Tag Archives: anthology

Cyber Smut – call for submissions

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Guts Publishing wants to know how the internet has impacted your life. We are seeking short stories and poetry for our next anthology Cyber Smut. Closing date for submissions is 29 February 2020.


This is wide open in terms of interpretation, and anything goes – poetry, memoir, erotica, literary fiction, sci fi, essays, etc – as long as it aligns with the theme. Things to consider: our daily lives are saturated with the internet, impacting our minds and behavior. Miscommunications and mishaps. Lust and desire for fame and money. Hilarity and tragedy with Tinder or Grindr. This is rich and fertile ground, and surely there are countless ways to approach this theme. We are thrilled about our next anthology and hope you are too.


• Closing date for submissions – 29 February 2020.
• Short stories (fiction & nonfiction) – 1000-5000 words.
• Poetry – up to 5 pages.
• UK & Ireland – seeking submissions from anyone living or born in the UK or Ireland.
• Unpublished work only please. We are not able to accept previously published work, print or online.

Visit gutpublishing.com for more info, or submit your work on Submittable: gutspublishing.submittable.com/submit

Creative Future Writers’ Award 2020

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The 2020 Creative Future Writers’ Award is now open for submissions.

Founded in 2013, the Creative Future Writers’ Award is the UK’s only national writing competition and development programme for under-represented writers. They showcase talented writers who lack opportunities due to mental health issues, disability, identity or other social circumstance.

Prizes are awarded for both poetry and short fiction, including cash and professional writing development opportunities, publication in an anthology, and a high profile awards ceremony at the Southbank Centre in London as part of London Literature Festival (TBC).

2020 judges are Kerry Hudson, Anthony Anaxagorou, Aki Schilz of The Literary Consultancy, and the CFWA 2020 Writer In Residence (TBA).

This year’s theme is ‘Tomorrow‘.  Submissions are open for:

  • Poetry (one poem up to 42 lines)
  • Short fiction (up to 2,000 words)

Deadline is 31 May 2020.

For more information and how to submit, please click here.

Hastings Litfest Short Story Competition 2019

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Hastings 2019 Litfest Short Story Competition

Now in our second year we are looking for short stories of up to 1500 words. The theme is the same as our festival: In Other Words – an exploration of difference, otherness, new perspectives and expanding horizons, to be interpreted as the author sees fit.

Judge: Tabatha Stirling

Tabby lives in Edinburgh, Scotland with her family and a depressed beagle called the Beagle. A published author and poet, Tabby signed with Unbound for her debut novel, Blood On The Banana Leaf, in August 2016 and released her latest novel Bitter Leaves in March 2019.

“I am looking specifically for beautifully written stories in any genre that don’t try too hard and have authentic voices that echo long after I’ve finished reading.  Writing of quality – luminous, transportive prose that makes me pause and groan, ‘Oh! I wish I’d written that’.”


First Prize £100 Second £40, Third £25, plus trophies.  
The top placed entries in each category (poetry, short story and flash fiction) will be included in a 2019 anthology.

Prize-giving will be on Sunday 1st September at the Litfest Closing Ceremony. 


For further details, rules & entry form visit  http://hastingslitfest.org/competitions/

The Summer ’19 Reflex flash fiction competition is open

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Summer 2019 - Reflex Fiction - Flash Fiction Competition - ShortStops
Reflex Fiction is a quarterly international flash fiction competition for stories between 180 and 360 words. We publish one story every day as we count down to the winner of each competition.

We had a fantastic response to our Spring ’19 competition: 394 entries from 19 different countries. We’re busy reading and judging in preparation for announcing the longlist on 1 April. In the meantime, the next round of the competition is now open for entries. We’re delighted to have Claire Fuller, the 2015 Desmond Elliott Prize winner, acting as judge. Here are the important details:

Prizes: £1,000 / £500 / £250 (or the equivalent in your local currency)
Entry fee: £7
Deadline: 31 May 2019
Judging: June 2019
Longlist announced: 1 July 2019
Judge: Claire Fuller

Submissions

Submissions should be made via our online entry form.

