Category Archives: News

Searchlight Writing for Children Awards 2023

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Brandon Hill, Bristol, child in tree by Judy Darley

The Searchlight Writing for Children Awards 2023 are open for entries.

There are two competition categories: Best Novel Opening for Children or Young Adults, and Best Picture Book (text only).

The closing date for both categories is 31st August 2023.

Winners will be chosen by Silvia Molteni, Head of the Children’s and YA books department at PFD Literary Agents and Becky Bagnell, founder of Lindsay Literary Agency. The top ten entries in both categories will feature in Searchlight’s Pitch Book of winning stories, which is sent to an extensive list of literary agents and publishers who have requested it.

Novel Openings category

Novel Openings should be for ages seven to eighteen and should be 1,200 words long (you don’t need to have completed your novel).

“I always look for a unique and strong voice from the very start,” says judge Silvia Molteni. “I want to see the kind of writing that can sweep me off my feet, hook me in and make me want to drop everything and keep turning the page. I love to be able to immerse myself into the main character’s head right away, as well as meet characters I can really root for and that I want to get know. I’m a sucker for strong first lines, original openings, clever prologues and strong/immediate hooks and concepts from a plot point of view.”

The author of the winning entry will receive £1,000.

The entry fee is £14 for a novel opening.

Picture Books category

Your picture book should be no more than 500 words long.

The winner will receive £500.

The entry fee is £9 for a picture book.

For full details, visit www.searchlightawards.co.uk.

Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw attention to? Send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com.

Unlock your fairy tale toolkit

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Rainbow by Judy Darley

Are you coming to the Flash Fiction Festival 2023. The in-person version of the festival unfurls from 14th-16th July, welcoming fabulous flashers including Kathy Fish, Nancy Stohlman, Ingrid Jendrzejewski, Carrie Etter and Tania Hershman.

The weekend takes place at Trinity College, Bristol, and is packed with inspiring workshops tackling every aspect of flash fiction.

From 8.45am to 9.45am on Sunday 16th July, I’m inviting writers to wake up with my ‘Unlock your fairy tale toolkit’ workshop where fairy tale motifs offer the chance to shine new light on modern day darkness. We’ll be examining the fairy tales that resonated with us when we were children, and still resonate now, looking at what gives fairy tales their magic (hint: it’s not fairies), and writing the first draft of our own flash fiction fairy tales.

I hope to see you there!

Enter Winchester Poetry Prize 2023

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Sunshine snail cr Judy Darley

Winchester Poetry Prize 2023 invites you to submit poetry “with a good emotional thwack.” The closing date for entries is 31st July 2023.

Entries cost £6 for first poem, £5 for subsequent poems.

A ‘Pay it Forward’ scheme introduced by 2020’s competition winner, Lewis Buxton, allows you to pay for an extra entry that will fund a submission by a poet who wouldn’t otherwise be able to enter the competition.

The judge is Zaffar Kunial, a prize-winning British poet. His debut collection, Us, was shortlisted for a number of prizes, including the T. S. Eliot Prize. England’s Green, his latest collection, has been shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Ondaatje Prize.

Winchester Poetry Prizes

  • First Prize: £1,000
  • Second Prize: £500
  • Third Prize: £250

Winning and commended poems will be published in a competition anthology.

The longlist will be announced in mid September and we will announce the winners live at Winchester Poetry Festival on Sunday 15th October 2023.

The best poem by a poet living in Hampshire will receive a prize kindly donated by Warren & Son. 

Find full details here: www.winchesterpoetryfestival.org/prize.

Got an event, challenge, competition, creative opportunity or call for submissions you’d like to draw attention to? Send me an email at JudyDarley (@) ICloud (dot) com.

Enter the Fractured Lit Flash Fiction Open prize

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Button on Kilve Beach cr Judy DarleyGot a fresh micro or flash fiction you’re ready to zing out into the world? Enter the Fractured Lit Flash Fiction Open Prize.

The deadline is 16 July 2023.

Guest judge Sara Lippmann is the author of the novel Lech (Tortoise Books) and the story collections Doll Palace (re-released by 7.13 Books) and Jerks (Mason Jar Press.) Her fiction has been honored by the New York Foundation for the Arts, and her essays have appeared in The Millions, The Washington Post, Catapult, Literary Hub, and elsewhere. With Seth Rogoff, she is co-editing the anthology Smashing the Tablets: Radical Retellings of the Hebrew Bible for SUNY Press. She is a founding member of the Writing Co-Lab and lives with her family in Brooklyn.

