Archive for category Competitions
Three Free Opportunities for Writers
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Events, Resources on January 16, 2024
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve come across a few free opportunities for writers.
119395801 © Pras Boonwong | Dreamstime.com
Firstly, Indie Novella is offering a nine week online writing course free to successful applicants. It starts on 30th January 2024 and the deadline for applications is 29th January 2024. It is a self-paced course with learning material and writing exercises posted each Tuesday. Participants will have until Sunday night to complete each short assignment and interact with other writers on each exercise. Participants will have access to the learning materials for the entire course and beyond. At the end of each week Indie Novella editors will provide their feedback on a handful of assignments. Applications can be made now via the Indie Novella website.
Secondly, author, Freya North, is running a series of Instagram Live chats with writers on a Wednesday at 1 pm. Seek Freya out on Instagram, where she is @freya_north_author and find out who she’s talking to next.
Thirdly, here is an opportunity for new writers that has been bouncing around social media for the last couple of weeks. The Peoples’ Friend magazine is offering one lucky writer a £10,000 writing bursary! Unfortunately for me, entrants must be amateur, unpublished writers.
To enter, submit a short story of up to 2,000 words in the genre of either romance, thriller or comedy. The closing date is Monday 5th February 2024.
As always, read all the terms and conditions before entering.
Finally (and unfortunately this is not free!), those interested in cracking the short story market might find the short story collection, Hit or Miss?, useful. It contains a range of short stories and invites the reader to play magazine editor and competition judge in order to work out which stories were successful in print or competition and which didn’t quite hit the mark.
Novel and Flash Fiction Writing Competitions!
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Books, Competitions on December 12, 2023
I’ve received an email from the lovely people at Farnham Literary Festival about their Farnham’s First Five Thousand competition for the first 5,000 words of a novel plus a 300-word synopsis. The novel does not have to be finished but it must be unpublished. Any theme or genre is allowed. There will be 5 shortlisted submissions, and a further 15 long-listed submissions.
First Prize is £100 + a Literary Critique, the runner up receives £75 and three shortlisted entries will receive £50. Closing date is Thursday 1st of February 2024 and there is a £5 entry fee.
Don’t forget to read all the terms and conditions!
The Welkin Mini Flash Fiction Prize is also currently running and entry is FREE! Closing date is 2nd January 2024. There is no set theme but entries must be no more than 100 words. Titles are not included in the word count. Prizes are in the form of vouchers redeemable against Matt Kendrick Editorial Services: 1st place £50 voucher, 2nd place £20 voucher, Highly commended £10 voucher.
Again, do check the terms and conditions.
In other news, I’m always very grateful for positive reviews on Amazon but I’m at a loss to know what I did to earn the 4* one for Little Museum of Hope, which reads, “Not read yet building my library.” However, I do feel honoured to be part of that library and I hope the reviewer feels the book is worth 4* when she/he eventually reads it!
Finally, if you’re still searching for stocking fillers or want a treat for yourself, Waiting for a Bright New Future is now available in paperback as well as being only 99p on Kindle.
A Competition, Kobo and NaNoWriMo
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Computers & Technical, Resources, Self-publishing on November 9, 2023
I’m deeply down the NaNoWriMo rabbit hole this month, trying to churn out words that don’t resemble a plate of cold, congealed spaghetti. First drafts of a novel are never easy!
(For those of you outside the writing community, November is National Novel Writing Month when we attempt to write 50,000 words of a novel in the 30 days of November i.e. 1,700 every single day for 30 days.)
In other news, I was delighted to be invited by GeniusLink to contribute to their blog on the subject of Self-publishing on the Kobo Ebook Platform, based on my book Kobo Writing Life Publishing for Absolute Beginners. Kobo is big in the Canadian market and offers worthwhile opportunities to those authors who choose not to stay exclusive to Amazon.
This free-to-enter competition popped into my Inbox this week. I seem to remember something about it last year so it may be an annual thing. THE GLENCAIRN GLASS CRIME SHORT STORY COMPETITION is looking for crime stories of up to 2,000 words based on the theme ‘A Crime Story Set In Scotland’.
