Writing competitions with closing dates in February

Tags

Christopher Tower Poetry Competition, Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger Award, CWA Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition, Exeter Writers Short Story Competition, Fish Flash Fiction Prize, Flash 500 Short Story Competition, Harpers Bazaar Short Story Competition, Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award, Kelpies Prize, Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, National Flash Fiction Day Microfiction Competition, Northern Writers Awards, Papatango New Writing Prize, Peters Fraser + Dunlop Queer Fiction Prize, Rialto Nature and Place Poetry Competition, Scottish Arts Club Short Story Competition, Searchlight Writing for Children Award, Spotlight First Novel Competition, The Poetry Business International Book & Pamphlet Competition, The Poetry Business New Poets Prize, The Welkin Writing Prize, UK Film Festival Script Writing Competitions, Writers & Artists Yearbook Short Story Competition

Isn’t it time you entered a competition? (says Snowy)

Nine of this month’s competitions are free to enter (I’ve typed this fact in bold wherever it applies!) so do take a look. I really hope you’ll find one or two (at least) that will inspire you to have a go. Also, I’ve added in a couple of extras whose deadlines fall early in March. As always, please check websites, in case details have changed.

• Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award for a short story of up to 8,000 words showing the near future (no more than 50–60 years out) of manned space exploration (e.g. about moon bases, Mars colonies, orbital habitats, space elevators, asteroid mining, AI, nano-technology, realistic spacecraft, heroics, sacrifice, adventure). FREE ENTRY. Prizes: publication on Baen Books’ main website at pro rates for first prize, plus prize packages for first, second and third. Closing date: 1^st February. Details: https://www.baen.com/contest-jbmssa

• Papatango New Writing Prize for unperformed full-length playscript. FREE ENTRY. Prizes: £7,000 + winning script produced by Papatango in a full run at Bush Theatre (London). 4 x £500 + option to have play presented as reading. Closing date: 5^th February. Details: https://papatango.co.uk/new-writing-prize/

• Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize for first 40–50 pages of an unpublished novel (plus 3–5-page synopsis of remainder) by a woman. Entry fee: £12. Prize: £1,500. Closing date: 10^th February (or 8^th February if sponsored as low-income writer). Details: https://www.fictionprize.co.uk/

• Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook Short Story Competition for a story (for adults) of up to 2,000 words on the theme of ‘love’. FREE ENTRY. Prize: place on an Arvon Residential Writing Week (worth £850) and website publication. Closing date: 14^th February. Details: https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/competitions/writers-artists-short-story-competition-2023

• Spotlight First Novel Competition for a one-page synopsis and first page of an unpublished novel. Entry fee: £16. Prize: mentoring package from Adventures in Fiction, a dedicated Spotlight page on their website, and first page + synopsis posted online. Closing date: 14^th February. Details: https://adventuresinfiction.co.uk/spotlight-1st-novel

• National Flash Fiction Day Microfiction Competition for up to 100 words on any theme. Entry fee: £2 for one entry, £3.75 for two, £5.25 for three. Prizes: £150, £100, £50, £20 x 7 ₊ publication in anthology + free print copy of anthology. Closing date: 15^th February. Details: https://www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/index.php/competition

• Northern Writers’ Awards for work including poetry, fiction, narrative non-fiction and YA by writers in the north of England; also by those originating from a working-class background, final-year/graduates of Northumbria University, young writers between 11–14 and 15–18, and those with ‘limited opportunities to pursue their talent’. FREE ENTRY. Prizes: different for each award, but including cash prizes and mentoring support. Closing date: 22^nd February. Details: https://newwritingnorth.com/northern-writers-awards/awards

• Christopher Tower Poetry Competition for poems of up to 48 lines by UK students aged 16 to 18 (not in higher education) on the theme ‘The Planets’. FREE ENTRY. Prizes: £5,000, £3,000, £1,500, 10 x £500. Closing date 24^th February. Details: https://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/research-and-academia/enter-tower-poetry-competition

• Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Competition for a short story up to 2,200 words on the subject of ‘Notes’. Open to UK residents only. FREE ENTRY. Prize: 2-night stay in treehouse at Callow Hall (Peak District) for winner (and guest) and publication in Harper’s Bazaar. Closing date: 26^th February. Details: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/culture/culture-news/a36157/harpers-bazaar-short-story-competition

• Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Award for a crime novel. Submit the first 3,000 words plus synopsis (up to 1,500 words). Entry fee: £36. Prize: £500; also finalists on shortlist receive brief professional assessment + work will be sent to UK publishers and agents. Closing date: 28^th February. Details: https://thecwa.co.uk/awards-and-competitions/the-daggers/debut-dagger-rules

• CWA Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition for short stories of up to 3,500 words based on Margery Allingham’s definition of a mystery. Entry fee: £12. Prize: £500 + 2 full weekend passes to Crimefest 2023. Closing date: 28^th February. Details: https://thecwa.co.uk/awards-and-competitions/margery-allingham-short-mystery-competition

• Exeter Writers’ Short Story Competition for stories of any genre and theme (but not children’s) up to 3,000 words. Entry fee: £7. Prizes; £700, £350, £200, £100 for a Devon writer. Closing date: 28^th February. Details: www.exeterwriters.org.uk

• Fish Flash Fiction Prize for flash fiction up to 300 words. Entry fee: €14, €9 subsequent entries. Prizes: €1,000, €300 + online writing course, €300. Anthology publication for top 10 stories. Closing date: 28^th February. Details: https://www.fishpublishing.com/competition/flash-fiction-contest

• Flash 500 Short Story Competition for short stories of any genre (including by and for children) from 1,000 to 3,000 words. Entry fee: £7, £12 for two, £16 for three, £20 for four. Prizes: £500, £200, £100. Closing date: 28^th February. Details:  https://flash500.com/short-stories

• Kelpies Prize is for writers living in Scotland only. Entries must include (i) the first five chapters of a book for children (either fiction or non-fiction) OR a whole picture book story, (ii) synopsis, (iii) a short piece of writing for children (1,000–3,000 words) that begins, ‘It wasn’t my fault!’ [character name] said. ‘Let me tell you what really happened …’, (iv) information about you. FREE ENTRY. Prize: £500 plus nine months’ mentoring and consideration for publishing contract with Floris Books. Closing date: 28^th February. Details: https://discoverkelpies.co.uk/kelpies-prize-writing

• Scottish Arts Club Short Story Competition (open to writers worldwide) for short stories on any topic up to 2,000 words. Entry fee: £10. Prizes: £3,000, £500, £250. Write Mango Award: £300. Isobel Lodge Award open to unpublished writers living in Scotland: £750. Also offer of publication of top 20 stories (or more) in next anthology. Closing date: 28^th February. Details: https://www.scottishartstrust.org/short-story

