Words and Women’s exciting new contemporary writing prize for women in the East of England is open for entries.

The competition offers a cash prize of £600 and publication in Words and Women: Two. This year, the anthology will include 20 shortlisted entries and four winning commissions from its Arts Council Funded project, ‘About.’

The anthology published in partnership with Unthank Books in Norwich will be launched on International Women’s Day, 8^th March, 2015.
The competition is open to all women writers over the age of 16 who live or work in the East of England.  Fiction, memoir, life-writing and creative non-fiction is all welcome, but no extracts please.  This year’s judge is Norfolk-based novelist Sarah Ridgard, whose first novel, Seldom Seen was shortlisted for the Author’s Club best first novel award. Entry fee is £10.00. Text should be no longer than 2,200 words.  The deadline for entries is 15^th November, 2014.  Winners will be announced in January 2015.  See www.wordsandwomennorwich.blogspot.co.uk for details.

‘About,’ is an exciting new writing commission to create 4 texts for performance and the page. The Arts Council funded project will help develop work which explores the life of women and their relationship to place within the East of England.

The commission means 4 writers, selected through an open competition, will not only be given paid time to write but will be mentored by Words and Women as well as theatre director Adina Levay and performance poet Hannah Walker.

The resulting new work will be published in Words and Women’s second anthology and performed on International Women’s Day next year.

The competition is open to any woman over the age of 16 who lives and works in the East of England. Writers will be asked to submit a proposal, a CV and five pages of their writing. Although there are 4 commissions (one for a young writer aged 16-21), there will also be 12 highly commended writers who will win a place on a special workshop – ‘The Tough Room’, run by Hannah Walker.

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