Sally Jenkins

In 2019 the University of Southampton will be launching a writing competition based on the theme ‘Sustainable Societies’.

Why am I telling you this now, so far in advance? Because most of the competition categories involve longer forms of writing that take time to develop. Among the categories are:

• Novel
• Stage Play
• Radio Drama/Comedy Series
• Screenplay
• Short Film
• TV Series

All the competitions are free to enter and the prize pot for each category is expected to be £1000 distributed across the first, second and third prize winners.

All entries must, in some way, touch upon building a sustainable society with a positive angle. All genres are welcome. The competition website also says:

“The story doesn’t have to be about sustainability or climate change directly. A rom-com, for example, could be set in a society that replaces ownership with borrowing and the heroine goes to a clothes library to pick up a posh dress and borrow jewellery for her big date; or the hero in a crime drama could use a carbon credit card and hear the news in the background reporting on the wellbeing index instead of GDP; or the characters in a legal drama could live in a city where everyone has gardens on their roofs and generates energy from their own waste.”

So, there should be no problem writing in your preferred genre but including some mention of how the characters and society are living in a sustainable way.

If you’re looking for a new, long-term writing project, why not give this a go? Who knows where it might lead!