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Bulwer-Lytton

Bulwer-Lytton 2010

Bulwer Lytton Prize for bad writing

This year’s Bulwer-Lytton Prize, the annual award for the worst opening sentence, has gone to Molly Ringle's comparison of a lovers' kiss with the sucking of a thirsty rodent:

‘For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity's affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss – a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were   Read more

© WritersServices 2016-16

Bulwer-Lytton 2011

Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest 2011

The winner of the 2011 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest

Coming from the University of San Jose, this entertaining competition challenges the writer to compose the opening sentence of the worst of all possible novels. Follow its 'childishly simple' rules, 'wretched writers welcome'. www.bulwer-lytton.com

is Sue Fondrie with this first line:

‘Cheryl’s mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories.’   Read more

© WritersServices 2016-16
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4 January 2021 - What's new

January 2021
  • ‘The thing I like about novels is that they are a more forgiving form. You can make missteps. It's harder to write a really good short story - I'm more aware of the flaws in my short stories.
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The 2021 International Book and Pamphlet Competition

Information

Closing date: 
1 March 2021
Entry: 
Open internationally. Entry fee £28, £25 to subscribers to The North
Prize: 
Publication by Smith|Doorstop Books; a share of £2,000 cash; a launch reading; publication in the North magazine; book vouchers from Inpress Books

The 2021 International Book & Pamphlet Competition is now open for entries

Judged by Daljit Nagra & Pascale Petit

DEADLINE: last post on Monday 1st March 2021, or midnight on Monday 1st March 2021 for online entrants.

ENTRY FEE: £28, or £25 for North subscribers, Friends of the Poetry Business and members of the Poetry Society.  Read more

'People have many cruel expectations from writers. People expect novelists to live on a hill with three kids and a spouse, people expect children's story writers to never have sex, and people expect all great poets to be dead. And these are all very difficult expectations to fulfill, I think.'

— C. JoyBell C.

'I have to know where I'm going'

4 January 2021

‘When I'm putting together a novel, I leave all the doors and windows open so the characters can come in and just as easily leave. I don't take notes. Once I start writing things down, I feel like I'm nailing the story in place. When I rely on my faulty memory, the pieces are free to move.  Read more

28 December 2020 - What's new

December 2020
  • ‘No one reads your book as closely as a translator does, which is something you learn very quickly. I'm in such awe of them. They also read beneath it and around it. They make me consider things I thought I knew the meaning of because I use those words in everyday dialect and that's how the characters express themselves.
  Read more