Writers and Artists Yearbook Short Story Competition

I am honoured to be the final judge of this competition on the theme of "freedom" - closing date Feb 15th so get your skates on! You know what I like. Great stories. Of all shapes and stripes, voices, sizes. Surprise me. 2000 words is the MAXIMUM but short short is always sweet sweet. The comp is in association with the fabulous Liars League live lit night, and League actors will also be performing the shortlisted entries at the prizegiving in March.

Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2013 Short Story Competition

  
                          For published and aspiring writers alike - enter the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook 2013 short story competition and you could win:

• a cash prize of £500

• a place on an Arvon Foundation residential writing course of your choice*

• publication of your story on the Writers' & Artists' website

We're offering you the chance to win £500, plus a place on an Arvon writing course of your choice! All you have to do is enter a short story (for adults) of no more than 2,000 words, on the theme of 'freedom' and email it to  shortstorycompetition@bloomsbury.com

with "WAYB13 competition" as the subject line.

The closing date is 15 February 2013.

The Arvon Foundation runs four historic writing houses in the UK, where published writers lead week-long residential courses. Covering a diverse range of genres, from poetry and fiction to screenwriting and comedy, Arvon courses have provided inspiration to thousands of people at all stages of their writing lives. Find out more and book a course online at www.arvonfoundation.org Don't forget to read the full details, terms and conditions before you enter. Please remember to register on www.writersandartists.co.uk before submitting your entry. Good luck! 

The White Review Launches Short Story Prize

Really good to hear about a new UK short story prize for writers who have yet to secure a publishing deal - it's open for entries now, good luck to all! Here's the announcement:

THE WHITE REVIEW SHORT STORY PRIZE
supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation 

We are delighted to announce the inauguration of the annual White Review Short Story Prize, judged by a panel including Booker Prize-shortlisted author Deborah Levy and awarded by Tom McCarthy.

Made possible by the generous support of the Jerwood Charitable Foundation, the prize awards £2,500 to the best piece of short fiction by an unpublished writer resident in Great Britain and Ireland. The competition will open for submissions on 1 December 2012. The deadline is 1 March 2013. The prize will be awarded at a ceremony in March 2013. 

The judges will be looking for short stories that explore and expand the possibilities of the form. We encourage submissions from all literary genres, and there are no restrictions on theme or subject matter. The only emphasis is on ambitious, imaginative and innovative approaches to creative writing. We hope that the award will demonstrate the vitality of a form too often neglected in Great Britain and Ireland.

Novelist Tom McCarthy, author of Men in Space, Remainder and the Man Booker-shortlisted C, will announce the winner at a prize-giving ceremony in London in April 2013. In addition to the £2,500 prize, the winner will be published in a quarterly print issue of The White Review. The winner will also have a chance to meet with Karolina Sutton, Senior Agent at Curtis Brown, to discuss their writing, plans for future work and possible routes to publication. Up to six shortlisted writers will have their work published online and receive feedback from the editors of The White Review.

For more information, please contact editors Jacques Testard and Benjamin Eastham on editors@thewhitereview.org.  

---

PANEL

Deborah Levy writes fiction, plays and poetry. Her work has been staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company, and she is the author of highly praised novels including Beautiful Mutants, Swallowing Geography and Billy and Girl. Her latest novel Swimming Home was shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize.

Alex Bowler is editorial director at Jonathan Cape. He has edited Tom McCarthy, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes, Audrey Niffenegger, Kevin Barry and Grant Morrison.

Karolina Sutton is a senior agent at Curtis Brown. She notably represents Siri Hustvedt, Haruki Murakami and D. W. Wilson.

The Jerwood Charitable Foundation is dedicated to imaginative and responsible revenue funding of the arts, supporting artists to develop and grow at formative stages in their careers. They work with artists across art forms, from dance and theatre to literature, music and the visual arts. For more information on the Jerwood Charitable Foundation visit: www.jerwoodcharitablefoundation.org

The White Review is now a registered charity (Charity Number: 1148690). It is devoted to promoting the arts and literature for the benefit of the public by the publication of an arts and literary journal and the organisation of artistic and literary events specialising in artistically or educationally meritorious works of new or emerging artists and writers.

STILL anthology launch & short story competition!

This gorgeous creature arrived in the post this morning - ain't it beautiful? Of course, STILL is an anthology of short stories inspired by Roelof Bakker's photographs, so aesthetics are to be expected!

I'm delighted to have a short short story in there, Switchgirls - and I'm in great company, alongside Richard Beard, Andrew Blackman, SJ Butler, Myriam Frey, SL Grey,  James Higgerson, Justin Hill, Nicholas Hogg, Ava Homa, Aamer Hussein, Nina Killham, Deborah Klaassen, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, Claire Massey, Jan Van Mersbergen, Barbara Mhangami-Ruwende, James Miller, Mark Piggott, Mary Rechner, David Rose, Nicholas Royle, Preeta Samarasan, Jan Woolf, Evie Wyld and Xu Xi. I can't wait to read the anthology.

STILL will be launched at Foyles bookshop in London on Sept 26th - I will be reading my story, as will many of the other authors, so please do join us! Here's the event's Facebook page. Foyles will also be exhibiting the photographs with story excerpts.

Now, you too have a chance to be part of this wonderful enterprise - Foyles and Roelof are running a competition:  write a short short story of no more than 500 words inspired by Roelof's photograph here, deadline Oct 10th.

