Writing Competitions to Enter in June

The creative arts are suffering because of lock-down, though one can fortunately still watch and admire favourite actors on IPlayer and box sets. Books, of course, are always there for us, and those who write should surely be taking advantage of more time at their keyboards. (As the more cynical of you of will suspect, this paragraph is simply an excuse to use a picture of a certain Fleabag actor.)

To more serious matters:

An anthology of non-fiction, short stories and poetry is being put together by Printed Words with all profits going to Macmillan Cancer Support. Submissions are limited to UK residents and a limited number of reprints will be considered, although previously unpublished work is preferred. The maximum word count for non-fiction and short stories is 2,000 words, with a maximum of 50 lines for poetry. A biography of up to 100 words is required and the deadline is 15 June. Printed Words is a quarterly non-profit zine and print magazine which has a £20 prize for one writer in each issue. Details: http://www.amandasteelwriter.com/440793822

Grindstone Literary have two competitions currently on offer, both with a 28 June deadline. A Novel Prize for up to 3,000 words, plus a 300 word synopsis. And a Flash Fiction Prize for 500 words. The former has prizes of £1,000, £500 and 4x£50; the latter, prizes of £500, £20, and 4x£50. The Novel Competition has an £18 entry fee, the Flash Fiction Competition £6 entry fee. Details from: grindstoneliterary.com

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

Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize for poetry (up to five poems), fiction and life writing up to 3,000 words. Prizes: £1,000 in each category, plus publiction in Wasafiri. Entry fee: £10 for one category, £16 for two categories. Closing date: 15 June. Details: wasafiri.org/new-writing-prize/

Hastings Literary Festival Writing Competition. Short stories up to 2,500 words, short stories by BAME writers, up to 5,000 words, poems up to 40 lines, and flash fiction up to 500 words. Prizes: £200, £100, £50 in each category, plus a bespoke writer’s surgery for best entry from a Sussex writer. Entry fee: £7.50, £5 for each subsequent entry. Deadline was 7 June, HOWEVER, THIS SADLY APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN CANCELLED because of lock down considerations.

Bath Flash Fiction Award. A thrice-yearly competition for flash fiction up to 300 words. Prizes: £1,000, £300, £100, 2X£30. Entry fee: £9. Current closing date: 16 June. Details: http://www.bathflashfictionaward.com

British Czech & Slovak Association prize for short stories and non-fiction, up to 2,000 words, exploring links between Britain and the Szech/Slovac Republics at any time. The suggested, but optional, theme for 2020 is ‘sporting’. Prizes: £400, £150, publication in the British Czech & Slovak Review. Free entry. Closing date: 30 June. Details: bcsa.co.uk/competitions/

Henshaw Short Story Competition. A quarterly competition for short stories up to 2,000 words, on any theme. Prizes: £200, £100, £50. Entry fee: £6. Current closing date: 30 June. These are lovely people who not only support writers, and offer a helpful critique, if wanted, but have sent all profits since September 2019 to Medecins sans Frontiers. A few years back, a member of ninevoices managed to not only win this, but get her story into their anthology – so it can be done. Details: henshawpress.co.uk

Impress Prize for New Writers. Full-length debuts from unpublished fiction and non-fiction writers. Submit a book proposal and sample chapter totaling no more than 6,000 words. Prizes: £500 and publication by Impress Books. Entry fee: £25. Closing date: 30 June. Details: http://www.impress-books.co.uk

Wells Festival of Literature – short stories between 1,000 and 2,000 words; poems up to 35 lines; stories for children (first three chapters); young poets, up to 35 lines. Prizes: £1,000, £500, £250, £100 local prize; £750, £300, £200, £100 local prize, in poetry and children’s categories; £150, £75, £50 in young poets’ category. Entry fee: £6 each category; £3 for young poets. Closing date: 30 June. Details: http://www.wellsfestivalofliterature.org.uk

Everything is topsy-turvey at the moment, so PLEASE check the above details with care before trying to enter anything. Some competitions are being cancelled, others have their deadlines altered.

Good luck!

A Day in the Life of a Newly Published Author – OR – Never Trust an Author Photo

Tags

The Servant by Maggie Richell-Davies

I was discombobulated a few days ago by a request from a writing magazine for a high-resolution author photograph. In the middle of a lock-down. Without access to a hairdresser to perform miracles on my shaggy locks and greying partings. With the application of make-up a distant memory. Unreasonable, or what?

However, with existing pictures unsuitable, I tarted myself up, dragged some smartish outfits from the back of the wardrobe, and press-ganged my husband to come up with a shot of me looking like a serious (and reasonably groomed) writer.

Words were exchanged:

Don’t scowl.

I’m trying to look serious and thoughtful.

