We all have a story to tell about ourselves, the good, the bad and the how did I end up there? Celebrate a snapshot of your life, a fragment in time or rear view mirror look at what was and now is.
We initially need 5,000 to 8,000 words plus a 300 word overview. If you're long listed we'll ask for a total of 15,000 words, including your original word count. Shortlisted? Then we need a total 30,000 words, again including your original entry and long listed word count.
It's your moment of truth.
Write what you know is great advice, what better than by writing a memoir. Don't think you're too ordinary - there are no ordinary lives - and don't think you're too inexperienced. Write from the heart and tell me who you are. I can't wait to read.
Kit de Waal, best selling author of Without Warning & Only Sometimes and our memoir judge.
The Creative Writing Award is open to Poetry and Short Fiction submissions on any theme, however, we are particularly interested in works that reflect upon our ever changing world.
Previous anthologies have harnessed the power of language to explore an age of unprecedented change and uncertainty. They have expressed complex emotions - telling personal and global stories. Our 2022 shortlisted works connect readers to a profound sense of self as well as their shared humanity: friendships, fairytales and romantic relationships told in new ways.
We are looking for pieces that challenge us - that redefine the parameters of form, concept and technique. Winning pieces have reflected upon both social and political structures, human relationships and experiences. They have pushed the boundaries of imagination - providing new possibilities and ideas. To find out more about our shortlist, view our Success Stories here.
The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2024 is open! Enter your poems by 31 July 2024 at foyleyoungpoets.org
The Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award is one of the biggest and most prestigious poetry competitions for 11-17 year olds in the world. Every year, 15 top winners and 85 commended poets are chosen; together, they represent some of the most exciting new voices writing today. This year's judges are the fantastic Vanessa Kisuule and Jack Underwood, and they can't wait to read your poems! If you're aged 11-17, send in your poems for the chance to be among the 100 winners and kick-start your writing career.
Poems can be on any theme and in any style but must be no longer than forty lines. You can submit as many as you like.
Winners of the award receive a fantastic range of prizes to help develop their writing. The top 15 poets receive a mentoring package with opportunities to receive support and feedback on their writing; and all 100 winners receive a year's youth membership of The Poetry SocietyLively and well-presented UK site supporting poetry with 4,000 members internationally and some thoughtful content. www.poetrysociety.org.uk and a bag full of books donated by generous publishers. The Poetry Society continues to support winners throughout their careers providing publication, performance and development opportunities, and access to a paid internship programme.
Since it began 26 years ago, the Award has kick-started the career of some of today's most exciting voices. Past winners include Jay Bernard, Sarah Howe, Helen Mort, Phoebe Power, Caroline Bird, Mukahang Limbu, Richard O'Brien and many more incredible poets. You can read last year's winning poems for inspiration in our new anthology, The Roots Belong to You.
The Ledbury Poetry Competition has opened for entries, with a closing date of 8 July. All poets writing in English are eligible, no matter where they live.
Poet Maya C Popa will be the judge:
"Audre Lorde remarked that ‘Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought.' This is among the many profound and vital truths about poetry, that it rushes forth to dismantle a silence or otherwise render it on the page. There are just as many ways to name as there are poets to do the naming. I look forward to widening my own hearing, my own thoughts, by spending time with these poems."
The first prize for the competition is £1,000 cash and a week's poetry course at Arvon. Second Prize is £500, and third prize is £250.
The winners will be invited to read at Ledbury Poetry Festival in 2025.
The Moth Short Story Prize is an international prize, open to anyone from anywhere in the world, as long as their story is original and previously unpublished. The winners are chosen by a single judge each year, who reads the stories anonymously.
This year's judge is Louise Kennedy. Louise's novel, Trespasses, won the McKitterick Prize, Debut of the Year at the British Book Awards, the John McGahern Prize and the An Post Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year, and was shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize and longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction. She is also the author of a collection of short stories, The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac.
The Prize is open to anyone over 16, as long as the work is original and previously unpublished. There is a word limit of 3,000. The entry fee is €15 per story. Closing 30 June 2024.
The winning story will be printed as part of the summer fiction series in the Irish Times, while the 2nd and 3rd-prize-winning stories will be published in the Irish Times online.
PRIZES: 1st prize €3,000 2nd prize week-long writing retreat at Circle of Misse in France plus open travel stipend 3rd prize €1,000
With thanks to Circle of Misse for the superb second prize of a week-long writing retreat in France and an open travel stipend, enabling the 2nd prize winner to travel to France from anywhere in the world.
The prize you already know and love - a worldwide publishing contract with Chicken House with a £10,000 advance (subject to contract) for a complete fiction manuscript of any genre for children aged 7 up to YA. The winning entry will be the novel that, in the opinion of the judges, demonstrates the greatest entertainment value, quality, originality and suitability for children. The winner will also be offered representation by Lydia Silver of Darley Anderson Children's Book Agency.
The Lime Pictures New Storyteller Award
We are bringing back the Lime Pictures New Storyteller Award, a bespoke prize sponsored by leading TV production company Lime Pictures, awarded to the submission which shows the greatest TV development potential and chosen by Chicken House Publisher Barry Cunningham and Lime Pictures' Tim Compton. The winner will receive a £7,500 publishing contract plus an offer of representation.
The good news is, you don't need to do anything extra to be considered for the Lime Pictures New Storyteller Award; simply enter the competition as normal and our expert team of readers will do the rest. Simple!
