Tag Archives: prize

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.

Short Fiction Prize now open

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The editorial team at Short Fiction journal are excited to announce the relaunch of our internationally-renowned Prize, now the Short Fiction/University of Essex Prize. It offers £500 for the winner and £250 for the runner-up, and will be judged by acclaimed author Jon McGregor.

Submissions are open now! The deadline is 31 March 2020, but if you enter in January or February, you’ll benefit from a discounted entry fee of £7 instead of £9. We are also offering 25 free entries for writers for whom the fee would be a barrier to entry – but hurry, as these are offered first-come, first-served.

It’s the start of a new and exciting time for us, as we’re affiliating with the University of Essex LiFTS department – not just through their sponsorship of the Prize, but also to support our publishing excellent short fiction as we head into the new decade. In the coming year we’ll be getting into a position to handle submissions through Submittable, reduce our response times and – best of all – significantly increase our payments to writers.

But, for now, the Prize! All details are on the Competition page of our website, but the headlines are: it’s open internationally, judged blind, with a maximum length of 5,000 words. A shortlist will be announced in May, with the winner and runner-up chosen by Jon McGregor and announced in June.

We can’t wait to start reading your entries – and we’d really appreciate it if you could spread the word about the Prize through your own networks. Thanks!

Ruby, Agri, Liam, Maria, Emma, Naush and Jon

Writing Competition: Short Story, Flash Fiction, Poetry

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Just over a week to go now for this great competition for a great cause. So get finalising those poems, flash fictions and short stories. Closing date is next Friday 20th July at 17.00hrs.

Just over 3 weeks to go on this one so get the biros, pencils and laptops working. Closes 5 pm on 20th July

Writing Competition in aid of the Michael Mullan Cancer Fund.

Michael Mullan (26) is battling cancer for third time and needs funds to continue availing of life saving treatment in Boston that is not available in Ireland.

How to Enter

  • Email your short story, flash fiction or poetry entry to: mmcancerfundwritingcompetition@gmail.com.

  • Pay: PayPal.Me/mmcancerfund or by clicking here. Donations in excess of the stipulated entry fee would be most welcome for this deserving cause.

  • Competition is open in Ireland and internationally.

  • Longlist of top 20 authors will be published on www.michaelmullancancerfund.com in mid-August 2018.

  • Shortlist of top 6 authors will be published in early September.

  • Winners will be announced and prizes will be awarded at Kildare Readers Festival on 3rd October 2018.

  • Please read the Terms & Conditions before entering: Terms & Conditions

Ruth Rendell Short Story Competition 2017

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Tuesday 1st August 2017 sees the launch of the sixth biennial Ruth Rendell Short Story Competition hosted by the award-winning charity InterAct Stroke Support.

The short story competition was first launched in 2008 and the challenge remains the same: writers are requested to write a piece, in any genre, in no more than 1000 words. The winner of the competition will write four further stories for InterAct Stroke Support over the course of one year and will receive £1000.

The closing date for submissions is Friday 22nd December 2017 and first place will be awarded at the winner’s ceremony in 2018 (date and venue to be confirmed).

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Baroness Ruth Rendell, a beloved patron, judge and friend of InterAct put her name to the award after the first short story competition in 2008 and sadly passed away in 2015. The competition continues to inspire writers in her honour.

 

InterAct Stroke Support is the only UK charity dedicated to supporting stroke recovery by using professional actors to deliver hospital readings and community projects. InterAct specialises in delivering stimulating and inspiring short stories specially selected to suit the needs of stroke patients.  The readings are designed to assist recovery by improving mood, stimulating the brain and providing a much-needed creative outlet.

Stories of any genre can be submitted by email or post and the submission fee is £15.00 per story. Please find more details and terms and conditions of entry on the InterAct Stroke Support website: www.interactstrokesupport.org/news

 

Words X Images competition – SOURCE magazine – London

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We’re very happy to announce that the shortlist of photos for the Words X Images competition for Source magazine is now available to writers!

Get in touch now to register and receive the photos that will inspire your work!

Deadline is March 13th.

Each published winner (3 photographers, 3 writers) will receive a £100 prize.

No entry fee.

