest.co.uk

Cinnamon Pencil Mentoring Competition. 10 poems, two short stories, or the first 10,000 words of a novel. Prize: a place on the Cinnamon Pencil mentoring scheme. Entry fee: £12. Closing date: 30 October. Details: http://www.cinnamonpress.com

The 2020 Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award has a first prize of £10,000 for an unpublished book by a first time writer. Runners up will receive £1,000. This bi-annual competition, in memory of the agent who founded the agency that became Rogers Coleridge White, wants the first 20,000-25,000 words of a work in progress, plus a synopsis and a biographical note. There is no entry fee, but writers must reside in the United Kingdom or the British Commonwealth. They can submit one work only and must not have published a full-length work or be under contract to a publisher. The deadline is 31 October and details can be found at http://www.deborahrogersfoundation.org

Bedford International Writing Competition for short stories up to 3,000 words, poems up to 40 lines. Prizes: each category £300, £150, £100. Entry fee: £6, £12 for three. Closing date: 31 October. Details: http://www.bedfordwritingcompetition.co.uk

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

Southport Writers’ Circle is inviting entries for their SWC International Short Story Competition for stories up to 2,000 words on any theme. As well as the first prize of £150, there are second and third prizes of £80 and £30. Entry is £3 per story, or four for £10. Closing date is 31 October. Details: http://www.swconline.co.uk

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, £500 runner-up. FREE ENTRY. Details: http://www.societyofauthors.org

Carmarthen Book Fair Short Story Competition. Short stories for adults, 1,200-1,500 words. Prizes: £100, £50. Entry fee: £3, £5 for two. Closing date: 31 October. Details: http://www.facebook.com/CarmarthenBookFair 2016/

Please, as ever, check that I have all the entry details correct. Entering competitions is a good thing – even if you don’t win, you hone your craft and, hopefully, have fun.

With regard to our own competition, we are busily reading entries and will soon be able to give a date when we will announce the result of our deliberations. With Skipper insisting we be dogged in our efforts. Many thanks to those who entered. 

 

 

The Gun at Your Head. The Knife at Your Throat.

There is only ONE DAY left for you to enter our short story competition and carry off that £250 prize. Or perhaps the £50 for being runner-up.

Not that we’re trying to strong arm you, or anything…but this is in a good cause, and writing a short story is always an excellent way to hone your craft.

ONLY TWO DAYS LEFT…!

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.

Of spiders big as saucers in the shower,

And woozy wasps bombarding barbecues.

 

Skipper, our beta-reader, says that since summer is over it is TIME to send in your entry to our short story competition.

There are only TWO DAYS left in which to sink your teeth into our £250 first prize. Think how many yummy dog biscuits that would buy!

He’s relying on you.

 

Polishing Your Entry to our Short Story Competition?

One of our beta-readers, Skipper, thinks that sometimes you can over-edit. He suggests you give that entry a final polish and send it in today, before the deadline on the 28th…!

A rainy day is the perfect time for us to get on with reading the entries already received, but we’re greedy for even more. It’s in a good cause. And most of us could find something useful to do with that £250 first prize.

 

 

 

How to Write a Short Story?

Tags

Entering Competitions, Mixing the past and present, Short story competitions, the Battle of Hastings, Tunbridge Wells, Winning Competitions

One summer, long ago, while I was devouring a sandwich at my desk, a colleague brandished the local paper at me.

‘Something for you?’ she said.

Write us a short story, the paper challenged. There will be prizes.

At the time I composed occasional pieces for our staff magazine, but was procrastinating about getting down to serious writing. My friend was calling my bluff.

There is nothing like a deadline for concentrating the mind, but there were just a couple of weeks in which to produce an entry that wouldn’t embarrass me if it was ever published.

I scratched a head of hair, the colour of which, in those days, needed no help from Garnier Nutrisse. What the hell to write? Short of inspiration, I resorted to gathering random thoughts in the way one rustles-up a scratch supper from leftovers in the fridge.

The story had to be set in East Sussex or Kent. Should I write something about the famous Pantiles? About our regency past, with Beau Nash and goings-on at the Assembly Rooms? But wouldn’t lots of people do that?

Local but different was surely the answer.

My default position was to use what I knew. My husband rides and at that time often cantered across the glorious commons with which Tunbridge Wells and neighbouring Southborough are blessed. He owned a spirited grey mare, so I decided to put the two of them at the centre of my story. Calypso had a a mind of her own, so she became Madam. She also had an alarming tendency to spook. That morning I’d driven to work through the woods myself, car windows open, shivering in one of those eerie mists you can get at the end of summer.

So it had to be a ghost story, didn’t it? Everyone loves them.

And didn’t people say that a mere arrow’s flight from Southborough Common is the patch of land where Harold’s army camped the night before the battle of Hastings? Isn’t it still called Camp Field, in honour of the tradition?

I decided that mixing past and present was my answer, using that invaluable resource of the writer: What if…?? All I needed was a way to link 1066 with the end of the twentieth century (Yes, it was that long ago). It was then that I noticed a small ad in the paper for a metal detector. If an army in a hurry really did pass that way, wouldn’t they have dropped things? Might something unearthed from long ago conjure up a fleeting glimpse of a ghostly army?

Reader, to my surprise I won the competition. The prize was books from Waterstones, and a calligraphy set, but better than that was the acknowledgement that maybe, just maybe, I could one day become a proper writer.

I dragged up this recollection to encourage those thinking of entering our own current short story competition. Short of inspiration, I used things my husband had said about riding on the Common, the feistiness of his mare – who saw monstrous apparitions behind every bank of fern – and myths I’d heard about Harold’s having passed this way. Then I noticed that advertisement for a metal detector. Threw in my impressions of driving under the trees through wisps of fog. And wrote, and rewrote, until it was done.

