New Writer competition closing soon

This is the 12th year of the Prose and Poetry Prizes sponsored by The New Writer magazine. Prizes are awarded in the following categories:

FACT

Essays, Articles, Interviews - covering any writing-related or literary theme in its widest sense up to 2,000 words. 1st prize £150, 2nd £100, 3rd £50.

FICTION

Short Stories, Micro Fiction - short stories 500 to 5,000 words, micro fiction up to 500 words; on any subject or theme, in any genre (not children's). Previously published work is not eligible. Short Stories: 1st prize £300, 2nd £200, 3rd £100. Micro Fiction: 1st prize £150, 2nd £100, 3rd £50.

POETRY

Single Poems and Collections - Single Poems up to 40 lines; Collections of between 6 - 10 poems - no restriction on length of poems in the Collection category. Single poem entries must be previously unpublished; previously published poems can be included as part of a Collection. Collection: 1st prize £300, 2nd £200, 3rd £100. Single: 1st prize £100, 2nd £75, 3rd £50.

Closing date November 30th

Entry fees: vary from £5 for two flash fiction stories to £12 for a collection of poetry. Reductions for magazine subscribers. 

Read the rules: follow the rules. It's not rocket science - the administrators will exclude anyone not obeying without even reading the first line...

Free to enter writing Competition

Like me, you may not have known that August 30th is The International Day of the Disappeared. It commemorates people who have gone missing throughout the world in situations of violence and armed conflict and the Red Cross are bringing attention to it this year with a free competition. It is a reminder of the hundreds of thousands of families who are unaware of the fate of their loved ones, and organisations like the Red Cross who work to restore family contact between separated family members.

There are only two rules (isn't that refreshing to hear)

1. Your writing should be based on the theme of ‘the disappeared’.
2. It should fit onto one side of A4 paper.

So this could be poetry, prose, a comic strip, a short story, an excerpt from your diary, a song... anything as long as it relates back to the theme.

Entries can be either typed or handwritten. (Now there is generous. Be kind on the judges and make sure your writing is clear by giving it to someone to read before you post it off.) Drawings and illustrations are also welcomed, but remember – this is a creative writing competition – so these should accompany your message, not be the message.  

 Deadline is August 30 

Prizes

The winning entry will receive a £50 cash prize and a £50 national book voucher.

A compendium of the top entries will be compiled and published for International Day of the Disappeared 2012. All authors of published entries will receive a free copy.

How to enter

You can enter by emailing your work to entries@redcross.org.uk or by posting it to:

Creative writing competition
British Red Cross
Bradbury House
Apple Lane
Sowton Industrial Estate
Exeter
Devon
EX2 7HA

Terms and conditions

1. Entries must be original, unpublished and not accepted for publication. They should be written in English.
2. The name and address of the entrant should be clearly listed separately from the entry itself.
3. Receipt of entry will be given by email if a valid email address is supplied.
4. A list of commended entries and the winner will be posted on this website, and sent out by email to addresses provided.ttp://www.redcross.org.uk/What-we-do/Finding-missing-family/International-Day-of-the-Disappeared/Creative-writing-competition
5. Copyright will remain with the author, but the British Red Cross reserves the right to publish any winning or commended entries after the end of the competition.
6. The winning entry will be announced within a month of the deadline on 30 August, 2011.
7. The judges' decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into regarding the results.
8. Submitted entries will not be returned.
9. Neither the judges nor competition organisers are eligible to enter the competition.

Three things NOT to do when entering a short story competition

After judging a couple of competitions here are a few of my pet niggles.

(1)     Don’t use & in place of and --- it sends the message that you can't be bothered to write it out and that's probably not the impression you want to give. It makes me think you probably won't be bothered to do lots of others things like develop characters I can believe in or think up a half way decent story

(2)    Don’t use fancy type like Baskerville Old Face or Lucinder Blackletter or even Rockwell. I know they sound wonderful and they look impressive on your pull down list of fonts but just because you've got 'em doesn't mean you have to use 'em. Save it for blackmail notes and jumble sale posters.

(3)    Don’t use 10 pt type for anything. Remember someone is reading your story. Remember someone is reading lots of stories before your entry comes to the top of the pile. You don't want a judge to sigh before they've read the first paragraph. This is not the time to save an extra sheet of paper.

By the way, there are nine days left to enter the Fish One Page flash fiction competition.
Word limit 300 words  
Prize 1000 euros. 
Deadline March 20. Entries accepted from around the world. 
 Reputable and prestigious, the only thing wrong with it is that if you search for fish + competition you may have to wade through a lot of bait and tackle before arriving at the right site. Instead click on the title of this post and go straight there. Good luck.

Flash 500 writing competition

If you write short and tight, if you are more Raymond Carver than Charles Dickens, this is one to put in your dairy because FLASH 500 runs every quarter.
Here are the deadlines for 2011
31st March
30th June
30th September 
31st December.
The results are announced within six weeks of each closing date and the three winning entries each quarter are published on the competition website. The judge changes each quarter which is good because once the no-hopers are weeded out and the entries that have a compelling idea but need more words to work (they read like Ugly Sister shoes - a painful squeeze), then decision making has to be subjective, what will appeal to one judge will leave another unmoved. 
No set theme and the entry fee is £5 for one story and £8 for two

Prizes
First: £250 plus publication 
Second: £100
Third: £50
Highly commended: A copy of The Writer’s ABC Checklist
Click on the title of this post for more information

Flash NON Fiction competition with a great prize

Arvon - the ground breaking residential creative writing course people - are offering a whole week away as first prize in their new competition. 

