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 Single poem entries must be previously unpublished; previously published poems can be included as part of a Collection.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...

Shortlist for the BBC National Short Story award

This is the sixth year that the BBC has run its short story competition - only open to authors who have already been published - and throughout this week you can listen to the shortlisted entries.

The winner will be announced on Monday 26 September live on BBC Radio Four's arts programme Front Row and will receive £15,000 which must make it one of the most lucrative - as well as prestigious - short story competitions in the world. Honour and glory is great, but it's even better when it is backed up with some money, especially as there are few paying markets for short stories.

The runner-up gets £3,000 and the other three authors £500 each.

This year's shortlist is:

'Rag Love' by M J Hyland 

Set in Sydney, a magnificent cruise ship is in harbour and all one down-and-out couple want is an hour together in the top suite. Described by the BBC as "eerie".

'The Heart of Denis Noble' by Alison MacLeod

This story is drawn from real life; it shows  Denis Noble, the pioneering systems biologist, awaiting an operation on his heart – the organ that he has spent his whole adult life studying – and looking back to consider the relationship between the heart of love and the heart of science.

'Wires' by Jon McGregor (runner up last year) 

A young woman's life flashes before her eyes as an unusual object flies towards her windscreen on the motorway.

'The Human Circadian Pacemaker' by K J Orr

As an astronaut attempts to re-adjust to life on earth, how will his wife cope and can their relationship ever return to its old rhythm?

'The Dead Roads' by D W Wilson 

An American road trip story where two old school buddies try to win the affections of a free-spirited girl; then a mysterious man enters the picture...

Each of the shortlisted stories will be broadcast daily on BBC Radio 4 at 3.30pm from today Monday 12 September. It's also available as a free podcast available to download for two weeks from www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/nssa.

Margaret Atwood says that writing is an apprenticeship and that we all learn from our masters, some of them are alive and some of them are dead...This short list should offer a real insight into contemporary writing that demands attention. I'll be listening and learning (and probably disagreeing with the judges) 

Short Story and Poetry Competition

Hurry along to to the Ilkley Literature festival website at http://www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk if you have a short story (maximum 3000 words) or a poem (30 lines or less) that is polished and ready to go - closing date is Monday

First Prize is £200 and all winners and runners up will have the opportunity to read at the Festival in October.
Entry fee: £4 per story or poem

Short Story Competitions with added value

This morning I came across two short story competitions that include a short critique of your story for the entry fee. That does sound like a very good deal. I am emerging from a heavy round of marking (university non fiction and adult education fiction) and know only too well just how long it takes to give written feedback.
Competition entrants should be realistic - they can't expect anything very detailed and probably a few generalised standard paragraphs will be included in the response...but, even so, it is a generous add-on that should give writers some insight into their work.

Writers’ Village Best Writing Award Summer 2011

Wanted: short story up to 3,000 words on any subject. 

Entry Fee: £10 for up to two stories.

Prizes: £200, £100, £50, 5@£20; winning entries will also be published online. 

Deadline: June 30 2011

Writers’ Village, The Old School House, Leigthon Buzzard LU7 9DP.

Click on the title of this post to go to the website

Laurel House Creative Workshops Short Story Competition

Wanted: short story up to 4,000 wds on any theme; each story entered will receive a 400 wd critique.  

 Entry fee: £4 per story. 

Prize: £100, plus full critique and publication in a LHCW anthology.

Deadline: July 4 

Laurel House Creative Workshops, Laurel House, Groesfaen, Rhondda, Cynon Taff CF72 8NS

Couldn't find a website for this one...

And here's one that awards the winner with a bottle of sparkly stuff as well as hard cash 

The Ifanca Hélène James Short Story Competition

Wanted: short stories up to 2,200 words.  

Entry fee: £3 per story 

Prizes: £100 plus a bottle of champagne; £50, £25.

Deadline: July 1st 2011

The Ifanca Hélène James Short Story Competition, Green Plain, 185 St David’s Road, Letterston, Haverfordwest SA62 5SS

http://ifancahelenejames.wordpress.com. 

This is a new competition to celebrate the life of a writer, dancer, herbalist and homeopath who died in a car crash last September.

SUMMER LOVING Free to Enter International Short Story Competition

Pretty Pink & Green Love Heart free Creative Commons, a photo by Pink Sherbet Photography on Flickr.

