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Showing posts from December, 2024

The Beacon Flash Story Prize

 Full details  BeaconFlash is a 500-word short story competition, offering extended critique and online publication to winners. There are eight prizes this year, totalling at least £630. Profit goes to the Beacon Villages Community Library. The 2024/25 competition will be judged by author, freelance editor and writing tutor Morgen Bailey. The competition is open for entries from August 2024 to May 2025. A total of eight prizes will be awarded, including eight free passes to the following year’s BeaconLit Festival (worth £35 in 2024). First prize is £75 plus up to 5,000 words critique* from the competition’s judge Morgen Bailey (worth £100) and free entry to the following year’s BeaconLit festival in July 2025 with publication on the BeaconLit website. We are keen to encourage quality, so suggest writers to check their stories before submitting using Prowritingaid . They have free and paid versions and are the best writing software we know to help impr...

First Annual Little Kanawha Reading Series Chapbook Contest

 Full details  Glenville State University’s Little Kanawha Reading Series is proud to announce its inaugural Chapbook Contest. We invite poets and prose writers to submit works that celebrate and explore the rich cultural tapestry of Appalachia. Content Open to poetry and prose submissions - 15 to 25 pages of poetry or prose   Only one manuscript per genre per author per reading period   Previously published poems, stories, essays, and excerpts may be included in your manuscript. Please provide publication acknowledgements (title of work, where and when published) in the body of your email.   Submissions must embody at least one of the following Appalachian literary features: - Strong sense of place and connection to the Appalachian landscape - Exploration of Appalachian voice - Exploration of Appalachian folklore, myths, or legends - Themes of Appalachian family, community, and/or cultural heritage - Exploration of Appalachian rural life and traditions Pr...

Ethos Short Story Contest

  Full details  6th Annual Short Short Story Contest. The challenge: write a story using 100 words. Write on one of these topics: envy, eyeglasses, nightmares, turtles. Open to all ages. Writers who reside outside the U.S. can participate Cash Prizes + e-publication   The Topics Choose one of these topics: envy eyeglasses nightmares turtles You may submit as many stories as you want. ​ Stories must be your original idea and work.   ​ ​​​​​ ​ ​ ​  

The Elmbridge Literary Competition 2024/25

 Full details  Whether winding through the great cities of the world, or meandering across quiet country landscapes, Rivers have always fascinated writers and poets. To commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Death of RC Sherriff and the Anniversary of the publication of ‘Three Men In A Boat’, The 20th Elmbridge Literary Competition is looking for short stories and poems on the theme of ‘The River’.    Rivers flow through literature, whether as tributaries representing the journey through life, or as passage to the Underworld. They have served as home to Mr Toad and friends, the lair of goat-eating trolls and have been there to mess about on, as Huckleberry Finn or the three men in Jerome K Jerome’s classic story can attest. Today they are at the heart of the environmental debate. RC Sherriff, the author of ‘Journey’s End’, spent many hours on the river. A memorial to his passion for rowing, The Rowing Eight, still stands on the banks of The River T...

Murder Sqaud Short Story Competiton

  Full details  In 2025, Murder Squad celebrates its 25 th Anniversary . Yes, astonishingly, it’s twenty-five years since seven unknown, mid-list crime writers joined forces to publicise our work. Four of the original founders remain, plus two (relative) newbies. The squad has garnered many accolades and awards during that time – and now boasts not one, but TWO Diamond Dagger winners! To mark this special year, we are running a short story competition with the theme ‘Anniversary’ . Submissions should be crime-themed in the broadest sense. The competition is open to new/emerging writers (aged over 18) who have not had a full-length novel or story collection published. For clarity, this includes self-published novels. We are looking for original stories up to 1500 words in length that grip us and make us eager to find out what happens. Deadline : This is a one-off 25th anniversary...

Magi Anthology

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 Full details  Bridge House Annual Anthology Open 7 December 2024 to 28 February 2025   The theme for the 2025  is  'Magi'  We are seeking stories between 1000 and 5000 words on the subject of ‘Magi’. This could be retelling of the nativity story, an alternative telling (perhaps the Magi were all women, for instance, or maybe they didn’t give the game away to Herod), or a different interpretation of what ‘Magi’ means. It is fine to concentrate on just one wise person as this will be a collection of stories about Magi. Maybe you can even surprise us with a really quirky definition of the word.              New writers, established writers and writers we've included in other anthologies are all equally welcome.       Timeline Submissions accepted 7 December 2024 until 28 February 2025 Editors' decisions By 31 March 2025 or there abouts! Editorial 1 April until 30 June 2025...

The Orwell Youth Prize

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 Full details  The Orwell Youth Prize gives you:  the freedom to write about what matters to you, in your own way support to make your work the best it can be a platform for your voice and ideas a chance to win a cash prize and books for you and for your school “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.” –  George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four What does freedom mean to you? When do you feel most free? What threats are there to freedom, in this country and around the world? What can be done to protect freedoms, of all kinds, for all people? George Orwell writes and thinks about many different kinds of freedom in his novels, his essays, and non-fiction, from freedom of thought and imagination to political freedom and freedom from poverty. Head to our Inspiration page to discover quotes from Orwell’s own work, and prompts to help you start thinking about how they might relate to your own ideas and experien...