Rules

Stories must be fiction, must be the entrant’s own work, and must be between 180 and 360 words inclusive. See the Reflex Fiction website for full Rules.

Creative Future Writers’ Awards

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Founded in 2013, the Creative Future Writers’ Award is the UK’s only national writing competition and high profile awards ceremony for under-represented writers. We showcase talented writers who lack opportunities due to mental health issues, disability, identity or other social circumstance. Prizes are awarded for both poetry and short fiction, including cash & professional writing development opportunities. Winners are selected by a panel of industry experts. Alongside our competition, we hold a high profile awards ceremony–in 2018 this was held at the Southbank Centre in London as part of London Literature Festival.

This year’s theme is HOME.  We seek:

Poetry (one poem up to 300 words)

Short fiction (up to 2,000 words)

Deadline is Sunday 2 June 2019.

For more information and how to submit, please click here.

Call for Submissions: Curse the Darkness Anthology

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Call for Submissions - Curse the Darkness - Unlit Press

For our inaugural horror and dark fiction anthology, Unlit Press is inviting short story submissions on the theme of darkness. That could be the absence of light, the presence of evil, or the deranged thoughts of the afflicted. However you choose to interpret the theme, just make sure you leave us afraid to turn out the lights.

At Unlit Press we don’t forsake character and story for the sake of gratuitous violence and gore. We’re looking for stories with strong original voices, compelling characters and sparkling dialogue. Send us stories that step off the well-trod paths into the unlit wilderness of the unusual, the interesting, and the provocative.

Submission Guidelines

  • Word Count: 3,000 to 10,000 words.
  • Deadline: 31 December 2018.
  • Payment: One-off payment of £75 (approximately $100) plus one contributor copy for each manuscript accepted.

Visit our website for full submission guidelines and instructions.

Launch of new Stroud Short Stories Anthology

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Stroud Short Stories

We are launching the new Stroud Short Stories Anthology 2015-18 on Friday 28 September 2018 at the Ale House in John Street, Stroud from 7.00 to 10pm.

img_09147The new anthology covers stories from the six events from November 2015 to May 2018. That’s 57 stories by 45 authors including Joanna Campbell, Rick Vick, Melanie Golding, Steve Wheeler, Chloe Turner, Jason Jackson, Ali Bacon and Andrew Stevenson.

The first print run is 300 books and we already have 270+ reservations, so why not reserve your copy and then collect it at the launch? Email me on stroudshortstories@gmail.com

The anthology is priced at £10.

The launch is free and unticketed. Please come along. There will be a few words from me at 7.30 and then Mark Graham will read his story ‘Wayland Smith: Warrior of the Milky Way’ from the anthology.

More information on our website.

I hope to see you there.

John Holland

The Shadow Booth: Vol. 2 – Crowdfunding Now!

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There are going to be two more volumes to this series and if they deliver on the same level as volume one then this is going to be one fantastic collection for any fan of horror, weird, or short fiction… – STORGY review of The Shadow Booth: Vol. 1

The Shadow Booth is currently crowdfunding its second volume via Indiegogo. Publishing as a mass market paperback (with just a hint of the old Pan Books of Horror) and as an ebook, Vol. 2 includes brand new stories by:

  • Mark Morris
  • Kirsty Logan
  • Aliya Whiteley
  • Gareth E. Rees
  • Chikodili Emelumadu
  • Johnny Mains
  • Giovanna Repetto
  • Ralph Robert Moore
  • George Sandison
  • Dan Grace
  • Anna Vaught

The Shadow Booth is a journal of weird and eerie fiction, edited by Dan Coxon and published as a 200-page mass market paperback. Drawing its inspiration from the likes of Thomas Ligotti and Robert Aickman, as well as H. P. Lovecraft and Arthur Machen, The Shadow Booth explores that dark, murky territory between mainstream horror and literary fiction. From folk horror to alien gods, the journal aims to give voice to the strange and the unsettling in all its forms.