• UK Film Festival Script Writing Competitions for (i) 3-minute scripts (3–4 pp), (ii) 10-minute screenplay, and (iii) feature film scripts. Entry fee: (i) 3-minute script – £20, (ii) 10-minute screenplay – £35, (iii) feature film script – £60. Prizes: 3-minute script will be produced. 10-minute and feature scripts will be circulated to production companies and financiers. All winning scripts will be supported by UK Film Festival for chance of production and promotion. Winners and runners-up will receive the latest version of Final Draft 12 (value: $250) + free script listing and placement on Inktip. Closing date: 28^th February. Details: https://filmfreeway.com/TheUKFilmFestivalScriptCompetitions

• The Welkin Writing Prize for narrative prose up to 400 words. FREE ENTRY. Prizes: £250 + Writers’ HQ membership, £120 + book voucher, £60 + book. Closing date: 28^th February. Details: https://www.mattkendrick.co.uk/welkin-prize

• The Poetry Business International Book & Pamphlet Competition for a collection of 20 pages of poetry. Entry fee: £29. Prizes: 2 x £700 + publication by Smith|Doorstop Books + in The North magazine + reading at The Wordsworth Trust + a place on a residential course at Moniack Mhor. Six runners-up will receive publication in a feature in The North magazine + online reading + £100 each. Closing date: 1^st March. Details: https://poetrybusiness.co.uk/competitions/the-international-book-pamphlet-competition

• The Poetry Business New Poets Prize for a collection of 12 pages of poems from writers aged 17 to 24. Entry fee: £10. Prizes: Two winners will receive editorial support for publication by Smith|Doorstop + their work will appear in a feature in The North magazine. Two runners-up will receive mentoring + their work will appear in The North magazine. Winners and runners-up will also receive a subscription to The North magazine and be invited to give a reading organised by The Poetry Business. Closing date: 1^st March. Details: https://poetrybusiness.co.uk/competitions/new-poets-prize

• Rialto Nature and Place Poetry Competition for nature poems up to 40 lines. Entry fee: £7 for the first poem in a batch of 6, £4 thereafter. Prizes: £1,000, £500, £250. Closing date: 1^st March. Details: https://www.therialto.co.uk/pages/nature-poetry-competition

• Searchlight Writing for Children Award for illustrated picture book texts (either in development or self-published). Entry fee: £9. Prizes: £500. Top 10 shortlisted entries included in The Winners’ Collection and sent to agents and publishers. Closing date: 1^st March. Details: https://www.searchlightawards.co.uk/competitions/best-childrens-illustrated-picture-book-2023

• Peters Fraser + Dunlop Queer Fiction Prize for 3 chapters, synopsis and covering letter for novels for adults OR YA & children by new LGBTQIA+ writers. FREE ENTRY. Prizes: representation at PFD and support in writing to the end of your novel. Closing date: 1^st March. Details: https://petersfraserdunlop.com/about-us/pfd-queer-fiction-prize/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Just suppose that winning a competition meant getting your novel published. That’s what happened to Maggie when she won the Historical Writers’ 2020 Unpublished Novel Award with The Servant. Could it be your turn next?

Niche writing competitions

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Battle of Britain, British Czech & Slovak Association, Czech, Czechoslovakia, Freedom, Liz Kohn, Niche, Rodean, Show trials, Slovakia, Space, Speedway, Tereza Pultarová, The Final Incarnation, Velvet Revolution, Writing competition

Maggie Davies and Sarah Dawson do such sterling work for us each month listing writing competitions for us to enter.  Some of them are quite niche – some nicher than others.   

You may wonder how these comps actually work out.  Well, here’s the inside story of one of them last year. It certainly categorises as niche – perhaps it’s the nichest – and it’s the one I’m most involved with, the annual comp of the British Czech & Slovak Association.  The subject matter for entries can be either (1) links between Britain and the Czech and/or Slovak Republics, at any time in their history or (2) society in those Republics since the Velvet Revolution of 1989.  Each year there’s a suggested (but not compulsory) theme.

Freedom was the suggested theme in this year’s BCSA writing competition – freedom in any of its forms.   The entrants showed their usual ingenuity in interpreting that. We took to the skies with a Czechoslovak pilot fighting for freedom in the Battle of Britain.  In another entry we mused on the excitement and the hopes in Czechoslovakia when freedom was restored in 1989, and on the reality and disappointments since that great time (but ending, I’m glad to say, on an optimistic note).  In a third entry we saw how the son of a well-off family in pre-war Czechoslovakia found his freedom working in a squalid farmhouse in southern Bohemia and then in a quarry in Derbyshire.  In a fourth we joined an alcoholic gambler pondering the meaning of freedom in a Czech bar.

Non-freedom entries included our very first venture into the world of speedway, and a comic playlet showing a Czechoslovak Jewish refugee talking her way into a job at Roedean School in 1939.

Deciding on the winners is always difficult.   But the judges managed it.  Thank you, judges!

Second prize, winning £150, went to Liz Kohn, with a piece called Two Worlds.  Liz has been researching her family history and in particular that of her father and his first wife, Alice Glasnerová.  Her current research is into Alice’s trial and its relationship to the Slánský show trials of 1952 in Communist Czechoslovakia.  Liz’s entry tells some of this story.  

This year’s winner – taking home £400 – was Tereza Pultarová. Tereza is a London-based science and technology journalist, originally from Prague.   She has degrees from Charles University and a Master’s in Science from the International Space University in Strasbourg. Her winning entry was The Final Incarnation – Chapter 1.  It is the first chapter of a novel Tereza has written, whichdeals with growing up in 1990s post-communist Czechoslovakia, and explores how traumas from the Communist years live on through family dysfunction and alcoholism.

It was so good to be back in a proper setting for the presentation of the prize this year.  In 2020 we presented the prize via Zoom, during one of the BCSA’s other events.  Last year we had to do it by post.  This year I had the privilege of marking Tereza’s success at our resumed Annual Dinner at the May Fair Hotel in London on November 23, as in the first photo above.  (Thanks to Erik Weisenpacher for the photos.)

The winning entries (and a selection of the others) are published in the Assocation’s magazine, the British Czech & Slovak Review.

We’ll run the competition again in 2023.  Watch our website, social media and the Review for details. 

