Drabble | Sally Jenkins

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!).

Drabble, drablr.com, Lancashire Authors' Association, Langtec Composite Tube Manufacturers

10 Comments

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.