The competition is open RIGHT NOW and the deadline is 1st June 2024 at 11.59pm GMT. So absolutely NO EXCUSES - grab that manuscript, or a completely fresh slate, and get writing - we can't wait to read all of the brilliant stories that are just waiting to be read.
For more details on the competition, both prizes, and instructions on how to enter, please visit our submissions page. Good luck, writers!
There is also a useful Writers' Guide to help aspiring children's book authors.
Fern Press and How to Academy have partnered on a new essay award worth £3,000, in association with Tortoise Media, for unpublished authors.
Fern Press was launched by Vintage last year, while the annual non-fiction essay prize is "for those working at the frontier of creativity and thought", organisers said.
The prize is designed to find and nurture emerging non-fiction talent and will be awarded to an essay of literary merit with an international and multicultural interest. The prize encourages essays that shine a light on the universal human experience - on a micro or macro scale - and "which speak clearly to the times we live in", organisers said. The prize is open to unagented and unpublished writers from around the world, writing in the English language.
The winning writer will receive: a cash prize of £3,000; publication with Tortoise Media; literary representation by RCW literary agent Laurence Laluyaux; a five-night writing course run by How to Academy's sister company, Unmissable Courses; an appearance on How to Academy's biweekly podcast; and mentorship from a Penguin Random House UKPenguin Random House have more than 50 creative and autonomous imprints, publishing the very best books for all audiences, covering fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children’s books, autobiographies and much more. Click for Random House UK Publishers References listing editor.
The essay should be between 3,000 and 6,000 words. The prize is open to all writers who have not been published by a trade book publisher, including those who have to date only published academic papers and in other media such as magazines, newspapers and online.
The judges for the prize are writer and publisher Margaret Busby (acting as chair), RCW literary agent Laluyaux, writer Mark O'Connell, Tortoise Media managing editor Keith Blackmore and the Fern Press editorial team.
The prize will accept submissions between 2nd and 23rd April 2024. A shortlist will be announced in June 2024, with the winner announced at an event later that month.
Busby, chair of judges, said: "The Fern Academy Prize is a wonderful opportunity to showcase the potential universality of essays, foregrounding a genre of writing that at best is both accessible and multi-dimensional (and which has always been a particular favourite of mine). The time is definitely right to seek out short-form writing capable of opening minds and addressing issues that affect us all."
Fern Press and How to Academy said:
"In a deeply divided and increasingly polarised world, emerging thinkers, writers and artists have an important and powerful role to play in our navigation and understanding of different perspectives and worlds. This international prize, open to anyone writing in the English language, anywhere in the world, looks to celebrate the essay form and build bridges between analysis and the creative imagination."
If you have written a poem you think would appeal to 7-11-year olds, then why not enter the The Caterpillar Poetry Prize 2024? The prize is open to anyone over 16, and the poem can be on any subject.
The judge this year will be Joseph Coelho, who was appointed Children's Laureate in the UK in 2022. He started out as a performance poet and is committed to making the reading and writing of poetry accessible to all. He has said that poetry is often what people turn to in times of need, ‘because we instinctively know, deep down in our core, that poetry transcends.'
The winning poem will feature in the summer 2024 issue of The Caterpillar and in the Irish Times online.
Closing date 31 March 2024
‘The Caterpillar is such a unique and inspired magazine. Winning The Caterpillar Poetry Prize is all shades of wonderful!' Coral Rumble
The Rubery Prize is a prestigious international book award seeking the best books by indie writers, self published authors and books published by independent presses, judged by reputable judges. Creative writing is such a key part of life for those who enjoy writing yet it is increasingly difficult to become traditionally published. Through our reputation of finding quality and outstanding books we aim to bring recognition to the works that win and heighten an author's profile.
It is open to all writers internationally and is awarded to a book published in print or ebook form. Books published by independent presses and self published books are eligible to enter
We accept fiction (all genres), young adult, children's, biographies, non-fiction, self-help, cookery, poetry, photography etc. There are no limits on the type.
The BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University (NSSA) has opened for submissions. This is the first year of a renewed three-year partnership with Cambridge University.
Radio and TV presenter Paddy O'Connell will chair this year's BBC NSSA judging panel.
The winning author of the BBC National Short Story Award will receive £15,000, with four further shortlisted authors winning £600 each. The stories are broadcast on Radio 4 and available to listen to on BBC Sounds, and also published in an anthology by Comma Press. Naomi Wood won the 2023 award for Comorbidities, which explored the difficulty of maintaining love and intimacy in a marriage, from her forthcoming debut collection, This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things (Orion, April 2024).
Di Speirs, editor of books at BBC Radio and judge of the BBC National Short Story Award since its launch, said: "As the BBC National Short Story Award enters its nineteenth year, I'm excited and curious to see where we will travel and what this year's entries will reveal; will writers offer wisdom, solace, escape? As a leading commissioner of original short fiction, the BBC has always broadcast stories that capture the universal in the personal and entertain and reward the listener. The BBC NSSA sits right at the heart of this ambition each year, allowing us to discover talent and reflect the most exciting writing currently in the UK. I'm looking forward to a springtime of fine fiction immersion and to bringing our audiences voices new or old, but undoubtedly fresh and compelling, in the early autumn."
The deadline for entries for the BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University is 18 March. The shortlist for the NSSA will be announced on 12 September. The announcement of the winners will be broadcast live from the award ceremony at BBC Broadcasting House on BBC Radio 4's Front Row from 7.15pm on 1 October.
'The "greatness" of literature cannot be determined solely by literary standards though we must remember that whether it is literature or not can be determined only by literary standards.'