Wanted: a story about Love
Length: A minimum of 500 words and a maximum of 1000
Deadline: July 31st
Run by Brighton Community of Writers: they say:-

You don’t have to become Barbara Cartland – it can be soppy, romantic, dark, uplifting or depressing – even terrifying (much like love itself). Just impress us! Any genre welcome, but please send any pure pornography to those who’ll appreciate it more than we will and who are a lot more likely to publish it.

Check out the rules at Brighton COW's website (click on the title of this post to go straight there). For this competition there are two extra rules

1) Give the story its own title (and you can't have Summer Break...Brighton COW are very clear about that...)
2) Include the title of your short story in the subject line of email entries. GOOD LUCK

Be part of Guardian Weekend Summer Fiction Special

Wanted: an unpublished short story on the theme of journeys

Length: maximum 2000 words. .

Deadline: Mon 13 Jun 2011 

Reward: honour and glory

Every year, in August, the Guardian's Weekend magazine publishes a selection of original fiction by some of the best authors writing today. Last year's fiction special featured stories by Hilary Mantel, Roddy Doyle, David Mitchell and Barbara Trapido, among others, and this summer they will be unveiling another line-up of stellar names. Yours could be among them.
Top novelists judge the entries, and they will be looking for the most original, gripping and well-crafted pieces of writing. Their favourite story will be published in the magazine, while the five runners-up will have their stories published online.
Send your story to Short Stories, Guardian Weekend, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU, or email it to short.story@guardian.co.uk (no attachments). Include a daytime phone number with your entry.

JOURNEYS - the theme of the Guardian Short Story competition

running with the seagulls, a photo by eschipul on Flickr.

Boldly go....to the British Library

A new free exhibition on until September 25

Out of this World: Science Fiction but not as you know it

The British Library reveals in its press release that 'SF is not only a popular literary genre but a way of looking at today's world and presenting alternatives: radical ideas about science, politics, society, the future... and the nature of reality itself.' Click the title of this post to find out more and watch a rather snappy video. I'm not a big fan, although I can appreciate the  imagination of writers like Philip K.Dick. But I do get irritated by the wooden characters that only exist to act out a new theory. Breakthrough ideas are fine, but I still want story and I still want characters that live and breath on the page because in the end there's nothing as interesting as people. Having said all that, one of the finest short stories I have ever read is classic science fiction. I recommend I have no mouth but I must scream by Harlan Ellison. (One of the best titles of all time too - perfect example of how the title only makes complete sense when you've finished reading the story.) And yes, it's all about people. Even if not all of them are human...

BRISTOL Short Story Prize

Maximum words 3,000. 

Stories can be on any theme or subject and are welcome in any style including graphic, verse or genre-based (crime, thriller, science fiction, fantasy, romance, historical etc.).

DEADLINE March 31 2011.
ENTRY FEE £7 

PRIZE 

1st - £1,000 plus £150 Waterstone's gift card
2nd- £700 plus £100 Waterstone's gift card
3rd- £400 plus £100 Waterstone's gift card

The other 17 writers who feature on the shortlist will be presented with a cheque for £100. All 20 shortlisted stories will be published in both print and ebook versions of Volume 4
of the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology.The 20 shortlisted writers will be invited to an awards ceremony in Bristol on July 16, 2011 when the winners will be announced and the BSSP Anthology Volume 4 will be launched. Prizes and anthologies will be sent to any shortlisted writer unable to
attend the awards ceremony.
For more information click on the title of this post

FISH COMPETITION and no rods or wriggly worms in sight

This international short story competition run by a small literary organisation in West Cork punches way above its weight. 

The Fish Short Story Prize is an open door that's inviting writers to walk through it. It has to be encouraged, celebrated, congratulated. - RODDY DOYLE -

Fish is doing God's own work. It's an inspiration and an avenue to writers everywhere.
- FRANK McCOURT -

-

Good news:

• It's well established (it's been going since 1994)
• Big name judges 
• If the entry fee is sizable, then so too are the prizes. (And some folk think second prize is the best prize of all and I am one of them*.)
• The maximum story length is a lot more generous than most competitions - this is an opportunity for the big idea, the one that needs space to develop. However, having said that, you never have to write up to the limit - let the story dictate how long it should be. 