And failing. For goodness sake, squeeze out a smile.

But the article is to promote a book on a dark subject. Why would I be grinning like a maniac?

Oh, for goodness sake…!

After much marital wrangling, the deed was done and I sent the best of the pictures to a techno-knowledgeable friend to confirm it was of sufficiently high-resolution before climbing gratefully back into my comfortable tat. Job done.

Useless, the patient friend reported back. You need a less geriatric camera and/or smartphone.

With such extravagant purchases out of lock-down reach, I slid along to an obliging neighbour’s garden, where her son-in-law stood with me in the pouring rain and took some socially-distanced shots with his fancy camera. Result!

Ian (I will spare his blushes by concealing the surname) must have a magic camera, because the resulting picture bears little resemblance to the woman sitting at this keyboard. But I am not about to complain…

Vanity, vanity. All is vanity.

The Servant: A Review

Tags

Historical fiction, Just published, London's Foundling Hospital Museum, Maggie, Review

This month marks the publication of The Servant, an historical novel by ninevoices’ own Maggie Richell-Davies. Inspired by the author’s visit to the Foundling Hospital Museum in London and set in the latter half of the 18th century, The Servant tells the story of Hannah, the orphaned daughter of a silk weaver forced into service at the age of 15. At first Hannah is employed in the safe and nurturing home of a widow, Mistress Buttermere. But when circumstances change, she is obliged to move to the sinister Chalke household where, in addition to hard work and cruelty, she encounters mystery, villainy and danger.

The Foundling Hospital’s clients were largely from the servant class, women who had little in the way of education, even less in the way of rights, and were therefore ripe for exploitation, as Hannah’s story in The Servant so vividly illustrates. The author shows with sometimes excruciating period detail the difficult lives of housemaids, cooks, beggars, and fallen women. For example, when desperate circumstances force Hannah to leave the Chalkes, she is led by her friend and co-worker to the only relatively safe lodgings she can afford: ‘We reach a stinking network of courtyards, washing frozen into ragged shapes on sagging ropes, and stop before a derelict house. Wooden planks are nailed over most of the windows… Inside, the stench is like a buffet in the face and I bite the edge of my shawl to stop my stomach heaving… damp mottles the walls as if they have a scabrous disease.’

The novel is beautifully (‘The sky is pewter rubbed with sharp sand.’) and economically written with strong characterizations. Hannah’s first sighting of Mistress Chalke in the opening pages fills us with dread: ‘…the visitor is ramrod straight. Hands twisting like snakes in the lap of her black gown…The eyes…sharp as a skinning knife.’

Despite the peril and powerlessness of her position, Hannah finds reserves of strength and ingenuity to both survive and act to bring about justice. In this she is aided by Peg, as downtrodden a scullery maid as ever there was, and other women who act in defiance of men’s control. My favourite of these is Fat Nellie, a wise and strong-minded woman who minds children in the lodging next to Hannah’s and provides practical assistance without expectation of return. I’d have liked to see more of Nellie, especially at the end of the book.

Unlike most women of her class, Hannah can read and write. Her intellectual curiosity endears her to farmer Thomas, a thoughtful and well-read widower who delivers milk to the Chalke household. It also drives her to discover the nature of the Chalke’s villainy and seek to end it.

All in all this is a satisfying novel rich in historical detail with a sympathetic heroine battling to survive the injustices of the age.

The Servant, which won the Historical Writers’ Association 2020 Unpublished Novel Award, is available via Amazon on Kindle at a very affordable £2.99, and paperback at £7.99. 

We have done our homework

The ninevoices have been Zooming it up a treat.  We’ve got over the novelty of seeing everyone else’s backgrounds, and the shock of our double chins, and have managed to get down to some actual work.  In the interests of self-discipline (we all know that the week has turned into one long Sunday), we’ve been setting ourselves some modest homework, which some of us have actually managed to do.

We thought we’d share our results with you, and let you know our next homework, and we’d be delighted if you could share your own writing on the subject.  You could put it into a comment, or email us at ninevoices9@gmail.com.

First homework subject coming up….

What’s behind you?

The lockdown reveals us to ourselves in unexpected ways.

The ninevoices are used to getting together every fortnight. We thought: lockdown isn’t going to stop us.  So we first tried Skype (four voices, five faces, and most of the conversation consisting of “How do I turn the picture on?”).  Then we tried Zoom (eight faces, nine voices, thanks to some stalwart mobile-phone patching by Anita).  We’ll try Zoom again, if only because nine faces lends itself beautifully to a 3 x 3 grid, and no-one suddenly decamps to a corner and goes mute.

