Writing Competitions to Enter in November

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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Caledonia Novel Award for the first 20 pages plus a 200-word synopsis of a novel by an unpublished writer.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Bath Children’s Novel Award for unpublished and independently published children’s novels.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Betty Trask Prize for published or unpublished, traditional or romantic (not experimental) first novels by authors under the age of 35.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.

The Mogford Prize for Food and Drink Writing, 2016 – £7,500 to be won!

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Food & drink, Mogford, Oxford, prize

There’s a massive prize of £7,500 to be won in the 2016 Mogford Prize for Food and Drink Writing.

In the words of the website at http://www.oxford-hotels-restaurants.co.uk/the-mogford-literary-prize/, “Food and Drink has to be at the heart of the tale. The story could, for instance, be fiction or fact about a chance meeting over a drink, a life-changing conversation over dinner, or a relationship explored through food and drink. It could be crime or intrigue; in fact any subject as long as it involves food and/or drink in some way.”

Entries should be unpublished work and up to 2,500 words in length. One submission is allowed per person, and the closing date is 6 March 2016. Anyone can enter.

The prize will be awarded during the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival, to be held from 2 to 10 April 2016 (see http://oxfordliteraryfestival.org/) .

This is the fourth annual Mogford prize competition. The winning entries from the previous three can be found at the Oxford Hotels website listed above. 450 entries were received in 2015.

Writing with a Slovak or Czech twist? Win £300 and a free dinner

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Czech, Fiction, free dinner, prize, Slovak, Writing competition

Fiction or fact – both are welcome in the writing competition run in 2014 by the British Czech and Slovak Association. A first prize of £300 and a second prize of £100 will be awarded to the best 1,500 to 2,000-word pieces of original writing in English on the links between Britain and the Czech/Slovak Republics (or their predecessor states), or describing society in transition in the Republics since 1989. Topics can include history, politics, the sciences, economics, the arts or literature.

The writer of this year’s winning entry will be presented with the prize at the BCSA’s glittering annual dinner in London in November 2014. The winning entry will be published in the December 2014 issue of the British Czech and Slovak Review and the runner-up in a subsequent issue.

Submissions are invited from individuals of any age, nationality or educational background. Entrants do not need to be members of the BCSA. Entry is free. Entries should be received by 30 June 2014. An author may submit any number of entries. Submission guidelines are available from the Prize Administrator or the BCSA website at http://www.bcsa.co.uk/specials.html.
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.

Alice Munro, Nobel laureate

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Alice Munro, Christmas, Nobel, prize, Short story

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2013 has been awarded to Alice Munro, “master of the contemporary short story”. Good to see the short story getting recognised. I’ve not read Alice Munro – any thoughts from people who have? Would this be a suitable hint to drop in family ears for Christmas?