Archive for category Competitions
Books Ireland Short Story Competition
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Short Story on May 19, 2016
Whilst I was at the Self-Publishing Conference I picked up a complimentary copy of Books Ireland magazine. 
Inside was the launch of their 2016 short story competition and it has a pretty good first prize: 400 Euros plus a writing course at the Irish Writers Centre plus publication in Books Ireland.
The second prize is 200 Euros and third prize is 100 Euros.
There is no theme, the word limit is 2,600 and the closing date is 31st August 2016. Writers of any nationality may enter. The judge is Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin, founder of writing.ie, literary agent and author.
The interesting thing about this competition is that members of writing groups receive half-price entry. The standard entry fee is 10 Euros but members of a writing group (or subscribers to Books Ireland) pay only 5 Euros.
Full details about the competition and where to send your entry are on the competition web page.
May the luck of the Irish be with you!
Win A Writing Mentor
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions on May 5, 2016
Sophy Dale is offering a three month writing mentorship to the winner of the prize draw now running on her website, Spark for Writers.
The mentorship starts with a one to one coaching session to find out exactly what sort of support you need. This is followed by 12 weeks of email support, the submission of up to 5,000 words for editorial review, followed by a final one to one session. All of this usually costs £500 but you can be in with a chance to win it for free by simply joining Sophy’s mailing list before May 30th 2016. Please read the full details of the competition before entering.
Writing is a lonely business so a little bit of help and encouragement along the way can only be a good thing.
What are you waiting for?
Lancashire Authors’ Association Open Competition 2016
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Short Story on April 7, 2016
Peter Jones has been in touch from the Lancashire Authors’ Association to tell me about their 2016 Open Competition.
The competition is for a short story in exactly 100 words (excluding the title) on any theme or subject. There is a prize of £100 up for grabs which is sponsored by Langtec Composite Tube Manufacturers and in my opinion £100 for 100 words is a pretty good rate per word!
Entry is by email or post and the entry fee is £3 (or £2 if you are a member of the association).
Closing date is 31st October 2016. Check the full rules before entering.
A short story in exactly 100 words is known as a drabble. There are some useful tips on drablr.com about writing to such a tight word count and lots of examples. You can also publish your own drabbles on this website for others to read (but don’t publish the one you want to enter in the competition!).
Good Housekeeping Novel Writing Competition 2016
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions on January 11, 2016
Sometimes we need a push or a deadline to get us going in the right direction. If your New Year’s resolution is to get started on a novel then the Good Housekeeping Novel Writing Competition 2016 might be just the push you need.
The competition is for crime/thriller or women’s fiction novels. First prize is a book deal and a £10,000 advance!
To win you need to send a full synopsis, 5,000 words of the novel, a 100 word bio and a completed entry form before the closing date of 31st March 2016. The entry form is in the February edition of Good Housekeeping which is in the shops now. All the terms and conditions are also in the magazine – make sure you check them out before entering.
It’s a great prize and so the competition will be tough. But you never know – it could be you! And even if you don’t win, you’ll have the beginning plus a full outline of a novel to work on for the rest of the year.
Get writing and Good Luck!
Nottingham Writers’ Club National Short Story Competition 2016
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Non-fiction, Resources, Short Story on December 3, 2015
Nottingham Writers’ Club have just launched their 2016 National Short Story Competition.
The theme is ‘Fire’ and to get you started the Club has brainstormed a few ideas. Do any of the following inspire you to get writing?
Bonfire, house fire, barbeque, candle flames, fireworks, firing a gun, canon fire, lightning, brush fire, wood burning stove, coal fire, garden fire, firing someone from work, rockets, St Elmo’s fire, execution by firing squad, burning crop fields, smoke signals, brazier, fire pit, roasting chestnuts on an open fire, volcanic eruption, gas explosion, dynamite, cowboy shoot out, food smoker, sauna, assassination …
I’m sure there’s loads more ‘Fire’ related things to be written about. Grab a pen and paper and have a think.
The important thing to remember about this competition is that its purpose is to encourage new and less experienced writers. So entrants must not have earned £300 or more from short story writing in 2015. If you fit that category then this is a competition worth entering because you won’t have to compete with the ‘professionals’.
There will be three main prizes – £200, £100 and £50 – plus five runners up prizes and all entrants will receive a few lines of feedback on their story. The entry fee is £5 and there is a limit of 2,000 words.
Novelist and short story writer, Patsy Collins will be judging the competition. Coincidentally, her latest book, Firestarter, involves a hunky fireman… 
The competition opens for submissions of entries on 1st February 2016, with the last day for receipt being 29th February 2016. (But don’t wait until February to start thinking about your story!)