The first place winner will receive $2,000 and publication, while 15 finalists will receive $100 and publication. All entries will be considered for general publication.

“Fractured Lit publishes flash fiction with emotional resonance, with characters who come to life through their actions and responses to the world around them,” says Fractured Lit editor in chief Tommy Dean. “We’re searching for flash that investigates the mysteries of being human, the sorrow and the joy of connecting to a diverse population.”

Entries must be under 1,000 words in length.

You need to pay a $20 reading fee per entry of up to two tales.

Find full details and enter here: https://fracturedlit.com/flash-fiction-open/

Good luck!

Got an event, challenge, competition, opportunity or call for submissions you’d like to draw attention to? Send me an email at JudyDarley (@) ICloud (dot) com.

Ledbury Poetry Festival

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Ledbury cr John EagerSome British towns seem better suited to literary festivals than others, and Ledbury in Herefordshire is ideal – with reams of streets and architecture that the word ‘picturesque’ could have been invented for. This year, Ledbury’s annual Poetry Festival is from 30th June – 9th July, and boasts the tag-line ‘inclusive, international, inspiring.’

With online and weekend-only options, there’s a full schedule of readings, art, workshops, conversations, music, open mics, and even a wild swim, with luminaries including Michael Morpurgo, Alycia Pirmohamed and Nina Mingya Powles, Preti Taneja and Zaffar Kunia, Maya C. Popa and Matthew Hollis, as well as Nasser Hussain examining joy as a process for writing poetry. There will also be readings and celebrations of classic and lesser known historic poets with a ‘Dead Poets Society’ series.

I love the idea of the Poetry Passeggiata at  5.15pm on Friday 30th June (St Michael’s and All Angels Church Courtyard, free), which revels in the Italian tradition of stepping out to  enjoy people-watching in golden evening light, and adds the magic of poets sharing morsels of works in progress. The organisers say: “Ledbury may not have a piazza, but the stone of the church will be bathed in a rosy glow, and all are welcome to join us in the courtyard.”

Ledbury Poetry Competition 2023 is open for entries.

The closing date is 10th July 2023. Each entry costs £6.

This year’s judge is Philip Gross. Philip has published 27 collections for adults and for young people over 40 years of publication. He won the T.S. Eliot in 2009, a Cholmondeley Award in 2017, and is a keen collaborator, e.g. with Lesley Saunders on A Part of the Main (Mulfran, 2018), with scientists on the young people’s collection Dark Sky Park (Otter-Barry, 2018) and with artist Valerie Coffin Price and Welsh-language poet Cyril Jones on Troeon/Turnings (Seren, 2021). His latest, The Thirteenth Angel (Bloodaxe, 2022), a PBS Recommendation, was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize.

When asked what he’s looking for from submissions, Philip Gross says: “Poems that aren’t whatever I might think I’m looking for. Poems intent on being wholly, intensely themselves, regardless of what a judge, the zeitgeist or even their author might want them to be. Poems that have to be poems because they couldn’t be expressed in any other way.”

The first prize for the competition is £1,000 cash and a week-long partnership Arvon poetry course. Second Prize is £500. Third Prize is £250.

Winners will be invited to perform their work at Ledbury Poetry Festival 2024.

The image at the very top of this post was kindly supplied by John Eager of www.visitledbury.info.

Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw attention to? Send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com.

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Flock to Penzance LitFest

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Penzance cr Judy Darley

Fancy a glorious train journey to Penzance? From July 5-8 2023, Penzance LitFest will host flocks of authors, poets and performers, including Raynor Winn, Lucinda Hart, Scot Pack, Kate Mosse and Tim Hannigan, plus Wyl Menmuir talking about his passion for the ocean, which inspired his first venture into full-length, non-fiction, The Draw of the Sea (which won the Roger Deakin Award from the Society of Authors).

Take a performance poetry workshop with Megan Chapman, get to grips with publishing PR with Becky Hunter, or gain insights into book-to-stage adaptations with director Nick Bamford, author Mary Oliver, with scenes performed by actor Kate Edney.