Here's the details from their website (click on the title to go straight there).

Edith Wharton would compose in bed on a writing board propped upon her lap, while Roald Dahl conjured his creations in a shed at the bottom of his garden...

When we posed the question to some of our tutors, we had a fabulous response. Penelope Shuttle likes writing in the attic, Isy Suttie in a messy bedroom amidst dirty clothes, while Simon Armitage admits his favourite place to write is in his head.

Now we're inviting you to take part in Arvon's 2011 competition to win an Arvon week of your choice.

To enter, please send in a piece of flash fiction or poetry that describes your favourite writing place. The winning entry will be chosen by Sunday Times journalist Cathy Galvin.

Send your story on a postcard with your contact details to:

Postcard Competition

The Arvon Foundation

Free Word Centre

60 Farringdon Road

London, EC1R 3GA

Closing date is 21 May 2011.

Instead of an entry fee to take part in this competition, the Arvon Foundation would be grateful for a suggested donation of £5.00 to support its charitable work. Cheques should be made payable to The Arvon Foundation.

Where do you write?
Me? ...tried both the dedicated office at bottom of garden and corner of dining room table with the television blaring in the background ...when it's not working they are too cold, too warm, too isolated, too noisy...when it is working then I think anywhere I can plug the laptop will do.

Not convinced by Simon Armitage:  writing in your head is not the same as writing on the page. One is creating, dreaming, gathering together the stuff that might eventually solidify into a poem or a sentence. One is clouds: the other is concrete.

75 words

Kate Mosse (the writer not the model) says writers should practice writing in the same way musicians practice the scales....Well here is a way that will also allow you to broadcast your talent and become part of a community of writers. Since October 2008 authors have submitted 75-word paragraph to PLANET PARAGRAPH  Entries have ranged from stand-alone pieces to extracts from short stories or novels. Published, aspiring and occasional writers have all got involved. For some it has kickstarted their creative juices; for others, its an addictive, time-wasting distraction!Find out more by clicking on the title of this post.

International Flash Fiction Competition

Another FLASH FICTION competition and this one welcomes entries from around the world provided they are written in English and accompanied by the hefty £9 entry fee.
Still BISCUIT publishing company are offering  a very respectable £1000 (approximately $1,500 US dollars; €1,100 Euros) in prize money OR your own collection published (short stories or flash fiction I presume, but they also say it could be a novella)  plus £350 and 75 copies of your book - the winner chooses money or honour and glory. 
(75 is a lot of review copies: it means you could mount an effective promotional campaign.) 

Word count: 250 minimum - 750 maximum
Deadline: 14th September 2010

For more information - and all the rules - click on the title of this post.

An almost free to enter competition

You have plenty of time to work on this one because the closing date isn't until October 22nd 2010.  This competition is run by Sefton Arts in Merseyside (home to the Aintree race course - but I digress this hasn't nothing to do with horses). They are looking for:

poems up to 40 lines

short stories 

essays 

dialogues

mini-dramas

monologues
short texts......Nothing over 500 words

This is a FLASH FICTION competition, although they don't call it that.
And unlike most competitions, they welcome fiction and non fiction AND those passages of writing that are beautifully crafted, zing with description and energy, but can't be called a story. (At least that's my definition of a text....or could Sefton Arts be thinking of something else....? Any other suggestions?) 

The theme is IF which is about the most useful word there is for a writer at the ideas stage.

Children (under 14s) can enter for free but they have to include an illustration. Everyone else it's £2. The prizes aren't huge (£250 for the winner) but it would be a massive writing credit. The phrase prize winning writer never looks bad on a CV.

Click on the title of this post to download an entry form.

International Flash Fiction Competition

Just heard that the Dublin Review of Books are running a Once Off Flash Fiction Contest. Entries are invited from around the world. 

First Prize 1,000 Euros . Deadline June 1st 2010. Entry fee 10 euro - for that you can submit up to three stories of no more than 500 words apiece. 

Work must be previously unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are not accepted. Click on the title of this post for more details

Flash Fiction

Click on the the title of this post to go to writer's Vanessa Gebbie's blog to read how this year's judge of the Sean O' Faolain short story competition loves flash fiction.
Food for thought and a reminder that when you enter a competition you don't have to write up to the maximum word limit. Be dictated by the idea - some stories need room to breath, others are better told in tight prose that forces the reader to do most of the work.

What is flash fiction?
No standard word count - here is how the Bridport Writing Competition describes it. http://www.bridportprize.org.uk/flashfiction.htm
This year for the first time there is a special category for Flash Fiction

Flash Fiction is fiction of extreme brevity. The number of words can vary widely - for our competition it will be a maximum of 250. Other names for flash fiction include sudden fiction, microfiction, micro-story, postcard fiction, prosetry and short short story. Flash fiction work contains the classic story elements: protagonist, conflict, obstacles or complications and resolution. However unlike the case with a traditional short story, the word length often forces some of these elements to remain unwritten: hinted at or implied in the written storyline.

(Digression...Sean O' Faolain was a major figure in 20th century Irish literature. He wrote 80+ short stories that reveal the concerns of ordinary people and in themselves chart a changing social and political landscape. Well worth reading if you are grabbed by fiction where character dominates...
Digression number two...Whelan is an anglicised version of O' Faolain. (Phelan is another) Sean O' Faolain was born John Whelan in Cork around 1900 and his mother was Bridget Whelan...just thought I'd mention it)