Support the release of The Shadow Booth: Vol. 2 and order a copy here: The Shadow Booth on Indiegogo

2018 Bristol Short Story Prize

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With six weeks to go until our entry deadline we’d like to take the opportunity (thank you, the mighty Shortstops) to say that the 2018 Bristol Short Story Prize is open for entries, and we really, really do mean open.

We’ve published a huge range of stories in our first 10 anthologies – stories set throughout history from ancient Greece to the present day, and beyond to imagined futures. There have been stories narrated by octogenarians, by children not yet a decade old, and others with narrators and protagonists at all stages of life in between. Stories written in the first, second and third persons, with the broadest sweep of styles and genres from the familiar to the obscure: historical, romance, literary, science fiction, harsh realism, surreal flights of fancy, tense thrillers, comic capers, ‘experimental’ tales, sparsely written hammer blows of what some might call flash fiction and lots more. Stories set in countries all over the globe, written by writers worldwide.

There have been high, mid and low brow stories; stories written as blog posts, album reviews, in verse, as diaries, as a series of emails, as well as a sumptuous crop of the more traditional; stories of 4,000 words and those with just a few hundred, one of which won first prize in 2010.

Our 2017 winner, Dima Alzayat (centre) with awards ceremony guest speaker Edson Burton (left) and judging panel member, literary agent Juliet Pickering, who now represents Dima.

We invite you to show us what’s possible in a short story, what a short story can be, what a story can do and what ‘short story’ means to you. Drop our jaws, make us weep, make us rethink, tickle us, entertain us, confound us, provoke us, comfort us, stimulate us, challenge us, storify us to another time or place but above all we want to encourage and inspire you to feel free to write what you want in whatever form you want.

We won’t be compiling lists of shoulds and shouldn’ts on how or what to write. Another contribution to the vast muddle won’t help anyone, there’s more than enough out there. You’re the writer, it’s up to you what you do. It’s your story. We’ll read every submission with the same objectivity, respect and relish.

In short, then, there are no dos and don’ts, shoulds and shouldn’ts, rights and wrongs. No borders, no barriers, no walls.

With that in mind, here are some details of this year’s competition:

The 2018 Bristol Short Story Prize is open to all published and unpublished writers worldwide over 16 years of age. Stories can be on any theme or subject and entry can be made online via the website or by post. Entries must be previously unpublished with a maximum length of 4,000 words (There is no minimum). The entry fee is £8 per story.
The closing date for entries is midnight (BST) May 1st 2018.

20 stories will be shortlisted and the 20 shortlisted writers will be invited to the 2018 awards ceremony in Bristol in October this year when the winners will be announced and this year’s anthology launched.  Prizes will be sent to any writer unable to attend the awards ceremony.

Prizes:
1st £1000, 2nd £700, 3rd £400. 17 further prizes of £100 will be presented to the writers whose stories appear on the shortlist. All 20 shortlisted writers will have their stories published in the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology Volume 11.

And here is our amazing judging panel: Kate Johnson (literary agent at Mackenzie Wolf), Lucy Cowie (editor and former literary agent), Roshi Fernando (writer), and Polly Ho-Yen (writer)

Full details and rules are available at www.bristolprize.co.uk

 

 

 

Live Lit Leamington Returns!

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The Anthology of Authors returns! Following our postponed event (March 1st) at The Stagey Fox Leamington, we are pleased to announce – YAY! – (that’s us being pleased) that we will be back to entertain you with shorts, poems, flashes, flishes and most likely flushes on THURSDAY 22nd MARCH at The Stagey Fox, Regent Street Leamington Spa. Free to enter, free to listen, free to applaud and do feel free to flatter. First sentence 7.15pm, closing paragraph 9pm. Come one, come all!

Submissions for National Flash Fiction Day 2018 are NOW OPEN!

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Now in it’s seventh year, National Flash Fiction Day will be on Saturday 16th June 2018 and we’ll be celebrating with events and readings and submission opportunities! We’re currently open for our micro-fiction competition and our annual anthology, so get writing!