From classic poetry and coastal myths to modern conservation stories, there will be plenty to whet your appetite.

Perched on the south-westerly tip of England, Penzance boasts the most westerly mainline railway station in the UK and is easy to reach by train from London, the Midlands and Scotland. Why not bring a notebook or sketchpad and turn your journey into a creative residency-in-motion?

Find the full programme and book here.

Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw my attention to? Send me an email at judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com.

Enter The Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize

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Terra Nostra Tropical plants cr Judy DarleyWasafari magazine invites submissions of Poetry, Fiction and Life Writing for The Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize.

The prize closes on 30th June 2023 at 5pm BST.

The prize supports writers who have not yet published a book-length work, with no limits on age, gender, nationality, or background. Winners of each category receive a £1,000 cash prize and will be published in Wasafiri’s print magazine. Shortlisted writers will have their work published on the Wasafiri website. All 15 shortlistees and winners will be offered the Chapter and Verse or Free Reads mentoring scheme in partnership with The Literary Consultancy (dependent on eligibility), and a conversation with Nikesh Shukla of The Good Literary Agency to discuss their career progression

The fee is £10 for a single entry and £16 for a double entry. No entry may be more than 3,000 words long.  

Subsidised entry is available for those who would otherwise be unable to enter the prize.  

Shortlisted entrants will be notified in early September. 

Find full details of how to enter at www.wasafiri.org.

About the judges

Leila Aboulela (fiction judge) is the first ever winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing. Nominated three times for the Orange Prize (now the Women’s Prize for Fiction), her novels include Bird Summons, The Kindness of Enemies, The Translator, a New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year, Minaret and Lyrics Alley, which was Fiction Winner of the Scottish Book Awards. Her short story collection Elsewhere, Home won the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year. Leila’s work has been translated into fifteen languages. Her sixth novel, River Spirit, set in Sudan in the lead up to the British invasion of 1898, is due for publication in March 2023. Leila grew up in Khartoum, Sudan and now lives in Aberdeen, Scotland. 

Diana Evans (Chair) is the author of the novels A House for Alice, Ordinary People, The Wonder and 26a, which was the inaugural winner of the Orange Award for New Writers. Ordinary People won the 2019 South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. She also publishes stories, essays and criticism, is associate lecturer in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. 

Raised on the North Peckham estate in South London, Caleb Femi (poetry judge) is a poet and director. His debut collection, Poor, was published in 2020 by Penguin Press. He has written and directed short films for the BBC, Channel 4, Bottega Veneta and Louis Vuitton. A former Young People’s Laureate, Caleb won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection (2021) and has been shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize (2021), and longlisted for the Jhalak Prize (2021). He has been featured in the Dazed 100 list of the next generation shaping youth culture. 

Aanchal Malhotra (life writing judge) is a writer and oral historian from New Delhi. She is the co-founder of the Museum of Material Memory, and the author of two critically acclaimed books, Remnants of Partition and In the Language of Remembering, that explore the human history and generational impact of the 1947 Partition. Her work has won the Council for Museum Anthropology Book Award, and been shortlisted for the British Academy Book Prize, the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar, Hindu Lit for Life Non Fiction Prize, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize and the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize. Her newest work is a debut novel titled The Book of Everlasting Things. 

Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw my attention to? Send me an email at judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com.

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Wells Festival of Literature competitions

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City of Wells cr Judy Darley

Wells Festival of Literature takes place from 27th October to 4th November 2023, but before that they hold their annual writing competitions, with entries accepted until 30th June 2023.

The categories are open poetry, short stories, poetry and children’s books, as well as poetry by anyone aged 16-22 inclusive.

The Open Poetry Competition

The fee for each separate entry is £6. Each poem must be under 36 lines long, and may be on any subject.

First Prize is £1,000. Second prizes is £500. Third prize is £250. There’s also a £100 prize for a local poet.

The judge is William Sieghart, founder of the Forward Prizes, the UK’s biggest poetry prizes. William also instigated National Poetry Day which is now celebrated in the UK every October.

The Short Story Competition

The fee for each separate entry is £6. Stories should be between 1,000 and 2,000 words in length. They can be on any subject.

First Prize is £750. Second prize is £300. Third prize is £200. There’s a £100 prize for a local writer.