Bad news:

•  It attracts a lot of quality entries from around the world, but you can't have prestige AND a small mail bag.  
• Can't think of anything else.

Word limit 5000 words

Deadline November 30

Entry Fee: 20 euros if online but 25 euroes if you submit by post

First prize is €3,000, of which €1,000 is for the winner to travel to the launch at the West Cork Literary Festival in July 2011. This is to insure that wherever in the world the winner hails from, they can join the other writers at the launch, where all the writers in the Anthology will read from their work.
Second prize is €300 with a week's residence at Anam Cara, a retreat for writers and artists in West Cork run by Sue Booth-Forbes, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean on the Beara Peninsula. 

Third prize is €300.

Runners up are published in the annual anthology

* Anam Cara is an idyllic retreat for writers and artists. I stayed last summer and popped in a few weeks ago. The director Sue Booth-Forbes has a gift. She nourishes with good food and good talk around the kitchen table, she offers opportunities to become part of the local community and wellington boots in a range of sizes, and - best of all - creates an atmosphere that allows guests to be their most creative selves.  
I did so much work there. I went with 17000 words and not quite sure where my novel was going. I came away with 45,000 words, back in love with the story I was trying to tell and with a clear beginning, middle and end.

Gritty, urban, contemporary. A free to enter competition for writers who know their city...

Manchester based Creative Tourist and Rainy City Stories are looking for short stories about cities, any city.  

Stories that encapsulate some of the romance or the horror, the daily drudgery or the surreal moments, the beauty or the decay of modern urban life. Stories should be contemporary or set within the last ten years, and should provide a detailed snapshot of city life. Rather than just being the place the action happens, the city must be fully present in the story, almost having the same stature as another character. We want to walk the streets with your characters, see what they see, hear what they hear – be transported there.

They will be selecting one Manchester winner and one winner from elsewhere. The winning stories will be published on Creative Tourist and Rainy City Stories, and the winners will receive a cash prize of £100 and tickets to  Manchester Literature Festival. 

Length 3000 words max

Deadline 6pm July 2 2010

Judging process  Later in July, Creative Tourist will publish the first 500 words of a shortlist of six and open the shortlist up to a public vote (the vote will count as 40% towards the selection of the final winner). The final winners will be announced on 2 August.

Click on the title of this post to find out all the rules and how to enter

Orange/Harper's bazaar Short Story Competition 2010

300 writers entered this year's competition. They had to submit a short story on 'The Face'. I am thrilled that Jane Murison who attends my Saturday morning class at City Lit was one of the three finalists. Carole Welch, Chair of Judges, said:

...all three writers had great potential. We look forward to hearing more from them...

Jane won £500, a creative writing class led by author and teacher, Greg Mosse, and dinner at the Orange Prize awards ceremony last night in London. Way to go, Jane!

Now in its ninth year, the Orange/Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Competition aims to support unpublished writers at the beginning of their careers.

Previous winners have gone on to achieve literary success including Clare Allan, who won the first ever Orange/Harpers Bazaar Short Story Competition in 2001.  Her debut novel, Poppy Shakespeare, was dramatised for Channel 4. Way to go, Jane, way to go!

Modest writers step forward

This month a new Irish literary review are accepting submissions for the inaugural issue of A Modest Review, a journal of short fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction.

Short fiction: minimum 1,000 words
Poetry: no restrictions
Creative nonfiction: minimum 1,000 words

Deadline: July 1st 2010
The website doesn't say, but I presume they are paying the usual reward for writers: honour and glory. However, I rather like their mission statement...

At Modesty Press we believe in three things above all else: happiness, good health, and fantastic literature. Our mission is to publish challenging new writing in beautifully designed books at a reasonable price.

We hope to publish in a variety of print formats - novels, novellas, fiction and nonfiction anthologies, as well as a literary review. For the more digitally inclined we plan to offer streamed audio recordings of all publications and podcasts available for free download.