Micro Competition

From now until Saturday 17th March 2018, you can send us up to three micro fictions on any theme for our Micro fiction competition. These must be 100 words or fewer, and can be on any theme.

More details about the micro completion can be found here: http://nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/comp.html

Anthology

This year’s anthology theme is one you’ll be able to sink your teeth into, and we’re hungry for your flashes! From now until Saturday 31st March 2018, you can send us up to three 500 word flashes on this year’s theme: Food! The anthology will be edited by award-winning writer, Alison Powell, and National Flash Fiction Day Co-Director, Santino Prinzi. Your stories must be 500 words or fewer.

We’re looking for stories inspired by and about whatever’s on your plate. We’re ready to salivate over your sentences, to savour the subtle flavours of your subtext, to devour your delicious dialogue. Sweet, sour, savoury, sharp, tangy, rich, or rotten. Serve us up some scrumptious tales and tantalising treats with tasty twists. Are we all becoming too healthy? Or is suet the main dish of the day? Has a friendship been ruined by raw chocolate? We’re looking for full-fat, jam-packed flash fiction with an aftertaste we won’t forget. Feel free to interpret the theme of “food” however you wish, but your flashes must fit the theme in some way.

More details about the anthology submissions can be found here: http://nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/anth.html

 

We can’t wait to feast upon your words!

Words for the Wild: final call for print anthology submissions

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The deadline is fast approaching for poetry and prose submissions to Words for the Wild’s print anthology. If you have something to say about the wild spaces and places in your life, whether they’re deeply rural, in the middle of a city or somewhere in between, we’d love to hear from you.

Submission guidelines are available here. You can also meet some of our authors and, of course, immerse yourself in the poetry and prose already featured on the site.

All submissions received before midnight on 28th February 2018 will be considered for inclusion in the anthology. Submissions received after this date will still be considered for publication on the website.

 

MEET THE WINNERS!

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Words and Women are excited to announce the winners of their 2017/2018 national and KerryHood[50180]regional new writing competition.

Kerry Hood’s intriguing and ambitious short story, The Sunbathers, wins the national prize for women over 40, £1,000 and a month-long writing retreat at Church Cottage, Stratford-Upon-Avon, generously sponsored by Hosking Houses Trust.

Margaret Meyer has been awarded the East of England regional prize of £600 and a mentoring session with Gold Dust for her entry, The Once and Only First Lady Judge.

Guest judges, Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney were drawn to Hood’s voice which ‘felt original and full of verve,’ as well as the ‘thematically complex’ nature of the story

Kerry Hood is no stranger to competitions.  She has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize five times, as well as broadcasting stories on BBC Radio 4.  She is an accomplished theatre writer with work produced at the Soho Theatre, and her play Meeting Myself Coming Back was selected as the Sunday Times Critics’ Choice. She has had residences at the National Theatre, Traverse and RADA.

rgaret Meyer has previously been a fiction editor, publisher, British Council Director of Literature and a reader-in-residence in Norfolk prisons. As a therapeutic arts practitioner she provides writing and reading-for-wellbeing programmes for ex-offenders. In 2016 she won a place on the Escalator writer development scheme run by Writers’ Centre Norwich and in 2017 she was awarded an Arts Council England grant towards her first novel, The Varieties of Flight.

The competition now in its fifth year and open to women writers is unusual because it offers an opportunity to enter not only fiction but non-fiction, memoir, and life-writing.  This years’ winning texts will appear alongside past successful entrants in a compendium of the best of women’s contemporary short prose, launched on International Women’s Day, March 8th, 2018.

‘Congratulations to our worthy winning writers.  We had 350 entries and picking the most distinctive and ambitious texts was no easy task.  We are grateful to our brilliant judges for making such bold selections, and we really look forward to launching our compendium which will feature not only this year’s compelling and engaging writing but the best of the best in past years,’ said Belona Greenwood, co-organiser of Words and Women.