Writing competitions to enter in January

Tags

Bath Flash Fiction Novella in Flash Award, British Haiku Society Awards, Charles Causley International Poetry Competition, Cheshire Prize for Literature, Discoveries Programme, European Writing Prize, Exeter Novel Prize, Fish Publishing Short Memoir Prize, Gemini Magazine Poetry Open Prize, Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award, Kay Murphy Prize for Poetry, Kent & Sussex Poetry Society Open Poetry Competition, Lancashire Authors' Association Flash Fiction Competition, Magma Poetry Competition, Martin Lucas Haiku Award, Orna Ross Green Stories Novel Prize, Papatango New Writing Prize, Retreat West First Chapter Competition, Teignmouth Poetry Festival Competition, Virginia Prize for Fiction, WriteMentor Novel and Picture Book Award

Start the new year the way you mean to go on – by entering a competition (or two). There are so many exciting ones to choose from this month and I’ve added in a couple of extras whose deadlines fall early in February. I hope you’ll find lots to inspire you here. As always, please check websites, in case details have changed.

Exeter Novel Prize for first 10,000 words of a novel not under contract, including 500-word synopsis. Entry fee: £20. Prizes: £1,000 + trophy, 5 x £100 + paperweight. Closing date: 1^st January. Details: www.creativewritingmatters.co.uk

The Charles Causley International Poetry Competition for a poem on any subject up to 40 lines. Entry fee: £7.50 for one poem, £5.50 for subsequent poems. Prizes: £2,000 + one-week writing residency at Cyprus Well, Causley’s former home in Launceston; £250; £100. Closing date: 1^st January. Details: www.causleytrust.org/competition-2022

The European Writing Prize 2023 for unpublished short fiction between 1,500 to 3,500 words, incorporating the notion of anxiety (however you see fit). Entry fee: Free. Prizes: €50 + lifetime membership of the European Society of Literature + publication in its quarterly journal. Closing date: 1^st January. Details: www.litsoceu.com/writing-prize

Kay Murphy Prize for Poetry for up to three poems. Entry fee: $20. Prize: $1,000 + subscription to Bayou Magazine. Closing date: 2^nd January. Details: www.bayoumagazine.org

Gemini Magazine Poetry Open Prize for poems of any subject, length and style. Entry fee: $9 for up to three poems. Prizes: $1,000, $100, 4 x $25, + publication. Closing date: 3^rd January. Details: www.gemini-magazine.com

Orna Ross Green Stories Novel Prize for three chapters (first, last and one that best showcases how your novel meets their green stories criteria) plus synopsis. They also require you to read one of the books from their Green Stories project and will ask you three questions about it when you submit. Free entry. Prizes: £1,000, £500, plus discounted appraisal from Daniel Goldsmith Associates. Closing date: 3^rd January. Details: www.greenstories.org.uk

Discoveries Programme (a writers’ development programme run in partnership with the Women’s Prize Trust, Audible and Curtis Brown) invites women resident in the UK or the Republic of Ireland to submit opening (including any prologue) of a fiction novel for adults (not children or YA) of up to 10,000 words and a synopsis of no more than 1,000 words. Free entry. Prizes: (i) winner – offer of representation by Curtis Brown, £5,000, gratis place on Discoveries course, studio session with Audible; (ii) scholar – gratis place on Curtis Brown 3-month novel course, mentoring session, gratis place on Discoveries course, studio session with Audible; (iii) Four shortlisted entrants – gratis place on Curtis Brown 6-week course, mentoring session, gratis place on Discoveries course, studio session with Audible; (iv) ten longlisted entrants – £50 discount on a Curtis Brown 6-week course, gratis place on Discoveries course. All sixteen of the above will also receive an annual Audible subscription and invitation to the Women’s Prize Trust’s summer 2023 party. Closing date: 15^th January. Details: https://www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/discoveries

Bath Flash Fiction Novella in Flash Award for flash fiction novellas between 6,000 and 18,000 words. Entry fee: £16. Prizes: £300, 2 x £100, publication. Closing date: 15^th January. Details:  www.bathflashfictionaward.com/novella-entry

Retreat West First Chapter Competition for first chapter of a novel on any theme up to 3,000 words. Entry fee: £10. Prizes: feedback and review. Closing date: 29^th January. Details: www.retreatwest.co.uk

Magma Poetry Competition for poems on any subject in two categories: (i) 11–50 lines, (ii) up to 10 lines. Entry fee: £5, £4 for second poem, £3.50 for third and each subsequent. Prizes: (i) £1,000, £300, £150, + publication. Ditto for (ii). Plus 5 special mentions for each. Closing date: 31^st January. Details: www.magmapoetry.com/magma-2022-23-poetry-competition

British Haiku Society Awards for three categories: (i) Haiku, (ii) Tanka, (iii) Haibun. Entry fee for up to 3 Haiku OR 3 Tanka OR 3 Haibun: £5.50. Prizes: Haiku – £125 x 2, £50 x 2. Tanka – £125 x 2, £50 x 2. Haibun – £125, £50. All award-winners will be published in the May 2023 issue of BHS journal Blithe Spirit. Closing date: 31^st January. Details: http://britishhaikusociety.org.uk/2022/09/call-for-entries-bhs-awards-2022/

WriteMentor Novel and Picture Book Awards for (i) children’s novel (chapter book, middle grade, young adult) – first 3,000 words and 1-page synopsis; and/or (ii) children’s picture book – whole, completed manuscript. Entry fee: £12. Prizes 6 months’ access to Spark, WM’s 121 mentoring service with published children’s authors + 1-year membership to the Hub, WM’s online community platform. Runner-up prize: 1-year membership to the Hub. Closing date: 31^st January. Details: https://write-mentor.com/awards/writementor-novel-picture-book-awards-2023/

The Cheshire Prize for Literature by writers born, living, studying or working in Cheshire (past or present) for a short story (up to 1,500 words) OR poem (maximum 100 lines) OR children’s story or poem (same lengths) OR script (max 15-minute). Also entries of poetry/short stories are invited from children aged either 4–11 or 11–17. Entry: free. Prizes: cash for each over-18 category. Book tokens for children aged 4–17. Closing date: 31^st January. Details: https://www1.chester.ac.uk/press-office/cheshire-prize-literature

Kent & Sussex Poetry Society Open Poetry Competition for poems up to 40 lines. Entry fee: £5 per poem or, for three or more, £4 each. Prizes: £1,000, £300, £100, 4 x £50. Closing date: 31^st January. Details: https://kentandsussexpoetry.com/kent-sussex-poetry-society-open-poetry-competition-2023/

Lancashire Authors’ Association Flash Fiction Competition for a story of exactly 100 words. Entry fee: £2, or £5 for a maximum of three. Prize: £100. Closing date: 31^st January. Details: http://www.lancashireauthorsassociation.co.uk/Open_Comp.html