© Smartmeetings.com

Like everyone in the world who’s trying to keep in touch through Skype and Zoom and Facetime and Whatsapp video and Google Hangouts and lots of other clever apps, we’re discovering that it’s not just our voices and faces we’re presenting to the world.  It’s what’s in the background – our homes.  Admit it – you look at all those video phone-ins from journalists and presenters, and what you’re really thinking is: “I like your lamps” or “Gosh, you’re very traditional” or “Do you really have bookcases in your basement?”.

So I think we’ve all learned to pick our spots.  We position the laptop in the corner of a tidy room, or in front of the serious books, or angled towards the good curtains, or certainly away from the carnage of unwashed dishes in the kitchen.  We position the webcam at eye level or above, we face a window. We brush our hair carefully to disguise how we’re turning into Boris Johnson.  We’re learning to edit our lives to show ourselves to the world to best advantage.

Late night host Seth Meyers in his Covidic attic studio. Well jel.

Which makes me think: as writers, do we do the same?  In our writing, do we show our unmade beds and the curtain sagging from the runners? Do we reveal that we don’t mind dirty plates hanging round on a table for a week or two?  Or do we arrange the books on the shelf so that the Philip Roths hide the George RR Martins?  Is our writing a place where we present ourselves as a slightly different person?

© Yale climate connections

I do know that when a friend emailed that she planned to Facetime me in ten minutes, I hastily took off a jumper decorated with food stains, and rushed out to the garden to take the call, having first worked out which bit of foliage would look prettiest behind me.  After the call I went straight back indoors.  It was the worst kind of self-instagramming, but was somehow necessary to disguise the fact that the only way I could have had tidiness in shot behind me was to Facetime her while sitting on the loo.

How do YOU roll?  What’s behind you in the Zoom frame?  What does your writing carefully edit out?

Christine, who currently looks like

Love One Another…

 

We live in difficult days. We should count our many blessings, enjoy the beautiful daffodils outside our windows and read and write to our heart’s content.

But, most of all, we must help one another get through this.

Rejection – The Fairy Story

With Hilary Mantel’s latest book due in the spring, and all those New Year Resolutions about writing, and re-writing, more, this blog of mine from 2015 seemed worth re-visiting.  Maggie.

ninevoices

You’re at the kitchen table, drooping over yet another rejected story. In her basket, Ruby, the cocker spaniel, looks expectant, head twitching and nose up. Then the door bell rings. She must have sensed a visitor. Anyway, she’s at the door ahead of you.

‘Hi, Ruby! I’ve come, as promised.’

The visitor sweeps past you into the kitchen while you remain, frozen, on the doormat. It is Hilary bloody Mantel, isn’t it? Are you going to scream? Faint? Wake up from a dream? And how does this world-renowned woman know your dog?

By now Hilary’s in the kitchen. She picks up your crumpled story, unearths a pencil from her bag, and starts scribbling all over it. ‘Just make me a coffee,’ she says, giving Ruby an absent-minded pat. ‘Instant will be fine, but make it strong.’

You’re in a trance as you boil the kettle. This wonderful writer is sitting…

View original post 197 more words

We have a Shortlist!

Tags

ninevoices writing competition shortlist

 

We are delighted to be able to give below our shortlist of summer stories, given in alphabetical order. Our winner, and runner-up, will be announced on December 1st.

Alaskan Salmon Fishing, Judi Johnson

Black Dog, Alwyn Bathan

The Chocolate Summer, Barbara Leahy

Destination: Summer Lane, R Herring

Day of the Flying Ants, Melanie Ross

Indefinite Delay, Norman Coburn

Synchronicity, Roz Balp

Summer Cycle, David Smith

Take Wing, K E  Olukoya

Under Canvas, Imogen Fairweather

This has been a challenging exercise. Some stories were absolutely loved by one or two of us, but didn’t chime with everyone. Others had promise, but could have done with one final edit. Saddest of all, one or two good stories had to be eliminated because they went over our stipulated word count. So, if your story isn’t on our list, don’t be despondent. Enter it into another competition. These things are notoriously subjective.

Our winner and runner-up will be announced here on the 1st December. Well done those that are on the shortlist, and thank you to everyone who took part. By doing so, we will be able to send a worthwhile donation to a charity providing much-needed support to people in need. We hope you also enjoyed creating a new story.

 

(Picture credit: Tom Hart @ Flickr)

 

Writing Competitions to Enter in June

Tags

Audio Arcadia's General Fiction Short Story Competition, Bath Flash Fiction Award, Bath Novel Award, British Czech & Slovac Association Competition for Short Stories and non-fiction, British Fantasy Society Short Story Competition, Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, Divine Chocolate Poetry Competition, Hastings Literary Festival Short Story Competition, Impress Prize for New Writers, Ninevoices' Short Story Competition, Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize, The Moth Short Story Prize, VS Pritchett Memorial Prize, Wells Festival of Literature

This is a BIG MONTH for us, since we will be launching one of ninevoices’ rare and sought-after competitions on JUNE 21st. Please WATCH OUT FOR DETAILS on that date!