We’re happy to answer any questions you may have, so please feel free to get in touch: p.sabatini@totality.co.uk

We hope these will capture your imagination & look really forward to reading your work – good luck!

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Eligibility:

-The writer must either reside in or belong to a writing club within the key London boroughs surrounding Woodberry Down (Haringey, Islington, Hackney)

-The story must be related to and inspired by one of Totality’s chosen photographs.

-Short stories must be between 500 and 1,000 words

Subject:

– Given the criteria above are met, the subject matter is open to the writer, fiction or non-fiction, on the conditio
n that the short story is set in and around the key borough/s

Before you get going, please ensure you have read the criteria here:

http://www.totality.uk.com/news/short-story-competition-register-your-interest-now    

Short story competition for North London’s magazine SOURCE

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Source magazine would like to invite creative writers of any level to submit work/s for our Words X Images project where writers will have the chance to have their work published in Source issue 5 alongside the chosen inspirational photo.

Three overall winners will be chosen based on the best short story and photo collaboration.

Each published winner (3 photographers, 3 writers) will receive a £100 prize.

No entry fee.

REGISTER YOUR INTEREST NOW to receive the shortlist of photos to inspire your story on 1st March 2017

Contact: p.sabatini@totality.co.uk

About us:

Source Magazine is a celebration of the lifestyle that can be enjoyed in and around north London’s Woodberry Down (Finsbury Park), a regeneration development of more than 5,500 homes located on the banks of the New River and 42 acres of open water at the Stoke Newington Reservoirs – including a nature reserve.

You can view the latest issue online here: Source Magazine Issue 4

Source is a free, bi-annual publication, available in print and online. 10,000 print copies are distributed at entertainment, leisure, F&B, arts and culture and corporate venues across Haringey, Hackney, Islington and The City. E.g. The Hoxton Hotel, Vice Media Group, The Hackney Empire etc.

Eligibility:

  • The writer must either reside in or belong to a writing club within the key London boroughs surrounding Woodberry Down (Haringey, Islington, Hackney)
  • The story must be related to and inspired by one of Totality’s chosen photographs.
  • Short stories must be between 500 and 1,000 words

Subject:

  • Given the criteria above are met, the subject matter is open to the writer, fiction or non-fiction, on the condition that the short story is set in and around the key borough/s

Submission date:

Click here for more information.

Get in touch now!

The Elbow Room Prize 2016

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The Elbow Room Prize has returned for a second year to celebrate art in all guises. The deadline is Sunday the 14th of August at midnight GMT.

We at Elbow Room a delighted to return with The Elbow Room Prize for a second year. With the deadline fast approaching we want to make sure everyone has had their chance to enter. We love short fiction of every kind at Elbow Room and can think of nothing more enjoyable than poring over well crafted fiction from every genre, style and subject out there.

The prize will culminate in a London based exhibition, reading and anthology publication. We once again look forward to receiving and sharing your gems with the world.

For more details about the event take a look at The Elbow Room Prize 2015.

The Elbow Room Prize 2015 anthology is available for sale in our shop, www.elbow-room.org/shop

Winners will be notified by Wednesday the 30th of September via email and will be publicised on the website soon after.

The event will be held towards the end of October and will be publicised after the winners are announced.

The Judging Panel:

Zelda Chappel grew up in London and the South of England. She is co-curator at Elbow Room. She writes, often on the back of things and never in black ink. Her work has been published in a number of publications both online and in print. in 2014, Zelda won the Battered Moons Poetry Competition. Her debut collection, Girl in the Dog-tooth Coat was published by Bare Fiction in 2015.

Harry Denniston is a short story writer, poet and playwright currently based in London. His work has been published in places such as Elbow Room, Inky Needles, Dactyl and Quick Fictions, and his plays have been performed in London, Norwich and Edinburgh. Harry was one of the inaugural Elbow Room Prize winners.

Rosie Sherwood is an artist, scholar and independent publisher. As the heart of Sherwood’s interdisciplinary practise is a fascination with time and a desire to tell stories. In 2012 Sherwood founded As Yet Untitled and started publishing Elbow Room. Sherwood graduated from Camberwell College of Arts with an MA in Book Arts in 2013. She has delivered conference papers and University lectures across the country. Sherwood has taken part in artist book fairs, as well as group and solo exhibition, most recently at the Southbank Centre. Sherwood’s work can be found in special collections including The Poetry Library, Tate Library and Archive and the national libraries of both Victoria and Queensland (Australia).