Young, gifted and...writing for Take A Break

Take a Break magazine are running a writing competition for young writers which will be judged in three age categories: 8-11 year-olds, 12-14 year-olds and 15-18 year olds.  It is open to anyone in the UK and Republic of Ireland.
Stories must be between 500 and 1,000 words long and can't have been published anywhere -- and that includes websites. If a story is published, the promoters reserve the right to edit it for length and style.This competition is open to residents of the UK, or the Republic of Ireland, who are aged between 8 and 18 years of age. 
Prizes: The winner of each age group will receive: a 13” Macbook from Apple and a trip to London with one family member, including rail travel, overnight stay in a London hotel and lunch reception. They will meet author Anthony Horowitz and receive a signed copy of his latest Alex Rider novel: Crocodile Tears.
Their story will be published in full in the December issue of Take a Break's Fiction Feast. 
The school or college of each winner will receive £1,000 worth of books courtesy of Walker Books. (So, the winner will be pretty popular...) 
Closing date  July 23 2010

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.

ASHAM - things that go bump in the night

The Asham Award is for unpublished women writers and for the first time in its 14 year history, the short story competition has a theme. Entrants are invited to write a ghost story (which can be set in the past or the present) or let their imaginations run really wild, and go Gothic. Judges are Sarah Waters (The Little Stranger), Lennie Goodings (Virago) and Polly Samson. 

Decent prize money - £1000. 
Deadline September 30th (so that's summer sorted...writing, re-writing, sharpening of pencils) 
and maximum 4000 words - an opportunity for ideas to float free and haunt your narrative drives...
Click on the title of this post for all the details

Another free to enter short story competition

Think summer. Think 2000 words.  Think free entry. 

This time it is The Guardian competition and the closing date is June 18.

The prize?  What writers usually get - honour and glory (in the form of publication in The Guardian's  short story special published sometime in August. Everyone else will be a big name writer so your words will be rubbing shoulders with the great and the good).

Send your story by post to Short Stories, Guardian Weekend, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU or email short.story@guardian.co.uk. Include a phone number and paste your story into the body of the email - no attachments.

Click on the the title of this post to read full terms and condition (and that's a very good idea. Ignore a rule and you've shot your pen in the nib. The admin team have to create a short list somehow and the first stories to be ditched - usually without being read - are the work of writers who can't be bothered to follow the rules.)

Free to enter short story competition

PERFECTLY FORMED SHORT STORY COMPETITION

In association with Pan Macmillan and the Arvon Foundation, Books Quarterly are running a competition.

Maximun Word length:  2,000 words or less.
Deadline: July 1, 2010.
Prize:The winner will see their work published in the October issue of Books Quarterly (readership of more than a quarter of a million) and online at www.macmillannewwriting.com,
www.arvonfoundation.org, Wbqonline.com and Waterstones.com. PLUS the winner will be invited to attend an exclusive publisher's lunch with Will Atkins, Editorial Director at Pan Macmillan, and author James McCreet to gain feedback and ideas on where to take their writing career in the future. PLUS £200-worth of Pan Macmillan books of their choice. PLUS a place on a week-long Arvon Foundation creative writing course of their choice. (The prize includes all tuition, food and accommodation. ) The three best runners-up will receive concise written feedback on their entries, which will be published online, as well as winning £50-worth of Pan Macmillan books.

A story tellng midsummer all nighter

White Rabbit is hosting a summer special storytelling event called “Are You Sitting Comfortably?- Pajama Party” at The Basement in Kensington Street, Brighton on Saturday 19th June 2010, starting at 9pm

They are seeking stories of around 1000 words: the theme is midsummer. No payment, but you will get a complimentary ticket and there is free food to be had!  And you get to stay up.

As well as stories there will be short films and animation, games, competitions, and prizes. There will be a midnight feast and bubbly at breakfast for those tough enough to make it through the night but there is a strict dress code:  PJs / nightwear only (bring sleeping bags and bedrolls to snuggle down).

Chosen writers must be able to attend the evening, but White Rabbit have a team of actors who read the stories, so writers can just sit back and enjoy the party atmosphere.

More information about White Rabbit and Are You Sitting Comfortably? on their website (click the title of the post). 

DEADLINE  5th June by email to areyousittingcomfortably@thewhiterabbit.org.uk  put BRIGHTON in the subject box. Also mention if you are from the Brighton area as White Rabbit support local writers.

Winning Entry

Click on the title and you will be taken to last year's winning entry for the Writers and Artists Short Story Competition.  A story is where something happens: something changes. But it doesn't have to be a big something.  In the Wendy House by Rosey Darbishire an onlooker would simply have seen a mother relishing a well earned moment of quiet -- the change happens inside.