Hastings Book Festival

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 Full details 

Welcome to our 2025 writing competitions

The categories and prizes are as follows:

  • The main Hastings Book Festival Writing competition is for writers of short story and poetry and can be on any theme. Entries are welcome from anywhere in the world.

  • The Sussex Prize is for writers living in East and West Sussex and one will be chosen from the shortlisted entries of each of the categories for the main competition.

  • The Founder's Prize is for emerging writers living within a 20-mile radius of Hastings and St Leonards-on-Sea. It is for works of creative non-fiction and the theme is 'REFLECTIONS'. This will be limited to one entry per person with a maximum of 50 entries overall.

how to enter

Please read our RULES page for details of how to format and upload your entry (or entries) and use our dedicated entry forms to enter. 
 

​

SHORT STORY enter here

(max 2500 words)

 

POETRY enter here

(max 40 lines)

 

CREATIVE NON-FICTION enter here

(max 1000 words)

PRIZES

  • The Hastings Book Festival's main competition has prizes for short story and poetry:

    1st prize £250, 2nd prize £100, and 3rd prize £50.

    Winning entries will also be published on the Hastings Book Festival website.


     

  • The Sussex Prize has one prize for short story and one prize for poetry.
 The winners will be drawn from the main prize longlists and will be judged by Robin Pridy (poetry) and Jo Norland (short story).
    The prize is sponsored by Starcroft Farm Cabins, and the short story and poetry winners will each win an independent two-night writing retreat in a cabin inspired by Sussex history! The Sussex Prize winners will also receive mentoring from local writers VG Lee (for short stories) and John McCullough (for poetry).



  • The Founder's Prize is supported by Sam Davey who founded Hastings Book Festival in 2018 (previously 'Hastings Literary Festival'). This is for creative non-fiction from new and emerging writers, living within a 20-mile radius of Hastings and St Leo

 

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