Categories

For full details on each category and how to enter please visit our website www.elbow-room.org

Poetry

(For full details on submitting your poetry to The Elbow Room Prize click HERE or on POETRY box)

Prose

(For full details on submitting your short fiction to The Elbow Room Prize click HERE or on SHORT FICTION box)

Visual Arts

(For full details on submitting your visual arts to The Elbow Room Prize click HERE or on VISUAL ARTS box)

Prizes

For each category:

First prize in each category: £200

Second and third prizes in each category: £50 each

All winners will be published in a special competition anthology edition of Elbow Room.

All winners will be featured in a London based exhibition and live event.

 

FAQ (for all categories)

You do not have to be a London (or even UK) based artist/writer to enter. If your work is selected and you are unable to attend or transport your work to the event, solutions will be found to ensure you are featured.

All entries will be judged anonymously so it is important that your name does not appear anywhere on the work itself.

Visual Arts include (but are not limited to) Painting, Printmaking, Photography, Drawing, Illustration, Sculpture, Video Arts, Animation, Books Arts and mixed media pieces. If you are unsure if your work qualifies please do not hesitate to contact us.

For the visual arts category we are classifying a piece of work as a single image, video, sculpture or object. This can include a book (or similar) that includes multiple images within it so long at they are contained/bound together. If you are unsure if your work qualifies do not hesitate to contact us for further details.

The visual arts submissions will be being judged as the based on the quality of the original piece of work rather than how it will appear in publication format. If multiple images of the same piece of work are needed to best display it for the judges (eg an installation or sculptor) that is completely acceptable.

We will happily accept work by artists and writers working collaboratively, please simply include all your names and biographical details in the body of your email. Please do not hesitate to contact us for further details if required.

The piece submitted can be from a larger body of work or series. If this is the case please indicate in the description of the work.

Any video art or animation entrees must be no longer than 20 minutes.

If your work is untitled that is fine but please clearly state this.

Any further questions can be sent to elbowroomsubmissions@gmail.com with the subject line Elbow Room Competition Question.

Elbow Room reserves the right to change the judging panel or not to award prizes.

We reserve the right to use your work to promote the event but all copyright remains with the writers/artists.

Small Wonder Short Story Festival

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Don’t miss out on Small Wonder – the jewel in the crown of short fiction calendar!

Running from 28 September to 2 October at Charleston, the Bloomsbury home of art and ideas, nestled in the South Downs in East Sussex (shuttle buses to and from Lewes Station for every event).

Catch Ali Smith receiving the Lifetime’s Excellence in Short Fiction Award and a new generation of prize-winning writers including Kevin Barry, Eimear McBride, Lisa McInerney, Kei Miller and Petina Gappah. Lionel Shriver, Elif Shafek and Salley Vickers pay tribute to Charlotte Brontë, and actress Juliet Stevenson reads Poems the Make Grown Women Cry. Join in The Literary Death Match and the Short Story Slam and hone your own writing skills in creative writing workshops.

Browse the programme and book tickets now!

AMBIT summer competition 2016

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Ambit Magazine announces the launch of its 2016 Short Fiction and Poetry Competition

We are looking for the most exciting flash fiction (up to 1000 words) and if you write poetry – you can submit that too (max 42 lines per poem). There’s no theme – just send us your best work on any subject, in any style. We wish you luck!

Prizes

First place prize in each category will be £500, second place £250, and third £100.

All six prize-winning pieces will be published in issue 226 of Ambit Magazine, and winners will be invited to read at the launch on 25 October 2016 in London.

Deadline

The competition open as of 1 May, closing on 1 July.

The winners will be announced on our website www.ambitmagazine.co.uk

Entry Details

Online submissions, all rules and guidelines are here – www.ambit.submittable.com

If you want to enter by post, or to find out about our fabulous judges David Gaffney for fiction, Sarah Howe for poetry, go to this page on our website:
www.ambitmagazine.co.uk/ambit-summer-competition-2016

All judging will be done strictly anonymously.