The winning story will be displayed in the Gallery at Foyles, a week after the competition closing date, alongside the exhibition, which runs from Monday 17th September until Tuesday 30th October, as well as on the Foyles and Negative Press London websites. In addition, the winner will receive a copy of Still, a signed 30 x 30cm print of the 'The Stage (Piano)' and copies of Nicholas Hogg's The Hummingbird and the Bear and Evie Wyld's After the Fire, A Still Small Voice. (The competition will be judged by Roelof, Nick, Evie and Foyles Local Marketing Manager, Lisa Bywater)

Find out more details on the Foyles website - the photograph that is your inspiration is just stunning, like all Roelof's images. Go for it - good luck! Hope to see you on Sept 26th.

Upcoming deadlines

It's been a while since I did one of these, here are a few upcoming deadlines for short story competitions:

July 31st The Sean O'Faolain short story competition: An excellent contest not just for its amazing prizes but because one sole judge reads every single entry!  Up to 3000 words, open internationally. First Prize: €2,000 (*approx $2690.82/ £1685.27), publication in the literary journal Southword, AND a week-long residency at Anam Cara Writer's and Artist's Retreat in Ireland. Second Prize: €500 and publication in Southword. Four other shortlisted entries will be selected for publication in Southword and receive a publication fee of €120. Entry fee: €15, US $20 or £15. Enter online or by post. Open internationally.

July 31st Ink Tears Flash Fiction competition: 500 words or less, previously published okay. Winner: £300 • Runner-up: £50 • 4x Highly Commended: £25 Entry fee: £3 for first entry, subsequent entries at a discount. Enter online.  Open internationally.

Aug 15th Gigantic Sequins flash fiction contest: Submit 3 stories per entry, each up to 1000 words, open internationally. publication of the winning piece in issue 4.1, special feature of the writer on our website this fall, a Gigantic Sequins 1-year subscription, $100 cash, and more! Entry fee: $5. Enter online. Open internationally.

Aug 26th Stringybark flash fiction and microfiction contests: Flash fiction: up to 1000 words, with link to Australia. Microfiction - 100 words, no Aussie link needed. Open internationally. First Prize - A$350 cash + publication + certificate + e-book + paperback (Value $368) Second Prize - A$150 cash + publication + certificate + e-book + paperback (Value $168) Third Prize - A$75 cash + publication + certificate + e-book + paperback (Value $93) Entry fee: AUS$9 per flash fiction. Microfiction - free entry with entry to flash fiction competition. Enter online. Open internationally.

Aug 31st Nanofiction flash fiction contest: Submit 3 stories per entry, each up to 300 words, open internationally. Prize awards publication and $500  - all entries considered for publication, all entrants receive a one year subscription to NANO Fiction and winners will be announced in September. Entry fee: $15. Enter online. Open internationally.

Sept 7th Costa short story award: Stories up to 4000 words, one entry per author. The winner will be announced at the Costa Book Awards ceremony in late January 2013 and will receive a cheque for £3,500. Two runners-up will each receive £750. No entry fee. Enter online. Residents of UK and Ireland only.

Sept 21st Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short story award:  "The judges are looking for an outstanding English-language story of 6,000 words or under from a fiction author from anywhere in the world who has been published in the UK or Ireland. Stories can be unpublished or first published after 1st Jan 2012. The winner will receive £30,000, and the five shortlisted writers will each receive £1,000 as well as having their work published online. A longlist of 16 will be announced in January." No entry fee. One entry per author. Online or postal entry.

And a little further off...
Oct 1st  StoryQuarterly short story comp Open to short stories and novel excerpts of 8,000 words or less. Grand Prize of $1000 and publication in StoryQuarterly 46 First Runner-up $300 and publication in SQ Online Second Runner-up $200 and publication in SQ Online. $18 contest fee includes subscription toStoryQuarterly 46, to be published in the late Fall, 2012.

Oct 31st  The Salt short story and flash fiction prizes (there is also a prize for poetry). The Short Story Prize: max 5,000 words. 1st PRIZE £1,000 plus publication in The Salt Anthology of New Writing. 2nd PRIZE £500 plus publication in The Salt Anthology of New Writing. 3rd PRIZE £50 book token for use in Salt’s online shops plus publication in The Salt Anthology of New Writing. SEVEN RUNNERS-UP A further seven finalists will be published in The Salt Anthology of New Writing. Open internationally. Entry fee £10 for first entry, discount for subsequent. Enter online or by post.
The Flash Fiction Prize: Max 350 words. 1st PRIZE £500 plus publication in The Salt Anthology of New Writing. 2nd PRIZE £250 plus publication in The Salt Anthology of New Writing. 3rd PRIZE £50 book token for use in Salt’s online shops plus publication in The Salt Anthology of New Writing. SEVEN RUNNERS-UP A further seven finalists will be published in The Salt Anthology of New Writing.Open internationally. Entry fee £5 for first flash, discount for subsequent. Enter online or by post.

Nov 15th  Willow Springs fiction prize No word limit. The winner of the contest will receive a prize of $2,000, plus publication in Willow Springs.Open internationally. Every entrant receives a one year subscription to Willow Springs. Entry fee $20, or $25 for non-US. Enter online or by post.Open internationally.

Good luck to all!

Flash Slam & Bristol Short Story Prize Longlist

 I had a fantastic time as the guest "commentator" at the National Flash Fiction Day flash fiction slam last Wed in Oxford! Thanks so much to the inimitable Dan Holloway for organising, lovely to meet Twitter friends Pete Domican (who blogged about it here), Emily Cleaver and Sue Howe and see old mate Jon Pinnock, all of whom read beautifully, and Rebecca Emin, who judged beautifully! And huge congrats to flash slam winner Kevlin Henney - who read beautifully too, and entertained us immensely! He was in a very good mood the whole way home to Bristol, where he kindly dropped me off. A wonderful night had by all! Roll on next year's NFFD!