Martin Lucas Haiku Award for original unpublished haiku. Entry fee: £5 for up to 5 haiku, £1 each additional haiku. Prizes: £100, £50, 2 x £25, + publication in Presence Magazine. Closing date: 31^st January. Details: https://haikupresence.org/award

Teignmouth Poetry Festival Competition for poems up to 40 lines. Entry fee: Online – £4.50 (£3.50 each additional entry). By post – £4 (£3 each additional entry). Prizes: £600, £300, £200. Closing date: 31^st January. Details: https://www.poetryteignmouth.com/competition-2023.html

Virginia Prize for Fiction for unpublished novels, at least 45,000 words, by women. Entry fee: £25. Prize: Development and publication of winning novel. Closing date: 31^st January. Details: https://www.aurorametro.com/virginia-prize-for-fiction

Fish Publishing Short Memoir Prize for a memoir of up to 4,000 words of your life. Entry fee: €18 (€11 subsequent entries). Prizes: €1,000; 2 x €300 + online writing course. The best 10 memoirs will also be published in the Fish Anthology 2023. Closing date: 31^st January. Details: https://www.fishpublishing.com/competition/short-memoir-contest

Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award for a short story of up to 8,000 words showing the near future (no more than 50–60 years out) of manned space exploration (e.g. about moon bases, Mars colonies, orbital habitats, space elevators, asteroid mining, AI, nano-technology, realistic spacecraft, heroics, sacrifice, adventure). Entry: free. Prizes: publication on Baen Books’ main website at pro rates for first prize, plus prize packages for first, second and third. Closing date: 1^st February. Details: https://www.baen.com/contest-jbmssa

Papatango New Writing Prize for unperformed full-length playscript. Free Entry. Prizes: £7,000 + winning script produced by Papatango in a full run at Bush Theatre (London). 4 x £500 + option to have play presented as reading. Closing date: 5^th February. Details: www.papatango.co.uk

A nudge from Snowy to get writing!

Comfort of the writing kind – Dorothy Whipple’s Random Commentary

Tags

Daily Telegraph, Good Housekeeping, Greenbanks, Maud Royden, Persephone Books, Random Commentary, The Diary of a Provincial Lady

‘I can’t write. Fiction seems so trivial. Fact is too terrible.’ This is Dorothy Whipple writing in her diary on the invasion of Poland in 1939.

Perhaps some of us feel like this today. Does anyone really need this novel we are struggling to finish?  

Whatever the right answer, we can be glad that Dorothy Whipple didn’t give up writing. She was then a much-loved author of five novels, but writing each one was a struggle and she never stopped being surprised at her success and grateful for it. ‘…I still have no confidence in myself. But I should be happy if it were not for the War. As it is I wake up in the night and lie crushed by the horror of it all. In the day-time I think of the terror and suffering under the perfect summer sky.’

Random Commentary, reissued by Persephone Books in 2020, gives us a heart-warming insight into their best-selling author as a delightfully all-too-human person as well as a writer. It’s a collection of extracts from diaries and notebooks from 1925 to 1945, selected by Dorothy Whipple in 1965. It was published the following year, shortly before she died. For modern writers, unselfconfident or anxious about getting things wrong, Dorothy Whipple comes across as someone with whom we can share a laugh, but also as someone finding their way through the mix of the trivial and deeper things in life, alongside the difficulties of being a writer. She’s companionable. It comes like a healing breath.

It’s a good title: it does read like a random commentary – snippets about writing and publishers, the bitter disappointments of early rejection, the joys of unexpected success, her marriage to her much older husband, the exasperating frustrations and interruptions of domestic life.

Many of the entries are of everyday incidents and encounters with people she met, sprinkled with small, telling details and insights. Some of them are very funny; all of them show how wise and empathetic she was. We can see clearly how this acute sensitivity to the feelings of ordinary people behind their façades finds its way into her books. Plots come second to the way people behave to each other. 

She’s hard on herself as a writer – telling herself that she must take more risks. ‘I am flat and uninspired; and to tell the truth – lazy.’ ‘I cannot get on with Greenbanks. Shall I ever have done with it? It is about nothing… – a hopeless failure, I feel.’ ‘I waste time. I am a bad workman… I am only enthusiastic when I am sitting in a chair doing nothing or lying in bed in the early morning.’

Nor did it come easily. ‘I am in despair about my novel. I have only to start writing a novel to become flat and stale. A short story invigorates me, a novel depresses me during all the weary months I am writing it. I ought to remember that, so far, it has always been all right in the end. But oh! What has to be gone through before an end can be reached. I must get on and see what this book is like after the first draft. Nothing for it but to get it down.’

It’s clear that she was incapable of promoting herself, and wouldn’t have wanted to anyway. Nor was she any good at being photographed: ‘I simply could not make an un-selfconscious face. I tried prunes and prisms, cheese, everything I could think of – to no avail. I escaped from the studio with as much relief as if it had been the dentist’s…’

Moral values are firmly, though unobtrusively, present throughout Dorothy Whipple’s writing. What did Dorothy Whipple think about God? Some entries tell us something: ‘Life without God is meaningless – for me, at any rate. And no apology for that, either. Assailed by doubts and unanswerable questions, I pray the prayer of the Frenchman: “Mon Dieu, si vous existez, faites que je vous connaisse.” And I hold to Jesus Christ, truly the “Light of the World”, otherwise so dark… When I puzzle about how Jesus could be both God and man, I think Maud Royden’s is the only feasible answer: “God was perfectly received at one point.” Anyway, I will now follow the advice – also from a pulpit: When you start worrying about your soul, go out and do something for somebody.’

‘I feel “accompanied”. I feel I live in communication with some unseen power of good.’  Dorothy Whipple loved the countryside, and knew about those moments of glimpsing something of eternity in the beauty of the natural world: ‘The hawthorn trees were bowed almost to the ground with their burden of rain. I lifted some branches and the thickly-studded flowers and buds, waxen, starry, were a marvel. I heard a creaking sound in the sky, and looked up to see a swan flying over – white in the grey sky, with outstretched neck. A lovely sight. I felt as if something marvellous had happened. As if the whole day was different.’

Getting cross – why is it so cheering when even the good and kind people you admire admit to these feelings! – comes up in several entertaining entries. ‘I am annoyed to get a postcard, through Good Housekeeping, from a niggling Scot in Dundee who objects to my saying in “Mr Knight” in the Good Housekeeping serial that the children “shrieked silently” at the sight of Freda’s perm. “Why spoil a fine story with such stuff?” he asks. I should like to biff him on the head.’