Seán Ó Faoláin International Short Story Competition: deadline 31 July

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The Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Competition, hosted by the Munster Literature Centre and Southword Journal, is an annual short story competition open to writers from around the world, submissions accepted from May to July annually. It is dedicated to one of Ireland’s most accomplished story writers and theorists, sponsored by the Munster Literature Centre. If the winner comes to Cork to collect their prize, we will lavish them with hotel accommodation, meals, drinks and VIP access to the literary stars at the Cork International Short Story Festival (23 – 26 September 2015). The Munster Literature Centre is a not-for-profit organisation; all moneys raised from the competition benefits writers and writing.

For more information, including submission guidelines please visit munsterlit.ie

First Prize: €2,000*, publication in the literary journal Southword, AND a week-long residency at Anam Cara Writer’s and Artist’s Retreat.

*(approx $2153/£1431 in April 2015),

Second Prize: €500 and publication in Southword.

Four more shortlisted entries will be selected for publication in Southword and receive a publication fee of €120.

More about the 2015 Judge Danielle McLaughlin

Danielle McLaughlin

Danielle McLaughlin lives in County Cork. Her stories have appeared in The Stinging Fly, Southword, Long Story, Short, The Irish Times, Boyne Berries, Crannóg, The Burning Bush 2, Inktears, and Hollybough. They have also been published in various anthologies, most recently Willesden Herald New Short Stories 7 (2013), The Salt Anthology of New Writing 2013, Scraps – the NFFD Anthology 2013 and have been broadcast on RTE Radio. She has won a number of prizes for short fiction including the Writing Spirit Award for Fiction 2010, the From the Well Short Story Competition 2012, the William Trevor/Elizabeth Bowen International Short Story Competition 2012, The Willesden Herald Short Story Competition 2012 – 2013, the Merriman Short Story Competition in memory of Maeve Binchy, and the Dromineer Literary Festival Short Story Competition 2013. She was awarded an Arts Council Bursary in 2013. Her début collection is forthcoming from The Stinging Fly.

Read her story ‘The Dinosaurs on Other Planets’ in The New Yorker

New Yorker interview with Danielle McLaughlin

Want to receive the results of the competition by email?
You’ll be one of the first to see the list of winning stories by
signing up for our email newsletter.

AMBIT’S 1ST ANNUAL SHORT FICTION COMPETITION OPENS MAY 1ST, 2015

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Ambit launches its first annual short fiction competition in May, after the success of our poetry competition last year.

The competition will be judged by Alison Moore, and will run from May 1st – July 15th. Winners will be announced on September 1st  2015. First, second and third prizes will be awarded (£500, £250 and £100 respectively) and the three winners will be published in Ambit 222, out in October, and invited to read at our launch party with Alison Moore.

We are accepting stories of anything up to 1000 words. It costs £7 to submit one story to our competition, but if you enter enough stories you will qualify for a free one year subscription to Ambit (so, 4 entries for UK subscription, 6 for the rest of the world).

Please submit your entries via our Submittable portal where full directions can be found.

Do read our competition guidelines carefully at ambitmagazine.co.uk.

All stories will be read with great care and completely anonymously.

Good luck to all!
The Ambit Editors

 

 

SHORT FICTION COMPETITION CLOSING FOR ENTRIES SOON

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There is just one week left to get your entries in for the Short FICTION 2015 Short Story Prize.

FIRST PRIZE: £500 + PUBLICATION    SECOND PRIZE: £100

Open for entries until March 31st  2015

Enter up to 2 stories and get a free copy of our next issue.

JUDGES: Alison MacLeod    Anthony Caleshu

Full details of how to enter can be found by following the link HERE. GOOD LUCK!

SF Competition 2015

March Fortnightly Round-Up I

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Hello, all!
Happy March! Some spring-like short story opportunities below for your delectation!

Tania x

Lit Mags

Lit mag Trafika Europe’s invites you to visit their radio campaign! Flash: The Short Short Story magazine has launched issue 7.2, and Jotters United celebrates its first birthday with a call for submissions for its anniversary issue.