In other good news, the longlist for the Bristol Short Story Prize was announced today: 40 stories were longlisted out of a total of 2,304 entries. Some familiar names, many new to me!
  2012 Bristol Short Story Prize longlist:

Eugenia Will Come Back To You Someday – Kaj Anderson-Bauer (USA)
Naked As Eve – John Arnold (Australia)
Running to Nuthin’ – Lewis Bardsley (England)
Unearthed – Catherine Bokkers (The Netherlands)
The Swimmer – Lizzie Boyle (England)
Between Sea and Shore – Darci Bysouth (Scotland)
Dreams of Flying – Alexandra Carey (England)
Lobster – Alys Conran ( Wales)
Inked – Neil Durrant (Australia)
The Angel of the Warmth – Rachel J Fenton (New Zealand)
Time – Clare Fisher (England)
Battleground – Lisa Frank (Ireland)
Keith Morris is a Royal Plum – Martin Cathcart Froden (Scotland)
Something Somewhere Went Wrong – Sarah Gilmartin (Ireland)
People Like Her – Kerry Hood (England)
Apple Shot – Tracey Iceton (England)
Nice Blokes – Brian Jennings (England)
Meat – Avril Joy (England)
Dark Matter – Magda Knight (England)
Last Days of the Unicorn  - Danielle McLaughlin (Ireland)
On The Day Weldon Kees Disappeared – Alan Mumford (England)
Flashpoint – Susan Murray (England)
Heaven on the Horizon – Noel O’Regan (Ireland)
Ghost in the Machine – Christopher Parvin ( England)
Sharks, Choices – Matt Plass (England)
Horses – Thomas Pyner (England)
Yoki and the Toy Surprise – Angela Readman (England)
Going Grapefruit – Ian Richards (England)
Beekiller – Ethel Rohan (USA)
Forty-Five RPM in Chicago – Derek Routledge (Wales)
Senile – Safia Shah (England)
The Bird – Samantha Short (England)
The Attack at Delium – William Telford (England)
Mackerel for Tea – Rhoda Thompson (England)
Jelly Feel Real – Ellie Walsh (England)
After the Flood – Melanie Whipman ( England)
I Once Knew Salman Rushdie - Hilary Wilce (England)
The Life of Ethan – Emily Williamson (England)
Flowers on the Flagstone – Mairi Wilson (Scotland)
Symmetry – Samuel Wright  (England)


Highly Commended:
Crik Crak – E.L. Appleby ( England)
The Homecoming – Cait Atherton (Thailand)
And the Sea Gave Up Its Dead - Faith Barnes (Wales)
The Swanrite – Phillip Belcher
Last Wednesday – Cristina Burduja (England)
Stillness Comes – Michael John Burrows  (Canada)
Transition – Holly Corfield Carr (England)
Beautiful Horizon – Sharda Dean (England)
White – Mark Dixon (England)
Living – Samuel Dodson (England)
For Gracie – Ruth Driscoll (England)
Glimmer – Kat Ellis (Wales)
Vitiligo – Jo Else (England)
A Death in the Family – Kathleen English (England)
The Beginning – Louise Gethin  (England)
Where Steamers Wait... – T.D. Griggs (England)
Soap Opera in a Red Camaro – Norma Harrs (Canada)
A Young Country – Joanna Herrmann (England)
Angel Eggs – Nydia Hetherington ( England)
The Genitals and the Soul – David B Huebert (Canada)
Confessions of a Pigeon Feeder – Charlotte Humphries (England)
Puddings in the Park – Clair Humphries (England)
Lally – Tina Jackson  (England)
The Wish Improvement Mechanism – Amy Kellam (England)
Detective Noir – Ryan Anthony Licata (England)
Yellow River – Karen Lindsay
The Lady Bandit – Kelly Matsuura (Japan)
The Novel Factory – Luke Melia (England)
Geminids – Will Miles (England)
Sweetness – Lorraine Nevin (South Africa)
You Always Hurt – Michael Nicholson (England)
The Elephant Sun – Emyr Payne (Wales)
Frank Has Weeds – Mike Pym (England)
Greasbys – Olivia Rana (Northern Ireland)
Flight of Fancy – Mary Reynolds ( Ireland)
White Witch – Don Roy (Canada)
Afternoon Lullaby – Susha Chandra Ryner  ( England)
Craving – Erics Sail (England)
Moving In – Janet Swinney (England)
A Dance in the Bomb Shelter – Steven Tizzard


Congrats to all, fingers crossed for the shortlist!

Short Fiction short story competition shortlist

Here is this year’s shortlist for the annual Short Fiction short story prize. Winner and runner-up will be announced in May.  Congrats to all!

SHORTLIST

          ‘Place of Religion in Modern Thought’  by  Paul Brownsey

          ‘Builder Unseals Tomb of Mummified Cat’  by  Rachel Fenton

          ‘The Yearning’  by  Frances Gapper

          ‘One Hundred and Seventeen Days’  by  Sandra Jensen

          ‘Bad Romance’  by  Charles Lambert

          ‘The Shuttle’  by  Scott Morris

          ‘Live Stream’  by  Annemarie Neary

          ‘Rooftops’  by  Sal Page

          ‘Like So Many a Suffering Prometheus’  by  David Shames

          ‘Landscape with Two Figures’  by  Angela Sherlock

Get your entries in!!

Deadlines fast approaching for these two fantastic competitions:

 

The Bristol Short Story Prize - closes March 31st

One of the most prestigious short story comps around (yes, I am biased!) Stories up to 3000 words - can be much shorter (was won by a 300-word story a few years ago). Entry fee: £7. Prizes: £1000 + £150 Waterstones gift card/£700 + £100 Waterstones gift card/£400 + £100 Waterstones gift card. Winner and shortlisted published in the prize anthology. Enter here.