Publicity material that gets everything wrong irritates:  “The pleasantest novel of the year”. It isn’t pleasant and the year is over or not begun. “An ordinary everyday family, the Blakes who found a fairy godfather in the local financier”. Terrible, terrible! Knight is their evil genius, not their fairy god-father.’ A Daily Telegraph review gets stick for calling her book “a gently entrancing comedy”. ‘I see nothing entrancing in going to prison.’

‘I am up in my attic to work at 11.15, after having dusted, swept, cooked and tidied wildly. I am cross not to have time for my writing, and cross because I must take the car to be oiled and greased, cross to have to go to the Nursing Home… to go to the office… cross at the thought of all there is to do tomorrow, and the next day and the next.’

There are visitors who stay too long and constant interruptions ‘…my work is my life, I can’t help it. Other people don’t understand, though. I think they think I am “playing at it”. When they interrupt me, they usually say: “It’s only me.” As if it matters who it is! In my case, persons from Porlock abound, though I am not, I must say, engaged on a work of genius.’ But crossness and exasperation are always fleeting, melting away in a swift change of mood and a recognition of human  contrariness: ‘When I have time to write, I don’t want to. When I haven’t time, I want to.’

She is often funny about men. Especially about her husband Henry, an educational administrator, who at times sounds rather like Robert, the husband in E. M. Delafield’s The Diary of a Provincial Lady. ‘I said to Henry: “D’you know we’ve been married twenty-three years today.” “Oh?” he said turning his newspaper. “Seems longer, doesn’t it?” Strange. I’d rather have that than any compliment.’

Perhaps a favourite entry for me was when Dorothy Whipple learns that her novel They Were Sisters is the Book Society Choice for November 1943. She rushes into the kitchen and, together with Henry and Nelly their beloved cook, ‘celebrated in orangeade, because there was nothing else to celebrate with – but we didn’t need anything else…’

Today a writer would be expected to post these triumphs on social media. Things were different then. How much simpler and nicer it sounds.

Writing Competitions to enter in December

Tags

Audio Arcadia Short Story Competition, Boulevard Short Fiction Contest, Craft Creative Non-Fiction Award, Exeter Novel Prize, Gemini Magazine Poetry Open Prize, Hawkeye Publishing Manuscript Development Prize, Kay Murphy Prize, Lascaux Prize in Short Fiction, Mslexia Women’s Poetry Competition, Mslexia Women’s Poetry Pamphlet Competition, Orna Ross Green Stories Novel Prize, The Moth Poetry Prize, The Wolves Lit Poetry Fest Competition, Virginia Woolf Award for Short Fiction, vLex International Law and Technology Writing Competition

A great range of competitions to enter this month – and I’ve added in a few extra whose deadlines fall early in the new year. I hope you’ll see at least one that will inspire you. As always, please check websites in case details (like closing dates) have changed.

Don’t let those deadlines whoosh by, says Snowy

vLex International Law and Technology Writing Competition for a 1000-word blog-style article by students over 18 (or recent graduates) on one of three themes: (i) Law, technology and sports, (ii) Law, technology and climate or (iii) Law, technology and crypto. Free entry: Prizes: £1,500, 3 x £250. Closing date: 1^st December. Details: www.vlex.com/writing-competition

Mslexia Women’s Poetry Competition for unpublished poems of any length on any subject. Entry fee: £10 for up to three poems. Prizes: £2,000, £500, £250 & (for an entry by a previously unpublished poet) £250. Closing date: 5^th December. Details: www.mslexia.co.uk

Mslexia Women’s Poetry Pamphlet Competition for collections of up to 20 poems (up to 24 pages). Entry fee: £20. Prize: £250, plus publication by Bloodaxe Books. Closing date: 5^th December. Details: www.mslexia.co.uk

(Mslexia’s judge, Imtiaz Dharker, says: ‘My most important advice is, don’t allow yourself to be ruled by rules. You can write about anything in the world. That’s what poetry does. It allows you to write about unspeakable things … I love it when I get a shock of recognition, when I feel, ‘That was exactly what I wanted to say but never found the right words! – and this poet has said it at last.’ I love the sound of Imtiaz!)

Hawkeye Publishing Manuscript Development Prize for 300-word synopsis, first 30 pages and one-page plan (demonstrating understanding of audience and marketing) for a book length manuscript of strong commercial fiction or non-fiction, up to 80,000 words. Entry fee: Aus $45. Prize: $2,500 editing package, author coaching, structural and line edit. Closing date: 16^th December. Details: www.hawkeyebooks.com.au

Craft Creative Non-Fiction Award for a longform creative non-fiction piece up to 6,000 words OR up to two flash creative non-fiction pieces of 1,000 words or fewer. Entry fee: $20. Prizes: 3 x $1,000, 2 x $200, + publication. Closing date: 29^th December. Details: www.craftliterary.com

Lascaux Prize in Short Fiction for short stories up to 10,000 words. Entry fee: $15. Prizes: $1,000 + publication. Other finalists: $100 + publication. Closing date: 31^st December. Details: www.lascauxreview.com/contests

Audio Arcadia Short Story Competition for short stories up to 5,000 words on SF/fantasy/paranormal themes. Entry fee: £6.50. Prizes: Anthology publication + royalties for eight winners. Closing date: 31^st December. Details: www.audioarcadia.com/competition

Boulevard Short Fiction Contest for Emerging Writers for fiction up to 8,000 words by a writer who has not yet published a book of fiction, poetry or creative non-fiction with a nationally distributed press. Entry fee: $16 (includes one-year subscription to Boulevard Magazine). Prize: $1,500 + publication. Closing date: 31^st December. Details: www.boulevardmagazine.org/short-fiction-contest

The Moth Poetry Prize for a single unpublished poem. Entry fee: €15. Prizes: €6,000, 3 x €1,000, + publication in The Moth, 8 x €250 commendations. Closing date: 31^st December. Details: www.themothmagazine.com

Virginia Woolf Award for Short Fiction for short stories of 3,000–8,000 words. Entry fee: $20. Prizes: $2,500 + publication, 3 x $100. Closing date: 31^st December. Details: www.litmag.com

The Wolves Lit Poetry Fest Competition for a poem of up to 40 lines on any subject. Entry fee: £4. Prizes: £400, £150, 3 x £25, £50 for best poem by someone living in a WV postcode. Closing date: 31^st December. Details: www.pandemonialists.co.uk/wolves-lit-fest-poetry-competition-2023