So how is your story getting on? We are loving reading those already received, but hungry for more. No ghost stories yet – but we’d love to get some… Or a summer crime or murder, perhaps? Whatever your fertile writers’ minds can come up with, BUT YOU’VE ONLY GOT UNTIL SEPTEMBER 28th.

 

 

Writing Competitions to Enter in September

Tags

Bedford International Writing Competition, Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize, Grindstone Literary Services Novel Prize, HWA & Sharpe Books Unpublished Novel Award, Imison Award, Mslexia Flash Fiction Competition, Mslexia Novel Competition, Mslexia Short Story Competition, Retreat West Novel Prize, The Caterpillar Story for Children Prize, The London Short Story Prize, The Manchester Prize, Val Wood Prize

September, of course, is your final chance to enter our own competition for a story on the theme of ‘summer‘ – and don’t forget, you only have until the 28th, not the end of the month. The first prize is £250, with £50 going to one runner-up. Entry is £5 and all profits will be going to the cinderella arthritis charity, PMRGCAuk.

We have chosen to limit entry to those who didn’t earn more than £300 from their writing in the past year. So you won’t have to compete with people like Ian Rankin, Hilary Mantel or Stephen King (all of whom are, no doubt, gnashing their teeth with frustration).

Mslexia Competitions. Details from http://www.mslexia.co.uk/competitions. Deadline for all three competitions: 30 September.

Mslexia Novel Competition. For novels of at least 50,000 words in any genre for adult and/or young adult readers by currently unpublished women writers. The winner gets £5,000, together with the option of representation by agent Charlotte Robertson. In addition, finalists are invited to a pitching and networking event with agents and editors, and will receive manuscript feedback from TLC. Submit the first 5,000 words (great news – they don’t appear to require a synopsis!). Entry fee: £25.

Mslexia Flash Fiction Competition for up to 300 words. The winning entry will get £500 and they, together with three finalists will be published in Mslexia magazine. Entry fee: £5.

Mslexia Short Story Competition for up to 3,000 words. The first prize is £3,000, plus an optional Moniack Mhor writing retreat and mentoring by an editor at Virago Press. Their story, together with those of three finalists, will also be published in Mslexia magazine. Entry fee: £10

Retreat West Novel Prize for unpublished novels. Prize: Retreat West publishing contract and £500 advance. Manuscript critique and editorial report. Entry fee: £15. Deadline 1 September. Details: http://www.retreatwest.co.uk

The London Short Story Prize, for writers with a London postcode. Up to 5,000 words. Prizes: £1,000. Entry fee: £6. Deadline 17 September. Details: http://www.spreadtheword.org.uk

The Manchester Prize for short stories up to 2,500 words, or portfolio of 3-5 poems, max 120 lines each. Prizes: £10,000 in each category. Entry fee: £17.50. Closing date: 20 September. Details: www2.mmu.ac.uk/writingcompetition/

Imison Award for original radio plays by writers new to radio. Prizes: £2,000. Entry fee: £30. Closing date: 30 September. Details: http://www.societyofauthors.org/imison-award

The Caterpillar Story for Children Prize. Short stories of up to 2,000 words for children aged 7-11. Entrants must be over 16. Prizes: 1,000 Euros. Entry fee: 12 Euros. Closing date: 30 September. Details: http://www.thecaterpillar-magazine.com

Grindstone Literary Services Novel Prize. Opening chapter of 3,000-words, plus synopsis. Entry: £22. Prizes: £1,000; £100; publication; course coupon. Deadline: 28 September.

Bedford International Writing Competition for short stories of up to 3,000 words, poems up to 40 lines, on any theme. Prizes: £300, £150, £100 in each category. Entry fee: £6, £12 for three. Closing date: 30 September. Details: http://www.bedfordwritingcompetition.co.uk

Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize for stories up to 6,000 words. Prizes: £1,000 or a year’s editorial support, £150 for shortlisted authors, £50 bookshop vouchers and four GBP titles for those longlisted. Entry fee: £10. Closing date: 30 September. Details: http://galleybeggar.co.uk

Romance is in the air, for the Val Wood Prize for a love letter. Each entry can contain several letters (to the same person, or several), but must be no more than 1,500 words. First prize is £100 and publication on their website. The runner-up will receive £50, and two other commendations of £25. Entry appears to be free, and that prize would enable you to treat your own dearly beloved to a meal, or a slap-up cream tea. The deadline is September 21st., But please read all the conditions of entry carefully on the website: http://www.valeriewood.co.uk

HWA & Sharpe Books Unpublished Novel Award is for an unpublished novel set at least 35 years in the past. Imogen Robertson, Chair of the Historical Writers Association, is one of the judges. They require a completed manuscript between 40,000-words and 100,000-words, together with a synopsis of between 500-1,000-words. The prize is a publishing contract with Sharpe Books and £500. There are two further cash prizes of £100. Important note: all entrants will be offered a consultation with Richard Foreman, Managing Director of Sharpe Books, by phone or email on how to find an agent and routes into mainstream publishing or, if they wish, advice on how to self-publish their work and the companies which can support self-published authors. This is helpful advice, bearing in mind some rather doubtful companies advertising for unwary writers. The entry fee is £20, and the deadline 30 September. Details: https://historicalwriters.org/unpublished-novel-competition/

Please always double-check all details in case of error on my part. It is, after all, rather hot for crouching over a keyboard.

Final thought. If you feel spoilt for choice, enter several…

Good luck!