Short Fiction Short Story Competition - closes March 31st

Stories up to 5000 words. Entry fee: £10 for 2 stories and includes a copy of the next issue of the excellent SHORT Fiction lit mag. Prizes: £500 + publication, 2nd prize £100. Enter here.

Good luck to you all!

Sunday Times EFG Private Bank short story award longlist

The longlist for the £30,000 Sunday Times EFG Private Bank short story award has been announced - 10 women, 10 men, ranging in age from 31 to 94, apparently! Congratulations to all - especially my friend Alison MacLeod!

Diana Athill - 'A Hopeless Case'
Kevin Barry - 'Beer Trip to Llandudno'
Evgenia Citkowitz - 'Business Class'
Will Cohu - 'Two Bad Thumbs'
Emma Donoghue - 'The Hunt'
Jackie Kay - 'These Are Not My Clothes'
A L Kennedy - 'Late in Life'
Jean Kwok - 'Where the Gods Fly'
Barrie de Lara - 'Dinner at Benutti's'
Tom Lee - 'The Current'
Toby Litt - 'The Sandy'
Alison MacLeod - 'The Heart of Denis Noble'
Martin Malone - 'Valley of the Peacock Angel'
Robert Minhinnick - 'El Aziz: Some Pages From His Notebooks'
Linda Oatman High - 'Nickel Mines Hardware'
Alison Pimlott - 'Five Year Diary'
Tamara Pollock - 'Elsa'
Alex Preston - 'The Bridge Over Shuto Expressway No. 1'
Lionel Shriver - 'Prepositions'
Johanna Skibsrud - 'Fat Man and Little Boy'

It's wonderful to see Big Names rubbing shoulders with names I don't recognise, I'm eager to find out more about the stories... how about an anthology of all 20 longlisted stories, Sunday Times & EFG?

New story and some upcoming deadlines

I have a new story, The Tragedy of Tragic Men, (which was a finalist in PANK's 1001 Awesome Words Competition) published today in the February issue of the excellent PANK magazine, which just got a fabulous mention in the New York Times Style magazine's feature on literary magazines, one of the intello-chic, apparently! 

I am planning a blog post talking about the wonderful-so-far experience of working with my new publishers, Tangent Books, a small press based here in Bristol, on my new collection, but not quite ready yet - we're still choosing fonts and the illustrator is working on some ideas! (Wow, so exciting to be involved in the whole process!)

In the meantime, here are some upcoming deadlines for you...

BBC International Short Story Competition - closes Feb 27th

Open to international entrants for the first time this year, in honour of the London Olympics! Story: 8000 wds max. Prize: £15,000/£2500/8x£250. Rules: Strictly one entry per person. Open only to writers who have been previously published by an established UK publisher or an established UK magazine (no self-publishing or online publishing) Email entries allowed but must be accompanied by entry form from website. If posting entry you must send 8 copies of your work. No entry fee. Enter here.

The Binnacle Ultra Short Competition - closes March 15th

"We are looking for prose and poetry: all works should be 150 words or fewer; poetry should be sixteen lines or fewer and fewer; all works should have a narrative element." All submissions should be made via email to ummbinnacle@maine.edu. No entry fee, a minimum of $300 in cash prizes awarded. And all the finalists are published in a beautiful publication! Enter here.

Fish Flash Fiction Prize - closes March 20th

"This is an opportunity to attempt what is one of the most difficult and rewarding tasks - to create, in a tiny fragment, a completely resolved and compelling story in 300 words or less." 1st prize 1000 euros and publication in winners anthology. 9 runners-up. Entry fee 14.00 euros for first entry, 8 euros for each subsequent entry.  Enter here.

Fish Poetry Prize - closes March 30th, judged by Billy Collins!

Poems of up to 200 words. 1st prize 1000 euros, 2 prize a week at heavenly Irish writers retreat Anam Cara. Entry fee 14.00 euros for first entry, 8 euros for each subsequent entry.  Enter here.

The Bristol Short Story Prize - closes March 31st

One of the most prestigious short story comps around (yes, I am biased!) Stories up to 3000 words - can be much shorter (was won by a 300-word story a few years ago). Entry fee: £7. Prizes: £1000 + £150 Waterstones gift card/£700 + £100 Waterstones gift card/£400 + £100 Waterstones gift card. Winner and shortlisted published in the prize anthology. Enter here.

Short Fiction Short Story Competition - closes March 31st

Stories up to 5000 words. Entry fee: £10 for 2 stories and includes a copy of the next issue of the excellent SHORT Fiction lit mag. Prizes: £500 + publication, 2nd prize £100. Enter here.

Good luck to you all!

Vote for your favourite particle-accelerator-inspired flash story!

So, this UK particle accelerator, Diamond Light Source, held a short story and a flash fiction competition. And I went in for both. And now the flash fiction entries are all posted on the website, and you can vote. For your favourites. Not that I'm saying anything. Not that I'm happening to mention mine is called The Beam Line. (Others I know on the list are Pete Dominican and Kevlin Henney). This is just for your information. Right? Ok. Here's the website. (You do have to very quickly register to vote. Just so you know. In case... ) I'll be quiet now.