First prize is a lovely £1000 plus a couple of extras! Closing date is 31st December 2023.
Don’t forget to check all the details plus the terms and conditions before starting to create your story.
Finally, don’t forget the special preorder price of just 99p for my next novel, Waiting for a Bright New Future – to be published on December 5th by ChocLit (an imprint of Joffe Books). It’s a story about family, friends and facing your fears to find love after fifty.
Now I’m going back down that rabbit hole!
What I Learned From the Copyedit and Proofread (plus a poetry competition)
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Poetry, Writing on October 17, 2023
My second novel for ChocLit (an imprint of Joffe Books) will be released into the big wide world in a few months. The cover design and marketing plan are underway. Structural edits, copyedit and proofreading have all been done – and each one of these stages has been an education.
On a ‘Happy Walk’ with my daughter’s dog, Sam.
I thought I was pretty good at grammar, punctuation etc. but I’ve realised: I’m not! For example:
- The school subject ‘geography’ starts with a small ‘g’ rather than a capital ‘G’.
- There is no hyphen in armpit (I have habit of putting hyphens where they’re not needed).
- The novel mentions the wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. I was asked to change this to the ‘royal wedding’ to avoid referring to Andrew.
- Monetary values, such as £30, should be written in full, e.g., thirty pounds.
- “I’m alright.” Should be: “I’m all right.”
The points above are just a few of the corrections. There were a lot more!
Then there were the continuity mistakes which got picked up (thank goodness). For example, there is a cat in the story called Tibby and halfway through I had inadvertently changed its sex from female to male. I mention that one of the characters will have a birthday in a fortnight but a far greater timespan elapses before the birthday celebration takes place.
Needless to say, I am very grateful to all these professional people who have read the manuscript and stopped me from making a public fool of myself!
I’ll say a bit more about the book’s actual story when I have a front cover to show you. For now I’ll tell you that, like Little Museum of Hope, it falls into the ‘uplit’ genre of literature, i.e., by the end of it you will (should!) feel uplifted and positive.
If positively improving your mental wellbeing appeals to you, you might fancy entering this FREE poetry competition from Happiful magazine:
The magazine is looking for “poems that explore the topic of mental health and wellbeing in relatable, original, and empowering ways”. The winner will receive £100, and four shortlisted poets will receive a £25 National Book Token. All five poems will be published in Happiful. Closing date is Monday 20 November 2023. There are some useful tips on how to get started with poetry on the Happiful website.
Stay happy and positive everyone!
Competitions and Opportunities
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions on September 22, 2023
A few writing competitions and opportunities have found their way into my inbox over the last week or so and they may be of interest to some of you:
First up, Readers’ Digest is once again running its 100 Word Story Competition. It’s free to enter and, as you might expect, stories must be exactly 100 words long. There is no specified theme. Closing date is January 5th 2024 and first prize is £1000.
The next one requires slightly more words. The Women’s Prize Trust, Audible, the Curtis Brown literary agency and Curtis Brown Creative are partners in the Discoveries writing development programme. It offers practical support and encouragement to aspiring female novelists and culminates with awarding the Discoveries Prize for an unpublished novel-in-progress. Submit the first 10,000 words of a novel with a synopsis of up to 1,000 words. Closing date is January 8th 2024.
Prototype Publishing is offering another development programme for writers who have not yet published a full length novel. There are eight places, with three reserved for writers from the north of England. To apply, you must submit a sample of work of up to 20 pages. This may be poetry, fiction, non-fiction or visual work. Details of your writing experience and interest in the programme are also requested. Closing date is 23rd October 2023.
Finally, Hannah Schofield of LBA Literary Agency is offering five romance writers from underrepresented backgrounds based in the UK, feedback on their novel extracts. Submissions close 17th October 2023 and all the details are here.
And remember, you’ve got to be in it to win it!
What I Did on my Holiday plus some Hysteria
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Lifestyle, Travel on July 27, 2023
Other people’s holidays are boring but I’m writing this anyway to show you that I am a real person and not just a continuous, automatic loop playing ‘buy my book‘!