Meanwhile you can hone your skills on some of the other competitions out there – nobody said you need only enter one.

There’s just time to squeeze in for the Bath Novel Award deadline of June 2nd. They want the first 5,000-words of a novel, plus a synopsis. Prizes: 1st £2,500; 2nd, agent introductions and manuscript feedback; 3rd, Cornerstones’ course. Entry fee: £25. Details: bathnovelaward.co.uk

Bath Flash Fiction Award – a thrice-yearly competition for flash fiction up to 300 words. Prizes: £1,000; £300; £100, Entry fee: £9. Closing date for current competition 10 June. Details: bathflashfictionaward.com

Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting for full-length (at least an hour) new stage plays written in English, which have not been published or professionally performed. Prizes: £16,000; 2x£8,000. FREE ENTRY. Deadline 5 June. Details: http://www.writeaplay.co.uk

Divine Chocolate Poetry Competition for poems on the theme ‘how can chocolate change the world? From poets aged 7-11;  12-16; and 17-plus. Prizes: Divine chocolate and goodies. Free entry. Closing date: 14 June. Details: http://www.divinechocolate.com/uk/poetry

Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize for poetry (up to five poems), fiction and life writing, up to 3,000 words. Prizes: £1,000 in each category, plus publication in Wasafiri. Entry fee: £6 for one category; £10 for two categories; £15 for three categories. Closing date 28 June. Details: http://www.wasafiri.org

VS Pritchett Memorial Prize for unpublished short stories between 2,000 and 4,000 words. Prizes: £1,000, plus publication. Entry fee: £5. Closing date: 28 June. Details: http://www.rslit.org

British Fantasy Society Short Story Competition for any kind of fantasy short stories, horror, sf, magic realism, etc., up to 5,000 words. Prizes: £100, £50, £20, membership of BFS and publication in BFS Horizons. Entry fee: £5 (free for BFS members). Closing date: 30 June. Details: http://www.britishfantasysociety.co.uk

Audio Arcadia’s General Fiction Short Story Competition for stories up to 5,000 words. Prizes: Anthology publication, royalties. Entry fee: £5.50. Closing date: 30 June. Details: http://www.audioarcadia.com

Hastings Literary Festival Short Story Competitions, for short story, poem and flash fiction on the festival theme ‘In Other Words‘ – an exploration of difference and otherness. Prizes: £100; £40; £25 in each category. Entry fee: £5. Closing date: 30 June. Details: http://www.HastingsLitFest.org

Impress Prize for New Writers are looking for full-length debuts from unpublished fiction and non-fiction writers. Submit proposal and sample chapter, 6,000 words maximum. Prizes: £500 advance and publication. Entry fee: £25. Closing date: 30 June. Details: http://www.impress-books.co.uk

Wells Festival of Literature short stories between 1,000 and 2,000 words; poems up to 40 lines; stories for children. Prizes: £750, £300, £200, local prize of £100 in each category. Entry fee: £6. Closing date: 30 June. Details: http://www.wellsfestivalofliterature.org.uk

The Moth Short Story Prize 2019 for unpublished stories of up to 5,000 words on any subject. Prizes: 1st, 3,000 Euros; 2nd, Writing Retreat at Circle of Misse in France, plus 250 Euros; 3rd 1,000 Euros. Entry fee: 12 Euros. Closing date: 30 June.  Details: wwwthemothmagazine.com

Last, but by no means least, is the British Czech & Slovak Association Competition for short stories and non-fiction – up to 2,000-words – exploring the links between Britain and the Czech/Slovak Republics at any time. The suggested, but optional, theme for 2019 is ‘1989’. As has been said before, this does not have to be a worthy, scholarly piece (though please feel free, if that’s your thing…) but could equally be inspired by a honeymoon, a student trip, or even a hen-night, in Prague. By a haunting among those atmospheric buildings around Wenceslas Square. By a cold war spy tale. A memory of trying to make dumplings… ENTRY IS FREE. Prizes: £400, £150, publication in the British Czech & Slovak Review. Plus an invitation to a glittering dinner in London at which you will be presented with your prize.

As ever, let me urge you to check the details before entry. There’s a good spread of competitions this month, and I’m personally greatly tempted by the idea of receiving a hamper of Divine Chocolate… Just the thing to munch on while composing your 150,000-word masterpiece.

 

Competition

Credit: Dee Hartley, The Loneliest Stroll