Congratulations to the Sean O'Faolain Prize Shortlistees

MunsterLit has just announced the shortlist for the Sean O'Faolain short story competition -  congratulations to all! Winner announced on Sunday at the Cork International Short Story Festival:

Guy Barriscale (Donegal, Ireland)--'Jamesy'

Jeremy Castle (Tipperary, Ireland)--'The Smallest Window in the World'

P.G. O'Connor (Limerick, Ireland)--'The Haggard'

David O'Doherty (Cork, Ireland)--'Post Office'

Laura Rock (Ontario, Canada)--'Woman Cubed'

Martha Williams (Cornwall, UK)--'Wet Stones'

Brand new short story competition!

Thanks to Women Rule Writer for this one: The Moth-Altun Short Story Prize is a new prize for a story of up to 2500 words. Entries by post or online. There will be one prize of €1,000. Entry fee: €8 Judge: Christine Dwyer Hickey Closing date: 31 March 2012 More details on The Moth's website.

Celebrating the short story - Part 3

One lovely thing that has emerged from the fight to stop BBC Radio 4 cutting its once-daily Afternoon Reading short story program to once-weekly is the wealth of wonderful messages left by those signing the petition to protest the cuts. Here are a few:

"Short stories are gems that light up our lives. Please retain them on Radio 4. Readers, writers and listeners all have our lives enriched by short fiction. I urge you to reconsider and then reverse this extraordinary decision."

"My father went blind in his later years and relied on audio recordings. Yes, there are audio books but the whole point to the radio is to have an opportunity to taste the unexpected."

"I've been learning English by reading AND listening to short stories. Reducing the short story output on Radio damages not only the pleasure of the listeners but culture/education/learning also."

Radio 4 has always been a beacon of light in the world of the short story - why turn off that light when it costs so little and achieves so much?  

My husband doesn't really enjoy reading, but will happily listen to short stories on Radio 4 and will thoroughly enjoy them. If we're listening in the car we have stay there until the story is finished, even if we've reached our destination! Far too important to cut back.

"I LOVE the short story slot. I switch on my radio at 3.30pm purely for that and nothing else...I even listen to the end of Money Box Live so I don't miss the beginning of the story. It is the one moment in my day where I can switch off from everything else and enter another world. We all need stories: they make us understand the world in which we live. They persuade us to empathise, to see another perspective, to understand other cultures, to imagine ourselves in someone else's shoes. Stories are what make us human and interactive. Don't take them away."

Click here to read more comments... and don't forget to sign!

Some more story positivity - Vanessa's comment on my last blog post needed a bit more exposure:

...Philip Pullman, speaking last night in support of the Save Our Six Libraries initiative, came out strongly in support of story. And spoken story. And the importance of hearing fiction read, (he talked about children, but in context, in a celebration of language - and his remarks can equally be applied to radio, and adults...)

Yippee! Save the libraries too...

And finally, a great way to celebrate the short story is to send your own stories out into the world, so here are a few upcoming deadlines for you:

July 31st: Sean O'Faolain Short Story Prize: Judged this year by Ian Wild. Entry fee €15, US $20 or £15, up to 3000 words. Prize is €1,500 for the overall winner, €500 for 2nd prize and €120 for four shortlisted stories. Online or postal entry.

August 12th: Manchester Fiction Prize: Judged by Heather Beck, John Burnside, Alison MacLeod and Nicholas Royle . Entry fee £15, up to 3000 words. Prize is £10,000 for the overall winner. Online or postal entry. All work submitted for consideration must be the entrant's own original writing, and should not have appeared in print or appear on a website (including blogs and social networking sites) or have been broadcast, or be submitted for publication or consideration elsewhere, for the duration of the Manchester Fiction Prize (which is deemed to begin on the date of entry and end on Friday 14th October 2011)

Sept 21st: Glasswoman Prize: a work of short fiction or creative non-fiction (prose) written by a woman. No entry fee, 50  to 5000 words. Prize is $500 for the overall winner, €100 for 2nd prize and €50 for runner-up. Online entry. Subject is open, but must be of significance to women

Dublin Review of Books flash contest

While I am contemplating my follow-up blog post on revising short stories, here, thanks to the excellent Nuala, is news of a flash fiction contest well worth entering: 

The Dublin Review of Books has announced its second Flash Fiction Contest. They say: "The prize will bring recognition to distinguished flash fiction writing from within Ireland and around the world."

Winner receives €1,000. Second and third place will each receive €100. The top three stories will appear in The Dublin Review of Books.

Final judging will be made by authors James Ryan, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne and an editor from the drb.

GUIDELINES:

•           Submit up to 3 flash fiction stories of no more than 500 words apiece. Work must be previously unpublished. Simultaneous submissions are not accepted. Copyright will remain with winning authors. The drb reserves the rights to use winning entries up to one year after publication.

•           Manuscripts must include a cover letter containing name, address, e-mail address and/or telephone number, and the title of each work.

•           Entry fee is 10 Euro per story. Payment can be made through our PayPal account when submitting an entry.

•           Deadline for submissions is June 5, 2011 at 5 pm Dublin time. Entries received after this date will not be read. Only winning authors will be contacted.

•           Winning stories will be announced September 30, 2011.

•           Writers may submit through our online form (see details at www.drb.ie) .

•           Submissions may also be made via email. Please include surname and first name in the subject line. If submitting via email, please paste stories in the body of the email AND send as an attachment in one of the following formats:

.DOC (Microsoft Word)

.RTF (Rich Text Format)

EMAIL ADDRESS

flash@drb.ie

Few upcoming deadlines for you

Three weeks until March 31st and here are 2 lovely comps to send your darlings to before that date:

Short FICTION is accepting submissions for its 5th annual Short Story Competition from 1 January - 31 March 2011. This year's prize money is increased to £500. Stories must be no longer than 6000 words. All submissions must be unpublished in print or on the web. Also new this year, we invite entries from writers at any stage in their career. Award-winning Irish writer, Gerard Donovan will act as final judge. Mr Donovan is the author of three novels, including the much-landed Julius Winsome, and the story collection, Country of the Grand. A £10 entry fee allows entrants to submit up to two stories; all entrants receive a copy of the journal with the award-winning story in it (which itself retails for £10... effectively making the competition entry free). All stories submitted will be considered for publication in the journal. Please note: no changes to stories can be accepted after submission. The winner of the competition will be announced on our website no later than 1 May 2011.


