I had a great weekend away with my writer-friends last week. We spent a few days in a ramshackle house in the Yorkshire Dales, talking, writing, cooking, and drinking. I actually wrote very little, but that's okay. We did a couple of critique sessions, and just being with like-minded people, who I happen to like a whole lot, was useful and inspiring.
My letter about the Lee Child article got printed in July's Writing Magazine. I was a bit alarmed (in a minor way) when I saw the heading they'd put above it, 'Challenging Child', and also that the letter by the side of it is from a writer who agrees with everything Child said in that interview. Only alarmed because I hoped I didn't come across as prissy, because actually I did agree with a lot of Child's points about writing, apart from the bit I wrote the letter about. I can't include the whole letter here (rights are with the mag) but here are a few snapshots:
Other stuff...
In an attempt to be useful to my readers who are writers, here a few competitions that close on June 30th:
The Bridport Prize
Stories: up to 5000 words
Flash: up to 250 words
Poems: 42 lines max
Story and poems 1st prize: £5000 each
Flash prize: £1000
Entry fees: Story £7, poem £6, flash £5.
Lightship Literary Competitions
Stories: up to 5000 words
Poems: up to 200 words
First chapter: up to 5000 words + 400 words synopsis
Story and poem first prize: £1000
First chapter prize: expert mentoring from an acclaimed literary author, a top literary agent and a commissioning editor as you write your novel.
Entry fees: Story £12, poem £8, first chapter £12.
*Note - this is the first year of this prize and the judges are very high profile - looks promising*
The Cinnamon Press Writing Awards
Stories: 2000-4000 words
Poems: up to ten poems, each 40 lines max
Novel/novella: first 10,000 words
Story and poems 1st prize: £100 + publication
Novel/novella prize: £400 + publication
Entry fees: £16 for all categories
(steep, but includes copy of winners' anthology. I guess it's a high entry fee to fund the novel/novella category?)
Okay folks, those are the basic details, take a look at each website for more information on how to enter etc.
Good luck if you enter any of them.
Question: do you get put off by competitions that only accept hard copy submissions?
6 comments:
Dearest Tree, congrats on having your letter printed. The only letter I ever got printed was in 'Q' magazine when I was 15 responding 'outraged' at a previous letter-writer's dislike of (my then true love) Brian Molko from Placebo...
As someone who is generally not easily swayed into submitting to competitions, the ones that only accept hard copy submissions do definitely put me off even further.
I hope you're well and happy. Hope to see you next month when I visit York.
Anna xxx
You will DEFINITELY see me when you're in York because I've said it in capital letters. How long are you here for?
Please bring a copy of your letter to 'Q' if you have one. My first ever published letter was to 'Just 17' (not as cool) and was about how I'd followed their Feng Shui article instructions just before I went to see Ash play live and then 'met' them at the gig. 'Met' them = embarrassed myself greatly in their prescence.
See you very soon x
Ooo! This reminds me, My FIRST 'letter' to a magazine that got printed was to the "pets' corner" section of Bunty when I was 10 with a photo of me reading the magazine with my hamster sitting on my shoulder.
I'll be in York for about 5 days. Hopefully. xxx
If in those 5 days you want a 'Ladies night' tell me and I'll get on it xx
Hard copy doesn't turn me off as much as a fee ofer ten quid - translate punds to dollars people and add one very skint writer into the sum....moan blah whinge...I can't afford to enter much this year - we bought a settee - finally - after four years of scrapping for a bean bag!
But thank you for all your fab links - you are always very generous with your info/links!
Good luck to you if you're entering.
Cheers, Rachel. Congrats on the sofa-purchase. We've only ever inherited furniture so far, not looking forward to the day when big purchases like that have to made! Beanbags 4eva.
Yeah, the huge entry fees - like the Cinnamon Press one - are very off-putting. Esp if you're just entering one story for £16, that's huge. It's most likely I'll go for the Lightship one out of the three I've linked to. Great judges, reasonable entry fee, excellent prizes. Good combo.
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