Exeter Novel Prize for first 10,000 words of a novel not under contract, including 500-word synopsis. Entry fee: £20. Prizes: £1,000 + trophy, 5 x £100 + paperweight. Closing date: 1^st January. Details: www.creativewritingmatters.co.uk

Kay Murphy Prize for Poetry for up to three poems. Entry fee: $20. Prize: $1,000 + subscription to Bayou Magazine. Closing date: 2^nd January. Details: www.bayoumagazine.org

Gemini Magazine Poetry Open Prize for poems of any subject, length and style. Entry fee: $9 for up to three poems. Prizes: $1,000, $100, 4 x $25, + publication. Closing date: 3^rd January. Details: www.gemini-magazine.com

Orna Ross Green Stories Novel Prize for three chapters (first, last and one that best showcases how your novel meets their green stories criteria) plus synopsis. They also require you to read one of the books from their Green Stories project and will ask you three questions about it when you submit. Free entry. Prizes: £1,000, £500, plus discounted appraisal from Daniel Goldsmith Associates. Closing date: 3^rd January. Details: www.greenstories.org.uk

May 2023 bring you unimaginable writing success!

Sarah trying to imbibe inspiration at Bleak House (Broadstairs)

Witches

Tags

Bonfire, Czech, Hallowe'en, Historic injustice, James VI & I, Scotland, Slovak, Spring, Witches

There must be a story or two here.

On 30 April the Czechs have a custom called Burning the Witches.  It’s a custom that’s alive and well.  April 30 is six months after Hallowe’en, and comes right between between the spring equinox and summer solstice, so on this night Czechs say goodbye to winter and welcome spring by burning “the witch of winter” as an effigy on a bonfire.

In the best Czech fashion this has lost its magical appurtenances and is a good excuse for people to gather round the bonfire, listen to live music, cook sausages and – would you believe it? – drink beer.

The photos are of this year’s celebrations at Klánovice, on the easternmost edge of Prague.

Queues for the beer tent

Irish musicians got this gig

Their neighbours the Slovaks have their own tradition of marking the end of winter by burning the effigy of Morena, the goddess of death and winter, and then hurling her into a river.   (See the kafkadesk.org website for more info.)

It’s interesting to reflect on the comparison with the current campaign in Scotland to obtain pardons for the estimated 2,500 women who were executed under the Witchcraft Act between 1563 and 1736.  For some reason the Scots killed five times more ‘witches’ than other European countries.  King James VI & I was especially enthusiastic in this regard.  (For information on the petition to the Scottish Parliament see https://petitions.parliament.scot/petitions/PE1855.)

Witches don’t have to be just for Hallowe’en … Any story brewing?

Photos: Ed Peacock

Imagine things Czech or Slovak …

Tags

British Czech & Slovak Association, Czech, Freedom, Me-Too, Slivovice, Slovak

The closing date for the British Czech & Slovak Association’s 2022 writing competition has been extended.  It is now midnight on Sunday July 31.  So that gives you and your writerly friends and relatives another month to come up with 2,000 words that will interest, amuse, irritate, educate or otherwise entertain the eminent judges. £400 lies the other side of those eminent judges – plus publication in the British Czech & Slovak Review. The runner-up gets £150 (plus publication).

This year’s suggested (but not compulsory) theme is Freedom – in any aspect.  The interpretation is yours.  Personal freedom, freedom in relationships, the freedom of nations, democratic freedoms, or just the ending of lockdown?  You choose.

The 2021 competition brought in some impressive creative writing, including such gems as:

An entertaining account of a Scot’s postgraduate year in Czechoslovakia in 1972, which included a wedding missed because he was drinking slivovice to celebrate the release from prison of the father of a hitchhiker he had picked up en route.

A topical entry on the Me-Too theme that took us to a trial of a celebrity accused of sexual assault, with the simultaneous thoughts of the judge and the two victims.

A moving account of a young Englishwoman’s visit to Slovakia for her Slovak father’s funeral. (This won a runner-up prize.)

You can feature here!   Fiction or fact – either is welcome.  What is essential is that all entries must deal with either (1) the links between Britain and the lands now comprising the Slovak and Czech Republics, at any time in history, or (2) describing society in the Republics since 1989.  Topics can include, for example, history, politics, sport, the sciences, economics, the arts or literature. 

Entry is free.  Submissions are invited from individuals of any age, nationality or educational background.  Entrants do not need to be members of the BCSA.

Entries should be submitted by post to the BCSA Prize Administrator, 24 Ferndale, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN2 3NS, England, or by e-mail to prize@bcsa.co.uk.  The closing date is now midnight on July 31 2022.

The submission guidelines can be seen on the BCSA website at https://www.bcsa.co.uk/2022-bcsa-writing-competition/ , or on application to the BCSA Prize Administrator at the addresses given above.

Writing Competitions to Enter in June

Tags

British Czech & Slovak Association, British Fantasy Society Short Story Competition, Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize 2022, Liverpool Hope Playwriting Prize, Seasiders' Write Debut Novel Award, The 2022 Queen Mary Wasafiri Writing Prize, The Moth Short Story Prize 2022, The Times newspaper poetry competition, Times/Chicken House Children's Fiction Competition, VS Pritchett Memorial Prize, Writers' block

Here are some competitions for you to enter in June. It is easy to think such things not worth entering, but winning or being shortlisted is always a possibility and often an opportunity as well. And a competition deadline can frequently shift Writer’s Block.

We hope it might encourage you to know about past successes of members of ninevoices. If we can do it, why not you?

·        Won the Historical Writers Association Unpublished Novel Award

·        Won the Barbara Pym Short Story Award – twice! – together with publication

·        Won the Colm Tóibín International Short Story Award

·        Won the Henshaw Short Story Award, plus publication in their anthology

·        Won the Hysteria Writing Competition

·        Shortlisted for the Debut Dagger Award

·        Shortlisted for the Exeter Novel Prize (twice)

·        Shortlisted for the Norwich Writers Olga Sinclair Award

·        Shortlisted (1 of 14 out of over 2,000 entries) in a Cornerstones ‘Are You Ready to Submit’ competition

·        Shortlisted for Bridport Flash

·        Shortlisted for Bedford Short Story Competition

·        Shortlisted for Exeter [Short] Story Award

·        Shortlisted for RNA Joan Hessayon Award

·        Longlisted for Mslexia Novel Competition

·        Longlisted for Exeter Novel Prize

·        Poem published in The Times; short stories in Writing Magazine, Writers’ Forum, Pony Magazine