Bristol Short Story Prize: (for which I am one of the five final judges again this year):
Stories can be on any theme or subject and are welcome in any style including graphic, verse or genre-based (crime, thriller, science fiction, fantasy, romance, historical etc.). While there is a maximum word count of 3,000, it should be pointed out that there is no minimum. The 20 shortlisted writers will be invited to an awards ceremony in Bristol on July 16th 2011 when the winners will be announced and the BSSP Anthology Volume 4 will be launched. Prizes and anthologies will be sent to any shortlisted writer unable to attend the awards ceremony.
Prizes :
Ist- £1000 plus £150 Waterstone’s gift card
2nd- £700 plus £100 Waterstone’s gift card
3rd- £400 plus £100 Waterstone’s gift card
The other 17 writers who feature on the shortlist will be presented with a cheque for £100.

All 20 shortlisted stories will be published in both print and ebook versions of Volume 4 of the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology.

So, for a grand total of £17 if you enter both comps, you could win £1500 +£150 waterstone's vouchers and you get a copy of SHORT Fiction too. Frankly, I think it's not a bad deal... I might see what I've got to send to SHORT Fiction, since this year it's open to all writers. And I'm looking forward to reading your stories for the Bristol Prize - remember, short is sweet too, give us something to read that we can't put down!

Good luck!

2011 Sunday Times EFG longlist is out!

The longlist for the £20,000 Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award - the richest prize for a single story (although only open to published writers) - has just been announced. An interesting list, it seems on first glance to be that there are more Big Names on it this year, maybe the Big Names realised that this is a serious amount of money and it would be foolish not to go in for it! Delighted to see Short Review authors Rob Shearman and Clare Wigfall there, along with Kevin Barry and Yiyun Li. Here's the full longlist:

• Fabian Acker 'Nirvana'
• Kevin Barry 'Fjord of Killary'
• Meira Chand 'The Pilgrimage'
• Will Cohu 'East West-West Coast'
• Anthony Doerr 'The Deep'
• Michel Faber 'In the Woods with a Dead Dog'
• Roshi Fernando 'The Fluorescent Jacket'
• Tibor Fischer 'Possibly Forty Ships'
• Xiaolu Guo 'Life by Accident'
• Sarah Hall 'Vuotjarvi'
• Tobias Hill 'Not that it Matters'
• Susan Hill 'Crystal'
• Yiyun Li 'The Science of Flight'
• Hilary Mantel 'Comma'
• David Miller 'Fuck Being Happy'
• Robert Shearman 'History Becomes You'
• Erin Soros 'BC Almanac'
• Louise Stern 'Black and White Dog'
• Gerard Woodward 'The Family Whistle'
• Claire Wigfall 'Professor Arvind'

You can read more about the longlisted authors here. I am particularly intrigued by Fabien Acker, who won "the BT award as science writer of the year", and Yiyun Li's story, because it has science in the title! Good luck to them all, the shortlist will be announced in a few weeks.

Sean O'Faolain Winner and Finalists in New Issue of Southword

 

For your holiday reading pleasure, the new issue of Southword journal has just been published with the winner and finalists of the Sean O'Faolain short story contest which I was honoured to judge this year. (See the final results here). The winning story is Eddie by Nikita Neilin and in 2nd place, No Angel by Bernie McGill. I hope you enjoy them, and the four runners-up, as much as I did!

Audio story and Bristol Short Story Prize

I'm reading my story, Vegetable Mineral, in the new issue of the excellent audio magazine, 4'33, if you'd like to listen. I've also contributed to Salt Publishing's article on the future of the short story with a little futuristic dreaming on my part...Read what the others have to say, they're far more sensible! Eg Nicholas Royle:

The short story will survive anyway because it is a perfect art form. A novel is too big to sit in your mind and unfurl like a flower. A poem is too short to tell you a story involving enough to absorb you. I guess it could do with a little help, though.

The full article is here.

And... the 2011 Bristol Short Story Prize is now open! Not only that, the first prize money has now doubled, to £1000. Sadly, I am a judge again this year so I can't enter. Hmm. Shame. But we all look forward to reading your entries - and do keep in mind that last year's competition was won by Valerie O'Riordan's fantastic 350-word flash story, so no need to nudge right up to the maximum word count of 3000 words. Write a story as long as it needs to be. International entries welcome.

The details:

20 stories will be shortlisted.

The 20 shortlisted writers will be invited to an awards ceremony in Bristol on July 16th 2011 when the winners will be announced and the BSSP Anthology Volume 4 will be launched. Prizes and anthologies will be sent to any shortlisted writer unable to attend the awards ceremony.

Prizes :
Ist- £1000 plus £150 Waterstone’s gift card
2nd- £700 plus £100 Waterstone’s gift card
3rd- £400 plus £100 Waterstone’s gift card
The other 17 writers who feature on the shortlist will be presented with a cheque for £100.
All 20 shortlisted stories will be published in both print and ebook versions of Volume 4 of the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology.
The closing date for entries is March 31st 2011.
The maximum number of words for each story is 3,000.
There is an entry fee of £7 for each story submitted.
Stories can be on any theme or subject and are welcome in any style including graphic, verse or genre-based (crime, thriller, science fiction, fantasy, romance, historical etc.).
While there is a maximum word count of 3,000, it should be pointed out that there is no minimum.