The judge is Claire Fuller, an author whose much anticipated fifth novel The Memory of Animals was published in April this year and her fourth, Unsettled Ground, won the Costa Novel Award 2021 and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Book for Children Competition

The fee for each separate entry is £6. The competition will judge writing for children, age 7 and up. This includes writing for young adults

You’ll need to submit either the first two chapters or first twenty pages, whichever is the shortest, together with the synopsis of up to two pages.

First Prize is £750. Second prize is £300. Third prize is £200. There’s a £100 prize for a local writer.

The judge is Rachel Hamilton, a part-time literary agent, a lecturer in Creative Writing and the author of six books. Rachel’s experience includes editing and mentoring and, as a literary consultant, she loves helping authors refine their manuscripts and find their voice. She holds a first-class degree in English Literature & Language, as well as Creative Writing qualifications from St Martin’s College and London School of Journalism.

The Young Poets Competition

The fee for each separate entry is £3. Each poem must be under 36 lines long, and may be on any subject.

First Prize is £150. Second prizes is £75. Third prize is £50. All three prize-winners also get a year’s subscription to the Poetry Society.

The judge is Deanna Rodger, Deanna won the UK Poetry Slam when she was 18. She curates spoken word events, facilitates workshops, writes commissions, and mentors. Most recently, her reimagined version of Kipling’s If was read by Serena Williams on BBC Sport.

The closing date for all entries is 30th June 2023. Prizes for all four competitions will be presented on Monday 30th October 2023 during the Festival.

Find the full rules and details of how to enter.

Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw my attention to? Send me an email at judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com

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Hay Festival Thursday 25th May–Sunday 4th June

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Hay Festival cr Finn Beales

Hay Festival cr Finn Beales

The wonderful Hay Festival is taking place live in-person from Thursday 25th May to Sunday 4th June in Hay-on-Wye.

From debut novelists to established festival favourites, plus poets, photographers, conservationists, musicians, historians, artists, chefs and more, there will be discussions, debates, lectures, performances and workshops to fire up your imagination. These will include daily morning workshops with experts focused on seeking solutions to acute climate and biodiversity emergencies.

“Anyone can participate in the daily assemblies. The results of each session will be condensed into a daily bulletin, available free online. Over ten days the goal is to create a draft playbook for practical action that everyone from policy makers to activists, corporations to sole traders, will take forward with inspiration and support to achieve meaningful change for all of us.”

Inclusivity is an important part of the festival, and Hay Pride are ensuring you can navigate yourself to the key queer events with Graham Dolan’s guide.

On Wednesday 31 May 2023, 8.30pm, comedian, writer and actor Tom Allen present his show Completely, while on Saturday 3 June 2023, 4pm, Alice Oseman, creator of global coming-of-age romance Heartstopper, now a critically acclaimed major Netflix series, takes part in a special in-conversation event.

As well as paid events there are a number of free events, including lots of BBC radio show and podcast  recordings.

There are also lots of events for kids, including chats with Julia Donaldson, Jacqueline Wilson and Michael Rosen.

Find the full programme and register for the events that pique your curiosity here.

Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw my attention to? Send me an email at judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com.

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Enter Frome Festival Short Story Competition

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Frome rooftopsFrome Festival Short Story Competition welcomes submissions until 31st May 2023.

This small Somerset town of layered roofs is set roughly between Bath and Taunton has become a hive for writers, with the  annual festival featuring writing residencies throughout the small, characterful shops, and street performances seemingly on every corner.

The competition costs £8 to enter. You can purchase a detailed critique of your work for an additional payment of £47 per story.

Stories may be on any theme, but must be between 1,000 and 2,200 words in length, not including the title.

First prize is £400, second prize £200 and third prize £100, plus prizes for writers living within a 25-mile radius of Frome Library, in a bid to support and encourage local writers.

For inspiration, read the 2022 winning entries:

First Prize – Saying Goodbye to Laura by Nikki Copleston

Second Prize – Moonblind by Kieran Marsh

Third Prize – Buyer Beware by Fiona Anderson

The Frome Festival runs from Friday 7th-Sunday 16th July and is well worth visiting for its own charms, especially the incredible busking that takes place throughout the narrow streets.

For full details of the competitions, visit the competition website.

Got an event, challenge, competition or call for submissions you’d like to draw my attention to? Send me an email at judydarley (at) iCloud (dot) com.