Hopefully, those efforts will inspire you to enter one of the following:-

British Czech & Slovak Association Prize for short stories and non-fiction, up to 2,000 words, exploring the links between Britain and the Czech/Slovak Republics or society in those lands since 1989. Optional theme for 2022 is: “Freedom”. Prizes: £400, £150, publication in the British Czech and Slovak Review. Entry is FREE and the deadline is 30 June. This competition might sound daunting, but need not be. The judges would love to receive something impressively erudite – but they also have a well-developed sense of humour and would equally enjoy being entertained by a true or imaginary tale of someone’s stag party on the streets of Prague. The choice is yours. Why not surprise them? Details: https://wwww.bcsa.co.uk/2022-bcsa-writing-competition/

The Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize 2022 is inviting entries of “innovative, imaginative unpublished literary fiction that explores the possibilities of the novel form”. The winner will receive $10,000 and simultaneous publication in the UK and Ireland by Fitzcarraldo Editions, in Australia and New Zealand by Giramondo and in North America by New Directions. All submissions must include a cover letter and a brief outline with the manuscript. Closing date: 1 June. Details: https://fitzcarraldoeditions.com/

Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition for full-length novels, 30,000-80,000 words, suitable for readers aged 7-18. Closing date 1 June. Details: http://www.chickenhousebooks.com/submissions

The newly launched Seasiders’ Write Debut Novel Award invites entries from writers who have not yet published a full-length novel (at least 25,000 words) and do not have a literary agent. The winner will receive £1,500 and their novel will be published by Seasiders’ Write in print and ebook. The first runner up will receive £500 and ebook publication and the second runner-up will receive £250 and ebook publication. Send the first 5,000 words of the novel plus a one-page synopsis. Shortlisted writers will be asked to send their completed novel manuscript (the maximum length is 65,000 words). Entry fee: £20. Closing date: 1 June. Details: http://www.seasiderswrite.com

Win £1,000 for the best unpublished short story of the year in the VS Pritchett Story Prize 2022, plus publication in Prospect magazine and the RSL Review. Stories should be unpublished and between 2,000–4,000 words. Entry fee:£7.50 per story. Closing date 1 July, but there are 50 free entries for low-income writers, who should apply before 17 June. Details: https://rsliterature.org/award/v-s-pritchett-short-story-prize/

Farnham Flash Fiction Competition for fiction up to 500 words on any subject. Prizes: £75, £25, £25 for the best entry featuring Farnham. Entry fee: £5. Deadline 17 June. Details: http://www.farnhamfringefestival.org

Leicester Writes Short Story Prize for stories up to 3,500 words. Prizes: £175, £75, £50. Entry fee: £5. Deadline 20 June. Details: http://leicesterwrites.co.uk

Wells Festival of Literature is inviting entries for its creative writing competitions: Open Poetry for original unpublished poems up to 35 lines – prizes £1,000, £500 and £250, entry fee £6 per poem; Short Story 1,000-2,000 words – prizes £750, £300, £200, entry fee £6 per story; Book for Children, enter the first two chapters or twenty pages, for a book for children from age nine to YA – prizes £750, £300 and £200, entry fee £6. Closing date 30 June. Details: http://www.wellsfestivalofliterature.org.uk/2022-competitions/

The 2022 Queen Mary Wasafiri Writing Prize invites entries in fiction, life-writing and poetry. Three winners will each receive £1,000 and publication in Wasafiri’s print magazine. Shortlisted writers will be published online. Writers entering the competition must not have had a full-length book of fiction, life-writing or poetry published. All shortlisted writers will be offered either the Chapter and Verse or Free Reads mentoring scheme in association with The Literary Consultancy and a ‘conversation’ with Nikesh Shukla of The Good Literary Agency. Send original unpublished work no longer than 3,000 words and must be self-contained, i.e. not an extract from a longer piece. A single poetry entry may consist of up to 3,000 words. Entry is £10 for a single entry and £16 for a double entry. Each writer may enter two manuscripts in a single submission, either in the same or different categories. Closing date: 30 June. Details: http://www.wasafiri.org/new-writing-prize/

The Moth Short Story Prize 2022 for short fiction up to 4,000 words. First prize €3,000, second prize a writing retreat at Circle of Misse and €250, third prize €1,000. The three winning stories will appear in the autumn issue of The Moth, Ireland’s literary magazine. Entry fee:  €15 per story. Closing date: 30 June. Details: http://www.themothmagazine.com

Liverpool Hope Playwriting Prize for full-length comedy plays. Prizes: £10,000, possible staging at Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool; 2×5£1,500 highly commendeds. Entry fee: £20. Closing date: 30 June. Details: http://www.playwritingprize.com

Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting is looking for full-length new stage plays written in English which have not been published or professionally performed. Prizes: £16,000; 2x£8,000. FREE ENTRY. Closing date: 6 June. Details: http://www.writeaplay.co.uk

James White Award for science fiction (broadly defined) of between 2,000-6,000 words by  non-professional writers. Prizes: £200 plus publication in Interzone. Free entry. Deadline: 30 June. Details: http://www.jameswhiteaward.com

British Fantasy Society Short Story Competition for any kind of fantasy story – science fiction, magic realism, horror, etc – up to 5,000 words. Prizes: £100, £50, £20; year’s membership of BFS, publication. Entry fee: £5 (free for BFS members). Closing date: 30 June. Details: http://www.britishfantasysociety.co.uk

Efforts have been made to check the above details, but do please make sure you have consulted the websites yourselves, in case of errors or last-minute
changes. Good luck!

 

Writing Competitions to Enter in May

Tags

Bath Novel Award, Bluepencil Agency First Novel Prize, Bridport Prize, Bristol Short Story Prize, Colm Toibin International Short Story Award, Frome Festival Short Story Competition, Nick Darke Award, The Yeovil Literary Prize

As writers, we need to overcome rejection and it helps to have several irons in the fire at any one time. Competitions are great for this, giving you something else to keep you going or work towards. And the occasional – perhaps surprise – win is a huge encouragement. No excuses, then, for not entering lots of the following:

Colm Toibin International Short Story Award for stories up to 2,000 words. Prizes: 700É, 500É 300É. Entry fee: 10É. Closing date: 1 May. Details: http://www.wexfordliteraryfestival.com (These things can be won – a member of ninevoices – not me – did so a year or two ago and had a wonderful trip to Ireland to accept her award.