‘It has been a very exciting year for women’s writing,’ said Lynne Bryan, co-organiser. ‘We are extremely grateful to our sponsors. Hosking Houses Trust is a unique charity which offers women over the age of 40 time in which to start, continue or complete interesting or innovative work, in a residency free from the pressures of everyday life.  Jill Dawson, author of nine novels and founder of Gold Dust mentoring scheme is a wonderful supporter of our regional award.

See Words and Women’s blog for more details. Words and Women

 

Countdown To Deadline – Polish That Prose

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WORDS AND WOMEN ANNUAL NEW WRITING COMPETITION – GET YOUR ENTRIES IN!

Deadline Midnight, 15th November 2017

Win the national prize for women over 40 of £1,000 and a month’s writing residency provided by Hosking Houses Trust and a regional prize (East of England) of £600 and a mentoring session with Jill Dawson of Gold Dust.Poster 2017 Online low res

Winning entries will be published online and in a Compendium of Words and Women’s best entries from the last 4 prize-winning anthologies.

Entries can be fiction, memoir, creative non-fiction and life-writing on any theme.

2,200 words

Guest judges: Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney, authors of A Secret Sisterhood: The hidden friendship of Austen, Bronte, Eliot and Woolf. 

National prize open to women writers over the age of 40. Regional prize open to women writers over the age of 16 living or working in the East of England.

For more details email wordsandwomencomp@gmail.com or visit our blog at www.wordsandwomennorwich.blogspot.co.uk

Call Out : Solstice Shorts Festival: Dusk

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Arachne Press are on the hunt for NEW short stories, poems (and songs) on the theme of DUSK for this year’s Solstice Shorts Festival. (Previously published also welcome but won’t be included in the book- see below)

These will be performed by actors at one of 12 sites across the UK as Dusk falls on 21st December, the winter solstice and shortest day of the year.

Starting in Ellon (Aberdeenshire) at 17:07, moving through Inverness, Carlisle, Lancaster, Rossendale (Lancashire), Holyhead (Anglesey), Birmingham, Nottingham, Greenwich, Bristol, Barnstaple (Devon), and finishing in Redruth (Cornwall) at 18:20, each site will perform for approximately 45 minutes and we aim to have a live video feed so that at some point we will all be speaking at once and in the ether there will be a murmuration of voices, like starlings at dusk.

Selected work will subsequently be published in an anthology which will pay royalties. (We will try mightily to get the book out for the festival but there may not be sufficient time).

Deadline 5th November, but time is very tight so we’d appreciate it if people get their submissions in EARLY!

lots more info on Submittable https://arachnepress.submittable.com/submit

If you know any song writers, particularly if they are local to any of the sites, or poets (anywhere in UK) please pass it on!

 

The Shadow Booth – A new journal of weird & eerie fiction

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The Shadow Booth is a new journal of weird and eerie fiction, edited by Dan Coxon (Winner: Best Anthology – Saboteur Awards 2016) and published as a 200-page mass market paperback. Drawing its inspiration from the likes of Thomas Ligotti and Robert Aickman, as well as H. P. Lovecraft and Arthur Machen, The Shadow Booth explores that dark, murky territory between mainstream horror and literary fiction. From folk horror to alien gods, the journal aims to give voice to the strange and the unsettling in all its forms.

The Shadow Booth is currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter, with Volume 1 to be published later this year. Please show your support by ordering a copy! Other rewards include T-shirts, signed books, and critiques of your short stories – there’s even a professional copy-edit of a novel manuscript up for grabs.

Featuring stories by:

  • Paul Tremblay
  • Malcolm Devlin
  • Richard Thomas
  • Stephen Hargadon
  • Annie Neugebauer
  • Richard V. Hirst
  • Sarah Read
  • Timothy J. Jarvis
  • Gary Budden
  • David Hartley
  • Dan Carpenter
  • Joseph Sale

To find out more, read editor Dan Coxon’s essay on the weird in fiction: ‘Face the Strange: A Case for the Weird and the Eerie‘.