Octavius magazine has relaunched – and is now open to submissions. The Casket of Fictional Delights invites you to try out its Tubeflash Quizzes! Alt-Hist issue 7 is published and there’s a new issue of Jotters United, ‘Gotta Move on Out Now’. Bunbury Magazine gives us an update on the Things We ‘Ave Been Doing! Submissions are now open for Brain Of Forgetting’s 2nd issue, on the theme of ‘Poppies’. Shooter Literary Magazine is  calling for submissions for Issue #2, on the theme of ‘Union.’ . Neon Magazine has opened submissions for Battery Pack II, its second anthology of tiny stories.  Other mags still want your stories too: The Manchester Review has is calling for your submissions.

Competitions & Festivals
The Short FICTION short story prize closes on March 31st. The Felixtstowe Book Festival’s 2015 short story competition is accepting entries until May 16th, and The Moth’s International Short Story Prize is open, deadline June 30th. Holland Park Press is running a short story competition, I Is Another, deadline 31 August.

Workshops and Courses
Paul McVeigh is running a workshop in March – That Killer First Page – Submitting to Competitions & Journals (Belfast). Write Around Town, who are behind Writing Maps, are holding a series of writing workshops in London in April.

Tips & Advice
Writing Short Fiction introduces five new contributors.

Live Lit

Words and Women are holding an event in Norwich to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8th and to launch their new collection of short prose. Fictions Of Every Kind’s next event, with the theme of ‘Relativity’ is on April 14th in Leeds.

Last Minutes and Gentle Reminders
March 16th is the deadline for Mslexia’s 2015 short story competition (women only).

If you are eager for even more short-story-related news, do follow ShortStops on Twitter where, when we should be writing, we spend (far too) much time passing on news from lit mags, live lit events, short story workshops and festivals! If you’d like to review an event or a publication, drop me a line.

Happy reading, writing, listening and performing!
Tania x

Feb Fortnightly Round-Up II

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Welcome to February’s second fortnightly round-up. Here’s what’s been on a packed ShortStops blog over the past few weeks…
Tania x

Lit Mags

Octavius magazine has relaunched – and is now open to submissions. The Casket of Fictional Delights invites you to try out its Tubeflash Quizzes! Alt-Hist issue 7 is published and there’s a new issue of Jotters United, ‘Gotta Move on Out Now’. Bunbury Magazine gives us an update on the Things We ‘Ave Been Doing! Submissions are now open for Brain Of Forgetting’s 2nd issue, on the theme of ‘Poppies’.

February is ‘Otherworldly Originals Month’ over at Short Story Sunday! Shooter Literary Magazine is  calling for submissions for Issue #2, on the theme of ‘Union.’ . Neon Magazine has opened submissions for Battery Pack II, its second anthology of tiny stories.  Other mags still want your stories too: The Manchester Review has is calling for your submissions.

Competitions & Festivals
Holland Park Press is running a short story competition, I Is Another, deadline 31 August. Mslexia’s 2015 short story competition is accepting entries (women only), deadline March 16th. The Short FICTION short story prize is open for entries, deadline March 31st, as are the Felixtstowe Book Festival’s 2015 short story competition, deadline May 16th and The Moth’s International Short Story Prize, deadline June 30th.

Workshops and Courses
Paul McVeigh is running two workshops in March – on Social Media For Writers (London) and That Killer First Page – Submitting to Competitions & Journals (Belfast). Write Around Town, who are behind Writing Maps, are holding a series of writing workshops in London in April. Alison Clayborn is running a Flash Fiction workshop  on Feb 18th at the Brunel Museum in London.

Tips & Advice
Writing Short Fiction introduces some new February Faces on the site.

Live Lit

White Rabbit is having a Curioser and Curioser storytelling tea party on Feb 20th in London. Stand-Up Tragedy’s next event, Tragic Winter, is in London on Feb 28th and they are calling for submissions for the SUT blog. Words and Women are holding an event in Norwich to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8thand to launch their new collection of short prose.

Last Minutes and Gentle Reminders
You have until Feb 28th to submit your short stories for an anthology inspired by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, to be published by Freight Books.

Coming Up
Keep an eye on the blog tomorrow (Tuesday) for details of lit mag Trafika Europe’s radio campaign!