(If you're a reader of Venue magazine in Bristol or Bath, you can win a free entry.) Get your entries in!

A prose poem and some upcoming deadlines

I am now officially a writer of prose poems! My first one has just been published by the Prose Poem Project, and that's how I found out that it actually was a prose poem. Sometimes it's wise to leave the labels to other people.

I wanted to say enormous congratulations to my writer friends - online and offline - who have been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in all three categories, short story, flash fiction and poetry. The official shortlists won't be unveiled til Oct 31st, so for the moment, you know who you are!

On that note, a few upcoming deadlines, in all three of those categories:

Opium magazine's Shya Scanlon 7-line contest, October 4th: "The rules? Write a story or prose poem that is seven lines or less (8.5" x 11" paper with 1" margins). The winning story along with runners-up — and as many as 10 finalists — will be featured in Opium11, slated for release in March 2011. (We will not accept previously published work.) Grand prize of $1,000 (or the second- and third-place prize of $100)"  The wondrous Amy Hempel is judging!


Genomics Forum Poetry competition, Oct 7th:  "Write a poem of no more than 50 lines on the theme of ‘improving the human’. First prize is £500, second prize is £200, and third prize is £100." This sounds like fun, I might even have a go, prose poems count too, don't they?

PANK magazine's 1001 Awesome Words contest - new deadline 15th October: "Any form or formlessness, 1,001 words or less. You know who you are. Now go to it. 1st Place: $650* and publication in PANK 5.2nd Place: $150 and Publication in PANK 5 ." PANK loves wierd stuff, so if that's what you write, send it in!

Sunday Times EFG Private Bank short story competition, Oct 30th:  £30,000 first prize (yes, really! that's what happens when you run a competition in partnership with a BANK). "The award aims to honour the finest writers of short stories in the UK and Ireland. It is open to authors with a previous record of publication in creative writing. Entries may be previously unpublished, or first published or scheduled for publication after 1 January 2010. All entries must be under 6,000 words and entirely original."  And... entries by POST only. They publish the longlist, so if you're eligible to enter, it's worth it. I know two of those who were longlisted so it's not all star-studded Big Names, and in fact almost all the BNs didn't get from the longlist to the shortlist, so there.

Writers Digest short story competition, Dec 1st: "We're looking for fiction that's bold, brilliant...but brief. Send us your best in 1,500 words or fewer.First Place: $3,000 and a trip to the Writer's Digest Conference in New York City Second Place: $1,500 Third Place: $500 Fourth Through Tenth Place: $100 Eleventh Through Twenty-Fifth Place: $50 gift certificate for Writer's Digest Books" Lots of prizes on offer here and "only" 1500 words to wow them with. Get your entry in early, that's my ex-judge's tip. Who knows if it helps!

That's all for now, folks. Good luck to you all!

Addendum:

Thank you to Sarah for this: Troubadour Poetry prize, deadline 15 Oct: "Poems must be in English, must each be no longer than 45 lines, must fit on one page of A4, must be the original work of the entrant and must not have been previously broadcast or published (in print or online)- shortest turnround of any major competition: poems in on/by Fri 15th Oct, winners know by Mon 22nd Nov, results by e-mail to everyone else after announcement on evening of Mon 29th Nov;- no sifters/chuckers-out, both judges read every poem;- not just £1000 top prize but 22 other prizes and the chance for every prizewinner to read at Troubadour Prize Celebration on Mon 29th Nov;- every submission, whether one poem or ten, supports our fortnightly Monday night readings in London's liveliest, longest-running and best-loved literary landmark venue, now surviving without Arts Council support and relying increasingly on poets around the country and around the world to keep literature 'live' in London."

Addendum 2: And thanks to Nuala for this: Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize, Dec 15th deadline."first prize of €1,000 (on 1 October 2010 approx. US$1365 or UK£850) and publication in Southword Literary Journal. If the winner comes to Cork to collect their prize in February 2011, we will lavish them with hotel accommodation, meals, drinks and VIP access to the literary stars for three days during the Cork Spring Literary Festival. There will be a second prize of €500, third prize of €250, and ten runners-up will each have their poems published in Southword and receive Southword’s standard fee of €30. The current judge is Leanne O'Sullivan, who will read each and every entry herself". This competition is being run by the Munster Literature Centre, for whom I judged the Sean O'Faolain prize, so I can vouch for them - and I can say that Leanne's poetry is absolutely breathtaking, so even if you don't enter, check her out.

My judging process or How I read 849 Stories in Two Months

I've finished the judging for the Sean O'Faolain short story competition, sent my decision in on Monday. The longlist will be announced next week, I'll let you know when it's posted. In the meantime, I thought I'd reflect on how it was for me, what I learned as a reader and as a writer.

849 stories. No sifters, no first readers. Just me. I'd heard from previous judges that I should pace myself otherwise I could be overwhelmed! So I did. And although I was getting 100 or so stories at a time - and two large parcels in the post of about 100 printed stories each - I remained mostly calm. It's a joy and a privilege, first to be asked to pick only what I love, and second to have hundreds of writers entrust me with your stories. I don't take that lightly. I've done it myself, many times. You do send out a small piece of you whenever you submit anything. I took that responsibility very seriously.

I am not, of course, going to mention individual stories, nothing like that. But I thought it might be useful - for me and for others - to talk about what it was like to be the sole judge. Of course, each judge is different, each short story competition is different, and most will have readers and only pass on a long- or short-list to the final judge.