Mairtin Crawford Awards for short stories up to 2,500 words or 3-5 poems. Prizes: £500 and invitation to read at Belfast Book Festival. Entry fee: £6. Closing date: 1 May. Details: https://belfastbookfestival.com/mairtin-crawford-award

Bristol Short Story Prize for stories up to 4,000 words. Prizes: £1,000, £500, £250; £100 for 17xshortlisted. All published in prize anthology. Deadline: 4 May. Details: http://www.bristolprize.co.uk

Nick Darke Award for full-length stage plays: Prizes: £6,000. FREE ENTRY. Closing date: 4 May. Details: http://www.falmouth.ac.uk/nickdarkeaward (Please double-check this one, it proved elusive)

Bath Novel Award for the first 5,000 words of a novel, plus a one-page synopsis. Prizes: £3,000; 2nd agent introductions and manuscript feedback; 3rd Cornerstones online course. Entry fee: £29. Closing date: 31 March. Details: http://bathnovelaward.co.uk

Bluepencilagency First Novel Prize for the first chapter of an unpublished novel up to 5,000 words. Prizes: £1,000, manuscript review, introduction to judge/literary agent Nelle Andrew. Entry fee: £20 Deadline: 29 May. Details: http://www.bluepencilagency.com

Bridport Prize for short stories (up to 5,000 words), novels (first 8,000 words), poetry (up to 42 lines) and flash fiction (up to 250 words). Prizes: £5,000, £1,000, £500 and ten £100 highly commended for short stories and poetry; £1,000, £500, £250 and five £100 highly commendeds for flash fiction; £1,500, £750, plus editiorial guidance. Entry fee: £9 per flash fiction; £10 per poem; £12 per short story; £20 novel. Deadline 31 May. Details: http://www.bridportprize.org.uk

Frome Festival Short Story Competition for stories 1,000-2,200 words. Prizes: £400, £200, £100. Entry fee: £8. Closing date: 31 May. Details: http://www.fromeshortstorycompetition.co.uk

The Yeovil Literary Prize 2022 is inviting entries in the following categories: Novel. Enter the opening up to 10,000 words and a synopsis up to 500 words. Prizes are £1,250, £300 and £125. The entry fee is £14.50. Short Story. Enter short stories up to 2,000 words. Prizes are £600, £250 and £125. Entry fee is £8. Poetry. Enter poems up to 40 lines. Prizes are £600, £250 and £125. Entry fee £5 per poem. Children’s/Young Adult Novel. Enter the first 3,000 words and a 500-word synopsis. One illustration may be included. Prizes are £600, £250 and £125. Entry fee £12.50. Writing Without Restrictions. Enter work that doesn’t fit into usual competition categories. Prizes are £250, £125 and £75. Entry fee £6. Entries may have appeared online, but must be commercially unpublished. Closing date: 31 May. Details: http://www.yeovilprize.co.uk

As ever, please check entry details before committing yourself.

Good luck!

Why read Nevil Shute in 2022?

Tags

Easter, empathy, Nevill Shute

Nevil Shute – inspirational reading for Easter 2022?

Nevil Shute (1899-1960) was once a best-selling author, but these days any fans who devoured his novels when young – and who still reach for their favourites in certain moods – are likely to be from the older generation.

Some Nevil Shute  novels may feel dated, but there are others which speak as strongly today as they did when first published. Younger readers may only be familiar with A Town Like Alice, an enthralling story combining romance with the horrors of the second world war in the Far East. Nevil Shute’s novels often contain strong female characters, but Jean Paget is his most inspirational for her selfless courage and enterprise. It’s no surprise A Town Like Alice remains Nevil Shute’s best-loved and most popular novel.

Nevil Shute was an aeronautical engineer and pilot, and many of his books have an aviation or engineering backdrop. Not exactly tempting if you aren’t particularly interested in these areas and switch off when it comes to technical talk about flying and aeroplanes. But what’s surprising is that you become so gripped by Nevil Shute’s incredible story-telling and knack of creating instant empathy with his characters that what seems alien and uncongenial territory actually becomes quite interesting!

Devotees will have their own favourites, but there are four Nevil Shute novels I have found especially unforgettable. Pied Piper, published in 1942, is one of them.  John Howard, a retired country solicitor, dealing with his own grief, tries to escape from France in 1940 when it’s invaded by the Germans, looking after a collection of children he gathers up along the way.

There’s no overblown heroism. You might think it an almost prosaic account of the journey and the dangers faced, but small details and incidents concerning the children bring Howard’s journey across France vividly to life. He demonstrates those qualities typical of characters in Nevil Shute’s novels – a sense of duty, doing what needs to be done whatever the risks, facing difficulties and discomfort with calm and patience. An unassuming old man doing something remarkable.

The Chequer Board, published in 1947, is also a story of someone outwardly very ordinary – a terminally-ill man with a less than admirable past determined to make something of himself in the time left to him. He sets out to discover what happened to the three men, each of them with messed-up lives, whom he met in a hospital ward back in 1943. It’s a quest set against the racist and prejudiced attitudes about skin colour and nationality of that time – and we see how friendship can overcome the barriers human beings erect against each other.

These are themes further developed in Round the Bend, published in 1951, the novel that Nevil Shute considered to be his best. The narrator Tom Cutter, a pilot and entrepreneur, starts up an air freight business transporting goods across the Middle East and Far East, employing the Eurasian Connie Shak Lin. Connie is not only a first class engineer but a spiritual leader. He transforms the attitudes of the other workers with his teaching that doing good work with honesty and responsibility is the way to serve God.

This novel might be seen as being about a spirituality that underlies and unites different religions. God is there for everyone. Significantly, when Tom and Connie were boys and working together for an air circus that travelled all over the British Isles, Connie ‘just went to any old church there was. He went to the nearest, whether it was Anglican or Methodist or Presbyterian or Roman Catholic. He went to a synagogue one time, at Wolverhampton. He collected churches, like another boy might collect cigarette cards or matchbox covers. The gem of his collection was at Woking, where he found a mosque to go to.’ The novel’s ending asks a question that the narrator cannot answer but goes on haunting his mind – and that of the reader.

Nevil Shute’s 1957 novel On the Beach sears itself into the mind in another way. Radiation is drifting inexorably towards the southern hemisphere, after a nuclear war has destroyed the rest of the world. Soon radiation sickness will kill the earth’s last remaining people still alive in Australia. The novel looks with a matter of fact gaze at the way individuals choose to spend the final months of their lives – and how they will end them. A young couple with a baby make plans to grow trees and vegetables in their garden that they will never see. An American naval officer in Australia with his ship buys presents for his wife and children, as if unable to accept in part of his mind that they are dead.

On the Beach is terrifying and moving all at once. In this and all his novels, Nevil Shute gives us characters who find the courage and integrity to stand up for what matters. They can help and inspire us in our modern world – how to live and do our best wherever we are, in the time that remains to us.