So here’s a bullet point gallop through my seven days in Suffolk last week:
- We stayed at the aptly named (for me) Old Library in Wickham Market, almost directly opposite the current library – which is actually open on a Sunday!
- The best cup of tea of the week came from the Tea Shed in Walberswick. They serve loose leaf tea in a proper teapot with a jug of hot water on the side plus a timing device to indicate how long the tea should be brewed for.
- Full marks to senior National Trust ranger, Andrew, at Orford Ness for his talk about the rare breed sheep on the site. And even better than Andrew, was his trainee sheepdog, Sweep. Sweep did a great job of rounding up the herd and keeping them together during the talk.
- An unexpected highlight was watching the shipping containers move around the Port of Felixstowe.
They were ferried from giant ships to railway line in perfect synchronicity. I was in awe at the size of everything and at the behind the scenes computer system that must be ensuring that everything is in the right place at the right time. - The weather gods were smiling on us and overturned a dismal forecast to provide lots of sunshine. We went walking everyday and only got wet once.
As a reward for politely reading through all of the above, here’s a reminder about the Hysteria Writing Competition.
The categories are: Short story – maximum 1,000 words, Flash fiction – maximum 250 words and Poetry – maximum 12 lines.
The theme is MAGIC and the prizes are: Overall category winner for each category – £300 plus publication in the Hysteria 10 anthology and the 9 runners up in each category will also be published in Hysteria 10.
Entry is a modest £3 and if you sign up to the competition newsletter, you’ll receive a free copy of Hysteria 3 so you can check out earlier winning entries!
Closing date is August 31st 2023. As always, make sure that you read the full rules before submitting.
A Plethora of FREE 2023 Writing Competitions
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Poetry, Self-publishing, Short Story on July 4, 2023
Four writing competitions for you – in a mix of genres!
Short Story – Run by Green Stories and the theme is ‘Microbes’.
The main prize for the winner is £500 plus up to three runner up prizes totaling £300 (or the local currency equivalent).
It may help to have a scientific bent as the aim of the competition is to use fiction to raise awareness of Environmental Biotechnology and what microbial systems can do for us. However, the website has a video explaining Environmental Biotechnology and there is also a free virtual workshop linked to the competition.
Closing date is 21st September 2023. Full details are here.
Poetry – Poetry on Loan’s 2023 poetry competition is open to anyone who lives, studies or works regularly in the West Midlands (which is a very big area!). This year the theme is ‘Refuge’.
The prize for adult entries is a paid performance as part of a Poetry on Loan event. The junior prize winner will receive book tokens to the value of £25. Plus there is a special ‘fresh poet’ prize.
Closing date is 1st September 2023. Full details are here.
Novel – The Writers College is running a novel writing competition. Any genre of novel qualifies. Submit the first three chapters plus synopsis.
First Prize is a full ‘Write a Novel Course’ and ‘Advanced Novel Course’ (value $4000; 24 months of mentoring with an award-winning writer up to 70 000 words) from the Writers College.
Closing date is 31st July 2023. Full details are here.
Self-publishing – Amazon is running its annual Kindle Storyteller Award. This has a massive £20,000 prize and is very competitive (full disclosure I interviewed Rachel McLean, the 2021 winner, for Writers’ Forum magazine and she worked extremely hard). However, anyone self-publishing a novel on Amazon KDP before the closing date of 31st August 2023 can enter by including “StorytellerUK2023” (without quotation marks) in the “keywords” metadata field as they publish the book. Full details are here.
And if you are thinking of taking your first steps into self-publishing, you might find Kindle Direct Publishing for Absolute Beginners (newly updated for 2023!) or Kobo Writing Life for Absolute Beginners useful.
Good Luck! Let me know if you’re successful in any of these competitions – I have the bubbles ready to celebrate!
Two Competitions and Some Thank Yous
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Successes on May 11, 2023
Little Museum of Hope was well and truly launched back in April with some magnificent branding and support from Joffe Books and their Choc Lit imprint. 
I went on tour and was humbled by how many invitations I received to do Q & A interviews and write guest posts. In particular I would like to thank:
The Book Shelf Cafe – who poured me a coffee and chatted through some interesting questions
Jan Baynham – where I spill the beans on which parts of the novel are autobiographical!