What I tried to do when opening or picking up each new story for the first read was to say to the story: "Wow me. Show me what you've got!" and be completely open. At the beginning, as I read the first 100, I was quite nervous. What if I didn't find a single story that I liked? I mean, really, I'm very picky, I read lots and lots of short stories, all the time, and I know what a great story feels like, what it does to you. I was going to settle for nothing less than that physical jolt of a fantastic short story, that slap in the face, that sensation that you simply can't read anything else, you have to stop and digest what you've just read.

As I read, stories started making it into the Maybe pile. These were stories that stood out for various reasons: beautiful use of language, strong character voices that I could hear as I read, unique settings or situations, utterly bizarre plots I felt I had to read again!

The ones that didn't make it into the Maybe pile were those that tended to take a long time to get to any action, to explain too much to me, to overdo it on the background information, to not have a "voice" so that I couldn't hear the character, or to use very flowery language which I felt got in the way rather than enhanced the story. Stories that didn't make the Maybe pile were those that felt as though I'd read them before, somewhere, that they were familiar, too familiar, in terms of storyline or characters.  

Very very few stories made it straight into the Yes pile, and those were the ones that on first read gave me that jolt. No doubt about it. They shook me up. They had everything that, for this reader, makes a great and winning story.

After reading a few hundred of the earliest entries, I had quite a few Maybes and one or two Yesses and so I was feeling far less nervous. I had stories I liked, loved even, and from that point on, while also saying to each story "Wow me", I was also reading with a slightly different eye. As more stories went into the Maybe pile and I realised I had "enough" stories that I liked, I think that I was tougher on the later stories. I asked slightly more of them, I said to them "So, how are you better than the ones I already like?" And as I got closer and closer to the last of the entries, this probably became more exacerbated, as I imagine it would for anybody.

I don't believe that this meant I gave less consideration to the later-submitted entries. Every story got equal consideration. But it is an inevitable part of a process like this. One way to completely avoid this might have been to wait until all the entries were in and then read them in random order, unrelated to when they were submitted. But that would have meant reading 849 stories in one week - and that would have been impossible!

However, on second read, things changed. I was going back and re-reading the Maybes, and the earlier entries were now being read in light of the later entries! So the process was balanced out. Several Maybes were moved to the No pile, and then I had my longlist, and it includes stories that were sent all throughout the entry period.

I then began the next stage, reading the few Yesses and the Maybes again and assigning each a score. This seemed to me to be the only way to try and narrow the list down. I didn't have a very elaborate scoring system, it was more of a gut reaction to each story. And on second read, not all the Yesses stayed in the Yes pile. I was looking for a story that gave up more of itself with every read - a story that has layers, that remains fabulous even when you know how it ends. This, for me, is the mark of a great story. There were several I had adored on first read but on second read, the magic, the jolt, just wasn't there. 

Anyway, narrowing it down was incredibly hard. All the longlisted stories wowed and delighted me in some way. All of them. Really, getting onto my longlist was the major achievement because it meant that a story leapt out at me from amongst hundreds. 

So, what made the move from longlist to shortlist? Much of it was down to those extremely difficult aspects of a story: beginnings and endings. In a few instances, stories had quite slow beginnings, they took too long, in my opinion, to get to the action. Once they got there, the story was great, but they needed a bit more revision. In other cases, endings let a story down. The story had gripped me, the voice was great, but I'd felt that the ending didn't satisfy me, didn't give me any kind of jolt. 

And what of the winners? Well, that was really really hard. In the end, all I could do was go with my gut feeling. It was so close, between all of the top stories. But the 1st and 2nd placed stories were the ones that brought me to tears as I read them again and again, they just had that power. I felt that they addressed so many themes so well and concisely, without labouring a point, and there was really nothing in there that wasn't in the service of the story, nothing extraneous. They both used language beautifully, with rhythm. And they had an oddness that I found very appealing but they were completely consistent within the odd worlds they created. 

I am sure that a different judge would have picked different winners. Maybe a similar longlist, I don't know, but I chose a winner that I felt really reflected my personal short story tastes, what I love to read. You'll get to read all six top stories in the next issue of Southword, so you can judge for yourself!

Is there anything you - and I - can take from this as writers? Well, here's the big one: to catch the eye of a judge - or a sifter - you have to do just that. Be eye-catching. Be DIFFERENT. But, and here's the hard thing, not gratuitously different. Not whizz-bang-let-off-fireworks different. Being different can be very very quiet. Being different can mean tackling the same theme - love and relationships, family dynamics, etc... - in a way that only you can do in your writing. Catch the judge's eye with your love for language. Or with a character who has such a distinctive voice from the first line that the reader is dying to find out more about him and what happens to him. 

Does a story submitted to a competition have to be different from one submitted to a literary journal? Now that's a very good question. It's been floated that there are "winning stories", that a competition winner is somehow more polished, better crafted. Well, I can only speak for myself but in the three comps I've judged this year, I wasn't interested in polish and craft. I'd far rather read a slightly messy and somewhat confusing story that took risks than a very neat story that plays it safe. 

I think, reading back over this blog post, that in fact none of it is very useful! I can't generalise much about anything. I still know what I love to read and what I don't. But there is never any way of knowing what a competition judge loves to read. As I mentioned a few months ago, I definitely don't love only the kinds of stories I write. 

So, in conclusion: write only what you want to write. Write only what you have to write. If you get longlisted, well that means you caught the judge's eye. If you don't that means that the judge liked other kinds of stories. Don't be disheartened. Send it out again. I'm happy to be back to doing that myself. I just sent 6 stories in to 2 flash fiction competitions. Will my experience as a judge help when they fail to get anywhere? I'm not sure, it will still sting. But I'll just send them out again.