If you are eager for even more short-story-related news, do follow ShortStops on Twitter where, when we should be writing, we spend (far too) much time passing on news from lit mags, live lit events, short story workshops and festivals! If you’d like to review an event or a publication, drop me a line.

Happy reading, writing, listening and performing!
Tania x

Magic Oxygen Literary Competition to Create a Tropical Word Forest

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Writing competition closing dates punctuate the diary of many a creative writer and there’s little more tempting than a four figure 1st prize and the promise of going into print, to get the ideas flowing.

Magic Oxygen Publishing, run by Tracey and Simon West, has just launched a new annual prize for literary excellence in short stories and poetry. It has an impressive prize fund of £1,000 1st, £300 2nd, £100 3rd and two highly commended prizes of £50 in both categories, kindly sponsored by Coolio. The winners and shortlisted entries will also be taken into print.

As well as nurturing fresh literary talent, they also want the contest to help reduce the world’s carbon footprint with a four-pronged approach and one absolutely unique *eco-element:-

  • by judging electronically, doing minimal printing, conserving ink and paper
  • encouraging entrants to keep submissions on cloud storage, conserving their resources
  • producing a print on demand anthology in FSC certified paper and an e-book
  • * by planting a tree for every single entry received and building a new classroom at the Kundeni School in Bore, Kenya

Continue reading →

RAC National Short Story Competition

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Are you an inspiring writer?

The RAC are launching a nationwide short story competition on the theme of driving in Europe. The aim is to bring to life the joy of driving in Europe. The winner will have the opportunity to win £500 and have their story published by the RAC.

Stories must encompass the theme of driving abroad within the European Union, and all entries will be judged by acclaimed writer, Ben Hatch, author of hilarious  travel books such as Are We There Yet and The Road to Rouen.

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Ben Hatch said: “It’s great to see the RAC launching a national short story competition to explore in a different light the experience that driving in Europe can bring. Short stories are an excellent way of trying out writing styles and narratives and can be a lot of fun, but that’s not to say it’s always easy. With a short story each sentence really does have to earn its place and work in terms of moving the narrative on.”

 

What are the rules?

  • “Concise and exciting writing alongside a real grasp of the driving abroad theme” – Ben Hatch.
  • Short stories must not exceed 1000 words.
  • Stories can include the UK but must include at least one European Union Country. 
  • Entrants must be aged 18 and over.
  • The story should follow a fictional narrative.
  • The competition opens from 19th May 2014 and closes on 11th Sepetember 2014.

The winner will receive £500 and RAC 5* European Breakdown Cover for a year, as well as being published in the RAC Club digital magazine. Two runners-up will be awarded £100 M&S vouchers and shortlisted entries have the chance to be published on the RAC website.

For more information and full terms and conditions, please visit:

www.rac.co.uk/short-story

 

Good luck to all writers, get creative and get writing!

 

 

Two Exciting New Story Competitions From Kingston University

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1. Kingston Writing School Hilary Mantel International Short Story Competition

The twice Man Booker Prize winning author, Hilary Mantel, will be judge for this major new competition.

First Prize £3000 and two Runners Up Prizes of £500

5000 words maximum.

2. Kingston University Press Bonnie Greer Stories to Read Aloud Competition

Alongside the international short story competition, Kingston University Press are launching a competition for Kingston residents and workers, and writers associated with the university and the Writing School. The competition will celebrate stories that work when read aloud as well as on the page. The award-winning writer, critic and Chancellor of Kingston University, Bonnie Greer, will pick the winner from shortlisted writers reading out their work.

First Prize £1000 and two Runners Up Prizes of £250

2000 Words maximum

Both competitions are open for entries from May 1 to June 30.

Winning stories and shortlisted stories will be published in two competition anthologies, and winning writers will have the opportunity to have their work considered for publication by Kingston University Press.

Please visit here to find further details and to submit your stories.

Transportation – £200 for successful submissions

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Submissions for Tasmanian/London book Islands and Cities will open on Monday, March 3rd and remain open till April 30th, 2014, midnight.

Submissions should be in the theme of ‘Islands and Cities’, and no longer than 5000 words in length.