If writing non-fiction is more up your street, you may find Alex Gazzola’s new e-book, 50 Mistakes Beginner Writers Make, useful. Alex, a writing tutor and journalist, takes you through 50 of the key errors new and aspiring writers may be making – and guides you towards putting them right. Worth a read if you want to write and sell magazine or newspaper articles. 
National Short Story Week 2015
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Events, Short Story on November 16, 2015
It’s a mystery to me why National Short Story Week takes place in November when writers are hammering away at keyboards trying to complete 50,000 words of a novel. But it’s worth taking a break from your magnum opus and celebrating the art of the short story. A change is as good as a rest.
This year National Short Story Week is the 16th to 22nd November 2015.
National short story week was launched in 2010 by Ian Skillicorn of Corazon Books. It aims to:
- Get more people reading and listening to short stories
- Get more people writing short stories
- Develop creative and commercial opportunities for individuals and organisations involved in the short story form.
I was hoping to point you to lots of resources and activities related to National Short Story Week but there seems to be very little happening online. So here’s a couple of free to enter competitions to get the creative juices flowing:
Morgen Bailey runs a monthly 100-word story competition. There is a different theme each month and the prizes are access to up to three of her online courses.
Words Magazine has an open-themed short story competition closing on December 31st 2015. First prize is £50 and second prize is £25. Word limit is 2,000.
Finally, in celebration of National Short Story Week, my latest story collection, House Guests And Other Stories, is only 99p/99c until 22nd November 2015. 
It’s a cornucopia of contemporary short stories about modern life. Enjoy a plethora of twist endings, some humour plus a tiny bit of romance.
Happy Short Story Week!
Birth of a Novel
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Books, Competitions, Events, Promotion, Self-publishing, Successes on October 29, 2015
My first novel has just been launched into the big, bad world and I’m sitting here fretting. Perhaps it will sink without trace or people might hate it … 
So, to stop me brooding, I’m going to tell you about how it came to be.
Let’s go back two years to October 2013. I went on a weekend writing course organised by Lois Maddox of Relax and Write. The title of the course was ‘How to Write the Mystery Novel’ and it was led by Eileen Robertson. At the same time I spotted a free-to-enter novel writing competition organised by WordPlay Publishing, there was no theme or genre specified but the hero had to be named ‘Ian’ (incidentally, that competition is on-going annually until 2017 if you want to have a go). I combined these two things together for NaNoWriMo 2013 and drafted the first 50,000 words of Bedsit Three.
I spent December 2013 writing a synopsis and polishing the first three chapters. I submitted to the competition just before the 31st December deadline. Then I gave up being a novelist and went back to short stories.
In May 2014 I received a phone call out of the blue. It was Michael Barton of WordPlay Publishing to tell me I had won the competition! The prize was formatting for Createspace and Kindle plus 250 Euros marketing budget and a financial contribution towards a cover design.
After my elation subsided, I realised that I had to knuckle down, finish the manuscript and get it ready for publication. When I thought it was done, Anne Harvey acted as a beta reader and I also had a critique from Patricia Fawcett. Lots of changes followed, including getting rid of a superfluous character, an unlikely coincidence and a lottery win. The ending of the novel also changed.
Then I decided that if Bedsit Three had won one competition, perhaps it could win another. So I entered a few more and was shortlisted in the Silverwood-Kobo-Berforts Open Day Competition and the Writing Magazine/McCrit Competition. This gave me confidence and I had the manuscript professionally edited by Mark Henderson. Then off it went for formatting and I looked for cover designers. I chose John Amy. He gave me five initial designs which I showed to a handful of people and their verdict was unanimous.
The back cover blurb was put to the vote in this blog post and I am most grateful to all of you who took the time to comment.
My first novel looks and feels very professional. Here’s the Amazon blurb that goes with it:
“A word of warning to anyone who picks this book up: be prepared for a sleepless night, because you won’t want to put it down until you get to the end,” Michael Barton, WordPlay Publishing.
A stupid mistake ended Ian’s marriage. Now he’s trying to put it right.
Sandra was a teenage mum. Now she’s fighting to make a good life for her daughter.
Maxine made an important decision behind her boyfriend’s back. His reaction devastates all their lives…
Every mother tries to do her best for her child. But sometimes that ‘best’ creates a monster.
Bedsit Three is a tale of murder, mystery and love. It won the inaugural Wordplay Publishing/Ian Govan Award and was shortlisted for both the Silverwood-Kobo-Berforts Open Day Competition and the Writing Magazine/McCrit Competition.
Michael Barton, Founder and Managing Director of WordPlay Publishing said of Bedsit Three, “This novel is well-constructed and well-written. But it’s also far more than that. It’s a book that elicits emotional reaction, drawing the reader into the story and placing him or her in the middle of the action page after page.”