WORDS AND WOMEN IS OPEN FOR ENTRIES

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WORDS AND WOMEN ANNUAL NEW WRITING COMPETITION IS OPEN FOR ENTRIES

Deadline Midnight, 15th November 2017

The short prose competition offers the opportunity to enter not only short stories but non-fiction, memoir, and life-writing and this year’s guest judges arrive fresh from non-fiction triumph with their co-authored book, A Secret Sisterhood: The hidden friendships of Austen, Bronte, Eliot and Woolf.  Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney are also award-winning writers of fiction. Emily is a winner of the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, and Emma is author of the award-winning novel Owl Song at Dawn. They co-run SomethingRhymed.com, a website that celebrates female literary friendship.

Emma S and Emily M

Both judges are looking ‘for compelling voices that combine a sensitivity to the musicality of language with a story that holds the reader’s attention from beginning to end.’ Narratives that are nuanced, complex and unusual will make them sit up and take note.

The national award, generously sponsored by Hosking Houses Trust, offers women writers over the age of 40 the opportunity to win £1,000 cash and a month-long writing retreat at Church Cottage, Stratford-Upon-Avon.

The East of England prize offers the winner £600 and a mentoring session with Jill Dawson of Gold Dust.  Both national and regional winners will be published in a compendium of the best stories published by Words and Women over the last five years. The compendium will be launched on International Women’s Day, 8th March 2018 in Norwich, as part of a year of activities supporting The Year of Publishing Women, a provocation launched in Norwich last year by Kamila Shamsie and supported by Words and Women.Young W logo copy 1

‘We are very grateful and excited that Hosking Houses Trust has agreed to sponsor our competition with such a substantial national prize for a second year. It is a brilliant opportunity for women writers over 40 and we are looking forward to receiving entries from Billericay to Belfast.  And to have Jill Dawson’s mentoring session again as part of our regional prize is immensely supportive and provides a great opportunity for our regional winner,’ said Bel Greenwood, co-organiser of Words and Women.

‘This year, we have two outstanding guest judges with experience of both non-fiction and fiction, and we are looking forward to working with them and hearing their views on the selected long-list,’ said Lynne Bryan, co-organiser of Words And Women. ‘We work closely with the judges to select the winners but ultimately it is their choice after much discussion! It’s always an exciting process.’

Hosking Houses Trust is a unique charity which offers women over the age of 40 time in which to start, continue or complete interesting or innovative work, in a residency free from the pressures of everyday life. Writers who have been awarded residencies include Joan Bakewell and Sally Vickers.

Jill Dawson is the author of nine novels, including the best-selling Fred and Edie, (short-listed for The Whitbread and Orange Prize) and Watch Me Disappear (long-listed for the Orange Prize). Her novel The Great Lover, about the poet Rupert Brooke, published in 2009, was a best-seller and a Richard and Judy Summer Read.   Her latest is The Crime Writer, about Patricia Highsmith. Jill is the founder of Gold Dust, a high calibre mentoring scheme.  Gold Dust will offer all entrants to our competition a special discount on their mentoring scheme.

The Words and Women prose competition has proved itself to be a great showcase and previous winners have gone on to secure agent representation and increased interest in their work.

Entries should be 2,200 words or under.  Short works of fiction of any genre, memoir, life-writing, essays and creative non-fiction are all welcome. Extracts from longer works will not be considered. The deadline is 15th November 2017.  Winners will be announced in January 2018.  See www.wordsandwomennorwich.blogspot.co.uk for details

 

Need an opportunity to express yourself?

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2017 Ouen Press Short Story Competition on ‘Taste’

Calling out to all talented wordsmiths for compelling, imaginative stories

For the third year running Ouen Press are delighted to extend an invitation for writers to submit an original short story in line with this year’s theme – ‘Taste’. Winning authors will receive cash prizes and be published in an anthology early in the New Year. This follows on from the popularity of past competitions and subsequent publication of the winning entries in Journey through Uncertainty & Last Call.

