 |
Competitions are listed in order of their closing dates, with the
nearest first. Annual and ongoing competitions are also listed below.
A national poetry competition for children aged 5 to 11 (Years 1 to 6), launched in 2008. Focuses on literacy, healthy eating and good citizenship. Children are asked to write a poem about fruit or vegetables and pay £1 per poem to enter into the competition. All money raised goes to Rays of Sunshine Children’s Charity. For more information, visit www.poundapoem.co.uk.
Closing date: 12 December 2008
BBC Learning is running a poetry competition to find the primary school pupil who can best recite well-known poems off by heart. Every primary school teacher in the UK can put forward one pupil, aged between seven and 11 years, to represent the school in regional heats which will be held in libraries around the UK. The 12 finalists willl compete at a final compered by Jeremy Paxman during The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival in April 2009. The whole process will be documented in a one-off 90-minute film to be shown on BBC Two. For details and entry conditions visit www.bcc.co.uk/schools/teachers/offbyheart
Closing date: 19 December
Good Night Stories provides literacy class activities for primary school pupils. Pupils' resulting work can be entered into a competition to win a visit by professional storyteller John Harris. The competition is run by Kimberly Clark/Huggies DryNites. Entries should come via a class teacher. Visit www.free-teaching-resources.co.uk/good-night-stories.shtml or call 0870 240 1640.
Closing date: 19 December 2008
The Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Children’s Book Award is for a manuscript that celebrates cultural diversity in the widest possible sense, either in terms of its story or in terms of the ethnic and cultural origins of its author. The prize of £1,500, plus the option for Frances Lincoln Children’s Books to publish the novel, will be awarded to the best work of unpublished fiction for 8-to-12-year-olds by a writer, aged 16 years or over, who has not previously published a novel for children. For entry forms contact diversevoices@sevenstories.org.uk or Helena McConnell at Seven Stories on 0845 271 0777
Closing date: 30 January 2009
The Wigtown Poetry Competition is the largest poetry competition in Scotland, with over 2000 entries in its first year. Whether you are an established poet or someone new to writing, the Wigtown Poetry Competition provides a unique opportunity to showcase your poetry and take your writing further. This year's Judge is internationally acclaimed poet, critic and playwright Douglas Dunn. We are also delighted to present Kevin MacNeil, winner of the prestigious Tivoli Europa Giovani International Poetry Prize, as our Gaelic Judge. 1st Prize: £2500, 2nd Prize: £1000, 3rd Prize: £500, Gaelic Prize: £1000
There are also ten supplementary prizes of £50 each. The winning poem and runner up will be published in the Scotsman. www.wigtownbookfestival.com/poetrycomp
Closing date: 30 January 2009
Theme: 'O Happy Day!' Prizes: 1st £70, 2nd £35 and 3rd £20. Stories between 1,000 and 1,500 words accepted. It may or may not start out dire, but it should at least have a happy outcome. It can be serious or humourous. Write something that will provide the reader with that feel-good factor. Please don’t use the theme title as the title of your story. Entry fee: £3.00 per story. Winning entries will be announced on 30 April 2009 and will be published on WritersReign.co.uk. Entry form and rules available at www.writersreign.co.uk/comp.html
Closing date: 28 February 2009
This international contest is open worldwide and is for short stories on any subject up to 3,000 words.Prize: 1st - One week holiday in self catering Seaview Apartment in Greece OR One week place at the Creative Writing Conference held at Limnisa, a seaside location in Greece. 2nd - 50% discount on one week place at the Creative Writing Conference held at Limnisa PLUS two months on-line coaching with weekly exercises. 3rd - Five runners up get 25% discount at the Writing Conference at Limnisa. The winners will be published on the Limnisa Website and on a new Creative Writers' Website for 'serious' writers, to be opened at the end of 2008. Entry Fee: £5 www.limnisa.com/writingcompetitions.
Closing date: 1 March 2009
An annual competition, open to writers everywhere. Stories can be submitted online or by post. Maximum number of words is 3,000. Entry fee: £7.