‘Bedsit Three’ is available in paperback and Kindle format on Amazon and also as an e-book for Kobo.
The Winner of the Writers’ Forum Subscription Is …
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Promotion on October 1, 2015
Many thanks to all of you who took the time to enter my competition by signing up to my newsletter and blog and to those who also gave me a mention on Facebook or Twitter and bagged themselves an extra place in the draw. It was much appreciated!
But unfortunately there can only be one winner of the annual subscription to Writers’ Forum magazine. My husband drew the winner’s name from a small plastic bowl full of bits of paper (pictured!). That person is:
Maria Smith
Maria enjoys writing short stories, flash fiction, and is currently rewriting her supernatural crime novel. Wading through treacle is how she would explain the process! She enjoys networking with other writers and is an active member of Phoenix Writers in Leicester.
Maria blogs over at The First Draft Cafe http://firstdraftcafe.blogspot.co.uk/ and tweets as @mariaAsmith
I hope you enjoy the magazine, Maria, and also make use of the subscribers’ free entry to the monthly ‘flash’ competition. A good way of practising writing to a deadline!
If anyone missed the competition but would still like to signup for the newsletter, click here. And if you’ve forgotten to treat yourself to a copy of House Guests, you can do that here.
Pens of Erdington Creative Writing Competition
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Poetry, Short Story on September 26, 2015
Pens of Erdington, a writing group close to the area where I live, is running a creative writing competition. Entrants can send a poem and/or a short story to be in with a chance of scooping the £100 top prize.
The competition has an open theme and is split into two categories; adults and under-16s. It will be judged by Jan Watts who was Birmingham Poet Laureate 2011/12. The closing date is 5th November and winners will be invited to a prize presentation event.
Full details of the competition are on the Pens of Erdington website.
And talking of competitions, there’s still chance to get yourself in the draw to win a year’s subscription to Writers’ Forum magazine. It’s simple to enter and all the details are on my previous blog post – but don’t delay, the competition closes on 29th September 2015.
As with all competitions, you’ve got to be in it to win it!
Win a Year’s Subscription to Writers’ Forum Magazine
Posted by Sally Jenkins in Competitions, Promotion, Self-publishing on September 22, 2015
Today is launch day for House Guests and Other Stories!
This is a collection of fifteen short stories, many with a twist, some to make you smile and all of them guaranteed to entertain – and there’s an excellent ‘guest’ story by Iain Pattison.
If you pre-ordered the e-book, a copy should be whizzing its way to your Kindle at this very minute (assuming that you’re not in airplane mode). If you inadvertently forgot to pre-order, don’t panic! Amazon still have a few copies left and one can be yours if you click here – but don’t delay, House Guests is on course to become the first e-book ever to sell out on Amazon!
So, now you’ve the bought the book, we can talk about the competition to win a year’s subscription to Writers’ Forum magazine. I got very excited when I dreamed up this competition. I was going to make you all work hard by writing an honest review (good or bad) for House Guests or any of my other books and then drop you in a prize draw. HOWEVER, I then came across this blog post by Molly Greene. It talks about Amazon reviews and, amongst other things, states that Amazon, “do not permit reviews that are posted in exchange for compensation of any kind, including payment (whether in the form of money or gift certificates), bonus content, entry to a contest or sweepstakes, discounts on future purchases, extra product, or other gifts”. The competition I wanted to run would have given entry into a sweepstake in exchange for a review.
So, instead, I am giving you an easy life. Contenders for the Writers’ Forum subscription must subscribe to this blog (there’s a ‘Sign Me Up’ box towards the top right of the screen) AND must also sign up for my newsletter by clicking here. After signing up, look out for confirmation emails (check your spam) that you must click in order to activate the subscriptions.
The newsletter is a ‘work in progress’ and will be a very infrequent affair. All the e-marketing gurus advocate a mailing list, in case other forms of social media disappear as the next ‘big thing’ rolls in. If that happens I would hate to lose contact with you all.
You can earn an extra entry into the draw by sharing this post on either Twitter, Facebook or your own blog. If you do this, please let me know by adding a comment to this blog post, just in case I miss it.
The closing date for the competition is midnight on Tuesday 29th September 2015 (UK time).
Writers’ Forum is a UK monthly writing magazine. It’s full of advice on how to write, what to write and where to sell it. Every issue is packed with information and inspiration. An annual subscription is worth between £38 and £56 depending on where in the world you live. This prize subscription can be sent anywhere in the world.
Now put the kettle on, grab a biscuit and relax with House Guests and Other Stories.
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