The short story must be a work of fiction that explores the concept of ‘Taste’ within its theme.  The ideal submission will be a well-crafted, compelling story – the judges will be particularly interested in imaginative interpretations of one or more of the various meanings that could be derived from the term ‘Taste’.

Deadline for entries is 31st December 2017 – full information and rules of the competition, which is open to writers worldwide, can be found at www.ouenpress.com

—————————————————————————————————

Ouen Press is a small independent publisher seeking to establish a close working relationship with an ensemble of gifted storytellers, capable of offering readers compelling tales.

Both Journey through Uncertainty & other short stories AND Last Call & other short stories – distinctive anthologies including the winners from the 2016 & 2015 Ouen Press short story competitions respectively are available from Amazon in paperback & eBook.

For updates on our activities – we’d be delighted if you would come follow us on Twitter @OuenP or Like our Facebook page @OuenPress

Arachne Press celebrates 5 years of short stories and more #Arachne5

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Arachne Press are celebrating and you are invited to…

the FREE 5th Anniversary Party
Friday 8th September 2017 6.30-9.30pm
Manor House Library
34 Old Road
SE13 5SY
Free tickets for the party: eventbrite

Readings of Poetry & Stories from Sarah Lawson, Carolyn Eden Liam Hogan, Cherry Potts, Katy Darby, Kate Foley, Jeremy Dixon, Ghillian Potts, Nichol Wilmor

and Live Music from Ian Kennedy & Sarah Lloyd and Summer All Year Long

Refreshments Available for a Modest Donation, Books on Sale – special offers

PLUS

We will be Touring a Retrospective Selection of Stories & Poems until December 2017, starting at Archway With Words festival on 27th September at Archway Library.
If you would like to invite us to your bookshop, library, festival, live lit night, college, or school, get in touch

Special Offers on Books bought direct from our website (our first 5 Short Story titles at £5 each, plus other reductions)

Free Books available to Libraries and book charities (our first 5 titles available free to bona fide libraries and book charities – you just pay for delivery get in touch)

A three-year plan of new publications including new poetry collections from Jeremy Dixon, Kate Foley, Cathy Bryant

The remaining YA titles of the Brook Storyteller series from Ghillian Potts

A women only anthology in collaboration with Liars League to celebrate the anniversary of women getting the vote.
An anthology to commemorate the ending of WWI, provisionally entitled An Outbreak of Peace.
a Story Sessions anthology – stories and poems by people who have taken part in Story Sessions who we haven’t already published.
Possibles
A 5 poet anthology – exact inclusions to be confirmed, but people we have only so far published in anthologies
A 5 author story anthology – exact inclusions to be confirmed, but people we have only so far published in anthologies
Plus others including novels, still in consideration.
And the next 3 Solstice Shorts Festivals will be: Dusk 21st December 2017, Dawn 21st December 2018 and Time & Tide 21st December 2019 (this one will be all day as it falls at the weekend), so lots more short story opportunities to contribute to or come along and enjoy.

The Walter Swan Short Story Prize (Competition)

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The Walter Swan Short Story Prize, run by the Northern Short Story Festival and Leeds Big Bookend in partnership with the Walter Swan Trust, is now open for entries. Judges are Anna Chilvers and Angela Readman.

We are looking for great new short stories. Around twenty selected short stories will be published in our anthology, to be published by Valley Press in May 2018, and three winners will be awarded cash prizes. There is no theme and you do not have to live in the North of England to enter.

“The common themes throughout Walt’s life were kindness, warmth and humour. He was always sociable and had a great talent for friendship. Much of his time was dedicated to others as a family member, friend, teacher and director, and he provided support, encouragement and inspiration in each of these roles. Walt was passionate about creative writing of all genres and, although he was extremely talented in his own right, it is his enthusiasm for the work of others which is the legacy that the Walter Swan Trust now aims to continue.”

1st Prize £200

2nd Prize £100

3rd Prize £50

Enter using our Submittable link here. See the Big Bookend website for further T&Cs.