All submissions must be original work and not be previously published.
The work must be accompanied by a short bio/statement of up to 200 words.

There will be a small entry fee of £10GBP / $15AUD, details on this and more will follow with a full submissions guideline shortly.

Click the image below to find out more soon.

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Edge Hill Prize 2014 Open For Submissions

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Hard to believe that we’re now into the eighth year of the Edge Hill Prize. The idea came up after a one day conference I organised for short story writers and critics back in 2006. We wanted to help raise the status of the form, encouraging British publishers to accept and promote single author collections. After all this time, the Edge Hill Prize is still unique in the UK. Since we began, several major new short story awards have run alongside the National Short Story Prize  – for instance the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award and the Costa Prize – but they all recognize a stand-alone story. The Frank O’Connor Award is a much bigger prize than ours, and an inspiration, but its shortlist tends to be dominated by American authors. The Edge Hill Prize awards £5000 to an author born or based in the British Isles, including Ireland, for a collection published in the previous year, with an additional £1000 Readers’ Choice prize, currently judged by BA Creative Writing students at Edge Hill. Winners so far have been Colm Tóibín, Claire Keegan, Chris Beckett, Jeremy Dyson, Graham Mort, Sarah Hall and Kevin Barry.

The deadline for entries is the first week in March. At this stage of the yearly cycle, the parcels are gradually arriving from the publishers – first, as always, the small presses, with entries from Welsh and Irish authors already looking strong. Later in March we’ll announce a longlist, narrowing that down to a shortlist of five by early May. Shortlisting is carried out by staff and postgraduates, in consultation with the three main judges. It’s a difficult and painstaking process; there can be no simple tick-box procedure. Broadly speaking, we’re looking for something that compels us to read on, something exciting in the language, and something that fully exploits the short story form. There are many gifted writers who don’t quite make the shortlist.  One or two of their stories may be outstanding, but they haven’t maintained that high standard across the whole collection. Other collections are too limited in style or subject matter, so that you feel that each story is a variation of the one that came before.

Last year the shortlisting process was made even more difficult by a record-breaking longlist. Bloomsbury had named 2012 ‘the year of the short story’, and other publishers, both independent and mainstream, seemed to share that sentiment. Even extending the shortlist to six (Kevin Barry, Emma Donoghue, Jon McGregor, Adam Marek, Jane Rogers, Lucy Wood) meant excluding some authors who in another year might have been finalists. As Graham Mort said, accepting the prize 2011, ‘literary prizes were never intended to provoke competition alone, but to celebrate diversity, quality and commitment’. The seven shortlists so far have been an inventory of the most exciting writing in the British Isles, including work by Jackie Kay, Helen Simpson, Anne Enright, A.L. Kennedy, Robert Shearman and many others.

The 2014 judging panel includes last year’s winner, Kevin Barry, Katie Allen of welovethisbook.com and Carys Bray who was the first winner of a third award category, presented for a story by a current MA Creative Writing student at Edge Hill. Her collection, Sweet Home, was subsequently published by Salt to great acclaim. With Carys on the panel, the prize has come full circle, completing the inextricable links between short story writing and reading, which turn emerging talents into established authors.

The award ceremony this year will be on 3rd July at the Free Word Centre in London. I have no idea who will be on the shortlist this year, let alone who the winner will be.

The judges’ discussions have always been spirited and amicable, fuelled by enthusiasm for the short story form, and the decisions have been difficult but always unanimous. None of us know exactly what we’re looking for, but we always recognize it when we see it.

To see terms and conditions and how to enter the competition, go to Edge Hill Prize

2014 Short Fiction Prize

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Filed under Competitions, literary magazine

First Prize: £500 + publication    Second prize: £100

Open for entries January 1st – March 31st

SF7 cover

Entry fee: £10 – submit up to 2 stories and receive a free copy of our next issue (worth £10). £5 – submit 1 story. Stories must be no longer than 5,000 words and must be unpublished in print or online. All entries will also be considered for general publication. Stories may be in any theme or genre and you can submit as many times as you like. Online entries only. Visit our website for more details. Good luck. Read an interview with Short Fiction’s co-editor Tom Vowler here.