20 stories will be shortlisted and published in the 2009 Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology. Cash prizes- 1st £500 plus £150 Waterstone's gift card; 2nd £350 plus £100 Waterstone's gift card; 3rd £200 plus £100 Waterstone's gift card. For more information, visit www.bristolprize.co.uk/
Closing date: 31 March 2009
Poems may be on any subject, though there is a maximum 40 lines per poem
Entry Fees: £3.00 per poem or £12.00 for 5 poems. (£1.00 from every single entry and £4.00 from every multi-poem entry will be donated to Diversity House)
First Prize: £150.00, Second Prize: £75.00, Third Prize: £35.00
Highly Commended Entries: Subject to the quality of entries, if the judge finds 48 to 64 poems of high enough quality, then we shall publish them as an anthology edited by Geoff Stevens (Editor, Purple Patch magazine) and Nnorom Azuonye (Editor, Sentinel Literary Quarterly)
Entry deadline: 31st March 2009 (Results due: 5th May 2009)
Website/Entry Details: www.easternlightepm.com/excelforcharity
Twice yearly competition: Closing dates 31 March and 30 September
Prize: £250.00 + publishing opportunity. Entry fee: NIL. Short stories (2000 - 4000 words) - general fiction suitable for a mainstream audience. Open to unpublished prose writers. Winner is chosen by reader votes and shortlisted entrants receive feedback from readers via the website. Aall proceeds go to fund future competitions and other ventures in new writing. Full details and online entry form at www.invisibleink.org.uk/competition.html
Produce two quarterly magazines of short stories, and run several open writing competitions every year wish cash prizes and publication for the winners. For more information, visit www.parkpublications.co.uk
Prizes are: 1st £100 plus publication; three runners-up receive a dictionary plus publication. Entry fee is: £5 per poem, £7 for two. No theme, up to 40 lines. No deadline as the competition is continuous. For more information, visit www.writers-forum.com, or see the magazine, which is available from branches of WH Smith.
A national writing event for adults in Skills for Life adult
literacy, numeracy and ESOL classes in England. We are looking
for learner writing: true stories, fictional stories or poems
about life, love, home, family, dreams, sadness, hopes, experiences
- anything that someone else may want to read. Voices on the
Page has three elements: a national online storybank, a book
to be published in the autumn of 2007, and an awards ceremony
for regional winners and runners up. The aim is to create
a collection of writing in the form of the all-inclusive online
storybank and a selection in the publication, which will be
an everlasting document to what it is like to be alive now.
Visit www.nrdc.org.uk/voices
Write Away, ran for 10 years, inviting students aged
from 7 to 14 to write about their own lives, focussing on
a person, place or event that has been important to them and
experiment with forms such as a diary entry or letter.
For the final 2006 competition there were some 9,000 submissions,
from all over the UK as well as international schools in many
parts of the world, which were read by panels of teachers
organised by the National Association for the Teaching of
English (NATE) in different regions. The final four winners
were chosen by authors Michael Rosen, poet and broadcaster,
and Jacqueline Wilson, the current Children’s Laureate.
For more information see www.tes.co.uk.
The scheme closed down following the sale of the TES to a
new owner.
Publisher Leaf Books runs regular short story, poetry and other writing competitions. Each entry usually costs approximately £3 to £5 and prizes include cash awards, books and publications in a Leaf Books anthology. For details of current competitions and closing dates visit http://leafbooks.co.uk/New/For%20Writers/CurrentCompetitions.html
This poetry website runs free-to-enter poetry contests, with
monetary prizes. For more information visit www.moontowncafe.com/contest.asp
The RIF, UK website includes areas for children to get involved
with regular competitions, book reviews, quizzes and chances
for children to send in their own writing and see it published
on the site. See Rifsters
for 5-19 year olds.
runs an annual poetry competition and publishes some of the
best entries. The competition is open to all age groups. The
closing date for entries is 24 October for each year.
See www.searchforaschool.com
is based on texting micro stories- stories that contain no more than 160 characters (the maximum for one text message). The theme changes monthly and texts cost £1 plus the standard network charge for a text. For more information visit www.txtlit.co.uk/
www.brevitything.co.uk offers monthly flash fiction competitions, centred around a given theme. Entry is £2.50 per story, and first prize is £50. There's no restriction on genre or intended audience for stories, just on quality and creative use of the theme. The limit is 250 words. Entries are welcome from everywhere in the world. Full entry details are on the website.
is a quarterly competition for original, unpublished fiction of no more than 500 words. Every entrant receives a critique of their work. Cash prizes and payment for entry. www.soszynski.btinternet.co.uk/primeprose/
Want to write for BookCrossing? If your article is accepted,
you could see it featured in their newsletter. You can write
anything about books, reading, or BookCrossing - tutorials,
release and catch stories, well-travelled book stories or
funny BookCrossing experience stories. Write it up, then submit
it to www.bookcrossing.com/articles/submit
An ongoing competition which is free to enter and judged by other members of the website. Visit www.writerscircle.biz/Competition.aspx
Writers Online is ongoing
way of encouraging children to practise their creative writing
skills. The Writers Online website encourages children to
write pieces of their own in response to, and in the style
of, an extract from a well-known writer. These can then be
submitted for inclusion on the site. See www.englishonline.co.uk/writers/.
This website often runs writing competitions. Visit www.writingwriters.co.uk.
|
|
80px.gif)