Karen Mace – who asked me to introduce the unusual and unique concept behind Little Museum of Hope.
Anni Rose – who read the book and then posed some insightful questions!
Chris Penhall – who wanted to know about my writing process
Kat Devereaux – who allowed me to wax lyrical about church bell ringing and dispel some annoying myths!
Claire Sheldon – who was interested in my writing inspiration
Portobello Book Blog – more probing questions including the book I’d take to a desert island!
… and still to come on 15th May 2023 is a slot on Morton Gray’s popular book blog.
Also, a massive thank you to all of you who have bought, read and reviewed Little Museum of Hope. It is such a relief (and a pleasure) to know that people are enjoying it!
” … you feel the tenderness, as well as the turmoil of the protagonist.” – Arnie Witkin
“From the first page I was hooked.” – S. Copley
“I found this book really unusual, clever and heart-warming and a joy to read.” – Jan
That’s enough crowing about myself. Are you looking for something to get those writing juices flowing? The two competitions below might be of assistance.
The South Warwickshire Literary Festival is holding a Creative Writing Competition which closes at the end of June. Entry is a modest £3 and they require up to 800 words of prose (fiction or creative non fiction) or up to 40 lines of poetry. There is a £50 prize in each category, and the winner and two runners-up in each category will have the opportunity to read their work at the Festival.
The Jenny Brown Associates Over 50 Award has already been widely publicised but I thought it worth mentioning again because it’s something I would definitely have entered if I hadn’t yet published. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain.
“Jenny Brown Associates is running an award for debut novelists resident in the UK aged 50 and above and invites submissions during May 2023. The winner will receive £1,000 and a placement on a residential writing course at Moniack Mhor Creative Writing Centre.”
Don’t forget to read the full terms and conditions.
Good Luck!
Bits and Pieces plus a Bookish Competition
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Authors, Books, Competitions on April 11, 2023
I’m writing this in a coffee shop (hence the picture!) and there are a few things to share with you this time (not counting my excitement about this, which happens in exactly a fortnight).
Firstly, I recently heard from a writing acquaintance of mine in South Africa, Arnie Witkin, who has featured on this blog before. Arnie self-published It’s not a Big Thing in Life a couple of years ago. It’s full of interesting life lessons and was written originally for his teenage grandchildren, but the project mushroomed. Initially sales were slow but Arnie contacted me to let me know that The Western Cape Education Department is now distributing his book to each of its 6,000 Life Orientation teachers in the province. Life Orientation is a compulsory subject in schools in South Africa. Which just goes to show that, in this writing life, you never know what is just around the corner. And the only way to find out is to put yourself out there and give things a try!
Secondly, I have a couple of books to recommend. In my book group we’ve just read A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh. It’s the first Waugh that I’ve read and I was pleasantly surprised. It was written in the 1930s and is very easy to read. It contains both humour and darker moments. But the most interesting thing about it is the ending, which comes across as completely out of synch with the rest of the book. Further research indicates that Waugh took an earlier short story and simply appended it to form the ending of the novel (incidentally the short story is reputed to have given Stephen King the idea for his novel, Misery) but the serialisation of the novel has a completely different, tamer ending. I find writing endings extremely difficult – maybe I’m in good company and Waugh did too!
The second book is The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams. It’s one of those books where you get lost in the story but learn something new too – such as the origin of ‘bumf’ – a handful of paper used as ‘bum fodder’ in WWI in the absence of toilet paper. Set in the early twentieth century it’s a fictionalised account of the publication of the first Oxford English Dictionary. Well worth a read.
Thirdly, the 2023 Marlborough Literature Festival Love Books Competition has just opened for entries. You have until Friday June 30th 2023 to submit up to 750 words about a book that you love and would recommend to others. The winner in each age group (includes adults) receives £300 and the runner-up in each age group will receive £100.
Finally, I have reached the heady heights of being interviewed by the lovely people at The Bookshelf Cafe!
And that’s it for now. Happy reading and writing!
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